Line 6 Helix Stadium

[FuzzyAce]

You know, that's the kind of question anyone outside YouTube would ask themselves before claiming no one cares about something.

Click bait.

 

[SillyOctpuss]

Watched the whole video and didn't get triggered crew, checking in.

I find your lack of outrage disturbing @JiveTurkey

 

[Sascha Franck]

The corniness aside, I actually agree with his overall premise.

Maybe I might as well (as said, didn't watch, no plans to do so, either). And yet, the premise is stupid clickbaiting. If you look through any Stadium thread, the question is just silly, simply because pretty much everyone seems to care about the Agoura amp models. Whether it's all people and how much they care can certainly be debated, but releasing a video with such a title is just embarrassing.

 

[Karl Houseknecht]

Just ignore the channel. Tis a silly place.

 

[Chocol8]

I guess we're quite far away from that. Or rather, so far it seems only static settings cane be captured. And would you really want, say, a chorus without control over its speed or depth? I wouldn't.
Right now, we're at the beginning of amp/dirt things being captured parametrically, and even that seems to be no easy task. FX might take quite some more time for that to happen. And a lot more "user input" would be required as well, because you'd actually have to create captures of all kinda different settings.
And I also doubt that this would save you too much CPU juice as the playback engine doing kinda realtime intermodulation between parameters would have to do quite some work.

You are really missing the benefit of what exists today. You can’t capture everything, but if you can capture amp, dirt pedals, EQ, and maybe some other things, you can simplify the signal chain to do more with time based effects or whatever can’t or you don’t want to be part of the capture.

Capturing everything doesn’t necessarily make sense or need to.

 

[Sascha Franck]

You are really missing the benefit of what exists today.

Nah. As you wrote "FX", I thought you were talking about "real" effects. For me, anything dirt/comp/EQ is part of the basic sound rather than an effect, which, for me, would basically be modulations, delays and reverbs.

 

[ian_dissonance]

That guys’ channel sucks so much. Didn’t he sell some profiles of digital amps a few years back without telling anyone?

 

[paisleywookiee]

Nah. As you wrote "FX", I thought you were talking about "real" effects. For me, anything dirt/comp/EQ is part of the basic sound rather than an effect, which, for me, would basically be modulations, delays and reverbs.

semantics!! But since our Lord and Tone Savior Clifford put a dirt option IN THE AMP block, I tend to agree.

 

[Lysander]

That guys’ channel sucks so much. Didn’t he sell some profiles of digital amps a few years back without telling anyone?

I still hold that most "boutique" profile sellers are just plugging their AxeFXs into Kempers.

 

[mikah912]

I still hold that most "boutique" profile sellers are just plugging their AxeFXs into Kempers.

Could very well be. I trust @Deadpan and @JerEvil because I know they have legit amp/cab collections and have put in the work. Same for @GuitarJon and Amalgam Audio. Aside from grabbing whatever @2112 will conjure up when he does his inevitable Stadium vids....I don't see me needing amp tones beyond what's in their respective collections.

 

[Sascha Franck]

semantics!!

Nah, not really. For me there's really two categories: Base sound and effects. Base sound is everthing that just creates, well, the basic tone whereas effects kinda "sit on top". Sure, in some cases that might be a too easy distinction, but it's still making sense. Listeners likely won't be able whether your tone has an amp and a dirt box in it, but they will be able to tell there's some phaser on top.

 

[mbenigni]

RE: Footswitching. It's definitely my particular use cases, but I find the Helix infinitely more flexible than the Axe3. Because I do a lot with midi switching of the amp and outboard pedals and the occasional synth and things like that, which the Axe3 is just remarkably under-developed for, quite honestly.

That's funny, because this whole time I just assumed the FAS stuff was massively overpowered in this regard... to such an extent that I was simply incapable of understanding it.

 

[Fireproof]

Nah, not really. For me there's really two categories: Base sound and effects. Base sound is everthing that just creates, well, the basic tone whereas effects kinda "sit on top". Sure, in some cases that might be a too easy distinction, but it's still making sense. Listeners likely won't be able whether your tone has an amp and a dirt box in it, but they will be able to tell there's some phaser on top.

I understand what you are saying, and it makes sense why you think of them like that. BUT>…

And maybe I’ve been living under a rock, but you are the only one I’ve heard characterize them that way.

And in every single modeler on the planet - when you want to add a Distortion Pedal - you either look in the “Amps” list, the “Cabs” list, or the “Effects” list. And where is it? Oh yeah - effects.

If you want your dirt pedal or compressor to “identify” as your base tone, that’s fine. But don’t expect everyone else in the industry to do it.

 

[laxu]

That's funny, because this whole time I just assumed the FAS stuff was massively overpowered in this regard... to such an extent that I was simply incapable of understanding it.

It's specifically MIDI sending features that aren't that well developed on it.

Footswitching internal functionality is very programmable.

 

[Digital Igloo]

A big reason why we've doubled down on modeling vs. capture isn't just because modeling is our wheelhouse.

Back in the keyboard workstation wars of the late 90s, multisampling became alllll the rage. If your synth didn't also let you sample other synths and meticulously map them to specific ranges of the keyboard, you were left out to dry. "What?! I can sample any synth ever made?!" was a common mantra, even though that technology had existed since the 80s. An Italian company called Redmatica even made software that would automate the process—it'd spit out a MIDI note to your synth, capture the resultant audio, trim the empty space, and repeat for the next velocity or note or range of notes until you had a fully sampled version of that synth's patch, ready for inclusion in Logic's EXS24 sampler. Apple acquired them in 2012 and integrated some of their IP.

Then in the mid-00s, hardware sampling took a back seat to analog modeling synths, followed by the resurgence of true analog synths. People wanted to turn knobs and hear changes. Moving those knobs was considered part of playing the instrument. They wanted evolving, interesting sounds that weren't static and which gave their productions a sense of dynamics and flow (especially with electronic music). They wanted to automate those changes in their DAW.

Now almost no one multisamples other synths, and the newer keyboard workstations have deprecated powerful multisampling for simpler clip-based one shot stuff. (People obviously still buy massive sample/sound libraries as plugins for the things that can't be easily synthesized from simpler waveforms, like acoustic drums, orchestral libraries, special effects, etc.)

Captures are awesome in that you have access to any amp or drive pedal ever made, provided you're wiling to slog through a list to find one you like. But captures suck in that they're not truly dynamic and you can't really manipulate them like the real thing, just like a sample or multisample of a Minimoog vs. a real Minimoog or even modeled Minimoog VST.

Is capture tech just a trend? No, it's likely here to stay in various forms. But those calling it the death knell for modeling really don't understand the technology nor the market.

 

[Sascha Franck]

If you want your dirt pedal or compressor to “identify” as your base tone, that’s fine. But don’t expect everyone else in the industry to do it.

It's not about me "identifying" or so. It's just about which item does what in a patch. Effects are clearly distinguishable, dirt boxes, EQs and compressors are not (at least typically).

 

[Sascha Franck]

An Italian company called Redmatica even made software that would automate the process—it'd spit out a MIDI note to your synth, capture the resultant audio, trim the empty space, and repeat for the next note or range of notes. Apple acquired them in 2012 and integrated some of their IP into Logic.

Fwiw, Logic's autosampling feature is quite gorgeous, especially as you can layer stuff and then "consolidate" things nicely. It's pretty much what I could imagine doing with captures (in case the algorithm behind it allows for that). One of my bass patches is an autosampled mix of P-bass, a double bass and a synth bass, works great.

And fwiw #2: It's a shame Redmatica (which I've been betatesting for way back in the days) was bought. They also had a great software called "Keymap", which would allow you to map samples and export them in many formats (Logic's EXS, Kontakt, IIRC SF2 as well), and as if that wasn't enough already, you could do quite some nifty things with samples, such as kinda "drawing" vibratos out (think Melodyne), stretch and pitch them destructively (pretty great quality, again IIRC) so the sampler didn't have to do it, etc. Unfortunately, none of that has made its way into Logic so far (ok, perhaps there's some of it under the hood).

 

[HotRats]

It's not about me "identifying" or so. It's just about which item does what in a patch. Effects are clearly distinguishable, dirt boxes, EQs and compressors are not (at least typically).

While I agree with your general view, it has to be said that a distortion pedal into a clean amp is clearly distinguishable form the base tone just like a phaser is.

 

[FuzzyAce]

Maybe I might as well (as said, didn't watch, no plans to do so, either). And yet, the premise is stupid clickbaiting. If you look through any Stadium thread, the question is just silly, simply because pretty much everyone seems to care about the Agoura amp models. Whether it's all people and how much they care can certainly be debated, but releasing a video with such a title is just embarrassing.

I agree the clickbait titles are stupid, and this is only the second video I've watched from the guy. But I still agree with the points he made, generally speaking.

 

[Sascha Franck]

While I agree with your general view, it has to be said that a distortion into a clean amp is clearly distinguishable form the base tone

Nah, that's not what I meant.
When you listen to the final tone, you won't be able to tell whether it's a pedal into an amp or just the amp (only in case you the amp settings beforehand or do an A/B comparison, but this is just about listening to the final sound).
When you however listen to a sound with a phaser on it, you'll instantly be able to tell.