Line 6 Helix Stadium Talk

[EOengineer]

I’ll play around some more later and also will try your fuzz face - obviously I can’t a/b your capture with your original but it will be interesting for me to experience what it does compared with my home brew capture.

I’ll also try calibrating my ears - I’ll put my physical fuzz in the loop (so it’s buffered) and see how it reacts to my guitar volume. I’ll then try the proxy capture and see what it does.

I mostly use a fuzz on ten / guitar on 10 when I’m wanting to melt faces so it’s entirely possible that my ‘fuzz roll off reality tolerance’ is not as fine tuned as some people :)

Out of curiosity, is your FF just a standard 2 knob build?

 

[Gary_W]

Out of curiosity, is your FF just a standard 2 knob build?

I appreciate your question as it’s helped me to discover that I’ve been an idiot. Which happens!

That discovery means I’m capturing this thing again - I thought it was a little more polite than I remembered and now I know why!!

To your question - it’s a 2 knob fuzz *mostly*. I wanted a Sunface (Analogman) but couldn’t afford it so had a go myself. The Sunface has volume and fuzz (same as original fuzz face) but then there are two optional additional extras:-

Sunface control. This adjusts the bias and is really there for tweaking your germanium transistors to the ambient temperature….. it’s just a case of tweak it a little till it sounds right. Science it’s not!

The mistake I made which explains why the clean up on the capture was very close to the clean up on the real thing? There’s an optional ‘trim’ control on the Sunface. What this does is to turn down the input to simulate you rolling down your volume control on the guitar. So it’s like a permanent roll off. Set the trim full on and it’s out of the circuit. Guess what Captain Idiot here forgot about when he did his captures? My trim control was set as if I already had a guitar volume roll off when I did the capture which explains why the real thing rolled off so late on the guitar volume taper (as does the proxy capture).

I’ll see how these compare in a bit.

 

[Sascha Franck]

Yes there's fuzzes that work fine after a buffer but you wouldn't use a pickup simulator in front of those in the first place, they don't react to input impedance the same way so don't need it.

Sure. I'm just wondering whether you couldn't come up with a digital emulation that'd behave like a traditional fuzz. As said, at least on paper, input volume (and perhaps also frequency) could be used to modulate any parameter/aspect of the fuzz device.

I was responding to the post before mine.

I know.

 

[Chocol8]

The problem with modeling a fuzzface is there is no way to capture the impact the pedal has on the pickups. With the real thing its a two way street.

 

[Sascha Franck]

The problem with modeling a fuzzface is there is no way to capture the impact the pedal has on the pickups. With the real thing its a two way street.

I'm aware of that, but for at least some aspects of the entire affair, there'd be digital solutions (which can't be realized in the analog domain).

 

[EOengineer]

I appreciate your question as it’s helped me to discover that I’ve been an idiot. Which happens!

That discovery means I’m capturing this thing again - I thought it was a little more polite than I remembered and now I know why!!

To your question - it’s a 2 knob fuzz *mostly*. I wanted a Sunface (Analogman) but couldn’t afford it so had a go myself. The Sunface has volume and fuzz (same as original fuzz face) but then there are two optional additional extras:-

Sunface control. This adjusts the bias and is really there for tweaking your germanium transistors to the ambient temperature….. it’s just a case of tweak it a little till it sounds right. Science it’s not!

The mistake I made which explains why the clean up on the capture was very close to the clean up on the real thing? There’s an optional ‘trim’ control on the Sunface. What this does is to turn down the input to simulate you rolling down your volume control on the guitar. So it’s like a permanent roll off. Set the trim full on and it’s out of the circuit. Guess what Captain Idiot here forgot about when he did his captures? My trim control was set as if I already had a guitar volume roll off when I did the capture which explains why the real thing rolled off so late on the guitar volume taper (as does the proxy capture).

I’ll see how these compare in a bit.

Ok that makes sense - the Fulltone 69 uses a similar control called “input” that allows basically preset cleanup. I have a cap with that at full and rolled back because I did actually find a cool tone that way, but definitely not a straight up FF sound.

 

[fr8_trane]

If you mean the problem is simply volume in the room then I agree. I think most of the issue is people are used to loud tube amps. Playing at comparative whisper levels doesn't really lend well to "feel".

IMO there's a dynamic response thats missing from the OG helix (and other modelers) even at lower volumes. I did a side by side, real time A/B of a fender Deluxe Rev amp and the HX deluxe into a PS170 and 1x12 cab at the same volume (real deluxe on 2-3 so not super loud). The real amp was much punchier on the attack even with the sag at zero on the HX.

I think part of it is that the model is just more compressed and the other half is the PS170. SS amps don't interact with the cab the same way tube amps do which is why so many of us are gassing for the Wampler Pedal head which will hopefully provide that missing part of the "feel" equation. Also the newer Super Reverb and Dumble models on the OG helix are noticeably more dynamic than the older models and this is carried forward in the Stadium from what I've read. I'll know for myself when my stadium arrives later today.

 

[EOengineer]

IMO there's a dynamic response thats missing from the OG helix (and other modelers) even at lower volumes. I did a side by side, real time A/B of a fender Deluxe Rev amp and the HX deluxe into a PS170 and 1x12 cab at the same volume (real deluxe on 2-3 so not super loud). The real amp was much punchier on the attack even with the sag at zero on the HX.

I think part of it is that the model is just more compressed and the other half is the PS170. SS amps don't interact with the cab the same way tube amps do which is why so many of us are gassing for the Wampler Pedal head which will hopefully provide that missing part of the "feel" equation. Also the newer Super Reverb and Dumble models on the OG helix are noticeably more dynamic than the older models and this is carried forward in the Stadium from what I've read. I'll know for myself when my stadium arrives later today.

I did a very similar test with Hx and my SFDR and had similar observations. You could make out the resemblances but it wasn’t fooling anyone.

I need to repeat this test with Stadium and the AM4.

 

[fr8_trane]

I did a very similar test with Hx and my SFDR and had similar observations. You could make out the resemblances but it wasn’t fooling anyone.

I need to repeat this test with Stadium and the AM4.

I could get the HX tone very close to the real amp but the feel was just flat and compressed. It occurred to me at the time that this lack of dynamics could be a big reason why people would say that modelers dont cut in a live mix. To this day I still set my sag either low or off to get as much dynamics as possible out of the OG HX.

 

[dean701]

And more treble and less low end. When I compared the Agoura EV blue to the corresponding Fractal model with the same IR and same settings, it was really, really close. Don’t forget the master volume. Fractal defaults to 2 for the non-stealth blue. Agoura defaults to 5. As soon as you pull it back everything lines up.

Minor differences aside from the amp sounds, there is still a fundamental mid honk to the Stadium model. It may not reveal itself all the time but if you dig into the strings, it pops out barking and it's annoying. I cant get the 3 band comp (which is awful) to contain it.
It's also on the 2203. I'm recording some exaggerated clips and analyzing with freeformeq to try to pin point things but it's dynamics related.

 

[EOengineer]

Minor differences aside from the amp sounds, there is still a fundamental mid honk to the Stadium model. It may not reveal itself all the time but if you dig into the strings, it pops out barking and it's annoying.

I know exactly what you’re referring to and it’s something I pick up with most modeling. It’s definitely present in several of the stadium higher gain amps.

 

[dean701]

I know exactly what you’re referring to and it’s something I pick up with most modeling. It’s definitely present in several of the stadium higher gain amps.

If I play the same way on the fm9, to a fault, it doesn't do it. It doesn't pound like the real amp but at least it doesn't bark like a dog.
This is why I think there is underlying compression in the FAS world. Which is fine. I'm struggling with all of the Stadium gain stuff. Mid gain sounds good. Picking dynamics is there but if you really pick hard, there needs to be inherent limiting or a way to pull it back reliably per frequency band. 160hz and the harmonics are screaming at me but only when hit hard