So I bought a Helix and a L6 powercab

[maddnotez]

I like to play my guitar not sit fiddling with some POS that's never gonna sound like I want it to. I'm not trying to dis those of you who use the modelers. I've seen people using them and getting some great tones. I'm just not one of them. I"ve been playing tube amps for 40 years and I don't have the patience for modelers.

It is not about fiddling with setting and presets, it is just not as good as good tube amp in feel and response. And Helix sound most flat and artifical of modellers big 3. Convenience at first place, sound second...

Can't comment on the helix but if the topic was Kemper I would say you are wrong.

That's like saying I've never eaten steak but I can't believe you don't like it

It's more like saying you dont like steak because you cook it well done.

It actually IS about fiddling with the "presets" I would say parameters. He said it is not as good in feel and response as a tube amp and well I am sorry but that is just not accurate. Depends on the amp, the profile/monitoring and the player. Also the setting. Bedroom, rehearsal, live? It is not as cut and dry as his post implied and I whole heartedly disagree as an owner of both a tube amp and a kemper.

Regarding your situation - they literally have nothing to do with each other. You spent a few hours, said you just don't have the patience for it and sent it back. Which is fine. Like i said my comment was regarding the kemper ive never played a line 6 but i would be willing to bet if you did have the patience you would find different results. I may not have played the line 6 but I have owned an ax8 and have heard people playing them 3 feet away. I'm farmiliar with what modelers are. Maybe the line 6 is completely different? If so then sure.

Like sleewell said you get out what you put in. The difference between the first 3 days of owning a kemper and 3 weeks is different worlds.

I could set you up side by side with a kemper/monitor and a half stack and you might be surprised. It moves air, it moves speakers. The feel is there and the only difference for most profiles is you're getting a miked amp vs a non miked amp. Then they have DI profiles to account for that.

On top of that every parameter is tweakable. No it is not a tube amp but it would pass the blind test. It can sound better in a mix than a tube amp given the amp and the profile. But is it THAT much better for live use performance per dollar? Not sure about that.

 

[Kevin11]

I have an fx8 I use for FX with my amps. IMHO fractal is miles ahead of L6 on the effects.

" After a year, I'm still messing with it" this is what I don't have time for and what I was afraid of happening.Also IMHO for the price tag is should sound amazing and it didn't. All together I had over 2k in it . I wouldn't put that in an amp unless it sounded Amazing.
I would have liked to try the AX FXIII but with a floor controller and a speaker that would have put me at 3K. Thats Diezel/ Friedman territory

These days, I'm exclusively a live guitarist. I bought my Helix specifically to replace my pedalboard for fx only because I was getting tired of switching out pedals, or buying new ones whenever a set would change or new songs were added. In that respect, the Helix covers my needs perfectly. It's super easy to change things on the fly and the effects I use sound at least as good, if not better than my pedalboard. I have no doubt the FX8 is higher quality, it's just a matter of form, function, ease of use, and application for me (like the on-board dual-action treadle).

Believe me, I don't usually have the time or patience to endlessly tweak. I should clarify my "after a year..." comment. I bought the PC+ strictly for fun and to see what I could do with it and the Helix. I might mess around with it for a few hours once a month, so I'm not tweaking every day and pulling my hair out. Honestly, I absolutely love the Helix, just not the PC+ so much. My ears are used to a 100w tube amp and 4x12 cab and the PowerCab in particular is never going to match that.

Congrats on the Atma! Huge Bogner fan here, so let us know how it goes!

 

[sleewell2]

one could argue after an hour and half that you don't have enough to make any comparisons.


you are comparing your fx8 with a tube amp to the helix with a powercab. totally apples to oranges.


has anyone popped into the tgp mega helix thread? so many good clips of regular people using them to make amazing music in many different genres. very inspiring.


its really not the op, i see this a lot and find it kinda funny. not really even an age thing either, more personality based. hey ima try to use all of this new gear at once for the wrong application, give up way too soon and then say that line 6 sucks. lol.


it probably was the powercab as mentioned above. i mean it was working as designed but was not what you were expecting or trying to emulate with your other rig. had you tried the helix with your amp first while you were learning it instead of trying to learn two new pieces of gear at once i am sure you would have had different feelings. i use my helix with quilters but i didn't sound that great at first so i went back to using it with my tube amp while i learned more. then i went back to the quilters and everyone said it sounds amazing.


you can view this process as a waste of time or you can view it as a positive. i have learned so much in terms of signal flow and how to eq, which also translates into knowing how to use my tube amp and pedals better and makes me a better musician.

best of luck with whatever you try next!

 

[slyym]

I had been thinking about a modeler for a long time. I wanted it to use at church because of all the different styles played. So I spent 2k on a helix LT and a line 6 powercab plus.
I spent a day and a half trying to dial in some presets to use for church. I even bought a snapshot ( this is kinda like a preset that contains about 8 different sounds). Then yesterday at about 7 pm I packed it all back up in the boxes and it's sitting at the door waiting to go back to sweetwater.
I like to play my guitar not sit fiddling with some POS that's never gonna sound like I want it to. I'm not trying to dis those of you who use the modelers. I've seen people using them and getting some great tones. I'm just not one of them. I"ve been playing tube amps for 40 years and I don't have the patience for modelers.

I'm the proof that you can't teach an old dog new tricks, cause the old dog just doesn't have the patience.
So in conclusion, if you don't want to spend hours tinkering don't go down that rabbit hole.

Not sure if you understand this but playing it through a line6 power cab your basically miking an amp and then listening to it through a PA. That will never sound like playing through an amp sitting in front of you.

The PC+ is marketed as making the helix sound like an amp in the room. That's why I bought it. I had read that when using a modeler one had to be ready for it to sound like it was being played in a studio in the other room and the tone you heard would essentially sound like your guitar through studio monitors.
The PC is suppose to correct that problem at least according to L6

Without hearing it and only guessing I would say it probably still isn’t the same.

 

[PBGas]

I have an fx8 I use for FX with my amps. IMHO fractal is miles ahead of L6 on the effects.

" After a year, I'm still messing with it" this is what I don't have time for and what I was afraid of happening.Also IMHO for the price tag is should sound amazing and it didn't. All together I had over 2k in it . I wouldn't put that in an amp unless it sounded Amazing.
I would have liked to try the AX FXIII but with a floor controller and a speaker that would have put me at 3K. Thats Diezel/ Friedman territory

These days, I'm exclusively a live guitarist. I bought my Helix specifically to replace my pedalboard for fx only because I was getting tired of switching out pedals, or buying new ones whenever a set would change or new songs were added. In that respect, the Helix covers my needs perfectly. It's super easy to change things on the fly and the effects I use sound at least as good, if not better than my pedalboard. I have no doubt the FX8 is higher quality, it's just a matter of form, function, ease of use, and application for me (like the on-board dual-action treadle).

Believe me, I don't usually have the time or patience to endlessly tweak. I should clarify my "after a year..." comment. I bought the PC+ strictly for fun and to see what I could do with it and the Helix. I might mess around with it for a few hours once a month, so I'm not tweaking every day and pulling my hair out. Honestly, I absolutely love the Helix, just not the PC+ so much. My ears are used to a 100w tube amp and 4x12 cab and the PowerCab in particular is never going to match that.

Congrats on the Atma! Huge Bogner fan here, so let us know how it goes!

One of things that sounded great for me was when I borrowed a friends helix rack and control. I ran it through a Line6 212 PC+. So much more fullness and bottom end. Really sounded great at all volumes. I used one AES cable to connect the Helix up and off I went.

In my time of using Helix Native (which I still have) and the Helix rack, I found great tones from the Placater and Mark IV amps paired with the stock Uber cab and Mesa cabs with R121 mics. I tried a few others but these two really sounded great. Comparing the same tones with my Axe III through the PowerCab 212, it was noticeably better....hence why I still have my Axe III going on 2 years. The amps on that unit are amazing.

Regardless of all of that, I simply love plugging into my amp and go. Like many of us who have used tubes since we began playing, it is hard not to continue to love that tone. These digital boxes are only going to keep getting better and better.

If you are a touring pro who is playing night in and night out, then for sure, I would never bring the extra weight and maintenance that amps would require. For the weekend warrior, amps are the easiest solution. For some smaller places we just run the vocals, keys and maybe the kickdrum through the PA. The rest is your amp. Those are the gigs where I really like hearing an amp behind me.

 

[dpeterson]

A whole day and a half... and you took how long to get your sound with tube amps at this point?

All of them require some time and some expectation of what you are trying to achieve. Always make sure you are doing apples to apples comparisons before saying "it doesnt sound just like my jcm800". not that you said that but a lot of people do.

 

[napalmdeath]

I had been thinking about a modeler for a long time. I wanted it to use at church because of all the different styles played. So I spent 2k on a helix LT and a line 6 powercab plus.
I spent a day and a half trying to dial in some presets to use for church. I even bought a snapshot ( this is kinda like a preset that contains about 8 different sounds). Then yesterday at about 7 pm I packed it all back up in the boxes and it's sitting at the door waiting to go back to sweetwater.
I like to play my guitar not sit fiddling with some POS that's never gonna sound like I want it to. I'm not trying to dis those of you who use the modelers. I've seen people using them and getting some great tones. I'm just not one of them. I"ve been playing tube amps for 40 years and I don't have the patience for modelers.

I'm the proof that you can't teach an old dog new tricks, cause the old dog just doesn't have the patience.
So in conclusion, if you don't want to spend hours tinkering don't go down that rabbit hole.

I'm with you 100%. Sure, there's great tones to be had, but, like you, I lack the patience to fuck around for hours, adjusting 35 parameters to dial one in. They have all this added B.S., mics, mic positions, position, Sag, bias, tube types, a gazillion EQ's, a gazillion IR's, (that everyone suggests are so-so, and that you need to download new ones from a third 3rd party for better tones), and a whole host of other B.S. to tinker with.

I don't bash them, nor people that love them. I'll never buy a Helix, Kemper, or AX FX. Just... Hell no..

 

[Beandust]

Never understood the gazillion application tweak process. * adjust sag of the power section* Moddelers are preamps or most definitely a Helix is indeed a preamp. Someone please explain where sag is in the preamp section of a tube amp? I think they sound good as F. I like the OP do not enjoy tweaking on a PC or LCD to play the guitar. It's easier to carry around a helix no question. More fun to turn knobs on the fly of an amp than dive into a menu of robust technical blablabla at a gig. Just my 2 shits worth

 

[bluguitar]

I have had an Axe fx,Helix and Kemper out of all of them I found the kemper sounded best to me ,but thats subjective isnt it. I would have agrued for the Kemper a few months ago but it does have an certain sound that cannot be dialed out.. its in the unit. Its not good or bad it is what it is. I recently started using tube amps again and I am sorry there is just something with a tube amp that these other units cannot do. Hit a D chord and let it sustain into to natural feedback,thats something these other units cannot do,and I am not talking about turn up an amps volume at all ...I can get feedback at quite a low volume... its so good. There is also a roundness to the sound that modellers get close to but do not seem to achieve. I had some really great profiles for my Kemper but I could not get satisfiying tones as I do with a tube amp.

 

[Racerxrated]

Just add one to the arsenal...great low volume practice or recording tools, or low weight/small size portability gig rigs. Had an AX8 for a week or so...sounded nice, for a modeler. But it ain't no tube amp. Had it through a powered monitor. Have a few buds here that swear by the Kemper..haven't played that one.
But, I would never sell any tube amp to fund one. Only to add to the collection. The sound/feel of the Fractal was too far removed from the real thing to even consider replacing my tube amps.

 

[splatter]

one could argue after an hour and half that you don't have enough to make any comparisons.


you are comparing your fx8 with a tube amp to the helix with a powercab. totally apples to oranges.

It wasn't an hour and a half it was a day and a half. Which for me is more than enough time to decide if I like something or not

 

[splatter]

used my Bogner Atma this morning at church. Love this amp. I highly recommend it for anyone looking for a low wattage amp.
My only complaint is no standby switch. I guess it was probably a real estate thing since there isn't an inch of this thing that doesn't have a switch or a knob

 

[skoora]

I know people dig into these units and seem to find tonal nirvana but when I try them out, I go with the presets and if none them sound remotely good, I’ll stop right there. If the people who spent countless hours designing the unit can’t create presets that make me go wow I’m not going to waste my time trying to find the wow when I can’t trust the people who designed it to know what actually sounds right. A nice dynamic tube amp and the right pedals, throw in a good volume knob response on the guitar, I’m going to get anything I could possibly want and quickly.

FWIW I’m actually open to whatever tech comes down the road, I just haven’t heard a winner yet.

 

[Goat]

If you're not an effects player, a tube amp is the way to go. Tech-21 use to make a great little 1x12 solid-state combo. Some may laugh... but, the old Johnson J-Station is a great unit for recording. In my experience, it has the best dry guitar tones of any modeling device.

 

[panhead]

I had my fill of fiddling with shit on a ADA preamp in 84. That fucker was over a grand then. Gimme a tube amp.

 

[4406cuda]

I run my Fractal AX8 through a Fryette Power Station and 2x12 guitar cab. A modeler and tube amp sounds much better, at least to me.

 

[kennedy515011]

I am new to modeling as I just purchased a helix last week. I use mine also with a fryette power station and a 1x12 or 2x12 cabinet and I am impressed. I'm like others my tube amps aren't going anywhere.
I also use in a 4 cable method with my tube amps and so far working out but still figuring this part out.
Again, I thought I would never go to modeling but had to try it after all the videos I started watching and glad I did.

 

[slyym]

If you're not an effects player, a tube amp is the way to go. Tech-21 use to make a great little 1x12 solid-state combo. Some may laugh... but, the old Johnson J-Station is a great unit for recording. In my experience, it has the best dry guitar tones of any modeling device.

I’m in that some, hahahahaha!!!! My friend had a J station. Let’s just say I’ll pass on it.

 

[Goat]

If you're not an effects player, a tube amp is the way to go. Tech-21 use to make a great little 1x12 solid-state combo. Some may laugh... but, the old Johnson J-Station is a great unit for recording. In my experience, it has the best dry guitar tones of any modeling device.

I’m in that some, hahahahaha!!!! My friend had a J station. Let’s just say I’ll pass on it.

I pulled mine out of the closet this morning. Yeah, it sounds like digital trash. It's been scheduled for target practice, along with my ZOOM rack, and Digitech pedalboard.