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Summer NAMM 2015 - Will Helix Be There?


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need a NYC NAMM...

AES is as close as you're gonna get, assuming that it still shows up at the Javit's Center...last time I went was the late 90's, but that's where I heard of L6 for the first time. They were pimping the original POD Farm, as I recall.

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Got to see the Helix at NAMM - nice looking and the screen is even bigger than I thought.  They didn't really have any patches other than one the guys at the booth had made for demoing - he said they were working on the patch list now for release.  I cycled through some of the amps - but it was kind of weird to be honest - the Fender amps for example that I expected to be clean were dirty and so forth.  For effects the Uvibe did sound really good.

 

I think - and this is just my opinion - that Line 6 is taking this new product opportunity to do a heavy push on the Stagesource stuff - notice that is what they are using in the demo.  I'd heard their sales on that stuff vs the DT amp series wasn't that great.  To me, that hurt the demo.  It really didn't sound that good (looked good, interface awesome) - but again the room was noisy and they had to watch their volume, etc...

 

It just so happens that I had ordered a L2T to try out and got it Saturday - so I messed with it a lot at home Sat/Sun with my POD HD500X.  I wasn't impressed.  I like the sound of my PODHD500X through studio monitors much better - or my DT25.

 

All that to say - I'm not sure?  I can't really tell how the Helix would have sounded in it's best scenario because of the way they were running it - but I can tell you through the L2T it wasn't my cup of tea.

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Got to see the Helix at NAMM - nice looking and the screen is even bigger than I thought.  They didn't really have any patches other than one the guys at the booth had made for demoing - he said they were working on the patch list now for release.  I cycled through some of the amps - but it was kind of weird to be honest - the Fender amps for example that I expected to be clean were dirty and so forth.  For effects the Uvibe did sound really good.

 

I think - and this is just my opinion - that Line 6 is taking this new product opportunity to do a heavy push on the Stagesource stuff - notice that is what they are using in the demo.  I'd heard their sales on that stuff vs the DT amp series wasn't that great.  To me, that hurt the demo.  It really didn't sound that good (looked good, interface awesome) - but again the room was noisy and they had to watch their volume, etc...

 

It just so happens that I had ordered a L2T to try out and got it Saturday - so I messed with it a lot at home Sat/Sun with my POD HD500X.  I wasn't impressed.  I like the sound of my PODHD500X through studio monitors much better - or my DT25.

 

All that to say - I'm not sure?  I can't really tell how the Helix would have sounded in it's best scenario because of the way they were running it - but I can tell you through the L2T it wasn't my cup of tea.

 

You might just need a little more time to play around with it. Anything you run it through will require tweaking, be it an FRFR speaker or more traditional guitar rig. I wouldn't expect patches designed for use with a DT amp, or studio monitors to be instantly usable on something else. Even two different FRFR speakers aren't gonna give you identical tones.

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Watch out for HD500 and StageSource interacting with each other and changing your output mode - for example the HD500 can go into Combo Poweramp mode and the speaker into Guitar, but you might get half of that with the speaker as reference and the pod expecting the speaker to be simulating a guitar cab.

 

My reaction to an L2t (placed on it's side as a monitor) when connected to an HD500 was that it was good, but I was definitely on Studio output mode on the HD and floor monitor on the speaker.  My patches have always been programmed for Studio, but even then I did need to tweak to compensate for failings of my previous amplification system that I had built into the patches.  I actually removed a parameteric eq needed for a speaker resonance and was able to turn up the Resonance DEP, once I had done this the sound went from good to really impressed. You should have seen the faces of the bass player and drummer of the band we were sharing gear with when during our soundcheck having played only electric sounds I switched to an acoustic model on the JTV.  :blink:

 

I haven't read of anybody who was not at least happy with an HD into L2t via L6Link - some do still prefer a DT for electric and only use the L2t for Acoustic, but others sell their DT as being superfluous. 

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The whole point of FRFR is to NOT have to tweak your patches - they should translate perfectly.  When I design my patches with headphones they translate to monitors and to a PA if I am using earbuds.  If I use my DT25 the patch must be different - but why would I buy an L2T if I have to tweak it too - I'd rather just use an amp in that case.

 

My output modes were correct and I used patches I was familiar with and designed several new from scratch I know how to setup only the fly and what they should sound like - still wasn't impressed.

 

In addition to that - the speaker vibration rattled something internally that didn't sound good with certain frequencies.  Needless to say I just dropped it off at UPS for return.

 

Other favs from NAMM - the Hughes and Kettner Triamp sounded great - and I liked the Roland JC40 and Blues Cubes.

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The whole point of FRFR is to NOT have to tweak your patches - they should translate perfectly. When I design my patches with headphones they translate to monitors and to a PA if I am using earbuds. If I use my DT25 the patch must be different - but why would I buy an L2T if I have to tweak it too - I'd rather just use an amp in that case.

 

My output modes were correct and I used patches I was familiar with and designed several new from scratch I know how to setup only the fly and what they should sound like - still wasn't impressed.

 

In addition to that - the speaker vibration rattled something internally that didn't sound good with certain frequencies. Needless to say I just dropped it off at UPS for return.

 

Other favs from NAMM - the Hughes and Kettner Triamp sounded great - and I liked the Roland JC40 and Blues Cubes.

The speaker rattle is well documented warranty issue...went through that myself. It's pathetic that it's as widespread a problem as it is, especially this long into production, but they are quite good about fixing it.

 

As for the rest, there's nothing wrong with not liking a piece of gear, but I think you're expecting a little much from the whole FRFR concept. I'd love it if I never had to tweak patches again. It's a pain in the arse sometimes...but nothing is ever that convenient. Like everything else in the universe, not all FRFR speakers are created equal. There will be differences. There should be perhaps a bit less tweaking required from one to the next, as compared to 2 different guitar amps, but two different boxes with different speakers are exactly that...different. I would be utterly amazed if I plugged in the same patch to different FRFR set-ups and found them indistinguishable.

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I think - and this is just my opinion - that Line 6 is taking this new product opportunity to do a heavy push on the Stagesource stuff - notice that is what they are using in the demo. I'd heard their sales on that stuff vs the DT amp series wasn't that great. To me, that hurt the demo. It really didn't sound that good (looked good, interface awesome) - but again the room was noisy and they had to watch their volume, etc...

 

It just so happens that I had ordered a L2T to try out and got it Saturday - so I messed with it a lot at home Sat/Sun with my POD HD500X. I wasn't impressed. I like the sound of my PODHD500X through studio monitors much better - or my DT25.......

 

-------------------------------

 

All that to say - I'm not sure? I can't really tell how the Helix would have sounded in it's best scenario because of the way they were running it - but I can tell you through the L2T it wasn't my cup of tea.The whole point of FRFR is to NOT have to tweak your patches - they should translate perfectly. When I design my patches with headphones they translate to monitors and to a PA if I am using earbuds. If I use my DT25 the patch must be different - but why would I buy an L2T if I have to tweak it too - I'd rather just use an amp in that case.

 

 

So before I begin, I understand the Helix is designed to work with multiple types of output amps and speakers, from FRFR to DT25/50 to guitar amps, etc.

 

But as a now former HD500 and DT25 owner, for me, I saw the writing on the wall with the Helix. Which is why I now have a Helix and a Mission Engineering Gemini 1 on order.

 

Helix has tons of digital processing power and brand new from-scratch HX models which represent Line 6's best effort yet to emulate tube amp tone, response, and sonic attributes. The better the fundamental signal output of Helix represents reality, the more you want an amp/speaker system to just faithfully convert that to sound, without coloring or impacting it further.

 

I believe, partially from what I've heard so far and partially on educated faith that Helix is good enough to just go FRFR and forget the other options. I considered and listened to Stagesource and am taking another leap of faith - that I'll be happier with the Mission Engineering Gemini offering given its features and form factor.

 

I'll be happy to report back what I observe with this pairing once I have it in hand and have had some time with it. But I'm beyond excited because 1) I'll spend far less time getting the tones I want with this new interface/UI and less dependencies compared to the HD500 and 2) the anticipated quality of Helix, based on like-powered Kemper and AxeFx products.

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