Line 6 Helix Stadium

[OneEng]

You're right but people still believe that helix reverbs are not good enough, compared to fractal or other brands. It doesn't matter whether is true or not.

From a pure marketing point of view, I was expecting some stadium only reverbs from day one.

I thought the same thing. I could be wrong though.

 

[mikah912]

You're right but people still believe that helix reverbs are not good enough, compared to fractal or other brands. It doesn't matter whether is true or not.

From a pure marketing point of view, I was expecting some stadium only reverbs from day one.

Some people believe their reverbs aren't good enough, just as I'm sure some believe the same about their amp modeling or drive pedals or whatever.

They're continually improving on all of those fronts, but there are already a plethora of Stadium-only features from a "pure marketing point of view." The excitement they've generated clearly indicates that they hit a good midsection that overlaps between several different types of customers.

For the rest - including people who won't give it a chance until there are Stadium/Agoura-exclusive versions of (fill in the blank) - they know they have their work cut out for them. Clearly, they want that smoke.

 

[molul]

If he gets a bug up his butt, he can just go in and boom change it whereas maybe with line 6 they have to go through levels of hierarchy to getin OK to do something new or different or change something?

That'sv actually a double-edged sword.

It's true that sometimes you would prefer not going through the whole process to fix a bug and deploy an update, but I worked in a company where the boss would fix or add new features without following the company guidelines, and countless times it would result in new bugs reported by customers the next day, because he uploaded the update without letting the QA team do a full regression test, and the rest of the developers could only complain in private

 

[timbuck3]

Ok I did it… preordered. Stadium xl. 1827 after tx and 15% off and my my gear card discounts (230$)with 48 month financing

 

[Tito83]

I'd like to think I'm pretty good at predicting what the kids will whine about but "Line 6 won't make any new effects after Stadium" was not on that list.

Sheesh, @Tito83. It's like you'd prefer we sat on all the new effects we've made in the past few years (while developing Stadium) just so we could say "hey, here are a bunch of new effects for our new platform... and Helix/HX users get them too!" The end result would be exactly the same except Helix/HX users would have waited for no reason other than... marketing? Appeasing a couple incredibly short-sighted armchair PMs?

What I'm saying is that the effects I'm referring to directly, especially reverbs, I don't think are up to snuff with the current top tier modelers - and I'm not alone thinking this. If they sounded really great, I would hope for improvements, sure, but I would not be pushing for new ones. As it stands I think an upgrade for the time based effects, reverbs especially, is as deserved as the new amp modeling.

 

[burningyen]

We might both be wrong. Googling indicates that AMS/Zzounds is the same company but separate from GC/MF.

GC/MF does include Music & Arts and also swallowed up Woodwind & Brasswind.

 

[dk_ace]

Totally reasonable take.

I'm a happy FM9 owner too. It's an incredible piece of gear and a bargain, frankly, for all you get.

There's almost nothing I'm missing on it, soundwise. It meets almost all of my happy place needs (modded Marshall sounds galore, great reverbs and delays, plenty of horsepower, versatile footswitching, exposed parameters for performance pages, great factory presets with scenes galore). Aside from better bass presets and amp options, I'd be fine if they never added another model.

After a couple of years of ownership, however, I do still feel stuck in terms of being able to significantly edit presets on the fly with the on-unit interface - especially moving blocks. I've also come to appreciate cloud-based functionality that I've enjoyed on both Quad Cortex and Tonemaster Pro. Being tethered to the PC for management sucks. Finally, I've REALLY come to appreciate having favorites/device-level presets available to immediately call up when building patches from scratch or making said significant edits live/in the room.

Stadium XL looks to me like the "just right" form factor that combines the best of everything I've wanted over the past few years - especially once Proxy gets up and running early next year. I personally think the Line 6 "dynamic" reverbs are top shelf already, but I think they're aware that Fractal has become the measuring stick here, and they're going to keep taking cracks at it.

I’m in the same boat on not being any good at editing on the FM9. That hasn’t been much of an issue for me live yet, fortunately. But it could bite me eventually. That’s the one thing that still has me looking at helix. But presently I’m not willing to give up anything sonically, and the helix reverbs just fall short of my standards. It is what it is. I get that you are happy with them, but I am not.

If they fix that, I’ll have to take it for a spin.

D

 

[timbuck3]

Cliff can whip up fantastic model sounds across a bazillion categories quicker than anybody else, but that'll likely always be the case. Line 6 isn't running that race anyway.

Fractal's speed in usability improvements isn't quite as whiplash-inducing. Lots of simple suggestions in their various wishlist forums have been gathering dust for years.

So their competitors are going to continue to thrive by innovating on that front in addition to their modeling engine development work.

Well, I’m the first to admit from what I’ve seen a cliff on the boards. I don’t know him personally, but he has his own way of doing stuff and he doesn’t just jump on board of trends, which is a good thing, but it could also be a hindrance in the long run, but you know he’s kind of a one man show in a way so he has his own way of doing things his own timeline and he doesn’t really mess around. He just does it what he needs to be done. He doesn’t really have to answer to anybody. He knows his loyal user as well buy from him even if he doesn’t implement the latest slick display

 

[timbuck3]

I’m in the same boat on not being any good at editing on the FM9. That hasn’t been much of an issue for me live yet, fortunately. But it could bite me eventually. That’s the one thing that still has me looking at helix. But presently I’m not willing to give up anything sonically, and the helix reverbs just fall short of my standards. It is what it is. I get that you are happy with them, but I am not.

If they fix that, I’ll have to take it for a spin.

D

I mean, I think with the VP for fractal has made the interface a little bit more user-friendly from what I’ve read so he seems to be on that track to simplify the whole process of interacting with the models inside his unit so we’ll just have to see what his next step is

 

[dk_ace]

Yea just spitballing… go will match mf plus I have 240 in credits with gc so it would be 330+ 240 discount so it’s like a no brainer

It’s incredibly unlikely that there will be a better buying opportunity than that anytime soon. You might be able to resell it for exactly what you have in it if you use it past the return window and change your mind. If someone is thinking they want it, this is about as good an opportunity as you could hope for to save some money on it.

D

 

[sashimi]

Ok I did it… preordered. Stadium xl. 1827 after tx and 15% off and my my gear card discounts (230$)with 48 month financing

 

[paisleywookiee]

Ok I did it… preordered. Stadium xl. 1827 after tx and 15% off and my my gear card discounts (230$)with 48 month financing

Wait, what? Okay, once it's delivered, the "Never Bought Shit" label should definitely come off.

 

[Lysander]

Wait, what? Okay, once it's delivered, the "Never Bought Shit" label should definitely come off.

Definitely. Our boy has grown!

 

[timbuck3]

What I'm saying is that the effects I'm referring to directly, especially reverbs, I don't think are up to snuff with the current top tier modelers - and I'm not alone thinking this. If they sounded really great, I would hope for improvements, sure, but I would not be pushing for new ones. As it stands I think an upgrade for the time based effects, reverbs especially, is as deserved as the new amp modeling.

I also would love to see this because when I had the helix, I was not impressed with the reverbs, but that was 10 years ago when it first came out, but after reading a lot of forums and videos and things like that I think that is one of the weakest areas in helix as well as the fuzzes From what I understand so yes, I would hope that they would not just sit back on their laurels as far as the effects go, especially the most important ones which are time based in reverb and think they’re just good enough going forward however obviously DSP plays a huge role in effect quality so if this stadium units are gonna be wrapped up with GSP the ability to really improve the effects especially the time based in reverb effects is going to be there I hope

 

[dk_ace]

I mean, I think with the VP for fractal has made the interface a little bit more user-friendly from what I’ve read so he seems to be on that track to simplify the whole process of interacting with the models inside his unit so we’ll just have to see what his next step is

I’d love to be wrong, but I just can’t imagine the day that fractal products have helix-level usability. The helix just does this crazy thing where it puts huge rig power with a lot of complexity in front of you in a relatively small package and it somehow makes it actually fun to use and tweak. It’s really as close to having a MASSIVE pedalboard as one can get without actually lugging around a massive pedalboard.

D

 

[Lysander]

I think I need to get my ears checked, because I never had major issues with HX reverbs? The recent Dynamic series, in particular, is amazing.

 

[timbuck3]

It’s incredibly unlikely that there will be a better buying opportunity than that anytime soon. You might be able to resell it for exactly what you have in it if you use it past the return window and change your mind. If someone is thinking they want it, this is about as good an opportunity as you could hope for to save some money on it.

D

Yeah, I agree. I mean there’s always next Fourth of July right but who knows what will happen then so I think it’s the right time to jump in and guitar center has 45 days to try it out as well and yeah I think I could probably resell it for at least what I got into it if I really wanted to, so it’s kind of like a win-win situation. My only hesitation was do I go with the original non-XL or XL and I just went with the XL just because I could’ve went with the non-XL but that was where I was really stabbing my toe.

 

[sashimi]

I can’t figure out what everyone is bitching about with the helix reverbs. They sound great. I actually saw someone post that a boss rv6 sounds better than the new dynamic reverbs, and the rv6 sounded like absolute shit to me.

don’t you assholes dare make Tim cancel his order. The new reverbs are great, Tim.

 

[Mongillo19]

For anyone qho

The new reverbs are great, Tim.

Are the dynamic ones considered the new additions?

 

[Vic Winters]

The MF coupon seems to have stopped working.