Line 6 Helix Stadium

James Freeman said:
HXS
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Bless you.
sneeze sneezing GIF
 
I guess they went for Stadium to bring something that sounds "big" and related to music ("Cosmos" wouldn't have worked either).
 
I'd said before that Fractal Gen IV would be an insta buy for me. I'm not so sure about that now. Fractal's grid system and effects are still huge selling points for me but the feature set on the HXS is ridiculous. I'll have to think long and hard (....) about it when Fractal does release Gen IV. Especially so considering I could put the VP4 in the HXS loop and not even sacrifice the Fractal effects or the multiple parallel paths of their grid.

And then there's Proxy. One of the reasons I am digging the QC is that they've started adding PCOM stuff. I have a bunch of their plugins and really like them. But I'm thinking, I could just Proxy those plugin amps....

Shit, maybe I should go ahead and preorder. 🤔
 
Funk Soul Brother said:
I'd be *totally* happy with affordable 2nd-to-none amp toans/feel/dynamics, since I've got da best *real* analog pedals
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You have that now with NAM and it’s free. The next generation of these will be differentiated with other features besides the accuracy of the amps. There will be $100 pedals playing full resolution NAM within a year, the playing field for that is being levelled by the day.
 
deadpool_25 said:
I'd said before that Fractal Gen IV would be an insta buy for me. I'm not so sure about that now. Fractal's grid system and effects are still huge selling points for me but the feature set on the HXS is ridiculous. I'll have to think long and hard (....) about it when Fractal does release Gen IV. Especially so considering I could put the VP4 in the HXS loop and not even sacrifice the Fractal effects or the multiple parallel paths of their grid.

And then there's Proxy. One of the reasons I am digging the QC is that they've started adding PCOM stuff. I have a bunch of their plugins and really like them. But I'm thinking, I could just Proxy those plugin amps....

Shit, maybe I should go ahead and preorder. 🤔
Click to expand...
My immediate thoughts are:

- Sell my FC-12, my Axe3 just lives in the rack at home, and I never need foot control for it.
- Sell my Helix.
- Sell a couple of pedals.

Gets me about half way there in terms of cashola I'll need when Stadium drops.

If I do get one, I'll probably go for the XL model, keep the Axe3 in the rack.
 
DLC86 said:
They wouldn't complain about having NAM support either, actually a good percentage of those users might even be happy about it... for the rest, it doesn't change a thing. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
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They would complain about it because native NAM would run like crap, if at all, on their hardware.

There are both business and technical reasons the bigger players who can are developing their own capture technology and not adopting NAM. The cheap Chinese competition that can’t are doing NAM conversions but that’s not selling units, nor is it creating more mainstream interest in NAM.

From my perspective, Line 6 adding native NAM support to Helix was the last chance for NAM to go mainstream. Tonex owns the budget hardware and “just an amp replacement” market while Proxy is going to own the all-in-one flagship market. NAM is going to remain a niche laptop plugin solution for the people who get off on null tests and graphs of aliasing above their hearing range, but the pipe dream that it is going to become a de facto standard like .wav IR’s is not looking at all promising.
 
molul said:
I guess they went for Stadium to bring something that sounds "big" and related to music ("Cosmos" wouldn't have worked either).
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Stadium makes sense if you look at the advanced features like Showcase automation. "Helix fit to control your entire stadium gig".

IMO it's not a great brand name.
 
laxu said:
There's no longer as big a "I use Fractal because it's simply better than the competition for amps and fx modeling" incentive. Cheap capture boxes are nipping at the heels for amps, cheap multifx are at "these fx are pretty solid!" level for effects now, and I expect Helix Stadium will raise its delay/reverb/pitch/mod effects quality to Fractal level. Amps will probably take a bit longer since Fractal has over 100 unique amps (if we consider all the channels and mode models as one amp).

Fractal's big issue for all its products to date has been usability, so that's the #1 issue they need to solve for a next gen. They need at minimum an onboard user interface as good as Axe-Edit.

While Line6 has gone above and beyond with their "virtual roadies" in the Showcase system etc, I still think Fractal needs to go back to the drawing board after this announcement.

Line6 have put a lot of work into reducing the barrier to entry to modelers:
  • Sound clips for presets so you can understand what it is meant for. This has been a big issue with lots of user and factory presets, having a reference will help a lot. I can see people saying "Hey, I made this preset based on what you are looking for, check my clip and see what you think!" on forums and FB groups because it seems like it's just very easy to do.
  • Ability to easily add a sound clip to help you dial in the sound. Looper blocks can do this now but it seems Line6 has made this really straightforward where it goes from "pull up the looper controls" to "just hit record".
  • Fingerpaint quick tone adjustments, that can even be user defined no less! This is probably my favorite new feature.
  • Integrated parameter manual on-unit.
  • Hype knob to take you from "accurate" to "sounds nicer to my ear". This can be a quick route to "behaves how I think it should sound".
  • Due to the increased number of footswitches even on the smaller non-XL model, access to all your favorite blocks is just a finger tap away.
Ok, so Fractal might focus their product for the professionals only. The only things they truly need from that list are quick access to blocks (hardware design), and the integrated manual, which has been requested at least for Axe-Edit years ago. But people will appreciate things that make it easier to play with sounds whether you are a seasoned pro or a newcomer.

I expect Fractal's wishlists for their next gen product will have a number of "hey Helix Stadium has this cool feature, can you do something like that?" requests.

I just have a hard time finding the unique selling point that would make me say "You know what, I'll go for the Axe-Fx IV instead of the Helix Stadium". I hope Fractal surprises us.
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  • Add in the ability to make profiles without the need for a computer, which I assume will be of TONEX quality as it’s using their servers to do the AI/GPU stuff
  • Stem splitter
  • Backing track player
  • User memory via micro sd for files, IR, tracks, etc
  • User defined file/folder system for blocks, IRs, presets
  • Automation
  • Looper integration with backing tracks
  • Maybe 50% chance of nam player?
  • Expandable digital protocol with IO and future accessories
  • Wifi/bluetooth
  • Touchscreen UI and kept existing physical UI (which was already great) for people who argued against touchscreen
I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt and assume the modelling will be pretty damn close (or on par) to fractal and the capturing up to Tonex, but theyve somewhat changed the space and have moved beyond ‘just’ a guitar modeller, this is like a whole new category of music creation/practice/band controller device. They took the best bits and pieces from every company, rolled it into one and added more.

The people railing against it kinda crack me up. Reminds me of when the iPhone came out and had all these non traditional phone features and people were just like “I don’t need a camera or keyboard in my phone, it’s only use is to call people”
 
Chocol8 said:
From my perspective, Line 6 adding native NAM support to Helix was the last chance for NAM to go mainstream. Tonex owns the budget hardware and “just an amp replacement” market while Proxy is going to own the all-in-one flagship market. NAM is going to remain a niche laptop plugin solution for the people who get off on null tests and graphs of aliasing above their hearing range, but the pipe dream that it is going to become a de facto standard like .wav IR’s is not looking at all promising.
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1749724236407.png
 
Lysander said:
I know i keep harping about it, but man, i'm loving the size of these new Stadium devices.

View attachment 46410View attachment 46412
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Not sure if proportions are correct in that picture. Distance between switches are almost the same across Floor Stadium Floor and Quad Cortex., and Quad Cortex should be significantly smaller, while Floor and Stadium Floor should be the same.

On a side note, a friend told me he'll wait for an LT version to appear. I told him I strongly believe the Stadium Floor is the LT replacement. It would make no sense making another device like the Stadium Floor XL with less fx loops and no scribble strips. Thats Stadium Floor but without the expression pedal.

I do think a Stomp XL replacement will eventually arrive, and that plain Stomp won't have a replacement.
 
dws2384 said:
There will be $100 pedals playing full resolution NAM within a year, the playing field for that is being levelled by the day.
Click to expand...

We have been hearing this for years, and I think it is less likely now than it was two years ago. That $99 generic pedal would need to offer an experience as good or better than Tonex One and that means a lot more than “it can play a NAM capture.”

Even if you could shove the processing power needed into that price point (including the T word) you would still need significant software and user interface/experience work, and there would be little profit margin to recoup the R&D costs. It gets way worse if it there are other cheap Chinese competitors keeping margins and sales volumes low.
 
laxu said:
But what will they call the inevitable smaller units? I recommended HX Pub Stomp and HX Bar Crawl a few posts back, but surely they're not going to go there. Helix Studio for the plugin?
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I noticed when he announced them he said “helix stadium” and then went back and corrected himself and said “helix stadium floor” so I’d assume they’d just be helix stadium stomp and helix stadium effects. The LT will likely never exist as the XL is already smaller than it was.
 
Chocol8 said:
We have been hearing this for years, and I think it is less likely now than it was two years ago. That $99 generic pedal would need to offer an experience as good or better than Tonex One and that means a lot more than “it can play a NAM capture.”

Even if you could shove the processing power needed into that price point (including the T word) you would still need significant software and user interface/experience work, and there would be little profit margin to recoup the R&D costs. It gets way worse if it there are other cheap Chinese competitors keeping margins and sales volumes low.
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There are currently $50 pedals that play NAM profiles downsampled. However, those downsampled profiles are of equal quality in null tests to both Kemper and quad cortex.

I wasn’t talking about the user experience. I actually stated that will be THE selling point in the future because any company will have access to sound quality that is on par to other companies flagship devices.

It’s like digital cameras. Pretty much every top company buys their sensors from Sony and they have to differentiate in UI and ecosystem.
 
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