What's preventing you from getting a Helix Stadium (if you really want to buy it eventually)?

[Orvillain]

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. 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...

 

[Orvillain]

If this is your weird way of getting us to hire you as a DSP engineer...

hahaha! No sir. I'm plotting world domination in other areas right now!

 

[JiveTurkey]

If this is your weird way of getting us to hire you as a DSP engineer...

 

[OneEng]

HX Stomp is on sale right now, but it normally sells for $700. How is Line 6 supposed to vastly upgrade its power, sound, capabilities, and UI and sell it for the same price, given the economy, DDR RAM price gouging, and thing-we're-not-supposed-to-discuss? Hell, if we were to start developing HX Stomp right now as is with zero changes, we'd likely have to sell it for $850-900.

For better or worse, sophisticated multieffects aren't commodity items like TVs. If people really insist a Stadium-level Stomp SKU must be $700-800, we'd rather develop something else. Besides, HX Stomp is still selling like hotcakes, largely because of intangibles I probably shouldn't get into here because there be sharks in these waters.

New product pricing at introduction is always higher than the intended steady state pricing of the product (for a number of reasons). I would expect a Stadium Stomp product to slot in above the current HX Stomp in price at release, and then over time, the Stadium Stomp (and entire Stadium Lineup) would replace the current Helix lineup at around the same price point within each market.

I hear you about the DDR RAM price; however, if history is any judge, huge increases in price are followed by huge oversupply from production resulting in much lower pricing for RAM. Historically, this is how things have gone. I don't expect the current situation to go any differently.

Production planning is a tricky thing too. You really WANT to order a bunch so you get better prices (and don't run out of stock), but the risk is that you lock into higher pricing of components that might come down later, AND you end up with stock that you pay taxes on AND pay storage for.

Also, just like every product line that has ever been created in any industry, the older line will inevitably be replaced by the new line. It's more profitable to make more of a single architecture product line than it is to make 2 different architectural product lines as you don't get as good of quantity of scale. Also, the older architecture products start running into EOL components and it just doesn't make sense to redesign for component availability vs moving the market over to the new product line.

It's also been my experience that long before you can't get a component because they quit making it, the component becomes too expensive.

So..... don't suppose you can let us know when we can expect a Stadium Stomp eh?

 

[bucephalus]

It is called an inference.

I think you may be inferring incorrectly here though. Once effects are beyond the old tech they'll just be on the new tech I would think.

 

[mikah912]

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.

Feels like you're conflating:

"Nothing in helix recreates this one super-specific reverb algo that I'm stoked on!" (which is also true of Fractal, Quad Cortex and Tonemaster Pro, I believe)

And by the way, @brianwahl and the worship tutorial guys disagree (They said "Ganymede nails the RV5/RV6 modulated reverb sound, which is a good thing for me because this is my all-time favorite reverb!")



and "Helix reverbs - all of 'em across three generations - are average. None of them are fantastic".

Which....well, I can't disagree with you more. That isn't to say I think they're the be-all, end-all. I absolutely have heard complex algo reverbs on Kemper, Fractal and even TMP that Stadium doesn't match. It'd be great to have lots of those, for sure.

But there are great reverb sounds there already, and that is why I'm looking forward to getting more.

 

[sashimi]

So I understand correctly… if a hypothetical new reverb is released on Stadium that can also run on the 10+ year old Helix, somehow that means it won’t be able to sound as good as a 24 year old boss pedal? Sounds like this is a matter of taste and not a DSP horsepower problem if a 24 year old boss pedal is setting the bar.

 

[JiveTurkey]

So I understand correctly… if a hypothetical new reverb is released on Stadium that can also run on the 10+ year old Helix, somehow that means it won’t be able to sound as good as a 24 year old boss pedal? Sounds like this is a matter of taste and not a DSP horsepower problem if a 24 year old boss pedal is setting the bar.

I think the gymnastics that make this general convo difficult is the 24 year old Boss pedal is revered. The 20 year old Line 6 Spider is what comes up in the rearview when people think of Line 6 a lot of times and that definitely clouds the conversation I think, quite a bit; when trying to point towards a flagship device on that polar opposite end of the spectrum.

 

[mikah912]

I think the gymnastics that make this general convo difficult is the 24 year old Boss pedal is revered. The 20 year old Line 6 Spider is what comes up in the rearview when people think of Line 6 a lot of times and that definitely clouds the conversation I think, quite a bit; when trying to point towards a flagship device on that polar opposite end of the spectrum.

I'd disagree. When professional musicians think of Line 6 in the 20+-year rearview, I think they think of the MM4/DL4/DM4 stompbox modelers that are on lots of touring artists' pedalboards currently.

If anything, I think their effects prowess has been underrated, but like my 18-year old says incessantly: "Those who know...."

 

[JiveTurkey]

I'd disagree. When professional musicians think of Line 6 in the 20+-year rearview, I think they think of the MM4/DL4/DM4 stompbox modelers that are on lots of touring artists' pedalboards currently.

If anything, I think their effects prowess has been underrated, but like my 18-year old says incessantly: "Those who know...."

Yeah I never used any of those boxes so I don't know I think ultimately we all have our "one" in this space we gravitate towards. It's fine expending conversational energy on it but I am not sure if anyone's mind ever gets changed in these back and forths?

 

[sashimi]

I don’t disagree that Line 6 is carrying some baggage from the old Spider amps, that was my first experience with L6 as well and it did leave a bad taste in my mouth for years. But mikah makes a good point that L6 also made some highly revered pedals that pros continue to use to this day. And I was pretty young and stubborn about gear in those days so I probably didn’t even give the spider amps a fair shake, I was just generally grossed out by them and loved to hate them and all things digital. But anyway I don’t really see what any of that has to do with Helix and later L6 devices or perceived reverb deficiencies, unless it’s just a bias that makes it impossible for some people to admit a L6 device can sound good.

 

[JiveTurkey]

I don’t disagree that Line 6 is carrying some baggage from the old Spider amps, that was my first experience with L6 as well and it did leave a bad taste in my mouth for years. But mikah makes a good point that L6 also made some highly revered pedals that pros continue to use to this day. And I was pretty young and stubborn about gear in those days so I probably didn’t even give the spider amps a fair shake, I was just generally grossed out by them and loved to hate them and all things digital. But anyway I don’t really see what any of that has to do with Helix and later L6 devices or perceived reverb deficiencies, unless it’s just a bias that makes it impossible for some people to admit a L6 device can sound good.

Yeah I know it's not the same thing at all. I think forum time where you (well, me at least) pontificate on this stuff endlessly can be a little too analytical at times

 

[dbfretz]

They can kill the debate with some awesome reverbs like Fractal has, and has had for years. I don’t see why it takes so long to do it.

 

[EOengineer]

I like the part where Agoura chugs.

 

[TheTrueZoltan!]

I don’t disagree that Line 6 is carrying some baggage from the old Spider amps, that was my first experience with L6 as well and it did leave a bad taste in my mouth for years. [...]

I never understood the hatred of Spiders. Twenty-something years ago, I had a Spider II 212, which I used with good results in my thrash band. On the advice of the internet (as it was back then), I replaced the factory speakers with Celestion V30s – which probably wasn't as smart as I thought at the time – and was pretty happy with it. Sure, my standards were pretty low back then, and I had never played real tube amps myself, only solid state stuff and, of course, the good old Metal Zone. But as a student, I didn't have much money, and the Spider served me really well.

 

[Digital Igloo]

So I understand correctly… if a hypothetical new reverb is released on Stadium that can also run on the 10+ year old Helix, somehow that means it won’t be able to sound as good as a 24 year old boss pedal? Sounds like this is a matter of taste and not a DSP horsepower problem if a 24 year old boss pedal is setting the bar.

In the end it all comes down to preference anyway and it's unrealistic to expect any company to accommodate everyone's sonic preferences for every type of amp and effect. When I started out, everyone had rackmount reverbs—either Lexicon, TC Electronic, Eventide, Quantec, or a bit later, Bricasti. I adored Lexicon and Bricasti (the latter probably because they're ex-Lexicon guys), wasn't all that into Eventide reverbs, and actively avoided TC and Quantec reverbs. (I still don't use the Quantec plugin built into Logic, even though it has improved algorithms.)

But it's 100% a personal taste thing. You'll never hear me say that Eventide, TC, or Quantec reverbs are objectively less than high-end professional-sounding.

 

[EOengineer]

My solution to this issue is to basically never use reverb.

 

[mikah912]

In the end it all comes down to preference anyway and it's unrealistic to expect any company to accommodate everyone's sonic preferences for every type of amp and effect. When I started out, everyone had rackmount reverbs—either Lexicon, TC Electronic, Eventide, Quantec, or a bit later, Bricasti. I adored Lexicon and Bricasti (the latter probably because they're ex-Lexicon guys), wasn't all that into Eventide reverbs, and actively avoided TC and Quantec reverbs. (I still don't use the Quantec plugin built into Logic, even though it has improved algorithms.)

But it's 100% a personal taste thing. You'll never hear me say that Eventide, TC, or Quantec reverbs are objectively less than high-end professional-sounding.

And I think Fractal and Kemper get less flack than everyone else partially due to sheer breadth of discreet reverb types they offer. Cliff currently has, what 79-80 different reverb algos and Kemper has 65+? You get that many cracks at the bat, and you're liable to cater to a wider set of tastes.

Comparatively, Stadium has 13 HX-era models and even if you add the legacy M reverbs....it's still just 25 total.

That being said, we know that there are reverb plans yet to be revealed. People forget that when you showed the "approved" list of block types for Stadium, there was an entire category of reverbs that had to be redacted because it wasn't ready to be announced yet....

 

[ian_dissonance]

For 20 years I’ve been confused as to why people actually thought the spider series was anything other than a really flexible beginner/practice amp. People talk about them like they were expecting to replace a high dollar tube rig with a $200 amp.

 

[Orvillain]

Feels like you're conflating:

"Nothing in helix recreates this one super-specific reverb algo that I'm stoked on!" (which is also true of Fractal, Quad Cortex and Tonemaster Pro, I believe)

And by the way, @brianwahl and the worship tutorial guys disagree (They said "Ganymede nails the RV5/RV6 modulated reverb sound, which is a good thing for me because this is my all-time favorite reverb!")



and "Helix reverbs - all of 'em across three generations - are average. None of them are fantastic".

Which....well, I can't disagree with you more. That isn't to say I think they're the be-all, end-all. I absolutely have heard complex algo reverbs on Kemper, Fractal and even TMP that Stadium doesn't match. It'd be great to have lots of those, for sure.

But there are great reverb sounds there already, and that is why I'm looking forward to getting more.

Okay, but.... no.

1 - I'm not looking for one super specific algo that I'm stoked on.
2 - RV5 modulate is not the same as RV6 modulate.
3 - The Helix reverbs collectively don't cut through as well as dedicated pedals do; clearly audible in the video you posted too.
4 - My original post that you responded to was a technically orientated post; I was tackling the idea that a Lexicon engineer would only be capable of making Lexicon style reverbs. It isn't true.
5 - I don't think there are great reverbs in Helix. I think there are passable reverbs in Helix.
6 - Even the newer "Dynamic" ones suffer from metallic resonances and a lack of clarity; something that I believe is the result of DSP limitations around the orthogonal matrices used in their FDN design.