Line 6 HX Effects

[254 stringer]

If that keeps happening you may need to send it in to L6. I think that was happening to someone else a while back too. I think he ended up having to send it in to get fixed. I think.

It’s never given me any trouble except when updating and it used to be I just had to have a good USB cable, the one it came with has never worked. But other than that it has always booted and worked flawlessly every time I turned it on. I’m guessing if the new owner had trouble it should have about a year of warranty left I just need to figure out how to transfer it.

 

[gregmon79]

It’s never given me any trouble except when updating and it used to be I just had to have a good USB cable, the one it came with has never worked. But other than that it has always booted and worked flawlessly every time I turned it on. I’m guessing if the new owner had trouble it should have about a year of warranty left I just need to figure out how to transfer it.

Go to the line 6 forums and ask around or search. I’m sure it’s there. Their forums have a ton of user info on there. Odds are someone else has gone through exactly what you are going through.

 

[red_rhino]

LOL! I feel like the punchline of a joke that starts with "A bass player walks into the Effects Forum and finds the Line 6 HX Effects thread..."

Now I want one of these and a Future Impact! I feel this could be a slippery slope.

I'm so far behind the curve on this stuff, and I don't want to read all 128 pages of this thread right now. Can anyone help me with a few questions?

What is IR? I read the wikipedia definition, but it did nothing to help my understanding of how it applies here (or to effects processing in general). Everyone seems very positive about that ability in the HX, so why is it such a big deal?

Is anyone using the HX Edit tool on MacOS? Any issues?

Which expression pedals are people using with the HX?

Thanks.

 

[gregmon79]

LOL! I feel like the punchline of a joke that starts with "A bass player walks into the Effects Forum and finds the Line 6 HX Effects thread..."

Now I want one of these and a Future Impact! I feel this could be a slippery slope.

I'm so far behind the curve on this stuff, and I don't want to read all 128 pages of this thread right now. Can anyone help me with a few questions?

What is IR? I read the wikipedia definition, but it did nothing to help my understanding of how it applies here (or to effects processing in general). Everyone seems very positive about that ability in the HX, so why is it such a big deal?

Is anyone using the HX Edit tool on MacOS? Any issues?

Which expression pedals are people using with the HX?

Thanks.

An IR is an “impulse response”. It’s like a speaker sim sorta. It’s a recording of an actual mic’d speaker/cab and then they digitize it. It’s like capturing what a speaker is doing then giving you that sound and enabling you to utilize it in live/recording situations. Sorta haha i know how they do it but it’s hard for me to explain. Its really good for live and studio use if you’re just running right to a board or if you’re using a full range type speaker. Here, maybe these will help you more than I can explain it! Haha





I’ve used HX edit on my PC. No issues for me so far. It’s a great tool for quick editing. Sorry I can’t be more help in this area as I don’t use/have a Mac.

I think you’ll get the most out of your expression exp with a mission engineering expression. A lot of them are designed to work with the helix family in general. There are others as well. I’ve used the mini Dunlop X exp. it works well. Def do a little digging on this one though. There are some that don’t work as good as some others I’ve mentioned.

 

[Ethereal Thorn]

Finally got one of my bands boards finished this setup is end game

 

[LeonD]

I’m having no issues with HX Edit and the latest macOS.

Works fine.

 

[redstrand]

HX edit on my 10 year old Mac mini works great, the IR’s I’ve downloaded sound pretty good.

 

[CRich0205]

I edit on MacOS with no issues. I like it because I can duplicate my basic patch with a couple things that never change and add or subtract from there. Workflow on the unit is pretty easy as well. I just picked up an EHX dual expression and it works pretty good so far. You can flip the polarity and adjust the sensitivity.

 

[Tandark]

Prepped the HX ready for a rare gig tonight. Might seem like a no-brainer to most but had an epiphany whilst trying to get my gain stages sorted. Really like the Obsidian but needed my always-on sound, bit of push, a distortion, and a more cutting tone for the heaviest sections in my bands set. Not quite happy with some of the other models yet to get what I was after.

Then I figured it out;
I dropped the obsidian off the footswitches in signal flow and assigned the bottom three stomps to toggle grunt, drive and attack controls from flat to boost.
4 great sounds, 1 block used, 3 switches.
Awesome.

 

[red_rhino]

I'm curious to know how important having an expression pedal is for the HX. Is it absolutely essential, or does it facilitate live playing in some way? I guess what I'm asking is "If I bought an HX, would having an expression pedal make a difference in how much I like it?"

Yeah, I realize this is rather vague. I'd appreciate the insight.

 

[jbybj]

I'm curious to know how important having an expression pedal is for the HX. Is it absolutely essential, or does it facilitate live playing in some way? I guess what I'm asking is "If I bought an HX, would having an expression pedal make a difference in how much I like it?"

Yeah, I realize this is rather vague. I'd appreciate the insight.

If you want:
a volume pedal
A wah wah pedal
The ability to control any parameter on any model, including using the exp to switch something on or off,
then yes you will need an expression pedal.

In my opinion the HX FX is also supremely useful without one.

There are likely some cool ways to implement an exp pedal that haven’t occurred to me yet. It seems like I keep finding new useful features to exploit all around the HX FX.

 

[gregmon79]

I'm curious to know how important having an expression pedal is for the HX. Is it absolutely essential, or does it facilitate live playing in some way? I guess what I'm asking is "If I bought an HX, would having an expression pedal make a difference in how much I like it?"

Yeah, I realize this is rather vague. I'd appreciate the insight.

I haven't ever really used one with it yet. I've messed around with one and some things on it, but I haven't used one for live use. So IMO you don't NEED one to utilize the HX fully. But depending on what you want to use it for, it could be pretty necessary and or beneficial.

 

[CRich0205]

I'm curious to know how important having an expression pedal is for the HX. Is it absolutely essential, or does it facilitate live playing in some way? I guess what I'm asking is "If I bought an HX, would having an expression pedal make a difference in how much I like it?"

Yeah, I realize this is rather vague. I'd appreciate the insight.

I just added one after having my HX for like a year. I’m using it for wah and setup to blend some effects in on the fly right now so I don’t have to turn them on and off manually. It’s definitely a neat thing but I don’t think it’s nevessary.

 

[mikezimmerman]

I just got my hands on an HX FX (thanks, @ExaltBass !), and am looking forward to figuring out what all this thing can do! I'm pretty much an effects novice, and even going to the Sansamp as part of my regular gigging rig last year felt like a big step...

I really like the fact that the basic setup is pretty intuitive, and I was able to throw together a quick pedalboard with some basics (noise gate and compressor), an overdrive and a distortion, and a functional chorus and octaver and tweak them to taste in time to gig with the next day! The interface makes it much easier to manage than the Zoom B1 that I picked up many years ago and never quite got the hang of for gigging ("Wait, is A1 the funky filter effect, or is that the over-the-top fuzz?")...

That said, I'm sure there's a ton more that I can do with it, so the next step is to wrap my head around the signal flow functions. I'd like to be able to move the two "always on" effects--the noise gate and the compressor--so they don't take up footswitches.

Also, I'm not crazy about the distortion setting that I have set up, because it seems to lose too much low end. I've like to try more of the multi-band "dug" type distortion mixed with a clean low end, but I think I'm going to have to figure out how to combine a signal split, a highpass filter, and a distortion all into one block and assign it to a footswitch. Is that about right?

 

[gregmon79]

I just got my hands on an HX FX (thanks, @ExaltBass !), and am looking forward to figuring out what all this thing can do! I'm pretty much an effects novice, and even going to the Sansamp as part of my regular gigging rig last year felt like a big step...

I really like the fact that the basic setup is pretty intuitive, and I was able to throw together a quick pedalboard with some basics (noise gate and compressor), an overdrive and a distortion, and a functional chorus and octaver and tweak them to taste in time to gig with the next day! The interface makes it much easier to manage than the Zoom B1 that I picked up many years ago and never quite got the hang of for gigging ("Wait, is A1 the funky filter effect, or is that the over-the-top fuzz?")...

That said, I'm sure there's a ton more that I can do with it, so the next step is to wrap my head around the signal flow functions. I'd like to be able to move the two "always on" effects--the noise gate and the compressor--so they don't take up footswitches.

Also, I'm not crazy about the distortion setting that I have set up, because it seems to lose too much low end. I've like to try more of the multi-band "dug" type distortion mixed with a clean low end, but I think I'm going to have to figure out how to combine a signal split, a highness filter, and a distortion all into one block and assign it to a footswitch. Is that about right?

Def try running the dist in a parallel path. That works every time for me. And it sounds great! And yes, you can assign all them to the same foot switch. I think you can put every block on 1 fs....I think....??... or at least 7 of the 9. I can't remember.

 

[LeonD]

That said, I'm sure there's a ton more that I can do with it, so the next step is to wrap my head around the signal flow functions.....

For me, setting up "pedalboards" is much easier doing it on the computer vs on the HX Effects unit. The computer software, at least on a Mac, has been pretty intuitive.

 

[red_rhino]

For me, setting up "pedalboards" is much easier doing it on the computer vs on the HX Effects unit. The computer software, at least on a Mac, has been pretty intuitive.

When you're doing it on the computer, how do you know you're getting the sound you like? How are you monitoring? Or is it just a matter of trial and error, setting/tweaking/trying until you get there?

 

[LeonD]

I keep the HX Effects plugged into my signal chain (bass -> HX Effects -> amp). Just connect the computer via USB.

I'll make changes to the HX Effects on the computer and hear the difference real time out of my amp.

 

[escaraBAJO]

I will be selling mine. It has a bug where the effects in a preset dissapear during a set. The name of the effect is there, I press it and then it says none or something like that, and the effect is gone. Not suitable for live use.
I tried to update the firmware but it didn't work
Admittedly I don't have much time nowadays to make it work but thats the exact reason it is no longer good for me

 

[gregmon79]

I will be selling mine. It has a bug where the effects in a preset dissapear during a set. The name of the effect is there, I press it and then it says none or something like that, and the effect is gone. Not suitable for live use.
I tried to update the firmware but it didn't work
Admittedly I don't have much time nowadays to make it work but thats the exact reason it is no longer good for me

Ah that sucks man. I know that happened to me a few times. It hasn't happened in a while. I think I did a factory reset on it and then updated it. I also deleted any corrupt patches before all that. It was a slight bummer, but I worked it out and it's been problem free since. Sorry it didn't work out for you and you don't have the time to mess with it. It's a great unit. But I see how some things can be dealbreakers for some. I know someone who got an HX stomp and as soon as he opened the box and saw the power supply, he didn't even plug it in. He packed it back up and returned it. Some things just can't be compromised.