Brightness Scribble Strip

[erpece]

I have set the scribble stripe brightness to 100 in Global Settings, but it is nowhere as bright as the Helix Floor. I sometimes play outside at festivals (sunny) and this would be a big issue for me. Am I missing something? 

[PHroom335]

I have the same problem; on a stage with a lot of spotlights, it is difficult to read.

[MojoAxe]

I've got a dozen outdoor gigs on the schedule already and I'm concerned that the scribble strips will be impossible to see.   The Helix Floor has LCDs which are highly visible in direct sunlight, but the Stadium's OLEDs wash out.  Making a sunshade is on my list of things to do next week.

[Cerrucho]

I've already confronted this situation and had to repeatedly lean down to see my snapshots. I suggested that Line 6 include the Performance Mode for Stadium XL in a future firmware update to get around this, as replacing all the OLEDs with LCDs is probably not viable. I did go through and organize my LED foot switch rings by color but those are also less bright than on the original Helix Floor. I have an upcoming national tour in June, and I'm even considering selling  the Stadium XL and getting the smaller Stadium. That's how serious this problem is.

[lwilliams]

I played my first festival of the year with the Stadium.  All gigs since I got it in November were indoors.

 

The scribble strip were totally unreadable.   The rings around the switch - could not tell if they were on or off.   It was a cloudy day with no sunshine.  Covered stage at Noon.   So, no stage lighting.

 

This is not good.   Between songs I could find what I needed by sound.  But, in mid-song, quick changes were very stressful.   Hoping for help from Line 6 on this.....doubt that it will happen.

[jpdennis]

On 5/2/2026 at 1:56 PM, MojoAxe said:

I've got a dozen outdoor gigs on the schedule already and I'm concerned that the scribble strips will be impossible to see.   The Helix Floor has LCDs which are highly visible in direct sunlight, but the Stadium's OLEDs wash out.  Making a sunshade is on my list of things to do next week.

 

@MojoAxe  I made a portable solid sunshade device years ago for my OG Helix.  The initial reason was to reduce and overheating issues.  Using it with the Stadium requires me to set the brightness and brightness timeout.  I haven't had a lot of outside high daylight venues since getting the Stadium so far.  For the one during a late afternoon it was passable.  It was not optimal.

 

jpd

[MojoAxe]

I played my first outdoor gig this weekend, and the display brightness issue is worse than I expected.  I had planned to make a sunshield however our biggest concern this past Saturday was getting rained out so I didn't bother making a shield.  Fortunately it didn't rain, but the was completely overcast.  The sun was behind me making a hotspot in the overcast sky, but there was never any direct sunlight.

 

I normally keep the displays on about 80% brightness in the house but outdoors the displays weren't visible at all at this setting.  I turned the touchscreen and scribble strips to max brightness.  From a playing position the scribble strips were unreadable due to the sky reflecting on the glass surface.  I had step up directly over the Stadium in which case I could read the scribble strip, but barely. The only button LEDs that were visible were those colored red.  Any other color was washed out completely.  Reflections were not an issue with the touchscreen so its was more legible, although it was faint even at max brightness.  I got through the gig, but if it had been a bright sunny day I might have been dead in the water.  

 

I have four outdoor gigs next month so making a sunshield is going to be imperative.  If the sun is behind me then the displays may not be bright enough even with a shield. I plan to dust off my trusty Boss GT-1000 as a backup just in case the sunlight makes the Stadium unusable.  

 

In my opinion, using OLEDs for the scribble strips rather than LCDs (like the OG Helix) is a major design flaw.  LCDs are highly visible in direct sunlight because they don't rely on backlighting to be seen.  The Stadium's scribble strips aren't in color, so I don't understand why they changed from LCDs to OLEDs.  With the exception of when I'm using the tuner, I can get by without seeing the touchscreen, but seeing the scribble strips is essential.

[theElevators]

Even on the Helix Floor, the scribble strips are hard to see in direct sunlight.  That's why I have always preferred the virtual scribble strips of the Helix LT when playing outdoors.  On a dark stage the Helix Floor is king.  It could be a very simple software update to also include virtual scribble strips on the Stadium XL.  (I don't own the Stadium)

[MojoAxe]

Just a thought; If they cannot make the scribble strips any brighter then another possible solution that might make the text more visible is to reverse the colors (white background with black text).  It could be a simple global setting.   I don't know if this would improve visibility or not, but its something they could try.

[Melodioso]

I fear that there are no solution for these complains, except building some kind of sunshade (but it's kind of ugly tbh). They cannot replace all the LED ring lights and scribble stripes now.

 

That was the first thing that I noticed as I turned on for the first time the Stadium XL. My beloved HX Stomp was just next to it. The brightness of the LED ring lights was exactly the same on both device and I thought "Missed opportunity there". I guess we just have to learn by heart what button does what ^^

[bbehrens]

Interesting that all of the YouTubers out there that got a sneak peak at the Stadium were raving about how the scribble strips, stability, and Amp modeling were all better than the OG Helix and better than anything else on the market. I love today's YouTube advertising work force. Line 6 was really busy amping it all up about nine months ago. It seems like they are counting their profits and worrying about what they are going to do with their flagship platform that is getting beat up by gigging musicians. I see a price drop in the Helix Stadium future if this keeps up.

[MojoAxe]

I played at an outdoor festival this weekend on a stage with a canopy, using a sunshade over the Stadium, with the brightness of the scribble strips set to 100%, and still I could barely read the scribble strips. The problem is two-fold.  The OLEDs aren't nearly bright enough, and the glass picks up reflections so you have to move around to find an angle where you can read the text.  The scribble strips for the active buttons were faint, but they could be seen.  The OLED pixels for the inactive buttons are dimmed so they were nearly impossible to read even when I bent over for a closer look.  The LED rings around the buttons could not be seen.  Had it not been for the canopy, I believe that the Stadium may have been rendered unusable.

 

I submitted a support ticket a while back about the poor visibility of the scribble strips.  I doubt that they can turn up the brightness much without damaging the OLEDs, but there are some things that could be done to improve the visibility.  My suggestion is that they could create a "performance" setting which eliminates dimming of the inactive buttons.  Instead, all OLEDs would be at maximum brightness, and the active buttons would have the pixel colors inverted to designate the buttons which are active.  Something similar to the attached concept image.  They still wouldn't have the high visibility of an LCD display, but it would be an improvement.

 

I love my Stadium, but I have a number of outdoor gigs this summer and if I end up in direct sunlight situation, the Stadium may be unusable.  I play in three different bands and I'm one of those guys that creates a lot of song-specific presets, so memorizing what each button does in order to use the unit blindly is not an option.  I really don't want to do it, but I plan to take my Boss GT-1000 as a backup to all outdoor gigs just in case the Stadium is impossible to use.