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

    Quote from roadrunner

    The question in my mind is- Are Line 6 chasing the leaders in this digital field with a quality product at a well pitched price point, or have they gift wrapped another turkey in a sexy little black number ready for the mighty Line 6 marketing machine to steam through the masses at a price they think they can get away with?
    Cynical i know but, if it were the former, wouldn't Yamaha want their name on the product?


    It depends on how Yamaha wants to leverage the Line 6 brand. They may intend to use the L6 badge for all of their guitar processors going forward. (In contrast with the Roland/Boss tendency to badge high-end products as Roland - and even that trend seems to be breaking down.)


    I don't think there's anyway the Helix is going to sound as good as a Kemper with the right hand-picked profile loaded. The architectures just lend different strengths: profiling will absolutely nail that one sound; modeling will approximate the behavior of an entire system, even as amp settings etc. are modified. But despite the compromise in tone, I often find the latter more intuitive to work with. I'm not holding my breath for Kemper tones out of a Helix, then, but if it sounds as good as, e.g. Bias Amps, I'll be thrilled.


    Quote from lasvideo

    Current info from Line 6 indicate it will be available thru Sweetwater on August 12. YMMV


    Wow I would love it if that were accurate. Everything I've seen indicates late August, or even early September. It's going to be very difficult to think about anything else between now and then...

    Quote from SwAn1


    Like Kemper, FAS also has a pretty big commitment to providing regular updates and improvements, something it seems that Line 6 has not done in the past with other products (though I have no personal experience with any of their products specifically, Kemper and FAS seem to be the exception rather than the norm - for instance, my Roland GR55 hasn't seen an update in years and probably never will have another one.)


    Comparing with Roland skews things a little bit, as they are the extreme opposite of Kemper, etc - often releasing products that never see a single firmware update. The GR55 had one minor bug fix firmware before Roland announced they were done, and no one who's owned their products before was surprised.


    Line6 is a happy medium in this regard, I think. I've been off Line 6 for a few generations now, but watching from the sidelines it looks like they get fairly substantial f/w upgrades two or three times per product cycle. Enough to offer some new content without turning all their customers into underpaid software engineers LOL.

    Quote from Monkey_Man

    Ha. You're a balanced dude, man. That 3 weeks' delay I mentioned was on top of the month I waited for the unit to reach Australia, so I totally understand where you're coming from, as I suspect you do I. I'm just cutting them some slack 'cause the product's so great and the company's not huge... but I think you've figured that this was what I was getting at anyway. Ah, if only the world was this agreeable. Thank you for showing the sensitivity you did, mate. No feathers ruffled here (impossible, really).


    Hey, thanks for the compliment. I know I have to check myself now and again, because we've all had our own unique experiences as Kemper owners, and mine has (hopefully, thankfully?) been an unusual one. The latest speedbump is I can't find the damned thing. Allegedly repaired - and major props to Kemper for their generous warranty - but now no one will respond to emails to tell me where it is or when I might expect to see it again. As soon as I do, I'll be selling it, and not least because of the cottage industry (yes the same kind of industry I would prefer to "champion") style service.


    Anyway, yes, thanks for being so agreeable, and for tolerating my moody waffling. :)

    Ha!


    You know, I should warn you that although all the L6 products I bought were reliable (POD v1.0 through to POD X3 Live & Pro), things changed with the HD line. The Variax story is interesting too, so here's a brief summary:


    POD HD500
    Twisted chassis - wouldn't sit flat on floor so used carpet.
    Software updates often complicated by bank-name changes and bizarre, obscure (hidden 'till you search the 'net for them) firmware reset procedures and checks.
    Power supply absolute crap. Toy quality.
    Sound and editing - you know the story here. Pathetic, really.


    Variax 700, JTV59, 69, 89 and 89F
    I had to buy 6 Variaxes over a period of at least 6 or 7 years to find the two I chose to keep.
    All others had serious, irreparable issues.
    Of the 2 I chose to keep, 1 had 15 problems out of the box (JTV69). I solved them all in a year by myself.
    The other (89F) has a twisted neck, but now that its other issues have been fixed, such as not being able to be switched on(!) out of the box I can live with it.


    The Variax experience taught me that there are serious QC issues at L6; there's no escaping this conclusion given that 6 or 7 years of my life was wasted chasing a guitar that wasn't broken in some way and that stayed in tune. Both wholesalers I dealt with (one for 3 or 4 years, followed by the newly-designated one after the original went out of business) had to wait roughly 3+ months for new shipments of guitars and parts. One hooked me up with a local repair man who held onto my guitar (new, unplayed!) for 7 months. When I finally managed to chase him down he said that he'd lost my number. I asked him why he didn't just ring the wholesaler and he said he hadn't thought of it. I asked him if he could fix the guitar, now that he had my number again, and he said he's no longer going to work on 'em; it was time to "give the game away".


    I could go on; words barely express what I had to endure. My point is, Kemper is gold from my highly-coloured perspective. L6 effectively sucked the creative energy and enthusiasm out of me. This is partly because there was already a tragic history, spanning decades, of my trying to get a guitar with low action that'd stay in tune (finger weakness meant I couldn't start learning guitar 'til I found one). I endured threats of violence from a luthier (I burned that guitar 'cause after $2500 and a 7-year wait it wasn't worth the wood it was made from), and even lost my future wife (she proposed and I said we should wait) 'cause infidelity from another luthier (my best friend, whilst working on my next failed guitar!) saw her end up getting burned to death in the tragic 2009 Marysville bushfire.


    YMMV, and for your sake I hope to God that it varies a whole lot from the dark nightmare I had to endure. Who knows, you may be one of the "lucky" ones, mbenigni. Fingers crossed for you, mate.


    PS: Sorry for the serious stuff; I don't talk about it, but I think context is everything when it comes to how a company treats its customers. Now, back to trying to forget my entire past... :)

    Jesus, I'm so sorry - that is a crazy story... I can't even quite make sense of all of it. It is amazing how the frustrating pursuit of gear can trip up your creative life, even your personal life in extreme cases. I've wasted a lot of years "kissing frogs", as well. But nothing like that. So sorry for your loss, man.


    As for Line 6, they never struck me as a company that had any business building or distributing guitars. All of their previous products were essentially thinly wrapped software. I owned several Variaxes and all of my experiences were like your own - right down to a repair center that sat on two guitars for months and months before admitting they didn't actually have any idea how to fix them. I've since gutted all of my Variaxes and used them for parts for transplants, i.e. put them in guitars that are worth a damn. And even then, the piezos are just too unreliable for anything other than toying around with them in the safety of my own home.


    As for QC for their preamps/processors - hopefully the Helix will be OK. If nothing else, it has an internal power supply, so that's one less thing. But there is a whole lot of mechanical stuff to consider, including those capacitive switches. I'll have to run it through it's paces pretty hard during the return window, to be sure it's built to last.

    yes the helix is flexible and if more effects is a reason to upgrade or use with the Kemper here's a far cheaper and better solution: the eventide h9. It sits in my Kemper loop and I send midi messages to it from the kemper slots in performance mode

    This is my solution too. An Eventide H9 in the loop, for that effect you need extra in a rig. The great thing is that they can be before the amp or after the preamp depending on which slot on the kemper you put the loop in :)
    And like Grooguit said, you can send a midi Program Change with the selection of a slot in perfomance mode for the preset you want to have in that rig. Thinking of getting a second H9, since you can send midi Program Changes to two different Midi Pedals...... That should make almost every guitar sound possible. If you look at the wishes for next Firmware threads: Spring Reverb; Dual Delays; Reverse Delays; etc. --> it's all there in the H9.


    And it sounds great!

    Yeah, it's hard to imagine how one could go wrong with an Eventide. The company's reputation amongst audio engineers is well deserved IMHO. Always been awesome units across the range and the years.


    Quote from mbenigni

    Jesus, I'm so sorry - that is a crazy story... I can't even quite make sense of all of it. It is amazing how the frustrating pursuit of gear can trip up your creative life, even your personal life in extreme cases. I've wasted a lot of years "kissing frogs", as well. But nothing like that. So sorry for your loss, man.


    What a decent person you are, mbenigni. Thank you, mate.


    Yeah, the story's novel-worthy so editorialising it into a paragraph was something I should've known better than to attempt to do. In retrospect I could've just said that the L6 Variax trial completed a harrowing 28 year quest for a guitar that played easily enough and stayed in tune.


    FWIMBW, the "played easily enough" thing I kept harking back to is critical as since losing the use of my hands for 3 years at age 19 (over-the-top factory work), I've slowly rebuilt strength. It seems to have peaked and endurance just ain't comin' back, but at least there's enough strength there to be able to play a little bit at a time... as long as the axe plays easily... and stays in tune reasonably!


    Quote from mbenigni

    As for Line 6, they never struck me as a company that had any business building or distributing guitars. All of their previous products were essentially thinly wrapped software. I owned several Variaxes and all of my experiences were like your own - right down to a repair center that sat on two guitars for months and months before admitting they didn't actually have any idea how to fix them. I've since gutted all of my Variaxes and used them for parts for transplants, i.e. put them in guitars that are worth a damn. And even then, the piezos are just too unreliable for anything other than toying around with them in the safety of my own home.


    As for QC for their preamps/processors - hopefully the Helix will be OK. If nothing else, it has an internal power supply, so that's one less thing. But there is a whole lot of mechanical stuff to consider, including those capacitive switches. I'll have to run it through it's paces pretty hard during the return window, to be sure it's built to last.


    Incredibly, I agree with every single point you make here. Well said, bro'.


    Funny, that "repair centre" story is exactly one of the many pathetic experiences I had with the JTVs. One time I even received authorisation to attempt to break a piece of plastic moulding off that white "plug" in the rear that has a whole lotta wires going into and out of it (yeah, I'm a real expert with electricals!). The back plate couldn't be screwed on properly 'cause said "plug" sported a "nib" that appeared to be a remnant much like you'd see when assembling plastic model planes or ships. You know, the parts would arrive on a moulded frame and needed to be snapped off. The L6 part, IMHO, must've "retained" plastic where it was meant to snap off.


    Sorry. Difficult to describe as I don't have the vocabulary for these things, but you get the idea - so many little things, and they all add up. Can't wait to get a Luke one day, but that's a fair way off yet. These JTVs will have to do for now.


    Good luck with the Helix, man. I think that as far as the QC is concerned on the new units, it's a safe bet L6 has learned its lesson, especially at the price. Don't forget to post your findings, of course.


    Nice chattin', mbenigni.

    Hey, whats up guys? Eleven pages about pure shit sound on the videos and that in a kpa forum. Cant understand the discussion. This is a stomp box with plastic sounds or do you have an other word for it?

    Quote from Eltzejupp

    Hey, whats up guys? Eleven pages about pure shit sound on the videos and that in a kpa forum. Cant understand the discussion. This is a stomp box with plastic sounds or do you have an other word for it?


    The point is: none really knows who it really sounds yet...
    As it costs triple as much as the previous flagship, one can imagine, that also the sound improved.
    Anyway, there are a lot of good design issues differently solved as in the kpa. Some people may prefer the line 6 way of these things over the kpa. Other design, edit and effect issues do not exist in the kemper world, but might be important for some people.
    That is why so many are interested and wrote 11 pages..

    The TGP thread is already at 100+ pages.... no surprise there, really... :rolleyes:


    But any and all fanboism aside, it's an interesting piece of tech for sure and when the actual RL vids start rolling in we'll be writing at least 11 more.

    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.

    Monkey_Man: what I don't understand is why have you spent so much time with these crap-guitars, there are so many good ones on the market. You don't have to repair good guitars, because they don't need it (just a bit of adjustment from time to time). Recently I tried 2 Variax-models and they were both far away from the standard I'm used to. And the sound.... if you own -like I do- the original guitars, it is just a bad joke. The "acoustic" guitars sound very sterile, if you've ever heard a nice Martin or Gibson acoustic guitar mike up with a Neumann-mike, this a joke, too.


    If you don't want to have troubles, just buy the right stuff and don't waste your time with crap made in China. Nowadays you have 2 choices if you buy musical instruments and music-gear:


    - cheap stuff made in China, not very reliable and produced in huge factories
    - more expensive stuff, handmade or produced in small companies, mainly in Europe and the US


    In my studio there's just one thing made in China: my 27" iMac... the rest is mainly made in Germany (Klein & Hummel, Neumann, SPL, DTC, Kemper) or the US (Universal Audio, Strymon). My guitars are either vintage Fender or Gibson or mainly Custom Shop-models.
    Over many years I NEVER had one problem with my music gear.

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

    Quote from whippinpost91850

    Me to I just listened to the video of Helix vs HD500 and found the tones very unappealing


    It's probably too soon to tell whether Helix will sound good or bad - promo videos are always hard to interpret anyway. I'll need to actually play one, through familiar monitoring, to have a sense of it.


    That said, I am getting very frustrated with Line6 and Sweetwater shooting these otherwise unrelated videos and using the same amp tone over and over and over. It's just unfathomable to me. The entire point of a modeling amp rig (as opposed to, you know, an amp) lies in its versatility. What is with this "plexi plexi plexi" fetish?? (It sounds more "Line6 Line6 Line6" than "Marshall Marshall Marshall" to me, besides.)


    Just annoyed... still cautiously optimistic. :)


    Sigh... theres always one belligerent, condescending egotist at every site. Its a shame Kemper never figured out how to get the BLOCK function to work.

    i would really appreciate if this thread stays nice and civil. i believe i have warned the usual suspects multiple times in the past, but this time, there will be no further warnings. stay friendly, stay on topic, please.


    gs

    Get in touch with Profiler online support team here

    Like 5

    Both of you, it seems, aren't exactly at the heart of the value for money range, Herr Haas and Monkey_Man.
    Your gear is needlessly pricey. His gear is unreliable. There's a reason why extremities have earned a bad reputation.


    I believe the name of the game here is 'close enough'.
    Let's face it, even the Profiler isn't 100% spot-on with every amp - but it's close enough even for connoisseurs and people who's livelihood depends on it.
    The Variax models do a great job of being 'close enough' if you're not willing to go on stage with an armada of vintage instruments, haul a truck full of gear to every session or invest tens of thousands of dollars in gear just so you could have an archetypal Fender or Gibson sound in the studio.


    The HD broke about as much as it had fixed. Let's hope the Helix fares better - i still go to shows, you know. I'd really like them to sound good.

    "But dignity is difficult to maintain
    stamina requires constant upkeep
    repetition is boring
    and you pay for grace."

    Like 2