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Distorted tone, clean low end?
- Thread starter Joe Lonsdale
- Start date
So I picked up an HX Stomp for the first time a few months ago to play around with (via TB classifieds), right before moving across the country. I just got around to experimenting with building patches with it over the last few days, and I gotta say that for this kind of functionality this thing totally kills. The real kicker is being able to use completely separate full-on amp and even cab sims (as opposed to just drive pedals) for each frequency path, and just the ease of use and tweakability vs the pedalboard spaghetti that this requires with a crossover blender.
I’m an admitted skeptic to digital modeling, but it’s pretty hard to deny the quality of a lot of the sounds available. My first crossover patch involved a lightly pushed SVT amp sim on on the low end and an Orange guitar head on the high path, mixed and run into a B15 cab sim. I also put a bright booster in front of the crossover split to have footswitchable additional crunch. I’ve only demoed it into an amp at home at relatively low volume, but with minimal effort I was frankly amazed at how great it worked for a growly, clanky Rickenbacker tone with big punchy lows. I have built a similar patch with my Omnilooper and pedals that I’ve been pretty happy with and have yet to directly compare, but frankly with the number of options in the Stomp to work with I am pretty confident it can be tweaked to contend pretty well with the analog pedal version (if not crush it).
I’ve only just scratched the surface with the Stomp’s crossover signal path so far, but at first look it is definitely not as immediately tweakable as the Omnilooper (not being able to set the frequencies of both paths independently in particular). There is probably a way to get there though with some creative routing.
Anyway, definitely something to possibly look into if you don’t feel tied to the exact pedals you already have. I don’t see this ever replacing my individual pedals, but as an easy compact pedalboard solution to build fairly complicated chains for certain gigs it’s hard to deny!
I’m an admitted skeptic to digital modeling, but it’s pretty hard to deny the quality of a lot of the sounds available. My first crossover patch involved a lightly pushed SVT amp sim on on the low end and an Orange guitar head on the high path, mixed and run into a B15 cab sim. I also put a bright booster in front of the crossover split to have footswitchable additional crunch. I’ve only demoed it into an amp at home at relatively low volume, but with minimal effort I was frankly amazed at how great it worked for a growly, clanky Rickenbacker tone with big punchy lows. I have built a similar patch with my Omnilooper and pedals that I’ve been pretty happy with and have yet to directly compare, but frankly with the number of options in the Stomp to work with I am pretty confident it can be tweaked to contend pretty well with the analog pedal version (if not crush it).
I’ve only just scratched the surface with the Stomp’s crossover signal path so far, but at first look it is definitely not as immediately tweakable as the Omnilooper (not being able to set the frequencies of both paths independently in particular). There is probably a way to get there though with some creative routing.
Anyway, definitely something to possibly look into if you don’t feel tied to the exact pedals you already have. I don’t see this ever replacing my individual pedals, but as an easy compact pedalboard solution to build fairly complicated chains for certain gigs it’s hard to deny!
This sounds great. I have an old M9 offered to me - not sure if that can do the same kind of things, but I'll have a play with it. I'm always nervous of trusting a single bit of digital great with my sound - if it goes down there's no workaround!!
Hi Sunbeast,
Sorry to approach you like this. I wondered what your opinion of the Line6 HX Stomp is now you have had it for a few months? I am thinking of getting one to reduce my pedalboard and give me better straight-to-desk options but the YouTube videos featuring the HX Stomp on bass are awful and completely unhelpful!
Joe
You can use the TRS input for the expression pedal as an effect loop for the high channel. You can stack drives, fuzz , delay, modulation or whatever only in that channel. It's one of the best features of the pedalYeah, it does. Except you can't break the signals out of the pedal to include any other pedals, which is a little short-sighted IMHO
The crossover split function in an HX is damned near the best reason to own one IMO. One use case is the clean thumpin lows and distorter or modulated highs. The other use case is pushed B15'ish lows and crystaline modulated or reverbed highs. Two sides of the same, very cool coin.
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Sorry for the delay- I haven’t yet had the opportunity to gig mine yet, but have used it to direct record jams with quite a bit with an array of instruments and have been super impressed. It takes some time and patience (and creativity) to really dial in patches but the tools are there for great tones, and the crossover features are great indeed! I’m not super impressed with a lot of the drive options on their own for bass, but have built some killer tones mixing amp blocks and or parallel chains in all sorts of wild ways. I do think I’ll prob keep one high quality preamp on boards with the Stomp as I’ve found that more comfortable for me as a base tone to build off ofHi Sunbeast,
Sorry to approach you like this. I wondered what your opinion of the Line6 HX Stomp is now you have had it for a few months? I am thinking of getting one to reduce my pedalboard and give me better straight-to-desk options but the YouTube videos featuring the HX Stomp on bass are awful and completely unhelpful!
Joe
