WickedFinger

When are we going to get a printable file version of the manual? Some of us like to read and understand things to make better use of the unit's features. Especially with the upgrades coming for Showcase and Proxy. The on screen stuff is great and all but something of this depth and complexity needs a manual.

I had an original Helix and while I liked the programming and setup, the effects loops pass through were a deal kill for me. I went on to try a bunch of modeler units, except for full on Fractal. Maybe had I gone Fractal that might have done it for me. Instead I tried many, a thousand different variations. Just never happy w the tones and feel. Then I came to Universal Audio's amp pedal modelers, 4 of those in a bypass switcher were just amazing, not just real amp sounds but maybe better as tube amps are moody and degrade w time. Reading on the features and improvements of the Stadium XL I decided to bite the apple once again and sold off tons of stuff for the hope Line 6 would bring the torch. I would have stayed w my UAFX rig and been happy but I wanted the promise of greater integration, more amps and cab IR abilities. So far just baby steps trying to find my way around the Stadium. NO printable file manual yet (come on guys and include the models list in a printable file!) Some of us like to attend flight school before taking the plane up. That being said the features on the Stadium are indeed workable and usable merely by using the on-board info stuff and bumbling around. So far the amps are floating my boat in sound and feel, very happy w the new Agoura stuff. Std effects are still the hit and miss of Line 6 stuff, some good some unusable, typical. I've never been a fan of most digital pedal mimics outside of delays/reverbs and some modulation. Stadium has the best of what you would expect from modeled effects. I mainly was after high end delays and reverbs. I wanted to be able to pipe in my hand picked unmatched pedals and later on, hopefully see if Proxy can create a close mimic. I wanted the unit for amps and anything else is just icing, a lot of icing on this cake. Possibilities are yet to be imagined, a supreme Star Trek level technical ecstasy. Looking forward to learning the unit more and upcoming additions and upgrades. My search for the best amp modeling capability has reached a mountain top. I cannot imagine anything "better" nor ease of use. Did I mention how much fun it is messing with this unit? The mere aspect of having fun playing is over looked, while there are certainly tons of options and params everywhere one does not seem to fall into the typical black hole of option paralysis I usually fall into.

Can we get some printable files of the manual and model lists?

Supposedly on release day?? is there any advance copy available for those of use already on the wait list? I would love to study on the unit's features before unboxing.

That's OK, I just sold it. I dig like the Helix once I got the right IRs it started really happening for me. It's just I am not 30 anymore and spending so much time tweaking and headphone work is something I need to start getting away from. The Helix has an infinite param adjust variability and I am getting where I cannot keep wrapping my head around so many options. I need to be able to just shut up and play my guitar, so I get to leave this website in peace. I do not want to say where my next gear acquisition will lead but I am deciding between two really amazing options. (Not Fractal or Kemper BTW) Anyway, so long to you Helix mavens, I enjoyed the forum and using the Helix. I hope the next upgrade rings the cow bell. Helix has a lot of potential but L6 has to take a hard turn away from the whole POD mentality and cheese effects thing. Not sure they can but they will sink or float on how they update the Helix. So long campers.

up on Reverb.com for $1200, includes my IR package and my presets, pro bound double side sheet protected manual for Helix and PC/Mac editor. Still making payments on it so nothing lower. Never gigged, never out of the studio/sound room, always dust covered. Why? It's not that I do not dig the unit and get some great tones, just that I have an insatiable desire to keep changing my rig. If no takers I will just keep using it but I have some ideas I want to try. If I let it go I do not have to deal with two payment things and having a gear conflict of too much stuff to use.

.... return of GAME OF THRONES! Can I just have an Avengers movie with just Scarlet? She is so fine.

I dislike the whole 57 vocal mic thing many so seem to love, Jim's are by far the best sounding but for me its the larger condensers CV4 I like, to me the 57 IRs, I have tried so many, while very popular apparently, to me sound so thin and mid rangy, the guitar is already midrange. I prefer Ribbon mics. Like to see JIm get some Ribbon mics. He does not have a bad IR in the bunch, even his 57 stuff is good which is not an easy thing for me. Really do not care for that sound. I also have some Ownhammer Ribbon mics I like a lot as well. I think its more like the recording guys like that sound and frequency restricted response and the 57 thing, to me I like I more rich and full range sound. Roseberry's IRs get a big thumbs up from me. Seems like he has something in there no matter your preferred tone ideal. Dig the Neve stuff as well, love to have a Mesa Cali V EQ curve on one of those notching about -3db at 750hz and a slight V on the low and high end. Dig the Thump 1 a lot myself.

I gave up using traditional guitar amps a long time ago. The Helix is my latest working of a non guitar amp rig. If you are using the Helix to run into an amp and not using the modeling, you wasted a whole lot of money. I do like a few cabs using the Coles 4038 what I was hating as that 57 and similar mics even on various IRs that sound is so thin and midrangy. I finally got some Ribbon mic IRs I like and stopped using the internal cabs. Some of the 4x12s with the 4038 sounded pretty good to me providing one does not choke off the frequency response like many seem to do. I am not interested in a thin midrange guitar sound and that seems to be a raving fav among many. What I was trying to get at in the former post was how much mics alter the sound and why can't there be some sort of DI like thing which gets the amp sound without coloring it so much with speaker and mic IRs. A bad speaker sim or IR can ruin an amp tone real quick or make it exceedingly difficult to get the tone one is after as is it the amp or the IR? Can a great IR make a crappy amp model sound good, maybe. Impulse Response seems to be the name of the game. I guess the point is you cannot use an amp without an IR whereas on your normal rig using your speakers natural sound you do not need a coloring IR and mic thing. I use a blend combination of a high end guitar speaker loaded 4x12 and a FRFR rig.

I think my fav is the weeper, at least it is more versatile to my various external pedals. I've messed with them all and seem to keep coming back to the weeper, chromes and thoaty but sometimes the sweep range is not all that great and for sure I turn mine down -3db seems to do well. The Teardrop is very mild if one wants a very light wah.

I thought I was getting a pretty good tone using the stock hybrid cabs in particular some of the 4x12s with the 4028 Coles Ribbon which I like for its more warmer less harsh rendering. Everything was going along, I tried about a hundred free IRs and just did not care for them. After trying some of Jim Roseberry's IRs (here on site) and buying some Ownhammer IRs for the Ribbon mics, the difference was pretty amazing. Of the 128 I now have loaded from Roseberry and Ownhammer none are bad, they are all good just a matter of minute changes in tone. Getting some better IRs made me keep the Helix, matters now where they go with the next update. Regarding IRs while I know many tend to love the 57 stuff, I really do not like that mic, for one thing it is a vocal engineered mic with a mid range bump right where I find the sound to be thin and high ended mid rangy. I much prefer the larger condenser mics like the CV4 and the Ownhammer Ribbon mics. Nice to be able to move the mic across the speaker surface and distance away using the series of IRs. Makes all the difference in the world for me. Ownhammer was only $15 and Roseberry gave a bunch of his out for free to beta them. Great stuff. I can get a decent sound using the internal cabs but the wrong mic and they sound terrible.

I look to the Mel9 as merely a background generator, but all in all the real Mellotron was a moody breakdown beast, they must have cut a hundred takes capturing it. Mine goes out on feed into my Trio line and then on to the FRFR rig. I see no other way to use these type of pedals than isolate them. I find a few settings pretty novel and others not so much but, yeah it is very much like a real oddball Mellotron in all its glory. I was using the Cello mode with my guitar feeds off, playing the Game of Thrones theme and my wife actually came up into the sound room very impressed by the accuracy of the tone and feel. The Quint is doing well for me, other than its novel +5th there are others comparable, tracking is notable to be sure. You have a wide range of adjustments. Since I always loved the lower -5th harmonizer mode on my Whammy V I may at some point return to it. I got a Ricochet Whammy and wish I had just gotten another Whammy V maybe even the DT downtune model and been ahead of the game. The Quint and a few others have the advantage of running multiple octaves and the 5th on the Quint but that has limited usage aspect. I find some interesting enhancements keeping the blend down and more subtle levels on my std tone. I would have much rather have a lower -5th than up. My advice in the pedal acquisition for better effects is the Whammy V, does it all but no multiple 8vas. I hate old version Gitchout whammys so which one did they bother to model, an old one of course. The Whammy V is true bypass, polyphonic and just wicked.

99.9% of everything I sample off the custom tone thing failed my 2 sec test, just a short sound test and yep that was a waste of time. Mysterious Ways, that one I remember was as if someone had not heard the song much less knew what that filter was.