IS LINE6 HELIX STILL RELEVANT IN 2024?

It’s 2024 and it means the Line6 Helix is about to turn 9 years old this year. With all the other modellers out there it’s reasonable to ask: is the Line6 Helix still relevant in 2024?

Disclaimer: This video/post was created in collaboration with Line6 and I get to keep the Helix unit as compensation for the three videos I created for them. However all of the arguments I make are my own.

The Line6 Helix was introduced in 2015, which is a long time for any kind of digital product.

With new modellers released, what seems to be, every week now, it’s very easy to label Helix as ‘old tech’. And sure, few inputs and outputs on the back of the unit might date it a little bit as we’re transition to USB-C for example.

But to answer the question whether Helix is still relevant in 2024 I thought we need to go through different categories and compare the Helix to what’s out there using those.

The categories I chose were Sounds, Hardware and User Interface, Support and Community and Future Proofness (if that’s a word).

Amp SOUNDS

Let’s get started with the one that probably causes the most debate, which is sounds. I’m going to annoy a lot of people by saying it doesn’t really matter.

I think we have reached a point in guitar amp modelling where it’s incredibly difficult to distinguish a ‘real’ amp (a tube amp) from something recorded with a digital unit or even a plugin.

Also, I think it’s good to remember that no-one besides other guitar players care how you achieve your sounds, as long as they’re good.

And with that rant out of the way, does the Helix sound good compared to the other modellers on the market? Yes it does.

And there’s also so much to choose from: As of writing this post, the Helix has over 100 different amps / amp versions. And with the 3.5. update and the new cab engine I’m not sure you necessarily need to use 3rd party IR’s anymore.

Effects

The Helix also has one of the biggest arrays of great sounding effects for any kind of music style. A friend of mine plays in a band called Pendulum and he uses Helix units successfully for Drum&Bass type of stuff in wet-dry-wet configuration. And having checked their band live, it sounded great.

The selection of effects and ability to rout them in many ways has also made the Helix incredibly popular among the guitarists in the worship scene.

One thing that the Helix doesn’t do is capturing sounds of other pieces of gear. But in my experience the whole ‘tone matching’ thing lot of companies and YouTubers do gets us equally great results.

I think over it’s almost 9 year long history the Helix has proven to be a great option both for studio and live use and is still comparable tone wise to other modellers on the market.

To put it bluntly: if you’re not getting great tones out of a Helix, that’s on you, not the gear. 😉

HARDWARE AND USER INTERFACE

This is where user preferences vary a lot. Some of you might prefer to use buttons and knobs to tweak your sounds whereas some like to use touchscreens to tweak your EQ’s and such. I don’t think there’s right or wrong here, but there’s definitely good and bad user interface design. Luckily the days of ZOOM 505ii’s are behind us and most modellers come with a good to great user experience.

The combination on scribble strips, six clickable knobs and a selection knob that also acts as a joystick, make using the Helix easy and intuitive. But as with all other digital units as well, there’s still bit of a learning curve before everything becomes second nature.

Hardware wise the Helix still looks modern and ‘futuristic’., which is a testament to great hardware design. I can’t speak for the durability of the unit though as I’ve only had my Helix for a few weeks.

What sets the Helix range apart from all the other manufacturers is the range of the products in different price ranges with essentially identical sounds. There’s the big Helix unit, rack version, Helix LT, Helix Native (the plugin version), HX Stomp XL, HX Stomp, HX Effects and now also HX One. So no matter what kind of setup you’re building, they got you covered. No other modeller company gets even close to what Line6 has.

SUPPORT AND COMMUNITY

I don’t enjoy being on social media that much nowadays. But there are couple of Facebook groups I really like: one of them is the group for Logic Pro users and the other one is the Line6 user group. The vibes in that group on average are great and many times I’ve gotten a useful response in just couple of minutes.

There’s also huge amount of free stuff available for the Helix users with free patches, impulse responses, and even full live set preset packs. No matter what kind of music you are playing, there’s most likely free stuff available for your genre.

And if you’re a touring musician and your Helix unit goes down, Yamaha corporation products are available almost anywhere in the world.

THE FUTURE OF HELIX

To answer this question, I dove into the depths of Reddit to see what others are speculating. Some people wanted Helix to have a Bluetooth connection so you could edit it with your smart device. Others wanted more processing power.

Now you can’t add Bluetooth to the Helix via software update, but you probably can squeeze out more power out of the processors with software updates. My guess is that some sort of capture functionality would also be something many might enjoy.

I’m not sure these things are something that would make people sell their Helixes and get the Helix 2 instead though. Line6 got a lot right with the Helix the first time and they’ve improved it vastly over the years with software updates.

I don’t think they’re done with the Helix just yet and even if there would be a Helix 2 at some point, my guess is that the Helix you buy today would keep receiving updates for years to come. I don’t see Line6 alienating tens of thousands of users by just stopping updating existing units all of the sudden. They are too smart to do that.

I think we’re entering a new era where modellers can be seen as a decent long time investments, at least for a decade or so. You get something good right away and it will get even better as time passes. It’s better for the environment and our wallets as well. Or at least that’s my utopian dream.

If you want to get your Helix and support what I do, you can use the affiliate links below:

►►Get Your Helix at Thomann: https://www.thomann.de/fi/thlpg_f4zbo3gyex.html

►►Get Your Helix at Sweetwater: https://sweetwater.sjv.io/helix