ian_dissonance
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Yeah, Helix effects that came out before stadium aren’t new stadium effects. That doesn’t even make sense.
What's preventing you from getting a Helix Stadium (if you really want to buy it eventually)?
- Thread starter molul
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I'm not going to get sucked into side quests. My position is:
- Flagship hardware should enable better algorithms and should not be held back by older generations
- That isn’t gatekeeping
- The current reverbs in particular aren’t competitive
TheTrueZoltan!
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Too busy!
Lysander
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Again: no one from L6, to the best of my knowledge, ever stated such a thing.
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Then how do you interpret the intention to release Stadium effects for the HX platform as well?
Given that I know the difference between a feedback delay network using a Hadamard matrix sized 2x2 versus 4x4, 8x8, or 16x16, gives an incredibly dramatic sound, but also massive differences in CPU usage... and given that it is rumoured that the HX platform is about half as capable as the Stadium one... why wouldn't you assume (@TheTrueZoltan! !!!!) that a DSP engineer would nerf the complexity of the algorithm in order to get it working on both platforms?
This is pretty rudimentary stuff. TBH, I'm surprised there's push back against the notion.
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AlbertA
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Ahh thanks dude.
Lysander
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As awesome news! It's the same deal as with the Pod GO vs Helix: whichever effects can run on the lesser architecture gets backported, which benefits us all.
You seem to be reading this as "Stadium will not get new effects unless they run on legacy HX", and that's just flat out wrong - no one from L6 ever promised such a thing. Hell, we've had hints of drive pedals potentially being modeled with Agoura in the future.
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Yes. I am reading it that way. Because it has been heavily implied several times.
I am making an assumption. Sue me.
I ask you again - why wouldn't you make that same assumption??
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Lysander
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I happen to like my arguments grounded on facts.
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I'm not going to argue the toss about this. But your assertion that I have no facts, is simply not valid. I only have what @Digital Igloo has said, and numerous times he has said that Stadium effects would probably also support Helix. And a necessary implication from that statement is that the algorithms need to support both platforms, and a necessary implication of that is that it needs to work within the DSP requirements of the older architecture.
This isn't a conspiracy theory. This isn't woo-woo nonsense. There is solid logic to my position.
JiveTurkey
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EOengineer
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One of the things that I really appreciate about L6 is that they consistently operate with a high level of integrity. It’s part of why they keep getting my dollars. I appreciate they’ve been transparent about this vs wedging in some half-assed remaster of the fx or worse.
On one hand, I understand the expectation that a platform comes along with a whole new generation of effects models. It’s what we’re used to. It’s what we’ve been trained to expect as we’ve followed modeling’s progression through the decades through all its iterations. It’s reasonable to assume that as DSP resource constraints improve, we would see new algorithms that push the envelope and produce that “more realer” CE-1, univibe, or plate reverb. I can’t fault someone for toeing that line.
On the other hand, I find it a little tough to believe at least one of those L6 DSP engineers hasn’t started poking around to see what benefit all this new DSP headroom might bring to the mods, delays, and verbs.
I really struggled with the modulation stuff in Hx. I’m lucky to own authentic clones or originals of the phase 90, univibe, CE-1 w/preamp, 70s MXR 117 flanger, and some others…I’ve always felt I was losing quite a bit trying to replicate them in Helix. I’m overdue to throw them into a loop and run some comparisons to see where things stand now in Stadium.
On one hand, I understand the expectation that a platform comes along with a whole new generation of effects models. It’s what we’re used to. It’s what we’ve been trained to expect as we’ve followed modeling’s progression through the decades through all its iterations. It’s reasonable to assume that as DSP resource constraints improve, we would see new algorithms that push the envelope and produce that “more realer” CE-1, univibe, or plate reverb. I can’t fault someone for toeing that line.
On the other hand, I find it a little tough to believe at least one of those L6 DSP engineers hasn’t started poking around to see what benefit all this new DSP headroom might bring to the mods, delays, and verbs.
I really struggled with the modulation stuff in Hx. I’m lucky to own authentic clones or originals of the phase 90, univibe, CE-1 w/preamp, 70s MXR 117 flanger, and some others…I’ve always felt I was losing quite a bit trying to replicate them in Helix. I’m overdue to throw them into a loop and run some comparisons to see where things stand now in Stadium.
Digital Igloo (August 6.2025) :
Whatever we make for Stadium that works within the architecture and DSP considerations of Helix/HX could certainly be added in future firmware updates. So at the very least, new cabs, new effects, new quality of life improvements, certainly bug fixes
Whatever we make for Stadium that works within the architecture and DSP considerations of Helix/HX could certainly be added in future firmware updates. So at the very least, new cabs, new effects, new quality of life improvements, certainly bug fixes
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Sir, you are waaaaaaaaaay overthinking this.
Flagship hardware - particularly Stadium - is enabling better everything. If anything, it's lifting up Helix-era algorithms because they absolute do sound better on this new unit, especially the reverbs. I've grown a new appreciation for the Glitz, Shimmer and Ganymede already.
What it's not is being held back by fidelity to the Helix hardware. The unit has been in the market for, what, 100 days? In that time, they've released multiple new Stadium-only amps, and they're obviously hard at work on a big Stadium-only feature. By every indication, they're working their butts off to make Stadium great right now, and it's their primary, if not sole focus in the short term.
Why do you think that won't extend to effects?
But put that to the side for a second. The guy they got from Lexicon (Norm) is responsible for the Dynamic series of reverbs. That gives you a pretty good idea of his algorithmic approach. By all appearances, he'll be spearheading programming for future reverb algos as well.
So if you didn't like what he did before and don't think it's competitive, what exactly do you think is going to be different from the same guy now?
It reminds me of that old joke about the ladies complaining how terrible a restaurant is, and then decrying that portions are so small!
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I'll just respond to this bit, because it is the most interesting assumption in there.
There isn't just one way to build a reverb. A man isn't born with specific tastes in reverbs, and everything he builds in that area always sounds the same. Mr. Lexicon-man is equally capable of building a Boss style thing, or an Alesis style thing, or anything else.
But even judging these algorithms based on their brand lineage is not correct. It is much more appropriate to judge them on their topology; which most people don't have an understanding of.
But in effect:
Early vintage reverbs == all-pass filters, comb filters, Schroeder designs.
Early "modern" reverbs == feedback delay networks combined with orthogonal mixing matrices; Householder and Hadamard are the most common. Usually only enough DSP processing for 2x2 or 4x4 networks. Around the year 2000, DSP was able to start doing the larger matrices.
Current day reverbs == large FDNs, time-varying delay structures, modulation in multiple stages, frequency-dependent decay networks, scattering junctions, diffusion stages before and after the tank, multi-band damping, sometimes hybrid convolution elements, velvet-noise diffusion.
At that point the question isn't "does it sound like Lexicon?" or "does it sound like a Boss pedal?" Norm is likely faaaaaaar more versed in this than me, obviously. But he would absolutely agree with me, there isn't one way to build these things, and he's fully capable of building a wide variety of them.
The question becomes: what topology did the designer choose, how large is the network, and how much CPU are they willing to spend making the decay dense and stable? Those choices dominate the sound far more than the brand lineage of the person writing the code.
So what exactly do I think is going to be different from the same guy now?
Access to far more DSP.
Different design goals.
Different constraints.
And about thirty years of additional research into reverberation algorithms.
Which is to say: pretty much everything that actually matters.
And given that the Stadium does offer much more DSP resources, I would expect it to be used to make fantastic reverbs, rather than average reverbs.
Here's my RV5 'Modulate' inspired reverb:
There's nothing in Helix or Stadium that does this.
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I mean, you and I have certainly been friendly enough for you to, I dunno, ask me?
In any hardware multieffect, effects take up notably less DSP than amps do—certainly Agoura amps. So the assumption that a ton of effects that fit in Stadium can never fit in Helix/HX makes no sense. As we continue to develop new effects, will we descope them to fit in Helix/HX? Of course not—we don't have to, because they'll likely fit anyway, and given poly-pitch, we're certainly not worried about releasing algorithms that eat up half a SHARC.
Conversely, if we come up with some crazy new extremely DSP-intensive effect that eats up 80% of HX Stomp—will we purposely sit on it because the older SKUs can't accommodate it? Also of course not. There are several instances where POD Go can't pull off an HX amp or effect and we unceremoniously shrug and say "Sorry, guys." It's happening now with Agoura amps and I'm sure there'll be a point where a future effect will also not work in Helix/HX-land, but if I had to guess, it might be due more to lack of capabilities or routing flexibility and less raw DSP horsepower (although that could conceivably be the case as well). For example, Helix/HX has no sidechaining and there are all sorts of cool sidechain-enabled effects out there.
Yes, some effects since around 3.5 or so were created during Stadium work and include tools and things we've learned from said development. We very easily could've sat on them and waited for the June 11th launch, only to drop a 3.9 later in the day with just those effects. But that'd leave a really crappy taste in our mouths, because we never push brand marketing at our long-term customers' expense.
If this is your weird way of getting us to hire you as a DSP engineer...
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