EOengineer
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Line 6 Helix Stadium Talk
- Thread starter laxu
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Dez
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Even as a QC owner I agree fully
EOengineer
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Dez
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Bug report, @Digital Igloo: I got a new 37-key keyboard controller today and, in trying things out, I messed with the modulation wheel — which led to the discovery that EXP 1 appears to be controlled, by default, by MIDI CC 1. I assume that shouldn't be happening?
Okay, a little more reading leads me to understand that is a documented and expected behavior, but — may I ask why you would do that on a device that has a MIDI In and a MIDI Out/Thru?
HotRats
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While we're waiting for the bugs to be squashed and more light to be shed on top-end stuff, can I once again gush about the Silver Jubilee
You can listen to me slaugtering this GNR riff. Sorry for the slop
Loving that kerang and chewy stuff when muting. This is my go-to now for crunch tones. It even works for cleaner tones, so I'm using it as a basis for my kitchen sink preset for now and will see if I can cover the ground I need with the band. If you haven't messed with this amp, I have to ask you to stop typing and get to it lol
That's a nice gnr inspired sound with a nice mid push but with no sizzle.
Even if the jubilee is not a bright amp compared to other marshalls, the exprience I had with the 100W head played through a 4x12 with V30s and currently with the 20W head through a 2x12 with GB, it's an amp that most of the times needs to be set with highs and presence ≤ 5 once the volume goes up unless you trun the input gain really up.
I'm talking about non mid scooped tones and about playing the amp live with a band at full volume, not recording.
HotRats
Shredder
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3 points are statistically meaningless for sure but in this case the oulier is so different that it's highly imporbable that the difference is due to amp variations alone.
Not a proof that there's somenthing wrong in the agura modelling, just a clue that somenthing is not right (or doesn't work as we expect) in the current Statdium firmware.
If we stick to a strict 1:1 position agree wiht you but if we need to deviate a lot from that to get the same results, then we need to dig deeper and understand why is that.
Might be that the taper curve are not modelled correctly or intentionally changed. Mighy be that that the taper range is different or might be that the model is not accurate.
When someone says, use your ears and not your eyes, is not saying somenthing wrong per se.
IF with the model you can get all the tones you can get with the original amp then the model is accurate and the difference is only on how the controls behave.
that IF need to be tested, though.
Even if the hypotesis is probed to be true I'd argue that messing up with knobs tapers and ranges is a questionable decision.
If the keyboard is defaulting to MIDI Channel 1 and Stadium is listening to all channels you just need to change Stadium to listen to a different Channel.
The default is nearly always that nothing needs to be done when connecting two random devices for them to work with the source controlling the receiver without any setting changes; if you don’t want that, then make changes.
Yeah, I’m provably closer to Izzy’s sounds lol. But I like this fatter tone better in isolation at least. I will say that I was using Guvnor’s in the Cartographer amp. I’ll give it a shot with V30s and hear how they sound.
What mic(s) did you use? Or are you comparing to listening to be amp and cab in the room?
I love how it sounds, but hopefully whenever the bug/thing causing this disparity is fixed, it will only get better.
I missed the last sentence about playing at full band volume. I will try this out at rehearsal and see how the amp responds in that setting.
I do think for recording, you might want to push the amp towards brighter tones, though, to sit in the mix.
Here are some more samples of the riff with different settings, because why not
Three different settings, first with the stock suggested V30 cab, then with a Mesa 2x12 V30 IR from TJ - SM57 on each.
Pushed with the SD-1 in front with drive 1, tone 5, and volume 6. A smidge of delay from the DM2.
Amp drive is left at 4 for all examples.
Bass, Mid, Treble, Presence = 5
Helix Cab
TJ IR
Brighter
Bass & Mid = 3,5; Treble & Presence = 7
Helix Cab
IR
In my experience, having played around with Stadium for close to a month, I feel I'm able to get to the sounds I would like in terms of tonal balance, but at the same time, it shouldn't be hard to make an amp sound nastily bright and grating.
Mooselake
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I just went with the Bluebell 2x12 since that's one I'm sort of used to, and left it at the default settings/single mic. I just used focus view to get something near EoB. I also put a compressor as the first block for just a slight level boost, then a gain pedal for a bit more situational push. It wasn't hard to get something very usable out of it, though I'll probably want to try out a couple different gain pedals. In my preset the amp model easily got very wooly/sludgy when pushed into higher gain, either through focus view or overly enthusiastic settings on the gain pedal.
I didn't get the high end gritty fizz people are looking for although I didn't try very hard for it since even a tiny dollop of it goes a long way in terms of what I like to hear. I preferred how you had it dialed in to what I got out of my quick n dirty preset build, and will probably revisit it later today and try to dial in a bit more. Last night I started off on my Super Black preset and before I knew it, most of my playing window was gone.
I'll be interested to follow how things develop on this front. I get the desire for absolute accuracy in modeling, both from Line 6's perspective and from that of users that prize it. But I'm in the camp that hopes whatever changes happen don't diminish the characteristics of Agoura that I like. I've seen where folks have speculated that maybe something got a little off in the speaker Z implementation. Maybe tonight I'll play around with that some. I tried messing with it on one of the other models, forget which one, and noticed a lot less variation than I expected based on what others reported. Presumably the right folks at Line 6 are on it and we'll hear something more when they have have a fix, assuming a fix is required, of course.
HotRats
Shredder
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I missed the last sentence about playing at full band volume. I will try this out at rehearsal and see how the amp responds in that setting.
I do think for recording, you might want to push the amp towards brighter tones, though, to sit in the mix.
Here are some more samples of the riff with different settings, because why not
Three different settings, first with the stock suggested V30 cab, then with a Mesa 2x12 V30 IR from TJ - SM57 on each.
Pushed with the SD-1 in front with drive 1, tone 5, and volume 6. A smidge of delay from the DM2.
Amp drive is left at 4 for all examples.
Bass, Mid, Treble, Presence = 5
Helix Cab
TJ IR
Brighter
Bass & Mid = 3,5; Treble & Presence = 7
Helix Cab
IR
In my experience, having played around with Stadium for close to a month, I feel I'm able to get to the sounds I would like in terms of tonal balance, but at the same time, it shouldn't be hard to make an amp sound nastily bright and grating.
As you've read I was referring to the live esperience of the amp as can be heard in the room
When playing gigs I feed the PA using a Two Notes cab m+ using their cabs. I use a 4x12 cab with greenbacks miked with a 57 mixed with a second mic, might be a ribbon but I honesly don't rember right know, I've made those presets a long time ago.
I use this method because I don't trust sound engineers, LOL, I much prefer to provide a sound I know is a good starting point and hoping the man won't screw it up.
Recording is a different matter, has different needs.
Close miking, being it for recording or a live situation, change the sound dratically, and the sound examples you posted clearly show that.
The difference between Helix Cab and the IR huge and shows us how is difficult to judge things from recordings if we don't know all the variables involved.
Regarding your clips, honesly the clips with the helix cabs sound very familiar to me, not my favourite jubilee tones but could be easily spot on given the fact I can't "deconvolve" the influence of the cab block.
Listeing to them I don't have the impression that there's somenthing wrong with the model.
I normally spend most of my time on Fender, Dumble and Vox derivatives, not high-gain models, but something about jamming along with some old GNR tracks had me reminiscing. I used to play a lot more Marshall back in my tube days.
Some of the tones definitely sound better in the mix, too, which is why I'm loading in the tracks with Showcase and dialling in there.
I'll admit that after messing with the Silver and Boggie, going back to the simple Deluxe and then Vox had me thinking I should probably have based my pop/alt rock tones on something more low gain lol. But regardless, I've been having a lot of fun with it
Regarding the speaker implementation, I don't think the Z feature is the culprit (if we can call it that). It definitely does make a difference, but as you note, it's more subtle. I think the SIC (interaction between the speakers and the power amp) is the primary suspect, but it's hard to tell for sure what's going on.
Like you, I really enjoy how dynamic Agoura is, but I have faith that Line 6 will find a way to make the tonestack more in line with expectations without sacrificing the responsiveness of the modelling.
Mooselake
Roadie
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"Z" is just EE-speak for impedance, so I was more/less referring to the proposed SIC issue, rather than specifically to the Agoura amp parameter. I think the Z parameter in the amp models is a control for impedance feedback (location? amount? not sure). I was just curious whether a hypothetical problem in how the SIC is implemented could be brought back closer to being in line with expectations by playing with the Z amp parameter. I don't think the Z amp parameter is the culprit in the differences people are hearing relative to other devices either, it's just something that touches the SIC in a sense, you could say, and about the only thing I can do to affect that aspect of things. I'm not real motivated to try to "solve" things, just a little curious.I normally spend most of my time on Fender, Dumble and Vox derivatives, not high-gain models, but something about jamming along with some old GNR tracks had me reminiscing. I used to play a lot more Marshall back in my tube days.
Some of the tones definitely sound better in the mix, too, which is why I'm loading in the tracks with Showcase and dialling in there.
I'll admit that after messing with the Silver and Boggie, going back to the simple Deluxe and then Vox had me thinking I should probably have based my pop/alt rock tones on something more low gain lol. But regardless, I've been having a lot of fun with it
Regarding the speaker implementation, I don't think the Z feature is the culprit (if we can call it that). It definitely does make a difference, but as you note, it's more subtle. I think the SIC (interaction between the speakers and the power amp) is the primary suspect, but it's hard to tell for sure what's going on.
Like you, I really enjoy how dynamic Agoura is, but I have faith that Line 6 will find a way to make the tonestack more in line with expectations without sacrificing the responsiveness of the modelling.
I really do need to get off the dime with Showcases, lol.
The tones I frequently find myself wanting to dial in are those that would fit into what I consider "classic era" Rush (late 70s/early 80s) and recent Andy Timmons. The Rush stuff is deceptive, I think because, especially with Terry Brown, they were doing a lot of double tracking (in the extreme, I heard Terry Brown recalling that on Limelight they 6x-tracked many of the parts with sets of three panned left and right) to get a bunch of girth to the guitar sound without a ton of gain, and Andy Timmons is, well, Andy Timmons, lol. Since a lot of the Marshally fizz seems pretty random, I think doubling or tripling tracks results in an amount of it getting cancelled out, so you're left with some thick tones that stay crisp. I'm always in search of some way to get that double/triple-tracked effect with just a single guitar. I think that's part of why I'm a bit of a chorus addict as chorus can result in some of fizz taming, even when it's applied subtly.
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This is the first I've heard mention of this and to be honest—being a synth guy myself—I'm not understanding the concern. Helix Floor/Rack/LT has responded to CC1 for a decade. If these boxes only needed a few dozen messages to operate it'd be one thing and we'd shuffle things around to avoid common CCs, but we may need all 128 for global functions eventually. This is why Global and Bypass/Control CCs respond to completely different MIDI channels in Stadium.
Yeah. I don't know why I'm just now noticing this, but to me it feels really strange/not right for the mod wheel of a keyboard controller to be locked in to changing the values of an expression pedal. For some reason that I need to investigate further, changing the Global and Bypass Control channel from 1 to 2 worked last night to filter out the mod wheel, but now it's back to the way it was before. It's also definitely not just a Helix thing. The Boss GM-800 is also doing very funky things in response to the mod wheel.
I think I have a workaround that I'm going to try this afternoon that should fix the problem on both.
