Line 6 Helix Stadium Talk

[laxu]

Official discussion thread for the Line6 HX Stadium product line

The previous thread is so full of nonsense that it's best to start a new one. This should be for owners of the unit, or prospective owners. Talk about how to make the most of it etc.

THIS IS NOT THE THREAD FOR DISCUSSING SHIPPING, RELEASE OF THE NON-XL MODEL ETC.

 

[laxu]

HX Stadium in action:

 

[laxu]

Useful links:

• Official website
• Manual and cheatsheet
• List of models

Photos:

• HX Stadium XL Floor
  • Front panel
  • Inputs and outputs
• HX Stadium Floor
  • Front panel
  • Inputs and outputs

 

[laxu]

Useful posts in this thread:

• Latency
• USB loopback measurement

 

[laxu]

Reserved.

 

[laxu]

Reserved just in case.

 

[Sascha Franck]

Ok, as a prospective future owner, as posted in the other thread already, I'd really like to know about the following things, as there's zero information available so far:

- Patch switching lag. I know it's there but how noticeable is it?

- LED rings. Is their brightness improved over the OG Helix?

- Device latency. Important once you plan to use the loops serially.

- Audio interface latency. Horrible on the OG Helix, would like to know whether it's at least usable (say, around 6-8ms) by now.

Any words on these?
All of them might be somewhat crucial regarding me to be a prospective owner (or non-owner), the patch switching lag possibly being least important (I won't switch patches unless there's global blocks).

 

[EOengineer]

It hasn’t come up in this thread yet, but I’m confused by the focus on boot times. Like…are you all racing? Are you not allowed to power up before the first note?

I don’t think I’ve ever had a concern about device boot time in 30 years of using processors.

 

[GLiDE-BPM]

I'm not worried about boot time either. If you lose power, all the rest of the equipment, like digital mixers is going to have to boot back up as well.

 

[laxu]

It hasn’t come up in this thread yet, but I’m confused by the focus on boot times. Like…are you all racing? Are you not allowed to power up before the first note?

I don’t think I’ve ever had a concern about device boot time in 30 years of using future processors.

Boot times start to matter if your unit crashes on stage - and I've been able to make almost all the modelers I've owned crash at some point, thankfully just in the comfort of my home.

With a Helix Floor you'd be up and going in about I think 15 seconds. With a Quad Cortex you'd be waiting for like 1.5 minutes I think?

Plus even at home it's nice when your modeler just boots up in no time, even if longer boot time just means "turn it on, go grab a guitar and cable". But if you have all that setup, booting up fast gets you right into it when inspiration strikes.

It's a nice to have thing. I'm sure Line6 is still optimizing this stuff.

 

[GuitarJon]

Favorite Agoura amp for high gain currently: Revv Generator 120 Red. So good! Video coming soon

 

[GTR37]

Favorite Agoura amp for high gain currently: Revv Generator 120 Red. So good! Video coming soon

Jon can you give some love to the XTC red drop D Cantrell stuff when time permits ?

 

[banned]

Reserved for Timbuck decision

 

[wharf rat]

Is there a current preset list that the unit ships with @Digital Igloo?

I’m speaking about a pdf of a listing of presets. Not seeing it in the manual or in the downloads section.

 

[Baba]

It hasn’t come up in this thread yet, but I’m confused by the focus on boot times. Like…are you all racing? Are you not allowed to power up before the first note?

I don’t think I’ve ever had a concern about device boot time in 30 years of using future processors.

I'm not worried about boot time either. If you lose power, all the rest of the equipment, like digital mixers is going to have to boot back up as well.

Same. I've been gigging an HX device for since 2018, and have never had to think about such a thing, and my Stomp XL will sometimes boot up and not pass any signal, but, that is at least a half hour before show time, and a power cycle takes care of that.

Also, @Sascha Franck , in regards to patch switching, definitely a great question, but I think we should make the distinction between presets and snapshots, unless you JUST mean presets?

 

[GuitarJon]

So, for anybody who has doubts on whether or not Helix Stadium can chug...

 

[Sascha Franck]

Also, @Sascha Franck , in regards to patch switching, definitely a great question, but I think we should make the distinction between presets and snapshots, unless you JUST mean presets?

I actually meant presets. I know snapshots switch without gaps.
Just that sometimes I may have to switch presets quickly, though - but then, without a global blocks functionality of some kind, I'd possibly avoid that like the plague.

In fact, LED quality is a pretty big issue for me as the thing becoming almost invisible on some daylight gigs has been one of the reasons for me to sell the OG Helix (bass player: "Hey, don't you think you should turn that thing on for soundcheck?")

 

[MirrorProfiles]

So, for anybody who has doubts on whether or not Helix Stadium can chug...

Still hearing the characteristics I don't like, unfortunately. It would be cool to hear what the advanced parameters do to the tone a bit more, and also Im curious how different it sounds to the old modelling tech. Revv120's aren't my favourite amp, but I quite like the tones in this video for example. The distortion just doesn't stick out, the low end blooms on palm mutes, the attack at the start of notes is nice. I haven't heard an Agoura example that sounds as convincing as this:



There's obviously a lot of variables involved, but using that video as an example, its quite a meat and potatoes setup (no boost, single 57 on a mesa cab) without anything too fancy going on.

 

[Jarick]

I'm curious about any improvements in sound or latency, both with new models and with older models. There's a ton of QOL stuff in there but is the tone or feel noticeably better?

 

[banned]

Still hearing the characteristics I don't like, unfortunately. It would be cool to hear what the advanced parameters do to the tone a bit more, and also Im curious how different it sounds to the old modelling tech. Revv120's aren't my favourite amp, but I quite like the tones in this video for example. The distortion just doesn't stick out, the low end blooms on palm mutes, the attack at the start of notes is nice. I haven't heard an Agoura example that sounds as convincing as this:



There's obviously a lot of variables involved, but using that video as an example, its quite a meat and potatoes setup (no boost, single 57 on a mesa cab) without anything too fancy going on.

I'm hearing it too. But then I went and listened to a bunch of Fractal clips and now, for the first time, I'm hearing it there too. I have to wonder if I'm over-analyzing...hard to tell. This amp seems given to papery tones.

We need comparison clips to physical amp again. @GuitarJon, you're the master at this.

For me personally, I need the unit in my hands through my guitar cabs - that's always my gold standard test, as that eliminates the whole FRFR variable from the equation (which is a MASSIVE variable) and you're fully assessing just the amps. Of course, in this case, it doesn't matter because it's a recorded tone and not playback tone.