Helix Stadium XL Improvement Ideas from a full-time gigging musician/long-time Kemper guy

[rap1102]

Let me first say that I love this thing; feels so much more inspiring to play through the Helix Stadium than the Kemper for me. Love the plethora of effects/routing options/amp models. That being said, I have noticed some issues in the past month of ownership that I feel could easily be fixed with future updates. The list:

 

1) HEEL DOWN TUNER

Maybe this is just coming from Kemper, but I am so used to having the tuner activate when the volume pedal is in the heel down position. I rely on this for quick tuning changes between songs more than I anticipated, and I feel like it’s an easy thing to add.

 

2) DEDICATED LOOPER STOP BUTTON

I do a fair bit of live looping for solo acoustic gigs; with the Kemper, there was a dedicated stop button to store the loop/not have it autoplay for when I want to loop a section and play it later. From what I’ve seen, Helix Stadium does not currently support this, which makes live looping much more restrictive than on the Kemper.

 

3) INVERTED COLOR OPTION FOR SCRIBBLE STRIPS

Most of my gigs have been outside during the day, and even at max brightness I really cannot see the touchscreen or the scribble strips at all (especially wearing sunglasses). I feel like a simple solution would be to invert the blacks & whites on the scribble strips so that it could be black text on white background. Or maybe there are polarized screen protectors that help with this? If anyone has dealt with this issue and has another solution, please let me know.

 

4) NO DIRECT MONITORING USING HELIX STADIUM AS INTERFACE

The Kemper has a very simple option on the output section to turn on/off Direct Monitoring when using as an interface (mostly for reamping purposes); I am not seeing a simple option like this on the Helix Stadium XL. Again, this may just be me not looking hard enough, so if anyone knows how to make this work please let me know.

 

These are not dealbreakers by any means (the looper one a bit more so than others), but I really do feel these are easily addressable/improvable issues in future updates. Hoping the powers that be see this and consider implementing these changes. Would love to hear other people’s experiences!

[silverhead]

On 7/15/2026 at 9:26 PM, rap1102 said:

…. Hoping the powers that be see this and consider implementing these changes. …

The official method for bringing feature requests like this directly to the attention of Line 6 is here:

https://line6.com/company/contact/productfeedback/
 

[rap1102]

On 7/16/2026 at 5:15 AM, silverhead said:

The official method for bringing feature requests like this directly to the attention of Line 6 is here:

https://line6.com/company/contact/productfeedback/
 

Exactly what I was looking for, thank you! I encourage anyone who feels similarly about these issues to submit feedback as well, I’m sure multiple submissions would encourage Line 6 to make these changes!

[MojoAxe]

Some time ago I submitted feedback requests for the heel-down tuner as well as reversing the colors of the scribble strips, but for anybody else who thinks these are important issues to be addressed I suggest that you chime in as well as it may help to move a solution higher on the to-do list.

 

I'm really surprised that there aren't more people barking about the brightness of the display because they are next to impossible to see outdoors.  At the full brightness setting, the active scribble strips are barely legible, and the dimmed inactive scribble strips washout completely.  My guess is that the brightness cannot be increased without burning out the OLEDs, however simply reversing the colors would make them much easier to see.  My suggestion was to reverse the color of the active scribble strips for higher visibility.  The inactive strips would have the text illuminated on a black background, but the brightness would be increase to full intensity so that they can be seen. better  Something like the attached image.

 

It would also be nice to have an option to separate the tuner from the tap tempo button.  I set all of my time-based effects to the tempo and its too easy to accidentally double-tap the tuner button when activating the tuner, in which case the tempo is changed to some random value.  Moving the tuner to the heel-down position of the expression pedal is a very logical way to activate it.  Volume goes down, tuner goes on.  My Boss GT-1000 is setup this way.  Some people might be happy with the shared tuner/tap tempo button which is fine, but it would be easy enough to give us an option for activating the tuner in another manner.

 

[Propower]

Discrete looper commands for stop and start our top on my list for what I need in the in the new Helix Stadium. 

As a workaround MIDI CC 59 should be implemented correctly so that 0 to 63 equals stop and 64 to 127 equals play. As it is today, none of those values make a difference. They all trigger a play/stop command. Major bummer for me.... Both of these features existed in the old helix.

[rap1102]

On 7/16/2026 at 9:15 PM, MojoAxe said:

It would also be nice to have an option to separate the tuner from the tap tempo button.  I set all of my time-based effects to the tempo and its too easy to accidentally double-tap the tuner button when activating the tuner, in which case the tempo is changed to some random value.  Moving the tuner to the heel-down position of the expression pedal is a very logical way to activate it.  Volume goes down, tuner goes on.  My Boss GT-1000 is setup this way.  Some people might be happy with the shared tuner/tap tempo button which is fine, but it would be easy enough to give us an option for activating the tuner in another manner.

 

100% agree, at least having the option to do heel down! Feel like it can't be that difficult from a software standpoint and honestly not sure why it isn't one to begin with.

[rap1102]

On 7/17/2026 at 10:40 PM, Propower said:

Discrete looper commands for stop and start our top on my list for what I need in the in the new Helix Stadium. 

As a workaround MIDI CC 59 should be implemented correctly so that 0 to 63 equals stop and 64 to 127 equals play. As it is today, none of those values make a difference. They all trigger a play/stop command. Major bummer for me.... Both of these features existed in the old helix.

 

It almost renders the looper useless for live contexts to not have a dedicated stop button. I also tried the MIDI workaround, alas to no avail.

[erpece]

On 7/17/2026 at 6:15 AM, MojoAxe said:

Some time ago I submitted feedback requests for the heel-down tuner as well as reversing the colors of the scribble strips, but for anybody else who thinks these are important issues to be addressed I suggest that you chime in as well as it may help to move a solution higher on the to-do list.

 

I'm really surprised that there aren't more people barking about the brightness of the display because they are next to impossible to see outdoors.  At the full brightness setting, the active scribble strips are barely legible, and the dimmed inactive scribble strips washout completely.  My guess is that the brightness cannot be increased without burning out the OLEDs, however simply reversing the colors would make them much easier to see.  My suggestion was to reverse the color of the active scribble strips for higher visibility.  The inactive strips would have the text illuminated on a black background, but the brightness would be increase to full intensity so that they can be seen. better  Something like the attached image.

 

It would also be nice to have an option to separate the tuner from the tap tempo button.  I set all of my time-based effects to the tempo and its too easy to accidentally double-tap the tuner button when activating the tuner, in which case the tempo is changed to some random value.  Moving the tuner to the heel-down position of the expression pedal is a very logical way to activate it.  Volume goes down, tuner goes on.  My Boss GT-1000 is setup this way.  Some people might be happy with the shared tuner/tap tempo button which is fine, but it would be easy enough to give us an option for activating the tuner in another manner.

 

 

On 7/17/2026 at 6:15 AM, MojoAxe said:

Some time ago I submitted feedback requests for the heel-down tuner as well as reversing the colors of the scribble strips, but for anybody else who thinks these are important issues to be addressed I suggest that you chime in as well as it may help to move a solution higher on the to-do list.

 

I'm really surprised that there aren't more people barking about the brightness of the display because they are next to impossible to see outdoors.  At the full brightness setting, the active scribble strips are barely legible, and the dimmed inactive scribble strips washout completely.  My guess is that the brightness cannot be increased without burning out the OLEDs, however simply reversing the colors would make them much easier to see.  My suggestion was to reverse the color of the active scribble strips for higher visibility.  The inactive strips would have the text illuminated on a black background, but the brightness would be increase to full intensity so that they can be seen. better  Something like the attached image.

 

It would also be nice to have an option to separate the tuner from the tap tempo button.  I set all of my time-based effects to the tempo and its too easy to accidentally double-tap the tuner button when activating the tuner, in which case the tempo is changed to some random value.  Moving the tuner to the heel-down position of the expression pedal is a very logical way to activate it.  Volume goes down, tuner goes on.  My Boss GT-1000 is setup this way.  Some people might be happy with the shared tuner/tap tempo button which is fine, but it would be easy enough to give us an option for activating the tuner in another manner.

 

 

I absolutley agree. Have used a Helix Floor since 2018 and that scribble strip brightness is just fine. No clue why they decided to chenge that... I have posted this as feedback at Line6.

[rdunaway]

For item 3, you’re definitely not the only one. Other Stadium XL owners have reported the same problem at outdoor shows and under bright stage lighting. This article summarizes those reports and a few practical things to check:

https://helixguitar.com/articles/helix-stadium-xl-scribble-strips-bright-light

I haven’t seen a confirmed inverted-color option or fix yet.

[Propower]

Just loaded firmware 1.4. Still no discrete stop and start commands for the looper.  With MIDI - CC59 0-63 does do a STOP - YAY. BUT CC59 64-127 does Start/Stop instead of just START. In my particular use case when I do solo shows, I use snapshot one to have the base sound and then use snapshots 23 and four for various solo sounds that also triggered the looper. In the past with the old helix, I would sometimes start at one sound and then go to a more extreme sound as I'm working through a solo section. Each of the solo snapshots just reiterated the play command so the loop would just keep going.  Now I'll have to change to have one basic solo sound that starts the loop and then have to use it in stomp mode to add and subtract other elements of effects.  Work but still not ideal. Would be better if CC59 64-127 would just be a play command for the loop like in the old helix and then use one of the reserved looper slots for the play/stop command. Regardless, I am grateful that we at least have he discreet stop command in MIDI available. It would be nice if this was a straight assignable looper command, and didn't have to use a midi cable going from the end into the out to make it happen.