Helix LT is now available for order. Cut down version - ish.

digitalscream

Bridgehouse said:

I'm not sure you could build a decent pedalboard for 900 quid these days....

Funnily enough, that's almost exactly the replacement value of my board. Might have to get it insured and go play a gig...

professorben

John_A said:

Was expecting somthing like this but not this quickly.  It would certainly have done me for what I'm using the Helix for, I would miss the scribble strips though

If I had access to such a thing, I'd prob try to write out rude and insulting sentences on them to annoy the singer or bassist. 

guitarfishbay

digitalscream said:

Bridgehouse said:

I'm not sure you could build a decent pedalboard for 900 quid these days....

Funnily enough, that's almost exactly the replacement value of my board. Might have to get it insured and go play a gig...

You can build for a lot less than £900 if you stay off webforums and buy standard stuff you'd find in a typical shop.

professorben

welshboyo said:

There are pro's and con's for both and I apologise for starting off the Line 6 vs Fractal argument which every thread ends up at..

Makes a change from the Dentist PRS jibs I suppose

Actually according to warranty card submissions, the greatest number of PRS owners are engineers........

dindude

By going into stores Fractal would be giving away a big dollop of margin to the retailers, and would either have to sell way more to compensate or put prices up on an already expensive product.

And who's to know whether Line 6 only make £50 profit on a Helix and Fractal make £500 on an AxeFX.

I remember reading an interview with Cliff where he said when he started out that if he could sell 100 units a year then he'd be pleased, and then commenting that he sold that many "yesterday".

I think it's far exceeded his original expectations but yes competition is getting fierce for sure.

Teetonetal

oh dear lord. Helix is 875 CHF here. that is roughly 700 GBP... 

Bridgehouse

guitarfishbay said:

digitalscream said:

Bridgehouse said:

I'm not sure you could build a decent pedalboard for 900 quid these days....

Funnily enough, that's almost exactly the replacement value of my board. Might have to get it insured and go play a gig...

You can build for a lot less than £900 if you stay off webforums and buy standard stuff you'd find in a typical shop.

Not sure I agree if you are buying new. To match the Helix LT for stomp boxes alone, you will need:

Pedalboard: £100
Power Supply: £100
Then the following stomps, let's say average of £80 each:

Tuner
OD
Fuzz
Flanger
Chorus
Reverb
Delay
EQ
Compressor
Octaver/Synth

10x £80 = £800

All up cost: £1000

Jalapeno

dindude said:

And who's to know whether Line 6 only make £50 profit on a Helix and Fractal make £500 on an AxeFX.

Pretty sure it'll be the other way around, given they've got to have similar R&D costs, but Line 6 have the longterm manufacturing nous - hence massive economies of scale ...

Teetonetal

Bridgehouse said:

guitarfishbay said:

digitalscream said:

Bridgehouse said:

I'm not sure you could build a decent pedalboard for 900 quid these days....

Funnily enough, that's almost exactly the replacement value of my board. Might have to get it insured and go play a gig...

You can build for a lot less than £900 if you stay off webforums and buy standard stuff you'd find in a typical shop.

Not sure I agree if you are buying new. To match the Helix LT for stomp boxes alone, you will need:

Pedalboard: £100
Power Supply: £100
Then the following stops, let's say average of £80 each:

Tuner
OD
Fuzz
Flanger
Chorus
Reverb
Delay
EQ
Compressor
Octaver/Synth

10x £80 = £800

All up cost: £1000

Then add an audio interface to that.

Then also add in a Phaser, tremolo and pitch shifter like the PS6, an expression pedal, and an ES8 to control them all with pedal order and parallel mixing..

If you took only EHX and Boss pedals, you'd still be getting towards the price.

.

Bridgehouse

Teetonetal said:

Bridgehouse said:

guitarfishbay said:

digitalscream said:

Bridgehouse said:

I'm not sure you could build a decent pedalboard for 900 quid these days....

Funnily enough, that's almost exactly the replacement value of my board. Might have to get it insured and go play a gig...

You can build for a lot less than £900 if you stay off webforums and buy standard stuff you'd find in a typical shop.

Not sure I agree if you are buying new. To match the Helix LT for stomp boxes alone, you will need:

Pedalboard: £100
Power Supply: £100
Then the following stops, let's say average of £80 each:

Tuner
OD
Fuzz
Flanger
Chorus
Reverb
Delay
EQ
Compressor
Octaver/Synth

10x £80 = £800

All up cost: £1000

Then add an audio interface to that.

Then also add in a Phaser, tremolo and pitch shifter like the PS6, an expression pedal, and an ES8 to control them all with pedal order and parallel mixing..

If you took only EHX and Boss pedals, you'd still be getting towards the price.

.

And I kinda missed a looper, a aby splitter, and a DI box. And with that you will need an amp modelling box to fit on there.. 

Even used you'd struggle to do 900 for that lot..

guitarfishbay

Bridgehouse said:

And I kinda missed a looper, a aby splitter, and a DI box. And with that you will need an amp modelling box to fit on there.. 

Even used you'd struggle to do 900 for that lot..

(snipped for mobile users)

Is that a likely typical pedal board though?

Most people use a tuner, a couple of drives or fuzz, a modulation and delay or reverb.  Many people use less.  Outside of webforums or rig run downs of certain bands it's rare to see a 10+ pedal pedalboard, I'd say half that is more typical.

Of course a multi FX can do more, that's kind of the point.  But the majority of people don't need to spend £900 to make music, is the point I'm making.

stickyfiddle

guitarfishbay said:

Bridgehouse said:

And I kinda missed a looper, a aby splitter, and a DI box. And with that you will need an amp modelling box to fit on there.. 

Even used you'd struggle to do 900 for that lot..

(snipped for mobile users)

Is that a likely typical pedal board though?

Most people use a tuner, a couple of drives or fuzz, a modulation and delay or reverb.  Many people use less.  Outside of webforums or rig run downs of certain bands it's rare to see a 10+ pedal pedalboard, I'd say half that is more typical.

Of course a multi FX can do more, that's kind of the point.  But the majority of people don't need to spend £900 to make music, is the point I'm making.

It doesn't need to be 10 pedals though. Helix won't be cheaper than 6 Boss singles, but as soon as you're into a decent delay pedal with presets (DD500, TImefactor, Timeline, etc) plus a couple of nice dirts (at least 100+ each these days) you're going to be getting close to the LT price. 

mr-mac

guitarfishbay said:

Jalapeno said:

Given Line6's ability to shift units by the truckload Fractal's rationing strategy seems past it's sell-by date - commodity pricing baby !

I'm sure there'll be Fractal fanboi/corksniffers who'll decry this, but with the Headrush launch imminent this is getting mainstream.  In marketing parlance Fractal's first-mover advantage is over !

I think this isn't exactly a fair reading of the history of these companies.

Line 6 is a gigantic player compared to Fractal and that was the case even before the AX8/FX8.  L6 have been around a long time, are stocked in most shops, and have sold over a million Spider amps for starters, and not only that, they now have Yamaha as a parent company.

Fractal has always been a small company and it has also grown cautiously and stuck with selling direct or by a small list of distributors rather than stocking shops.  It's a different business model, you could call it rationing or you could call it cautiously growing a business.  Just because demand hits a high at one point doesn't mean it is sensible to ramp supply immediately, demand can drop again and I think this has always been part of Fractal's business strategy, to not over-expand too quickly (going from reading posts from Cliff).  They bought a new warehouse last year, so Cliff clearly avoids borrowing money https://forum.fractalaudio.com/threads/new-warehouse.120043/page-3#post-1428921

If price is the main factor for a purchase then the Helix LT is without a doubt the best value unit available today - I already felt that about the Helix but this does the same sounds for cheaper.

I personally think the digitech GSP1101 with beta c63 firmware installed even though old now is best value on market for devices near top of game for sound quality and still holds it's own against current crop of stuff

But it is good to see other players doing things, line 6 entering lower price point, headrush coming to market with similar. 

Fractal ain't doing anything new.  There have always been companies who produce decides for the high price point, even pro only, market which is exactly what they are doing, lower volume, higher prices but have always produced regular and decent frequency of updates.  Plenty of other companies in all sorts of business types do exactly that.  Though from what I can see rather than always try and help he can be hell of a touchy to anyone who says they don't like something about unit.  Would it not go a bit smoother if he said he'd have a wee look at x,y,z and see if anything can be done

Wonder what next company will be to add similar to their line up.  I have a feeling digitech having new owners will be challenged on what they have coming up and told to prove themselves and their worth.  Also heard a rumble to expect something in the near future.  I expect a modern RP type unit moving into helix/headrush style.  And half hope a new GSP (please do as line 6 and make it work with control 2 as they do with the shortboard).  What id also love to see in a new GSP is borrow the souncraft WiFi mixer tech and allow any browser to access it's menus to provide similar function to helix/headrush but on any tablet, pc, phone.  If I was goin all out turn market on head why not an expander unit as well (so digital modelling etc all in new gsp with control2, midi and tablet control via wi-fi).  Have a gsp companion which basically an analogue valve preamp unit which also includes a power tube saturation stuff inside as well) have a connect it that allows gsp modelling to control parameters in the saturation and valve pre as it would it's own models to allow you to use it as part of models or as stand alone valve pre without modelling getting involved....  Ok I'm just dreaming now lol

fretmeister

guitarfishbay said:

fretmeister said:

Fractal is not on my radar anymore. Partly because of price - I just don't need to spend an extra £1000 to get the sounds I want, and partly because Cliff doesn't really seem that fussed about bass.

Yes there's a price difference and nobody will deny that.  If the Helix gets the sound you want then great.  I'm yet to hear the sounds I want so I'd still buy a Fractal unit over a Helix unit for recording with.  For playing live I'd pick the Helix.

Cliff and bass is an odd one - if you've seen a Fractal unit you'd see that all pedals can be bass pedals quite easily.  There are low and high pass feeds to the distortion models, 3 band eq with sweepable mids (in addition to the tone control), and blend.  The muff model sounds better than my bass muff deluxe.  However he's been slow to model 'name' bass gear.  A B7K model is on the way at some point, hopefully the L6 bass update will be a kick up his backside the same way Fractal was a kick up L6's backside (remember all previous L6 model packs were paid updates, FAS is up to 258 models on AX8/Axe FX 2).

I picked out Drew's real B7KU vs the Helix model via blind test on my iPad speaker, and even after he spent more time dialing them in (by this point I was using my monitors) I could pick it out from a blind test.  Apparently L6 have got a different revision B7K to what me and Drew have, and I strongly preferred the real pedal (it just cuts more aggressively).  So while I'd like Native I'm now not sure I'd use it over what I already have.  But that's my preference and someone else's is different

I've never been one to not use an amp of FX block because the name was wrong.

Before the Pearce BC1 model appeared I was getting very close to it by blending a 5150 and a fuzz with some interesting EQ choices. I've got a real Ampeg SVP-BSP (which is Ampeg's version of the BC1 albeit with some control parameters missing / baked in) and the modeled version is better. Not only is there more control, the real BC1 and the Ampeg are right hissy bastards at full gain. The Ampeg has a noise gate but it is far too harsh.

The model is still a bit hissy at full throttle but the levels are so much lower. Then add the Helix own gate and it's close to perfect. I'm even thinking about selling the SVP-BSP now.

The L6 Litigator amp model is great on bass too - it's a bit like an old Bassman but with a slightly different flavour to it. It's a cracker.

Bridgehouse

guitarfishbay said:

Bridgehouse said:

And I kinda missed a looper, a aby splitter, and a DI box. And with that you will need an amp modelling box to fit on there.. 

Even used you'd struggle to do 900 for that lot..

(snipped for mobile users)

Is that a likely typical pedal board though?

Most people use a tuner, a couple of drives or fuzz, a modulation and delay or reverb.  Many people use less.  Outside of webforums or rig run downs of certain bands it's rare to see a 10+ pedal pedalboard, I'd say half that is more typical.

Of course a multi FX can do more, that's kind of the point.  But the majority of people don't need to spend £900 to make music, is the point I'm making.

And I was coming at it from the other direction - as in, if you're a typical user with no pedals, and no desire to do boutique etc.. then the Helix LT is actually incredible value for money. 

If we did stick to a tuner, drive, fuzz, mod, delay and reverb then you'll still drop £150 on a board and power supply, and at 80 notes a pedal that's still £550 for the basics. 

Anyone with even a hint of an idea they might expand this should consider the extra (less than) £300 to go straight to all of it plus excellent amp modelling. When you get 4cm right with a Helix you can effectively give yourself a van full of amp heads to go with it...

Bridgehouse

Of course, some will stick to an old valve combo and a cable

Bridgehouse

And if @Voxman isn't convinced now, I'm going to take up fishing and join Carp Talk.

Sporky

stickyfiddle said:

I'm slightly confused about the switches. The blurb says it has 8 stomp switches where the full-fat Helix has 10, but both units actually have 12 switches. Is it that more of these can be customised in the full version, whereas the end pairs on the LT are fixed as Bank up/down and Mode/Tap? 

I believe you are correct.

Full-fat Helix lets you use the two leftmost switches for control, looks like LT does not.

Teetonetal

guitarfishbay said:

Bridgehouse said:

And I kinda missed a looper, a aby splitter, and a DI box. And with that you will need an amp modelling box to fit on there.. 

Even used you'd struggle to do 900 for that lot..

(snipped for mobile users)

Is that a likely typical pedal board though?

Most people use a tuner, a couple of drives or fuzz, a modulation and delay or reverb.  Many people use less.  Outside of webforums or rig run downs of certain bands it's rare to see a 10+ pedal pedalboard, I'd say half that is more typical.

Of course a multi FX can do more, that's kind of the point.  But the majority of people don't need to spend £900 to make music, is the point I'm making.

Quite. But this is the fretboard, making music is not always the goal..

Sporky

Music's over-rated.

Tinkering.

That is the future.