LINE6 Helix LT

    The strength of being in Yamaha corporation definitely affects this.
    I think that they have just cannibalized the market in the € 700-1200 market.
    In the US they are going for $800 thanks to the coupons that some online shops offer.
    Hard times for Atomic and maybe Fractal too.


    P.S.: the only thing I don't like is the fact that they kemper the bulky form factor. But I think that they did not re-engineered the whole unit in order to cut down costs.

    Quote from frr85

    Good move but a lot of effects from line 6 are unsable...
    But they have some good distortions that are usable...

    Yep, but as long I have the almost authentic sound of a really amp in may ears I will not change, even it would be easier to handle just a pedalboard type.
    The effects are not game winner for me. (For me the KPA is good enough)
    But :!: - still hoping for better reverbs ;)

    Seems line6 is marketing the Helix as more suitable to Bass players,
    It now reads guitar/bass unit all ove, where it seemed more guitar centric before.


    Having said that, it can still not mach the amount of bass specific profiles available on the Kemper. Perhaps nothing can?


    Anyway good for them. They will sell a lot of units!!

    Seems like a good deal. If you don't mind not having the scribble strips, and two effect loops is enough, you can save $500. Two loops is still more than the Kemper's 1 effect loop and the Helix's ability to send midi messages without changing presets means you can do a lot more with a single effects loop. For example, you could have a couple strymons and an H9 in one effect loop (or using both in stereo) and switch and change them with midi, all within a single Helix preset. Compared to Kemper where you still have to change rigs to send a midi message.


    This has been my longstanding gripe with the Kemper. It's so close to doing everything I want. But because they refuse to release a floor model (even though all they'd have to do is essentially cram a profiler and the remote in a single casing) I own the head profiler and in order to use external effects, I either
    1) I leave the head on my pedal board,
    2) run 7+ cables between audio, midi, power, cat 5 etc. between the head and my pedal board, all so the head, can needlessly sit somewhere else behind me even though I play through IEM's
    3) buy a large rack and put all the pedals and the head in it and then purchase an expensive midi board to handle all the switching, since the Kemper can only send midi messages with Rig changes, and I don't want to create a ton of duplicate rigs just to send different midi messages.

    I really hope that the Helix LT sells by the truck load. If only to make Cris Kemper sit up and take notice. It makes little commercial sense to ignore producing the floor model that an awful lot of people are absolutely crying out for. I would sell one of my kidneys in a heartbeat to buy one. I love everything about the Helix except the important bit......... The sound. But to have the sound of the Kemper at my feet would be sublime. It has to happen, doesn't it?

    I have helix... Give me Kemper Pedalboard Profiling Amplifier KPPA...


    They'll sell a lot of LT boards, though!

    I am a Profile Whore... Sometimes a Recovering Profile Whore...
    but mostly a Complete and Utter Profile Whore... I want them all... aCk!!! 8|:love:

    Edited once, last by GLiDE-BPM ().

    Like 1
    Quote from nightlight

    A Kemper floorboard definitely makes sense, even if it does away with the profiling feature. Not sure if I'd sign up for one though, since the Profiler pretty much covers all the bases.


    What do you think will come first? Profiler 2? Or Profiler floorboard?

    I don't think they'd make one without the profiling feature. For one, the design and capabilities and even the number of input and output jacks would hardly be reduced; they wouldn't save much money, if any, in the design. Two, they'd cut down on a number of potential customers, as few of us are rich enough to have a second desktop or rack KPA to do profiling.


    As far as a profile 2 or floorboard first? I could see it go either way. I'd say that if they have a profiler 2 in plans that they'd like to release in a year or two, they'd probably be better off waiting to release a floorboard KPA. At the moment, they could release a floorboard KPA that would be identical to an unpowered head or rack with a Remote attached.


    However, some obvious limitations to the current hardware (and subsequent comparison to the Helix) is only having 1 effects loop and the ability to have one profile at a time. Perhaps the next generation could have similar in-out capacities, more horsepower for additional effects, a more robust GUI like the Helix. These limitations can't be addressed with firmware updates. And my point is, if Kemper isn't that far away from releasing a Profiler 2, they might just want to hold off on the floor version and role that out at the same time as the Profiler 2, with all the hardware advantages that the next gen KPA's could/should have. However, if they don't have plans on the Horizon for a second Gen kpa, I think we'll see the floor version of the current KPA sooner rather than later.

    But I can't see myself buying a Helix or a Helix LT, because it still has one major weakness (aside from tone) that makes the Kemper worlds better. On the Kemper, once your input sens is set correctly, you can adjust gain and eq to your hearts content and never worry about Rig volume. All my rigs always are the right loudness. Whereas on the Helix and every other product out there, you're constantly worrying about patch volume, going back and forth between your presets trying to match the volume. of course as soon as you tweak the gain on those products, now you have to play with the volume to compensate. And we've all been in the past on digital products, there when we have a bank or two of patches all match volume wise, we bank up or down and discover that the volume we've just meticulously adjusted on those banks doesn't match the volume that we labored to get another set of banks to have last week. And so on. The KPA is the only product to have done solved this problem.

    The problem for me to buy a Helix is the size of their pedalboard...
    And to ocontrol the Kemper, I'd have to use midi cables, in/out cables and a power cable...


    I like the small size of kemper + kemper remote (just one cable and you're ok to start everything).


    I still hope that Kemper make some updates in the effects sections 8o