Line 6 amps - the reason why they were removed?

[greenson]

and have they made approximations of the factory patches ? I have at least two regular 'go to' combinators and several over favourites, and it would be a disappointment to lose those sounds entirely.

[joeyluck]

Line 6 devices are still in Reason 8 as well. Are you on Reason 7?

[greenson]

Yes I am. And likely to stay for now. There's nothing really that interests me in 8 or 9, and since finding out today about the amps, well I would be upgrading to actually get LESS

[joeyluck]

Gotcha. Yeah, I'm using Reason 8 and 9. I use Reason 8 if there are tracks I feel I need to bounce with Line 6 devices.
Sorry you missed the news There was press release and it was announced with the release of Reason 8 in August of 2014 which introduced the Softube Amps. Surprised you missed it! Not a single review or publication release announcement didn't touch on this.

IMO Reason 8 is the best version including Line 6 to own because of the other features and the Softube amps that are included alongside them. So if there's anything that interests you, you can probably find the upgrade (new or used) to R8 for quite a bit cheaper now that R9 is out. It's also a good version to try out when working with replacing your Line 6 amps with Softube's and other various other options.

[greenson]

Well I don't spend my days poring over news of things I already own, usually. And since your other forum seems to have disappeared.....

Anyway, it's no loss to me, I still have Line6. Thanks for trying to upsell me, but there's virtually nothing in the later release that justifies a $200 outlay for me. The pitch edit might be OK but I've looked at other feedback on that and it only works on vocals. Not of benefit to me. As for the 'players', that's not how I interact with music as a hobby AT ALL. These are, at best, a gimmick. All of this is my opinion, of course.

Whatever, thanks for some clarification, we are getting off track here so apologies to all.

[mind2069]

My point about contacting Line 6 is that they are the ones who make the software that many users here are saying they can't live without. Now you can contact and complain to Propellerhead all you want... But they aren't Line 6. They have given us replacements and made it work so that files and patches will still open. We can ask Propellerhead for more amp/cab sims. They also gave us the Convolution algorithm with RV7000 MkII which is handy. We can also ask other developers to deliver more amp/cab REs. That's where we're at. That's all I'm saying.

What does the Convolution algorithm with RV7000 MkII has to do with the line 6 removal, its like you're trying to justify propellerheads behavior at all cost, with any pseudo arguments you can. Its completely irrelevant. I agreen with greenson, kind of sound like youre desperately trying to justify PH broken promise of backwark compatibility, putting on line6 PH bad contract.

Like I said before, Its completely PH fault, I purchased Reason throught PH, I had no dealings with Line6, PH handled the contracts between them and they are at fault, not Line6.

When you promote backward compatibility, you dont go around singing contracts with 3rd parties that can be legaly cancelled or is based on a length, you make you're contract lifetime and solid.

Im sure they would never have revealed the terms of contracts they had with line6 but I dont remember reading or anyone saying something in the lines of : line6 amps is a termed contract, please note that they might be removed somewhere in the future.

[stratatonic]

Line 6 devices are still in Reason 8 as well. Are you on Reason 7?

I am. And likely to stay for now. There's nothing really that interests me in 8 or 9, and since finding out today about the amps, well I would be upgrading to actually get LESS

Owning Reason 7 would be the worst version to own as a guitarist looking to upgrade. You can't buy Reason 8 anymore to hang on to the Line 6 amps (and even if you find a used license, it's really a pretty lame upgrade from 7) and upgrading to 9 results in the loss of the Line 6 guitar and bass amps.

[stratatonic]

What does the Convolution algorithm with RV7000 MkII has to do with the line 6 removal

You can use guitar cabinet impulse responses with the RV7000 - maybe that was Propellerhead's way of lessening the blow of the removal of the amps. Maybe that's what Joey was hinting at.
Maybe.
Or, maybe not.

[joeyluck]

What does the Convolution algorithm with RV7000 MkII has to do with the line 6 removal

You can use guitar cabinet impulse responses with the RV7000 - maybe that was Propellerhead's way of lessening the blow of the removal of the amps. Maybe that's what Joey was hinting at.
Maybe.
Or, maybe not.

That is exactly what I meant which is why that followed my comment about cab sims. Not making excuses, just pointing out things I have found very useful.

[mind2069]

What does the Convolution algorithm with RV7000 MkII has to do with the line 6 removal

You can use guitar cabinet impulse responses with the RV7000 - maybe that was Propellerhead's way of lessening the blow of the removal of the amps. Maybe that's what Joey was hinting at.
Maybe.
Or, maybe not.

Even so, is does not help at all, as if by using RV7000 you can get the same sound as in the line devices, not even remotely close, theres much more that cabinets going on.

They take malstrom out, ho but use parsec instead.

Ho well, its done and its a real bummer for those how used them a lot and purchased stuff just to open up the other stuff.

And I repeat this, it on PH 100%, no blaming line6/yamaha for PH faulty contract.

[Dante]

Check out the first 16 bars or so of this :


That guitar crunch intro was made using a dry Shreddage sample hooked to the Line6. When I opened it the other day in Reason 9 it substituted in the softube and I mucked around for about 10 minutes and just could not get the same sound. I tried also with the Kuassa amps and still couldn't get it.

The point is all sims sound different and do not substitute any more than a korg synth can substitute for a Profit. So discussion around the definition of 'broken' seems to miss the point. Where the point is - there is no convenient substitute for the Line 6 in sound when you reopen a pre Reason 9 song that's used the Line6 and cannot just remix it without running into this problem. Personally I think it is Propellerheads responsibility to fix it and I think they should fix it, irrespective of how good they have been in past dealings. There's no sugar coating that this issue is a pain in the ass

[jfrichards]

...there is no convenient substitute for the Line 6...

Very true. I am surprised that nobody successfully tackled the issue of building even one Line6 patch substitute over the past almost two years in the Reasontalk Guitar Patches thread, substitutes for those heavily saturated smooth distortions that are a hallmark of Line6, or substitutions for those pre-built approximations for commercial studio tracks that sound like heavily processed Marshalls, Voxes, Mesas, and Rolands. I expected somebody who wants them to come up with something and post it way back when. Is this because hardly anybody wants them or because it is so hard? What alternatives have been worked out?

[Dante]

There is a boutique amp refill for the softube but no refills for the Kuassa amps as far as I can tell.

I also used to use a DSP softube combo with Marsall and Mesa Boogie sims but unfortunalty they only run up to 48khz and I run at 95khz.

I have no tolerance for workarounds like running at lower sample rates or running Reason 8.

Hopefully there will be Kuassa refills in future.

[Last Alternative]

Here's to hoping we get more guitar amps because what we have now is still very limited.

[tronam]

If it's really that important...

It depends on how much value you attach to the fact that Reason has been 100% backwards compatible since it's release, until Reason 9.

Yeah. And yet still pretty compatible and not broken; unlike how most other DAWs would handle it... which would be not at all in most cases (just leave it broken). Just saying that Line 6 is who people should be contacting or just move on to other options.

Its propellerheads fault only, when I puchased Reason, I was dealing with PH, PH only is responsible for the deal they made with line6, not me as a buyer, i had no dealings with line6.

Im sure they would never have revealed the terms of contracts they had with line6 but I dont remember reading or anyone saying something in the lines of : line6 amps is a termed contract, please note that they might be removed somewhere in the future.

A lot dont care cause they where not the best amp sims, but a lot of us have combinators, patches, songs using them, even purchased line6 devices to open up the amps

No matter how much we discuss this, its done, and its PH fault for having a bad contract with line6, not me, they got away with it.

This is an old discussion, but the Line6 amps weren't rack extensions. They were native devices made exclusively for Record back in the day with custom support for their hardware. If Line6 were still an independent company today, then maybe I could imagine a future where they would've sanctioned rebuilding the amps as REs for the newer generations of Reason, but they've been part of the Yamaha/Steinberg mothership for a while now. Steinberg barely acknowledges Audiounits (AU), let alone a more exclusive format like RE, so it doesn't surprise me to see the amp integration get phased out. This is why many of us prefer PH to develop their own technology, like the pitch editor, instead of trying to license from a 3rd party such as Celomony Melodyne. No licensing headaches or threats of future compatibility to worry about.

[platzangst]

I am surprised that nobody successfully tackled the issue of building even one Line6 patch substitute over the past almost two years in the Reasontalk Guitar Patches thread, substitutes for those heavily saturated smooth distortions that are a hallmark of Line6, or substitutions for those pre-built approximations for commercial studio tracks that sound like heavily processed Marshalls, Voxes, Mesas, and Rolands. I expected somebody who wants them to come up with something and post it way back when. Is this because hardly anybody wants them or because it is so hard? What alternatives have been worked out?

It may be that everyone who used the Line 6 amps each wanted something different from them.

Keep in mind, the Line 6 amps were stealthily pretty deep. Not only were there amp and cabinet simulations, but how many of them could be accessed would depend on if you had certain levels of Line 6 hardware or software hooked up or installed on your system. For example, I bought a used Pod X3 interface which stays hooked to my system like a dongle, meaning when Reason 8 detects it, all the amps and cabs are available, not just the handful that appear in a Line 6-free system.

This mirrors Line 6's Pod Farm software tiers, where the basic level gives you a small amount of amps and cabs, but you can spend money all the way up to "platinum" level and get every last emulation.

But beyond even that, the Line 6 amps have all the pedal effects built in, so any patch made in Pod Farm, which has an array of "stompboxes" and other effects available, can be opened in Reason and perform exactly the same. You can't tweak or edit them in Reason itself, which is somewhat inconvenient, but they're there. I made some experimental patches that used analog-styled delays and tape-distortion effects long before REs came into being.

Nowadays I could cobble up something similar by connecting Crapre to The Echo or one of the many delay REs, but of course it probably wouldn't sound exactly the same. And there's the problem of creating Line 6 replacements: There's just so much they are capable of that emulating it all is a gargantuan task.

[txh003]

What does the Convolution algorithm with RV7000 MkII has to do with the line 6 removal, its like you're trying to justify propellerheads behavior at all cost, with any pseudo arguments you can. Its completely irrelevant. I agreen with greenson, kind of sound like youre desperately trying to justify PH broken promise of backwark compatibility, putting on line6 PH bad contract.

Like I said before, Its completely PH fault, I purchased Reason throught PH, I had no dealings with Line6, PH handled the contracts between them and they are at fault, not Line6.

When you promote backward compatibility, you dont go around singing contracts with 3rd parties that can be legaly cancelled or is based on a length, you make you're contract lifetime and solid.

Im sure they would never have revealed the terms of contracts they had with line6 but I dont remember reading or anyone saying something in the lines of : line6 amps is a termed contract, please note that they might be removed somewhere in the future.

+1

[greenson]

That is exactly what I meant which is why that followed my comment about cab sims. Not making excuses, just pointing out things I have found very useful.[/quote]

But you ARE making excuses right throughout this thread, shooting people down who have expressed genuine concern for the demise of stock effects (that's right, sit with that for a moment, STOCK effects have been removed) and constantly telling everyone how wonderful Propellerheads are despite this. I guess you have a job to do as PR for the business but your comments have overall been fairly disrespectful. You've argued black & blue with the member Enocklight that nothing is broken, you've implied that it's not even very important a discussion and then attempted to defer the blame to Line 6 rather than Propellerheads, who we all (as users) have an agreement with. You've made statements that the reverb Mk2 was an adequate compensation, and isolated your one supporter who concurs with you as the greatest statement in this topic. Honestly mate, reign it in a little. Send the message upstairs to the boss that people are unhappy, rather than make constant excuses and trying to sugar coat the facts. Not many people are buying your spin.

The truth for me is that I'm really not that peeved about this, and as I said - until the other day I wasn't even aware of it. But to take such a dismissive stance against your customer's concerns is a bit arrogant, when this is 100% a Propellerhead oversight, most likely with sloppy commercial contracts that were poorly defined. You then try and lay the onus on Line6. What a deceptive approach you take !

As a guitarist of many years, I'm neither in love with nor loathing the Line6 sim, to my old ears with decades of damage due to loud heavy rock and metal in a live environment, it's all pretty much dirty stoner sludge when I pick up the axe. And Reason is my only DAW - I couldn't give two hoots about how other DAW companies may handle upgrade exclusions. I own Reason, eventually I would like to upgrade Reason (perhaps version 10), and I would expect that the tools I've used for years will still be there as STOCK options. I would like to go to some of by favorite factory combo patches, pick up my guitar and rock the f**k out with tones that I have done for years. Even though I have, and still, enjoy the paid guitar extensions made by my rockin' brothers across the Java sea, the Line6 is still a fairly major inclusion in projects. Lately I haven't even been using it for guitar, but routing signals through it with everything turned off and just wigging the Wah effect with an LFO. None of that's going to be replaceable. I'm looking at the new sim and for the life of me I cannot see a wah.

Thus many things is no longer possible, right. Please take a view of the greater userbase rather than forging along with more excuses about Propellerheads' shortcomings.

Personally - I will move on. As Richard said, people can rebuild patches and such, and for my damaged ears (and brain hahaha), a close approximation would suffice. But it's a LOT OF WORK. Collectively, if every Reason user in the world with an interest in doing this was to be tabulated in time spent, it may be thousands of hours lost, because Propellerhead have completly broken part of their model. And I don't care about Reverb impulses, I'm a simple man who just wants to pick up and play instead of nerding around with the back panel.

All I would ask is that you guys not be so dismissive, and admit that you screwed up.

[selig]

Yea, the Props genuinely screwed up with this one, breaking their #1 rule - backwards compatibility. Shame too, as this was one of their biggest selling points for guys like me. Luckily for me I didn't use TOO many Line 6 patches, but will have to print them to audio to progress further with R9 and later. Much of my guitar work has come since the announcement of the demise of the Line 6 amps, and I wasn't at all impressed with the Softube substitutes, preferring the Kussa amps (so far). I'm no guitar hero, but I do know what I like…

Until and unless Line 6 can be convinced to create an accurate RE Clone of the amps, those of us who have used those devices are not happy.

[mind2069]

But you ARE making excuses right throughout this thread, shooting people down who have expressed genuine concern for the demise of stock effects (that's right, sit with that for a moment, STOCK effects have been removed) and constantly telling everyone how wonderful Propellerheads are despite this. I guess you have a job to do as PR for the business but your comments have overall been fairly disrespectful. You've argued black & blue with the member Enocklight that nothing is broken, you've implied that it's not even very important a discussion and then attempted to defer the blame to Line 6 rather than Propellerheads, who we all (as users) have an agreement with. You've made statements that the reverb Mk2 was an adequate compensation, and isolated your one supporter who concurs with you as the greatest statement in this topic. Honestly mate, reign it in a little. Send the message upstairs to the boss that people are unhappy, rather than make constant excuses and trying to sugar coat the facts. Not many people are buying your spin.

The truth for me is that I'm really not that peeved about this, and as I said - until the other day I wasn't even aware of it. But to take such a dismissive stance against your customer's concerns is a bit arrogant, when this is 100% a Propellerhead oversight, most likely with sloppy commercial contracts that were poorly defined. You then try and lay the onus on Line6. What a deceptive approach you take !

As a guitarist of many years, I'm neither in love with nor loathing the Line6 sim, to my old ears with decades of damage due to loud heavy rock and metal in a live environment, it's all pretty much dirty stoner sludge when I pick up the axe. And Reason is my only DAW - I couldn't give two hoots about how other DAW companies may handle upgrade exclusions. I own Reason, eventually I would like to upgrade Reason (perhaps version 10), and I would expect that the tools I've used for years will still be there as STOCK options. I would like to go to some of by favorite factory combo patches, pick up my guitar and rock the f**k out with tones that I have done for years. Even though I have, and still, enjoy the paid guitar extensions made by my rockin' brothers across the Java sea, the Line6 is still a fairly major inclusion in projects. Lately I haven't even been using it for guitar, but routing signals through it with everything turned off and just wigging the Wah effect with an LFO. None of that's going to be replaceable. I'm looking at the new sim and for the life of me I cannot see a wah.

Thus many things is no longer possible, right. Please take a view of the greater userbase rather than forging along with more excuses about Propellerheads' shortcomings.

Personally - I will move on. As Richard said, people can rebuild patches and such, and for my damaged ears (and brain hahaha), a close approximation would suffice. But it's a LOT OF WORK. Collectively, if every Reason user in the world with an interest in doing this was to be tabulated in time spent, it may be thousands of hours lost, because Propellerhead have completly broken part of their model. And I don't care about Reverb impulses, I'm a simple man who just wants to pick up and play instead of nerding around with the back panel.

All I would ask is that you guys not be so dismissive, and admit that you screwed up.

Amen to that, even selig, a PH fan can admit to PH did wrong, I will let this go but joeyluck justifications are beyong me.

The thing that pissed me off is PH gets away with it while breaking their #1 rule, so much patches, time investment was taken even if they were not the best amps sims in the business, they were pretty dsp efficient and theres nothing that comes close to recreating some patches I made.

Often, I would lawer 4 guitar tracks recorded dry, using 4 line 6 device with different settings, and I could come back at anytime and change the amsp settings, with reason 9, its gone.

And while most reason users are not guitarists (thats why they got away woth it) for us, its a real bummer.

And they were a stock effect cause nowhere I read when I purchased record that they could be removed in the future, if that statement is there somewhere, show it to me, the fact that they pride themself in being backward compatible makes the case frustrating.

[stratatonic]

What does the Convolution algorithm with RV7000 MkII has to do with the line 6 removal

You can use guitar cabinet impulse responses with the RV7000 - maybe that was Propellerhead's way of lessening the blow of the removal of the amps. Maybe that's what Joey was hinting at.
Maybe.
Or, maybe not.

That is exactly what I meant which is why that followed my comment about cab sims. Not making excuses, just pointing out things I have found very useful.

I don't see where you followed up on the RV7k comment about sims, but I thought maybe that's what you were hinting at anyways...

That being said, Propellerhead included a grand total of five guitar cabinet responses in their RV7000 Convolution Reverb Refill, out of a Refill that contained 437 mB worth of IRs

They could have made a decent effort for the (mainly) guitar players who were losing the amps and cabs that they paid good money for, instead of expecting folks to scour the internet looking for guitar cabinet impulse responses.

[stratatonic]

Until and unless Line 6 can be convinced to create an accurate RE Clone of the amps, those of us who have used those devices are not happy.

Not sure why Line 6 would have to do this. Many independent devs have modelled many many different devices. Propellerhead emulated the channel strip of the SSL and the master bus comp. They should have been the ones to do the clone - and not necessarily an RE either, but native.

But that brings up the other problem which Platz probably summed up best:

Keep in mind, the Line 6 amps were stealthily pretty deep. Not only were there amp and cabinet simulations, but how many of them could be accessed would depend on if you had certain levels of Line 6 hardware or software hooked up or installed on your system. For example, I bought a used Pod X3 interface which stays hooked to my system like a dongle, meaning when Reason 8 detects it, all the amps and cabs are available, not just the handful that appear in a Line 6-free system.

This mirrors Line 6's Pod Farm software tiers, where the basic level gives you a small amount of amps and cabs, but you can spend money all the way up to "platinum" level and get every last emulation.

But beyond even that, the Line 6 amps have all the pedal effects built in, so any patch made in Pod Farm, which has an array of "stompboxes" and other effects available, can be opened in Reason and perform exactly the same. You can't tweak or edit them in Reason itself, which is somewhat inconvenient, but they're there....

You would need what I proposed in the Softube Amp thread - a RE that would act as a portal to the Line 6 stuff. Good luck with that though, right? How far away are we from VST integration if that happens?

Guitarists with Line 6 software and hardware are shit out of luck on this whole fiasco.

[selig]

Amen to that, even selig, a PH fan can admit to PH did wrong, I will let this go but joeyluck justifications are beyong me.

I don't see his comments as justifications so much as trying to help others find a way forward.
I'm more of a realist myself, and have moved on to bigger and better things. I will admit that it's highly unlikely we'll see a repeat of the past from the Props in this department, but I'm also not willing to bet the farm on this!

[joeyluck]

I apologize to anyone who is taking my comments the wrong way.
If you read my comments you will see that I do consider this to be a mistake on Propellerhead's part. I did say that.

I had a disagreement over what I consider to be 'completely broken,' but that's not to downplay the issues people have with the situation. I'm sorry if my views of an otherwise outstanding track record of compatibility and my appreciation of my many Reason projects and patches that don't fail to open comes across the wrong way. I've had many bad experiences with other software where I cannot open my old projects at all (which is my level of 'completely' on the broken scale). Again, this just shapes the way I have personally responded to this situation. Mistakes happen and this was a very unfortunate one. Like Giles (maybe with a little more confidence, hehe) I'm sure they have learned from the experience.

In my comments I have suggested contacting Propellerhead for more amp and cab sims (Rack Extensions or patches). I have suggested contacting other developers for the same. And this is what I've been doing. How about you? And I've heard some promising stuff from some awesome developers! But I'm not even sure if that is something many users in this thread seem open to as it seems the concern is having a 1:1 resolution. I am confident Propellerhead and other developers can deliver great alternatives and maybe emulations of the Line 6 stuff. But nothing will 100% replace it (as described by others on the scope and depth of some of the pod farm stuff). I have simply moved on from the fact that the Line 6 devices, by Line 6, are not just going to show up as they were in the Reason rack.

Many of you have responded that it is highly unlikely that Line 6 would deliver their products as Rack Extensions... But my point is simply that it is possible for them to do. That is all. If you've dismissed that as a possibility and you're not interested in alternatives by them or other developers, I'm not sure the point of this thread (unless it's just to vent). If it is just to vent, then I probably have responded the wrong way by trying to be proactive. Again, I have moved past the idea that the Line 6 devices will ever find their way back into the Rack as they were. Unless Propellerhead acquires Line 6...

Again, sorry if expressing my views and experience on the matter is taken the wrong way or comes across as inconsiderate.
Like many of my criticisms of Propellerhead and other developers, they seem to be masked and overlooked by some folks because I don't flip the table and I tend to be a positive, "look on the bright side" type of person

[Last Alternative]

Honestly I have a very hard time making the Softube amps work for me. Adding a Scream really helps shape the tone though. But the Kuassa amps are better, hands down. Only problem is I stick with the Softube amps to make it easier for Benedict to mix since he doesn't have the Kuassa amps. I have a Blackstar guitar amp and Shure sm57 but I rarely record it because again, amp sims make it easier for the Producer to mold the best sound when you can't work together in person because they're on the other side of the world.
I absolutely loved a few of the Line6 guitar tones and absolutely loved everything about the Line6 bass amp so yeah I was greatly disappointed in Propellerhead when the news came out.
And I must add Propellerhead are professionals at deflecting and dismissing customer concerns... but in the most friendly way!
I personally feel PH owes it to us to make their own top of the line STOCK guitar amps. Bottom line is we need more options. They make the fake A-list stuff so why not some real shit for the rockers out there helping to keep PH in business?