Line 6 Metallurgy

[Jarick]

Honestly I think Line 6 threw out Metallurgy just as an experiment to see what the interest was like in a more visual plugin format. I'd guess there was not much interest so they didn't do much with it and won't pursue it. And I'd bet that's what DI would have told the marketing folks in the first place too

 

[Jarick]

Quite interesting (to me) to compare what UA have done with their amp sims plugins vs what Line 6 did with Metallurgy. I wouldn’t say the UA plugins are THAT good, but they’re certainly making a larger dent than Metallurgy did.

The two things that strike me about Metallurgy are that Line 6 didn’t quite nail the product, and that secondly that they never fully believed in it enough to make it succeed. It took me quite a while to get the bad taste out of my mouth with Line 6 going from the old era to the new. I really can’t see Metallurgy getting any more updates, and it’ll probably be swept under the carpet when the Helix successor rolls around. Line 6 would likely point to the sales figures - unsurprisingly when the product itself wasn’t quite right, and the marketing was an absolute minimum effort.

It’s a shame because all the ingredients are there. I don’t think UA (or say NDSP or anyone else) are doing anything at all that Line 6 couldn’t have done.

UA has a kind of established user base to sell their plugins to. I will say for the UA plugins they do sound and feel really good, they're just incredibly basic. Would be great to see some really low hanging fruit like a noise gate added.

If anything I'd love to see a Helix Native / HX Edit makeover to make things more usable on bigger and higher resolution screens, or to just generally make things nicer to look at. I don't need skeuomorphism, but having all the controls smashed together can be annoying, having sub menus tucked away at the bottom, etc. I won't bring up knobs vs sliders though.

 

[MirrorProfiles]

Honestly I think Line 6 threw out Metallurgy just as an experiment to see what the interest was like in a more visual plugin format

I think this was definitely a factor, but the product was always doomed to fail. And it’s not because of the concept being bad, they just totally fumbled it. It just feels slapped together on the cheap, and thrown at the wall in a climate where the competition are throwing everything at very targeted campaigns.

It looks “fine” but it doesn’t look like a benchmark product from a company at top of their game. Honestly, it looks more like an Audio Assault mock up. If it feels like Line 6’s priority is Helix and not these plugins, they nailed the vibe. Unfortunately, I think Line 6 would have been better off not releasing these at all - the message I get from these plugins now is it’s something Line 6 simply doesn’t care about.

I'd guess there was not much interest so they didn't do much with it and won't pursue it. And I'd bet that's what DI would have told the marketing folks in the first place too

Can totally imagine this, but again, it’s down to how they marketed (and completely failed to push) the products. It failed because of the execution, not because of the idea itself.

I will say for the UA plugins they do sound and feel really good, they're just incredibly basic. Would be great to see some really low hanging fruit like a noise gate added.

Some of their amp sims do have noise gates tbf. And I guess they expect users to already own their space echo and lexicon reverb etc. I wouldn’t have minded if Line 6 (or anyone else) had that mentality too - plugins are designed to be mixed and matched just like that, after all. There’s so much stuff in Metallurgy that doesn’t need to be there. I have no use for a dynamic LPF, ever. And I don’t see myself using their channelstrip EQ, or reverbs. IMO they should have been braver with what made it into the plugin, after all Helix already exists for those that want to go deeper.

If anything I'd love to see a Helix Native / HX Edit makeover to make things more usable on bigger and higher resolution screens, or to just generally make things nicer to look at. I don't need skeuomorphism, but having all the controls smashed together can be annoying, having sub menus tucked away at the bottom, etc. I won't bring up knobs vs sliders though.

I totally agree - in 2025, resizing alone isn’t enough. Ideally there would be scaling options and something a bit more optimised for modern displays.

 

[laxu]

Some of their amp sims do have noise gates tbf. And I guess they expect users to already own their space echo and lexicon reverb etc. I wouldn’t have minded if Line 6 (or anyone else) had that mentality too - plugins are designed to be mixed and matched just like that, after all. There’s so much stuff in Metallurgy that doesn’t need to be there. I have no use for a dynamic LPF, ever. And I don’t see myself using their channelstrip EQ, or reverbs. IMO they should have been braver with what made it into the plugin, after all Helix already exists for those that want to go deeper.

It's a damned if you do, damned if you don't thing. I find that if I have an amp sim plugin, then I'd like to mostly work inside that box rather than stuff my screen full of plugins to work with "the whole".

When I was recently trying NeuralDSP plugins it was always something like "I don't like the cab sim or the reverb in this plugin but the ones in another plugin from the same company is fine". It then became "Bah, can't be bothered to pay for this!"

Meanwhile the UA plugins do feel like for the money they are kinda simplistic, even if the amp sounds are good. There is zero adjustment for cab sims which seems dated and so on. The $99 for 4 bundle is a pretty apt pricing for them.

 

[bearcore]

The slider implementation is poor, especially for wide displays that have become the norm. Once I've dialed something in, I'm only making micro adjustments here and there, but those arrows next to the values are incredibly small targets. Line 6 could easily make them larger if they turned them sideways, which is how they should've been to begin with given the horizontal movement of the slider itself. Additionally, the tiny value labels aren't actually aligned with the bars; they're lined up with the parameter title all the way on the left. This makes determining which label belongs to which parameter more difficult. IMO, the label belongs right next to the bar as is standard practice in data visualization. I would also prefer two columns of parameters with larger text, bars, labels, and arrows instead of a single sliver that stretches all the way across my screen.

 

[MirrorProfiles]

It's a damned if you do, damned if you don't thing. I find that if I have an amp sim plugin, then I'd like to mostly work inside that box rather than stuff my screen full of plugins to work with "the whole".

But Line 6 already offer Helix. If you want to experiment with every kind of cab or effect they've ever made and save all in one presets, they offer something. The fact is, anyone using plugins is going to have a ton of other options available, even if it's just stock/included plugins. I think with that in mind, it also makes sense to have very minimal plugins that have a clear objective and minimal clutter. Why would I limit myself to using Line 6 reverbs when I can have ACTUAL lexicon's/TC/Eventide/Quantec etc ones. I know we've discussed it before, but there really is no need to "stuff the screen with plugins". That's an exaggeration that doesn't really hold true - if it did, how would post mixers with literally hundreds of tracks get any work done? It's also debatable whether having them all in one plugin is any faster - the GUI's are more crammed, the routing is more limited, things are more hidden and you have to hunt around more. I'm way faster using separate plugins than I would be trying to do it all in (say) amplitube because to do everything that you might want it to, you have to have 50x things that you don't want to scroll through.

When I was recently trying NeuralDSP plugins it was always something like "I don't like the cab sim or the reverb in this plugin but the ones in another plugin from the same company is fine". It then became "Bah, can't be bothered to pay for this!"

I think NDSP is simple enough to just bypass whole blocks and not get into a mess. Tbh, part of the appeal is it's so easy to just bypass the cab and use the plugins purely for amp modelling. It's easy to forget the bloat is there, which isn't always the case for more convoluted plugins. I actually use the same IR approach no matter what I'm using - be it real amps, external HW modellers or plugins. I find it way more easy to be objective by using consistent IR's, and more often than not, the stock IR's are usually a bit cack for my taste.

Meanwhile the UA plugins do feel like for the money they are kinda simplistic, even if the amp sounds are good. There is zero adjustment for cab sims which seems dated and so on. The $99 for 4 bundle is a pretty apt pricing for them.

They sort of are, but at a "real" price of $25-29 I think they're pretty fucking good value tbh. Say, for instance, Lion. You get 3 different amplifiers modelled that are all very cool reference amps, properly maintained and modelled behaving as they should. It's not just some random off the shelf unit. It's like $15,000 worth of rare expensive amplifiers. Yes the cabs are basic, but tbh, you're talking to the wrong person about using inbuilt cabs. I usually just go straight for my own but it's nice that in a pinch there's something there I can try. I'd probably bypass them anyway. Most fully fledged cab engines don't really work for me either (for a number of reasons) so I don't mind them just keeping it simple. Compared to something like STL Amphub or Amplitube, UA actually make it way more simple to bypass the internal cabs without too much clicking around.

 

[Mikael Dez]

Helix Native's issues are primarily because it's so heavily tied to the hardware version where those sliders etc make tons of sense.

It's just that Line6 did absolutely nothing to make it a better experience on the desktop.

Oh yeah I know, and it’s honestly such a subjective thing anyway - Native is as good as the rest of the players out there.

 

[Sascha Franck]

Helix Native's issues are primarily because it's so heavily tied to the hardware version where those sliders etc make tons of sense.

Well, just because of the readouts? Maybe. But then, on the hardware, you control them via knobs. And the sliders aren't exactly sliders but, well, readouts.
Seriously, there must be a reason why pretty much no other plugins are using sliders. And if they do, it's usually vertical sliders (to mimic mixer faders and such). Horizontal sliders are just bogus, especially when you think about real amp controls. Even if we ignore the slider vs. knob issue (and agree that knobs are better...), amp controls on each and every guitar amp are lined up horizontally.

 

[Sascha Franck]

Why would I limit myself to using Line 6 reverbs when I can have ACTUAL lexicon's/TC/Eventide/Quantec etc ones.

But you don't have to do that with HXN, either. I only do "complete" presets in HXN should I have plans to transfer them to the hardware. Otherwise I'm usually just combining drives, amps and cabs, plus the ocassional pre-dirt modulation. I always try to use delays and reverbs via sends/busses, so I can easily abuse them for multiple sources.
Another reason (not exactly applying in my case, but still...) to use complete presets within HXN would be cross-DAW compatibility. As long as I stay within one single DAW, I can as well use channel strip presets (and they're obviously much more flexible), but as soon as I work with multiple DAWs, that approach goes outta the window.

 

[MirrorProfiles]

But you don't have to do that with HXN, either. I only do "complete" presets in HXN should I have plans to transfer them to the hardware. Otherwise I'm usually just combining drives, amps and cabs, plus the ocassional pre-dirt modulation. I always try to use delays and reverbs via sends/busses, so I can easily abuse them for multiple sources.
Another reason (not exactly applying in my case, but still...) to use complete presets within HXN would be cross-DAW compatibility. As long as I stay within one single DAW, I can as well use channel strip presets (and they're obviously much more flexible), but as soon as I work with multiple DAWs, that approach goes outta the window.

No, I'm just saying that for someone who wants an amp modeller to have a range of pre and post FX, and various cab sims with moveable mics and parallel blending and all kinds of other stuff, Helix can do that. Not saying you have to at all, just that they already offer something that will do it.

When I use Helix, I also use it mostly in a very basic way. But I still have to deal with the bloat that comes with something trying to accommodate many different needs and all the compromises that come with it. A plugin suite like Metallurgy doesn't need to cover that ground - its goals are quite different.

 

[riffy]

Metallurgy could have been a whole new ball of wax. Free of bloat, simple and easy to use. It easily can be made to work with all the plug-ins I already have.

But alas, line 6 chose to abandon it. That is truly a shame.

 

[synthpenguin]

I'm not a metal guitarist, so maybe I'm way off base since I'm not the target, but I feel like Metallurgy's branding and marketing really let it down and fed into the negative "Line 6 Spider INSANE setting for nu metal" associations that a lot of guitarists still (very unfairly) have. Line 6's overall darker aesthetic on their site and in their videos doesn't help with that either imo.

I think the interfaces look okay—like yeah, it kinda looks like they've been placed into Quake levels, but most of the amps themselves look alright (though some waaay better than others)—but the overall branding makes it feel cheap, unfortunately, at least to me.

 

[synthpenguin]

Helix Native's issues are primarily because it's so heavily tied to the hardware version where those sliders etc make tons of sense.

It's just that Line6 did absolutely nothing to make it a better experience on the desktop.

It's so weird because a multiple row version of the HX Stomp interface was right there. Just replace the mini sliders with dials and you're there (though some color coding would be nice too).

 

[Orvillain]

Need to factor in that Line 6 is largely a hardware company. I've seen first hand how hardware companies de-prioritize software development in favour of hardware. Because simply put, you guys don't buy software in the same numbers, and even when you do, you expect it at bargain bucket prices.

Be the change you want to see in the world.

 

[MirrorProfiles]

Be the change you want to see in the world.

Fine, selling my modellers and only buying plugins when they’re NOT on sale

 

[Orvillain]

Fine, selling my modellers and only buying plugins when they’re NOT on sale

Fuck that. Buy more amps bro.

 

[[Nathan]]

Great thread…. Yeah metallurgy definitely felt weird even at launch and the vibe was a bit line6 spider insane mode.

I detest the sliders in helix native. It’s like the most functional feature rich software with a UI that holds it back. If helix native was just axeedit my usage of it would skyrocket. They got my money so congrats I guess but my use of it is extremely limited because of the interface. To me it’s almost as bad as Amplitube, it’s one notch above it but not far off.

 

[FuzzyAce]

Sliders rule.

 

[Mikael Dez]

Sliders rule.

 

[FuzzyAce]