Ordered my hxfx today. Should be getting it next week. I’m really excited!
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Line 6 HX Effects
- Thread starter ChubbyJerk
- Start date
My used LT showed up Tuesday in great condition. The seller emailed me his original invoice as well so I should be in good shape warranty wise. Spent most of Tuesday and some of Wednesday digging into it to dial in some tones. It is capable of quite a lot!
I had a Fractal AX8 in the past, but it was almost overwhelming when it came to options, so I like that the Helix is stripped down a little bit. I don't necessarily want to tweak internal parameters of amps or effects... I just want it to sound good.
I had a Fractal AX8 in the past, but it was almost overwhelming when it came to options, so I like that the Helix is stripped down a little bit. I don't necessarily want to tweak internal parameters of amps or effects... I just want it to sound good.
I haven't been able to get to the Line 6 forums in quite a while. Is anybody else having that issue?
I'm sort of thinking of selling my few pedals (Broughton Broughctave and Joshwah, Southampton Fifth Gear, DIY Green Russian Muff, Polytune Mini) and just jumping in face first on the HX bandwagon. I'm terrified that I won't find an OC2 substitute that let's me do that fat solo'd -1 oct. signal, or that sweet, sweet Sledgehammer sound. And I need a really fat sounding envelope filter. But I can't afford the HX unless I sell my whole rig. Nowhere nearby is carrying the HX yet. I might just hold out a couple more months and see how everyone else is getting on.
Thanks! I have a direct bookmark to the Helix section which was just giving a weird html message. Thought it might have moved and had my link pointing to the wrong spot or something.
Going through the main Line 6 site I see the maintenance message now.
Going through the main Line 6 site I see the maintenance message now.
I'd recommend against it until you KNOW the HX can replicate what you need it to replicate. Your 5-pedal chain isn't too cumbersome, so the weight and size difference shouldn't be the swaying factor. However, buyer's remorse is a real thing, and some of your pedals would be a real challenge to buy back if you find the HX doesn't live up to your needs.
That being said - the HX can do a truckload more than your current board, and chances are the world you'd be diving into would be more rewarding and experimental.
Yeah, my initial interest in the HX was as a replacement for the Bass Whammy I sold months ago and an upgrade from the Zoom MS100BT I used for my delay/verb/chorus/weird sounds needs. Now the idea of flipping my Nano board for the HX is also driven by the desire to stop messing around with power supplies and patch cables and get into the expansive routing available in the HX. We'll see, it's still the honeymoon period for a lot of the people using it so far.
Correct. It's an Apple thing.
Hmm... There are no factory IRs in HX Effects, so I'm not sure what you're hearing.
What are snapshots?
Imagine you have eight pet octopuses, all slithering around your pedalboard. Instead of tap-dancing on your pedals (and accidentally stepping on a tentacle), you shout "Okay, gang—here's the verse... now!" and your octopuses turn some pedals on, turn other pedals off, and tweak all your pedals' knobs to make the best possible settings for your song's verse, all seamlessly with spillover delay and reverb trails. Then you shout "Ready for the chorus... now!" and your octopuses instantly tweak everything for your song's chorus.
The only thing your octopuses can't do is rearrange your pedalboard or swap out an effect for a different one.
Each preset can have up to 64 parameters assigned to Snapshots; hence, eight octopuses with eight tentacles each. The octopuses can remember four separate groups of on/off statuses and setting tweaks per preset (say, for your intro, verse, solo, and overindulgent noise segue); that is, HX Effects has four snapshots per preset.
Depending on how you set them up, snapshots can act as four variations of the same tone, four drastically different tones, or any combination thereof—all within the same preset. In many cases, a single preset's snapshots can accommodate all the various tones required for a song.
We've had considerably more traffic lately. I believe the web guys are rebuilding a bunch of infrastructure stuff today. With luck, all will be well tonight or tomorrow.
The convenience factor was my original motivation. I had already sold my individual pedals, due to the hassles (cables, power, size, weight), and also the fears of losing the signal on a gig and not being able to figure out where it went wrong. So for me, I wanted a single pedal that fill all my fx requirements. Two cables, one power supply, no pedalboard, no giant case.
So now, I can fit the HX into the pocket of a gig bag and have some great sounding effects with presets. Yes, I’m in the honeymoon phase, but currently it sounds good enough for all my needs. And the feature set is pretty amazing.
Thanks for the update on the web site!
On the topic of IRs, I ran into a similar issue. There aren't any factory IRs loaded up, but you can still load up the block. And it isn't inherently obvious that you need to turn that IR selector knob to load up a different one. It took me a while to figure out what was going on. It looks, at first glance, like you have loaded up an IR, but all it does is really screw up your sound. Even after you load in some IRs, you can load the block and leave no IR selected. It's kind of odd. (This is going off of memory from a while back, I haven't touched IRs in a while...so I could be wrong.)
Perhaps having no IR loaded should behave as if it were bypassed. It does not, from what I remember, appear to do so at the moment.
This is exactly what I was referring to @Digital Igloo. Sorry if I confused with my statement. I really thought those were stock IR's in there.
I know I’m still in the honeymoon phase but I will say this, I’ve never been as impressed and excited over a pedal as I have been over the HX. I’ve had it going on a month now I think and I’m still playing with it every day, finding new sounds, figuring patches. It really makes things fun. I’m not filter or octave buff, I’ve used both but these are up there with dirt in that they are all very relative and special to each player. I can sit here and say that you wouldn’t have any issues finding a fat a$$ filter and a good octave to your liking enough to warrant you ditching all those things for the HX but then you could get it and be unimpressed with those same things. But the HX to me is so cool still. I know I could even say I’d use the dirt for most of my dirt needs, that’s how good I think the dirt modeling is in it. But it’s simply easier for me to use my existing dirt boxes. It leaves me a lot more room for all the other stuff like delay, mod and synth stuff.
I still think you’d be quite happy with the HX if you got one. But yes, it’s an expensive and risky move if it didn’t work. Let alone time spent and stress wise. I know me, if I were to flip my whole board in lieu of say the Helix floor, I’d be stressed haha. I can’t rest until my board is settled and able to be used at all times. If I’m OCD about anything with my board, it’s that. If I ever rip my board apart to revamp, I almost always need to finish reconstructing the same night otherwise I’m a stressball.
I'm extremely relieved that people are so happy with the HX. I would feel bad if people were regretting their purchase. I've said it before, but everything I say is imo and ymmv. It's all subjective, and I'd hate to recommend something to someone that they end up being unhappy with.
That said...IMO, HX is amazing and I'm confident that pretty much anybody open to modeling in general would be happy with it...but YMMV.
The only real caveat there is that a lot of people seem to have that one pedal or that one effect that's just special to them, and nothing else will ever satisfy them. If that's you, and you'd have to sell everything to cover it...ehhhhhh. As much as I like to act as an HX salesman, you might want to wait until there's a used one for sale, or a local store has one you can try.
That said...IMO, HX is amazing and I'm confident that pretty much anybody open to modeling in general would be happy with it...but YMMV.
The only real caveat there is that a lot of people seem to have that one pedal or that one effect that's just special to them, and nothing else will ever satisfy them. If that's you, and you'd have to sell everything to cover it...ehhhhhh. As much as I like to act as an HX salesman, you might want to wait until there's a used one for sale, or a local store has one you can try.
IR blocks default to -18.0dB (because commercial impulses are normalized to unity gain, not instrument level) so if you add one without an IR file, your signal will drop by -18.0dB. Not in front of HX Effects right now; if you set an empty IR block's Level parameter to 0.0dB, do you hear any audible difference when bypassing/enabling the block? You shouldn't.
Not sure and can't check right now, but it's entirely possible that's what it was and I'm misremembering and/or overstating what it did.
Yep. Tried it. And now I'm on the Teemah! train. ha ha
Yeah... There's been a lot of previous discussion in this thread about the HX not having an OC2 model. I did a fairly in-depth octaver comparison about 20 pages back, with info & a link to sound samples back in post #532 of this thread. HX Bass Octaver, OC2, Octabvre, MXR Bass Octave Deluxe, Aguilar Octamizer. And my theory on why the OC2 is so unique among octavers here.
Spoiler: The HX Bass Octaver is good, but you won't get OC2 sounds out of it.
Sidenote though: My main band does Sledgehammer, and the HX's Bass Octaver does pass the sniff test for that one.
I'm a bit of an octaver snob, and the Bass Octaver in the HX is good enough for me to use just the HX as a standalone board. That said, I'll be keeping an OC2 or Octabvre in an FX loop when I get the HX built into my "real" pedalboard.
Like others have mentioned: If you have to sell your entire rig to get a HX and are specifically looking for the OC2 sound... I'd say hold off.
Okay, so I spent some time tonight with the HX and Snapshots clicked in my brain. Much like the editing by foot feature, it's another crazy cool feature I didn't know I wanted. The key is like SirMoak said... "A quick push/turn, then dial as normal." That's what I was having trouble wrapping my head around. Getting settings to change on snapshots, not the whole preset. But once that clicks in your head, BOOM. You've got Snapshots. I did exactly what I wanted to do with my main patch. Snapshot 1 has the UP Auto Filter, and Snapshot 2 has the DOWN Auto Filter. And each snapshot renamed to reflect the different settings.
I've had my HX for about a month now. Several rehearsals and gigs with only the HX, and the honeymoon phase isn't going away. I've had it about a month, and I'm still learning things about it, and cool tricks it can do. It's smaller, lighter, and about a 1/4 of the cost of my real board, and can do infinitely more but still sounds really good (you know... "for a multi" lol). And you can back up/save/trade patches to boot.
Eventually I want to try controlling it via MIDI from my iPad... Program MIDI changes on charts in ForScore to change patches on the HX.
5sg.
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