Line 6 Helix Stadium Talk

[EOengineer]

One thing to keep in mind is that this plexi does not have a bright cap, so it needs bright settings.

I had wondered whether this was the case when trying to work with the Agoura Plexi. What’s your source in the bright cap being clipped? If true, I REALLY hope we’re getting that cap on a switch at some point. The bright cap conversation has been beaten to death.

 

[paisleywookiee]

First gig last night! It went really well, though there were a few issues.

Several times, the unit randomly switched from the setlist I was using into User Presets. I'd talked with @Digital Igloo about this happening after saving a preset, and he says that has been fixed for 1.2, but this wasn't happening after a save, just randomly. In the heat of the gig, I couldn't figure out if there was a common trigger, but I'll see if I can replicate it at home.

I was running stereo, and, despite both channels having the same settings, the left channel was appreciably lower than the right. I think someone mentioned that happening to them, but I don't feel like digging through the threads. Has anyone found a fix for that?

Having to change modes to get access to the preset up and down switches is a bit of a pain. DI says there's a better option coming, but I wish they'd get eight-stomp mode until that better option got here, and I hope it gets here soon. I use stomp mode exclusively, and there were several times I realized I hadn't switched back to it after changing presets, and I had to tap dance real quick to get back into stomp mode in time to switch to lead (or page down in a chord chart).

Aside from that, any issues were pretty much user error. I had a few presets that just weren't dialed in quite hot enough or EQ'd quite right. I need to do some tweaking at gig volume and during rehearsals, obviously.

But it sounded great, and the UI absolutely shined. For whatever reason, we veered from the setlist a LOT last night, and being able to search for a preset by title is an absolute game-changer for those situations. The only thing that would make it better is if I could mirror the touchscreen to my iPad (the one with all the fingerprints) so I wouldn't have to stoop over for that.

Overall, I was very pleased. The verdict is still out on the backpack. Getting it in and out is not easy, and it seems like there will be wear and tear both on the backpack and the Stadium over time. I may keep an eye out for alternatives.

View attachment 56016

This guy is my fucking hero with this rig. Stadium AND a Boss GM800?! My only recommendation? Clean your iPad screen. It’s giving my OCD the hives.

 

[Karl Houseknecht]

this plexi does not have a bright cap

That is an odd choice. At least give us the choice of leaving it in or virtually clipping it.

Okay, so putting a Timmy in there on the center clipping stage, low gain, low treble cut works well to give it more top end coming in. Tightens it up nice.

 

[ccc118]

I had wondered whether this was the case when trying to work with the Agoura Plexi. What’s your source in the bright cap being clipped? If true, I REALLY hope we’re getting that cap on a switch at some point. The bright cap conversation has been beaten to death.

Ben Adrian discussed it here: https://www.thegearpage.net/board/index.php?threads/helix-2-9.2053030/page-88#post-30304436

He does say that theirs is a bit unusual, but what he mentions about it actually matches a typical 1968 Super Lead circuit, from what I understand. The specs he mentions changed in 69 and then things continued to change going forward. Older Marshall's varied a lot though. They had problems getting parts and were inconsistent.

This was an older post and is assuming the Agoura model is the same reference amp. Based on the way the volume knob behaves, it does not sound like it has one to me. I don't have a way to measure it, but if you compare it to the 5000pf that the Fractal models have, the gain comes in right away on those, where as in Helix it's more linear. I know the HX model is brighter, but I think the presence control on it behaves very weirdly and I don't like it above 5. The Agoura behaves like I'd expect.

There's a database on the Marstran site where they have the specs measured from lots of vintage Marshalls. Most from that period came with 5000pf, some came with 500pf, but you can see a few that came with none also. Since Marshall was very inconsistent with parts back then, it's possible that Line 6's amp was stock like that, but who knows. There are also lots of amps that were converted from bass to lead spec and when that was done, sometimes whoever did it chose not to bright cap in. Dave Friedman's Plex reference amp is like this. I know some people like the bright cap but there's also quite a lot of people that hate it also. Also not everyone like's the same value. The different values all have pros and cons to them.

 

[JiveTurkey]

After bright-cap-gate v1 we're doing it again?

 

[ccc118]

After bright-cap-gate v1 we're doing it again?

Sorry about that. It's my fault.

 

[Karl Houseknecht]

Sorry, I wasn't caught up on that conversation.

 

[JiveTurkey]

Sorry about that. It's my fault.

You didn't do anything. I mean the act of having the bright capless amp in the Stadium.

 

[ccc118]

You didn't do anything. I mean the act of having the bright capless amp in the Stadium.

Oh ok, I thought you meant bringing it up. They're probably reluctant to change anything on their vintage amp, which is understandable. Again I can't be 100% sure there isn't one, but it really doesn't sound like it to me.

 

[EOengineer]

After bright-cap-gate v1 we're doing it again?

You didn't do anything. I mean the act of having the bright capless amp in the Stadium.

Yeah honestly, this is pretty disappointing to be back here having this conversation again on the new platform. I’d really hoped we’d moved beyond this and hashed it out in EXCRUCIATING detail over literally years of threads. Ben talks about the importance of bright caps in some of the marketing videos. I had read that as a big “message received” when I saw it.

How. Seriously.

 

[Rocco Crocco]

Ok, with the Horizon Gate - I’ve found the issue I’m having.

If you select it, the sensitivity comes on at 6.0. Moving the focus view slider most of the places it will go makes this higher still. Bottom left (gentle setting) is at 2.5.

If you manually adjust the sensitivity down below 1 then it starts to become useable to me. Otherwise it just attenuates the heck out of the signal.

For those who love this thing, are you able to get any of the focus view settings to work for you? Most of my pickups are lowish output….. maybe if you’re hitting it with nailbombs?

Never tried focus view with the HG, I just set the sensitivity to below 1. I always thought it was weird that the sweep of the sensitivity control went so high when an extremely low setting has always worked for me. I play Metallica levels of gain, usually with a Les Paul with PAF pickups.

 

[Rocco Crocco]

The L6 original Voltage amp is still my favorite Plexi-ish amp in Stadium.

The Agoura Plexi to me sounds fine, just a little wooly. I haven’t played an actual Plexi in 20 years so take that with a grain of salt.

 

[EOengineer]

Some people are really into the 68 Plexi thing, and it seems like they enjoy the Agoura Plexi. Maybe we can ask for a late 70s Superlead with a nice fat bright cap on it to appease the rest of us. I’d actually prefer a toggle between 5000pf, 500pf, and no bright cap..

 

[GTR37]

Yeah honestly, this is pretty disappointing to be back here having this conversation again on the new platform. I’d really hoped we’d moved beyond this and hashed it out in EXCRUCIATING detail over literally years of threads. Ben talks about the importance of bright caps in some of the marketing videos. I had read that as a big “message received” when I saw it.

How. Seriously.

This was the entire problem why they needed a new 800
No wonder it’s dark
That video of the Synergy Marshall has 3 different bright cap values so no chance you will likely get it in that ballpark

 

[EOengineer]

This was the entire problem why they needed a new 800
No wonder it’s dark
That video of the Synergy Marshall has 3 different bright cap values so no chance you will likely get it in that ballpark

Yeah the 3 way bright cap option is so useful on a Marshall.

 

[Orvillain]

Do you have speaker drive on the fractal on 0?

Whatever the defaults are. I didn't touch any advanced stuff.

 

[laxu]

TL;DR​

• Dual core SHARC+ DSP @1GHz - ADSP-21593KBPZ10
• NXP i.MX 8M Plus Quad SoC (System-on-Chip)
  • 4 Arm Cortex-A53 - up to 1.6GHz
  • 1 ARM Cortex M7 - up to 800Mhz
  • Vivante GC7000UL GPU
  • Cadence Tensilica HiFi 4 DSP @800MHz
  • NPU (ML accelerator) up to 2.3 TOPS
  • Gigabit Ethernet - I guess this supports Nexus port?
• 16GB of flash storage
• 4GB of RAM for NXP i.MX 8M Plus + 512MB RAM for Dual core SHARC+ DSP

Thanks for this! Linked the gut shots and TL;DR to OP.

 

[Sascha Franck]

TL;DR​

• Dual core SHARC+ DSP @1GHz - ADSP-21593KBPZ10
• NXP i.MX 8M Plus Quad SoC (System-on-Chip)
  • 4 Arm Cortex-A53 - up to 1.6GHz
  • 1 ARM Cortex M7 - up to 800Mhz
  • Vivante GC7000UL GPU
  • Cadence Tensilica HiFi 4 DSP @800MHz
  • NPU (ML accelerator) up to 2.3 TOPS
  • Gigabit Ethernet - I guess this supports Nexus port?
• 16GB of flash storage
• 4GB of RAM for NXP i.MX 8M Plus + 512MB RAM for Dual core SHARC+ DSP

Only noticed because of laxu's post.
I can only tip my hat to someone with the balls of almost completely ripping a brand new unit apart (ok, unless it's Tony McKenzie...). So: Cheers!

 

[Lysander]

I can only tip my hat to someone with the balls of almost completely ripping a brand new unit apart (ok, unless it's Tony McKenzie...). So: Cheers!

Indeed - this is great information, thanks @AlbertA !

I still can't believe Tony went through the trouble of cracking his Stadium up and completely miss the NXP SoC in there which of course has some morons on TOP™ making wildly wrong assumptions about the device.

 

[laxu]

I still can't believe Tony went through the trouble of cracking his Stadium up and completely miss the NXP SoC in there which of course has some morons on TOP™ making wildly wrong assumptions about the device.

It just further shows how little Tony knows. I would bet that he took it apart fully intending to return the unit, and thus did not touch anything that might make it noticeable that he has taken it apart.