Line 6 Helix - next gen guitarist's wet dream..?

    Well, Yamaha certainly devoted quite some resources into Line 6 (and certainly injected some money as well, hopefully for R&D), and indeed the Helix looks like a very interesting product unlike their recent efforts.


    OTOH, I absolutely can't stand Line 6 using the term 'flagship' anymore.
    Remember?
    Axsys - abandoned.
    Vetta II - abandoned
    Spider Valve - abandoned
    Pod HD 500 - abandoned
    Pod HD 500X - abandoned.


    I admit the unit is very well laid out though and I could certainly put it to good use.
    But in this price range the air gets extremely thin, and I doubt that Line 6 serves their target market and customer base with this one.
    Let's wait and see. ;)

    I have to admit it looks impressive and the sound the guy in the Sweetwater vid gets is certainly great.
    But my experience with Line6 products have always kinda been in the vein of "it's too good to be true" - and usually it was.
    Sounded great in the demos - but upfront and personal it was always "plasticy". I was especially disappointed in the HD series.
    I hope they have seriously upgraded their modelling tech in this new HX modelling tech (oh boy, they just love Marketing, don't they?)

    Very nice indeed. If the sound quality is like kemper's, we'll talk for any guitarists dream.(including the price)
    If the sound quality it's not as high as kemper's then we must check only the controller.

    I don't know how good this will sound, but I think the future is bright for modeling guitars !
    As much as I love my kemper, I'm pretty sure in 5 or 10 years we'll be able to buy $99 zoom pedals that will sound just as good as the Kemper today.

    Quote from allegretto

    Very nice indeed. If the sound quality is like kemper's, we'll talk for any guitarists dream.(including the price)
    If the sound quality it's not as high as kemper's then we must check only the controller.


    I agree. It's modelling though and not profiling.
    So I cannot imagine it can touch the Profiler.
    As a controller and high quality FX unit alone it would still be in a very good competitive price range when you think about what a few Strymons cost.


    P.S.: I think I just kind of partly contradicted my previous post, but so what... :)
    It's an interesting unit for sure.

    Nice to see some new digital amplification device.
    Visuals: amazing, wow!
    Sounds: well... is that it?
    The sound does really not do justice to the visuals of this product, in the videos available right now, maybe different in real life, but big disappointment between all the impressive presentation and the actual tone...

    Hey at least they have power switches. Also nice to see ir loading. But i agree. Lets see what the amp sims sound like through a quality ir. Seems the cab/mic engine is a bit more advanced, but have yet to see if they sorted out phase issues when using parallel cabs

    Looks cool. I remember my PODs with fondness. They were really good for my hobby a the time.


    I think at this point the bar is raised so high with Kemper and Fractal its going to be hard for Line6 to come to that level.
    That said, Yamaha products I've had have been solid, but then again I only buy a Yamaha product when it has the reviews saying it's solid.
    Clavinova, Motif, etc.


    But at that price point it has to compete with Fractal's products in that range and that is a tall order. We shall see. It's all entertainment to someone who already has their solution in this department.

    I listened to the review: again these "painful" trebles and high mids I always hated when using POD's (from the first POD until the HD500). Modelling amps just don't sound natural and they cannot offer the nice trebles and high mids of a real tube amp. The KPA is able to sound like a real tube-amp and that's the big difference between a Modelling amp and a Profiler.


    The other video doesn't really help, too, there are so many effects on each sound, it's hard to tell how the amp will sound without it.


    The Line 6 Helix might be a solid and nice tool, but soundwise it never will reach the tone of e real amp. And not to forget: it's quite expensive, too.

    ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    first name: Guenter / family name: Haas / www.guenterhaas.de

    Like 1
    Quote from meambobbo

    Im taking a wait and see approach.


    Same here. L6 has produced quite a few flaming turds over the years so I'm gonna sit out the early adoption on this one and see how it all works out a year down the line.
    But generally, color me interested...

    I'm just trying to be as truthful to my experience and personal opinion that I'm clearly presenting only as a personal opinion no more no less in an honest and truthful discussion about equipment.

    I was a Line6 fanboy since the first pod.
    Until the day the Kemper (and the fractal axe fx)blew it out of the water, it was the best amp modeling we could get.
    If they didn't start from the ground up with the amp modeling, reusing the POD500HD amps, I'm not interested.
    And at triple the price of the POD500HD?
    My wish is the boys in Germany come up with a smallish foot-pedal version of the Kemper.
    Something that fits in the airplane overhead.
    Ciao,
    Emilio

    The Helix is indeed nice looking and promising, and IMHO they are attacking the biggest issue with modelers (the user interface). It does not look like the Helix is less complicated than the HD500 at first glance, if anything it might be more complicated. But hopefully the Helix won't need the eternal tweaking necessary with the HD series to get good tones (I recorded and gigged with a HD500 for over 4 years until it was replaced by a Kemper).


    I don't think the Helix will be too much competition for the Kemper, as the Helix is more like a Fractal product (where the individual parts in an amp are modeled to get the tone). The Kemper is a different concept entirely in that it emulates the response and tone of amps it profiles. This makes the Line 6 and Fractal user somewhat limited to whatever amp models are provided by the manufacturer, where Kemper owners can have an unending number of profiles of an almost infinite number of amps. So I would think the real comparison would be between the Helix and the Axe FX II and perhaps the Amplifire.


    Is there really a market for a $1500 modeler pedal from Line 6? Will the price of the upcoming Fractal AX8 be less than that? Can Line 6 really make a product that sounds better than the Fractal units, and will anyone even give it a chance? IMHO the Helix has a very steep hill to climb.


    I expect that eventually the folks at Kemper will develop a unit that will only play back profiles, not perform actual amp profiling. I would think that many users of Kempers would be happy to just download and use existing profiles and not make their own. If they could put the Kemper tone quality and profile playback capability in a less expensive foot pedal unit, the competition would be decimated.

    Yeah profiling is definitely the way to go, especially now that we have cab separation. One thing that might be cool to do would be a little app where you put the tone stack config and values of the amp along with the settings it was profiled at. Then you deconvolve that from the profile and load that tonestack model into profile so you have the same tone control behaviour as the amp.