Curious: why are all the reverbs Line 6?

[Lone_Poor_Boy]

And most delays as well? Are reverbs just fairly generic and not very unique?

[datacommando]

2 hours ago, Lone_Poor_Boy said:

And most delays as well? Are reverbs just fairly generic and not very unique?

I’m not quite sure what you are implying by saying “why?”
 

It”s fairly obvious that as Line 6 made this thing so, they made the reverbs that are included in the hardware. Unless, of course, you are making a reference to why none are modelled on those very famous effects units made by a certain brand made by Damage Control under the name Strymon.
 

It has been mentioned many times before that those guys who founded that company had previously worked for Alesis and Line 6, and have created some really interesting reverb/delay FX boxes. Furthermore, it has also been explained that the reason those reverbs are so spectacular, is because the processing power required to produce those lush sparkling sounds is approximately the same as one of the DSPs in the Helix. Rather than halve the power of your Helix machine,  Line 6 have utilised the Send/Return option so the you are able to add whatever fancy delay/reverb box that fits your particular need.
 

It is possible to create some pretty slick ambient sounds by stacking and ganging various onboard FX if you play around with what is already there (which is essentially what a Big Sky is doing). You have lots of options there and if not spend some money on expanding your sound with Strymon or Eventide. Oh, yeah, out in the real world lots of ambient stuff is done by using more than one of those Eventide H9 boxes because a single unit is not capable of doing more than one thing at once - then it becomes really expensive.

 

Hope that helps/makes sense.

 

 

[emagli]

I think there is also a matter of intellectual property for the algorithms implemented in digital effects such as digital delays and reverbs. If Line6 "copied" them into their own model, they should obtain a license from the inventors. Not the case for most analog pedals and amps, whose circuits are not protected by patents.

 

And I agree with the issue of DSP power. If an algorithm uses a lot of DSP power, I would probably want to have it as a separate stompbox. The way I see it, Helix should provide models of effects that use a reasonable amount of power; for high end stuff (like Strymon-like reverbs), I don't think it would be reasonable to have them within the Helix. This is why I am curious to see which polyphonic pitch shifting effects will appear in the 3.0 firmware. These tend to be power-hungry, so while I'd love to get rid of the Digitech Drop for drop tuning and use an equivalent Helix model, I am afraid this may severely limit the number of other blocks that can be inserted in the same patch.

 

For reverbs, I have been considering purchasing an Eventide H9 (you know, during these stay-at-home times one has to keep themselves busy...). I also have a TC Electronics Hall of Fame, so I compared the usability of the Helix Reverbs versus the HoF. It is all subjective, but here's my thoughts. For regular stuff like rock/blues, where you don't want to hear the reverb too much, I think the legacy reverbs are perfect. Actually the spring reverb is better than the one in the HoF (which sounds too kinda metallic). When you want to hear the reverb a little more and use longer decay, I think that in general the HoF is slightly better (the reverb tails sound a bit more musical to me). The legacy reverbs are very tweakable though, and you can get almost there with a bit of work. The high cut parameter is essentially a tone control (maybe it should be called as such!) and will allow you to make the tails brighter or darker. One has to be careful though, because too bright or too dark may not sound good; the HoF tone control has a more limited range where almost every setting sounds good. All in all, I am using the HoF because I particularly like a couple of reverbs and one particular Toneprint, but I could easily live with the legacy reverbs. I would not buy the HoF if I didn't have it already, and I decided against buying an H9.

For the new reverbs, these are a bit more out-there; I find Glitz and Ganymede usable and the others are a bit too much for me. They sound good and may be useful once in a while, but I can see that if you regularly need that type of reverb, you might want to purchase a dedicated effect.

 

Oh and the delays are VERY good IMO. Hard for me to see that I would want to upgrade them.

 

I thought phasers were a bit of a weak area, but we have had the Small Stone model with 2.90...

[Lone_Poor_Boy]

22 hours ago, datacommando said:

I’m not quite sure what you are implying by saying “why?”
 

It”s fairly obvious that as Line 6 made this thing so, they made the reverbs that are included in the hardware. Unless, of course, you are making a reference to why none are modelled on those very famous effects units made by a certain brand made by Damage Control under the name Strymon.

 

Hope that helps/makes sense.

 

 

Yes, it was just a curiosity.  I don't have a favorite that was left out.   Thanks for the response.

[Lone_Poor_Boy]

14 hours ago, emagli said:

And I agree with the issue of DSP power. If an algorithm uses a lot of DSP power, I would probably want to have it as a separate stompbox.

 

Again, curiosity, as I have not been a big effects user through all my guitar playing years.  Most ever at once was a Dunlop Wah, Tube Screamer, Line 6 Delay, and Carl Martin Compressor. 

 

Are there other big name effects that aren't included because of DSP use?

 

[datacommando]

12 minutes ago, Lone_Poor_Boy said:

Are there other big name effects that aren't included because of DSP use?

As previously mentioned, it may not be totally a question of DSP usage, but that some things may infringe intellectual copyright, among other issues. Polyphonic pitch shifting is the big thing that many users have been shouting for and is rumoured to by in the pipeline. Many are hoping that it will make an appearance in v3.0. I can live with out it, but hey if it’s in there for free...thank you Line 6.

 

Hope this helps/makes sense