What's preventing you from getting a Helix Stadium?

[TheTrueZoltan!]

View attachment 59077

 

[mbenigni]

Buddy I remember you from the old days - I know you keep it real But I pointed out that I actually think the Agoura amp is as big of a jump as the UI, because I know that was probably your biggest gripe with the OG (maybe apart from your USB obsession)

Gotcha. Yeah, I'm not trying to get down on Helix or Stadium in any way. I just can't resist a little irony, is all - and laxu's observation (true or not) that "Helix Stadium improves the usability, but so far not that much else", made me twitch.

 

[Sascha Franck]

But can we agree that people often buy cars, and sometimes they buy new ones?

Fwiw, I never bought a new car in all my life, always 2nd hand. And the current one is going to be the last car I own, after that it's bike, train and car sharing.
That possibly makes me a kind of a rationalist...

 

[Frodebro]

Within the forum bubble, Eric Klein asked opinions on ‘do you want it now and we’re still working on stuff or do you want to wait’? The vast majority wanted it ‘now’.

Yep, so to be ‘honest,’ the poll should be “Would you rather bitch about an earlier release with a few hiccups, or a mostly ironed-out later release?”

The people chose “gimme gimme gimme,’ so here we are.

 

[PorcinePicker]

Why?

I understand that not everyone will view it that way. From my perspective, IF they have an improved technology for amps, it should be applied to all of the amps in the product. Especially since I was never happy with the amp models in my HX Stomp.

 

[TheTrueZoltan!]

Fwiw, I never bought a new car in all my life, always 2nd hand. And the current one is going to be the last car I own, after that it's bike, train and car sharing.
That possibly makes me a kind of a rationalist...

…or an idealist. I can approve of both.

 

[laxu]

I think you're understating the QC's strengths here; its selling points are evidenced empirically by its continuing sales. Those selling points may no longer be unique to the platform, but the bottom line is that it does many of those things (e.g. V2 captures, form factor) exceedingly well - irrespective of whether their recent uptick in rate of improvement holds.

Sales is the last thing I want to use to measure how good something is. Neural DSP has a sizeable marketing budget based on how much they've advertised on social media, put the QC in various people's hands, all the plugin collaborations with artists etc.

And yes, while Helix Stadium improves on form factor, amp modeling etc over the previous Helix...it's not "game changing". To me the most interesting things about the Stadium have been usability related. I'm still very interested to see where it goes.

 

[dbfretz]

Another thing that can’t be overlooked is that not many famous artists/creators/influencers whatever you want to say are using Helix and are favouring other companies. Whether they are paid to do or not it doesn’t tell the general buying public that Helix is best in class. Perception is important and I do think the general consensus is that Neural and Fractal are above Line6 in terms of quality.

 

[mikah912]

I assume the floor will take over in the total compared to XL - mostly driven by price, but also form factor.

The XL is compact enough for me, it’s probably the best size-weight ratio to me.

It's already #1, and I imagine it'll stay around there for a good little while.

 

[Mongillo19]

few hiccups

That's being generous

The people chose “gimme gimme gimme,’ so here we are

Of course they are. If L6 was truly basing their launch decision off a forum poll, oh boy they have bigger problems than I thought

 

[EOengineer]

Perception is important and I do think the general consensus is that Neural and Fractal are above Line6 in terms of quality.

I can’t tell if you’re trolling.

To suggest there is any consensus here is pants on head crazy.

 

[mbenigni]

Sales is the last thing I want to use to measure how good something is. Neural DSP has a sizeable marketing budget based on how much they've advertised on social media, put the QC in various people's hands, all the plugin collaborations with artists etc.

Alright then, I think you're underestimating the QC's strengths full stop.

 

[laxu]

Within the forum bubble, Eric Klein asked opinions on ‘do you want it now and we’re still working on stuff or do you want to wait’? The vast majority wanted it ‘now’.

I think, with something as complex as the Stadium is, there are going to be bugs. The more you have in there the more weird uses people will find and fhe more there is to go wrong. Sad but true.

You’ve mentioned Kemper - I’ve owned one for many years and they are perceived as not releasing things until they are ‘right’. And mostly that’s true but if you look at every single software release they did over the years you’ll find bugs in there.

If you’re using the system for something mission critical, I think it’s wise to wait a year before jumping in. For the rest of us, I think it’s a case of being honest with your own use model and ask ‘is it enjoyable enough for me to forgive the glitches, knowing full well that this company will put them right and add lots more cool stuff for free’. In my case that’s a ‘yes’ but we all have different needs and expectations. In my case, the stadium is feeding my personal enjoyment, not feeding the kids so it’s much easier for me to shrug my shoulders and enjoy all the stuff they got right - which, imo, is lots!

Amen to all that. People forget that e.g the Fractal FM3 was a bit of a shitshow for like the first year of its release. I got mine at the tail end of that first year and still had garbled audio and non-functional footswitch issues. But Fractal fixed all that just like I expected.

Similarly every QC fw release comes with bug fixes.

In the same manner I am confident Line6 will fix all the major bugs on top of adding new features and content.

Bugs are normal with every software product. As a programmer working on a rather large and complex feature atm, I fixed 4 bug tickets and discovered another one just this week. It's not that the team intended to build bad software, but often these are edge cases that didn't come up during earlier testing.

 

[Dez]

That's being generous


Of course they are. If L6 was truly basing their launch decision off a forum poll, oh boy they have bigger problems than I thought

Especially from THIS fuckin lot that are drooling for new shit

 

[Boudoir Guitar]

Sales is the last thing I want to use to measure how good something is. Neural DSP has a sizeable marketing budget based on how much they've advertised on social media, put the QC in various people's hands, all the plugin collaborations with artists etc.

And yes, while Helix Stadium improves on form factor, amp modeling etc over the previous Helix...it's not "game changing". To me the most interesting things about the Stadium have been usability related. I'm still very interested to see where it goes.

Hang on now. I know Neural is more conspicuous, especially with their "named artist" products, but srsly, Line 6 isn't collaborating MASSIVELY with artists? or getting their products into LOTS of people's hands? Hell, Frank gave me via PM at the other place a free license to Native and offered me a "loaner" PowerCab where the "terms" seemed pretty obviously "loaned indefinitely with the hope that you'll talk about using it a lot on the forum". Me - who has never made a YouTube video in his life and isn't exactly known as a warm fuzzy Brockstart level product cheerleader.

 

[JiveTurkey]

Blink twice if you have a brother named tim

 

[Orvillain]

Line6 are the number 1 option for a LOT of people out there. Don't believe the hype. Line6 have the reach, and their technology is top notch. Forum gripes - even mine - are NOT reflective of reality.

 

[dbfretz]

I can’t tell if you’re trolling.

To suggest there is any consensus here is pants on head crazy.

I don’t mean on here, I mean if you asked a more causal consumer in a guitar store or similar.

 

[Dom Mcsweeney]

To be fair, this could have been an email.


Or comment somewhere.


Not an entire thread.

 

[laxu]

Hang on now. I know Neural is more conspicuous, especially with their "named artist" products, but srsly, Line 6 isn't collaborating MASSIVELY with artists? or getting their products into LOTS of people's hands?

I never claimed that Line6 DON'T do marketing. Even Fractal puts their products in the hands of YouTubers.

But I think NDSP does spend more on marketing based on what they put out.