Line 6 HX Stomp

[SteveC]

I debated a few options when I wanted an "all-in-one" solution for myself. The Stomp is a nice compromise between, sound, size, cost and flexibility. I used to use a tuner, compressor, eq, on a Nano; ran that to a REDDI and had a Yamaha MODX6 synth. Now I have a Nano+ with my tuner, Rolls PM50s for my wired IEM's, my Stomp and a Sushi Box Finally. That's it. And one bass with a 2nd if I feel like swapping and as a backup.

I generally use one bass preset with 3 effects options. I have another with a detuning option for the 5-6 tunes where I like to play in Eb. Easier than swapping basses. Then I have about 4 synth bass settings. I use a Pedalnetics 4/5 Aux pedal for scrolling between presets live. That addition really makes the Stomp useful live.

 

[silky smoove]

Stomp incoming! I also grabbed a Cioks Crux to power it. I'm currently using a Cioks Hi5 Mod on my Temple Audio board, which includes their 24V link output. The Crux description is pretty heavily weighted towards use with the DC7 and is unclear if it will work with the Hi5 Mod, but worst case is that it doesn't work and I just need to utilize two DC taps on my Hi5 Mod unit. I can make the current doubler and two outputs option work, it would just be nicer to keep them free if I can.

This will be for my IEM rig. I built a test preset using Helix Native and limited myself to 8 blocks (only used 7 and honestly could do just fine with 6). The results into my IEMs were fantastic, so I'm excited to move that preset onto a Stomp for live use.

 

[JKos]

I built a test preset using Helix Native and limited myself to 8 blocks (only used 7 and honestly could do just fine with 6).

Tell us more about your preset. Thanks.

 

[silky smoove]

Tell us more about your preset. Thanks.

If I were at home I would just upload it to the site so everyone could try it.

This year I started with an Origin Effects BassRig Super Vintage as the main send to our FOH and IEM split. I found that the cab sim, which can't be defeated on the XLR out, was too low for my taste. I switched to a Bergantino SuperPre for a more neutral and flexible option. It's great, but I struggle with the EQ on it for some reason. I feel like it simultaneously has too many controls and not enough. I always feel like I can get my tone 75% of the way to where I want it with the SuperPre, and then it immediately goes too far in the other direction. That lead me to try the demo of Helix Native feeding my IEMs and playing around with it. Once I got out of my own way and stopped doing the things you're "supposed to do" with the Stomp (i.e. using the amp and cab sims), I immediately landed on a simple patch that sounds exactly like what I want to hear in my IEMs and will be useful for our FOH engineer on live dates. This is all based feeding it with Dingwall Super J, almost always with the neck and bridge pickups set to serial mode and in parallel with each other, 50/50 blend, tone on full, active EQ flat.

1. HPF / LPF - The high pass is set at 40hz and the low pass is set at 10khz. Nothing crazy going on here. Effectively just bandpassing the upper and lower limits of what I don't want in my signal chain.
2. Parametric EQ - I ran pink noise through Helix and tweaked the low and high bands of this control until, in conjunction with the previous HPF/LPF processing block, the results resembled what a resonant filter would provide at the 80hz and 10khz points on a spectrum analyzer. Not a huge resonant bump, but enough that you could hear it when it was bypassed. From there, not wanting to only rely on a spectrum analyzer, I tweaked the bands to taste. A little more booty and sparkle with it engaged, but not so much that it sounded like a different instrument or a massive mid scoop when A/B'ing. Pretty subtle, but quite nice. The mid band was left unused but could be activated as a narrow band filter in tough rooms, or as a moderate to broad boost for more snarl if the situation calls for it.
3. Deluxe Comp - Nothing too extreme here. My taste in compressors is quite mild. I like a slow attack, fast release in parallel (I used a 50% blend here), and without excessive squish. Without the blend I liked this around 3:1 with about 3db of gain reduction. With the blend, which is my preference, I was able to run it up to 6:1 with more like 6db of gain reduction, although if memory serves, I think I dialed it back to 4:1 but kept the gain reduction around 6db on the loudest of notes.
4. BOctave - I added this here as I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the tracking and tone. I have a 3Leaf Octabvre Mini on the board already, so I don't know that I'll use this. I might use the Octabvre in front of the Stomp as a fully wet octave down synthy option. We'll see. On the Stomp's BOctave I removed the -2 octave but left the dry and -1 octave blended at 6.0 each and was able to produce convincing Tony Levin on Peter Gabriel's "Sledgehammer" type tones at roughly unity volume to my uneffected tone. Good enough for Tony, good enough for me!
5. Studio Pre - I liked this quite a bit more than any of the amp sims. All controls left at the default and then I adjusted the gain until it just added a little liveliness to the tone without much in the way of audible distortion or color. Just enough to where I could tell when it was bypassed as things sounded less exciting, even with volume at unity. I could live without this block, but it's nice to have it.
6. Obsidian 700 - My overdrive needs are very minimal, and for most of what I do these types of effects aren't engaged. This one worked well enough and was sufficiently tweakable to make it sound like my clean tone but with a pleasant overdrive blended in fairly low.
7. FX Loop Insert - I couldn't do this in Helix Native but intend to on the HX Stomp as a means of inserting my 3Leaf Proton V4 into the signal chain after the overdrive. I really dislike envelope filters before distortion, so using the loop was mandatory, and I also really disliked the envelope filters built into the Stomp. The Proton V4 is perfect for me, so this is an easy solution.

That's it. It still leaves one processing block open for other things should I decide I want anything else added. Maybe an end of chain limiter to catch unintended overs. This will feed into a Pinstripe MISO based on the recommendations of a friend who's using this combination and really likes it. I had intended to go with a Radial unit, but thought I'd give the Pinstripe a try. I'll go with a Radial if I don't like the Pinstripe for any reason.

 

[SteveC]

Sounds really similar to what I was doing before I got Ian's presets. Also very similar to what he uses.

 

[silky smoove]

Sounds really similar to what I was doing before I got Ian's presets. Also very similar to what he uses.

I've not looked into Ian's presets, but a friend of mine bought a pack of his. Could be worth checking out. For me the simluated resonant filter (blocks 1 and 2) is like 90% of what I want. Everything is just icing on the cake.

 

[silky smoove]

I forgot to mention; My HX Stomp just shipped out today from Sweetwater. However long it takes to get from Indiana to Seattle, typically around 3-4 business days depending on the size of the package, is how long it will be before I can do some real-world tweaks of my preset. Once I'm happy with it I'll be sure and upload a copy here for everyone to try it out. Hopefully someone will find it useful, or if nothing else, someone will find it so terrible sounding (to them) that they'll question my sanity

 

[fivestringgecko]

Fun Trivia:
My backup Stomp just came in came with a newer smaller power supply. New(ish) Stomp owners won't know the joy of the original honkin' big and super awkward power supply that Line 6 was originally shipping with the Stomp. ha ha!

(The Voodoo HX Current Doubler easily took away that joy on my pedalboard with my Zuma though. )

5sg.

 

[erayser]

Fun Trivia:
My backup Stomp just came in came with a newer smaller power supply. New(ish) Stomp owners won't know the joy of the original honkin' big and super awkward power supply that Line 6 was originally shipping with the Stomp. ha ha!

(The Voodoo HX Current Doubler easily took away that joy on my pedalboard with my Zuma though. )

5sg.

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My sweetfootpedal HX +3+2 ISO power supply came at the same time as my HX Stomp... so I never really seen how the stock power supply looked like...

 

[fivestringgecko]

My sweetfootpedal HX +3+2 ISO power supply came at the same time as my HX Stomp... so I never really seen how the stock power supply looked like...

Note that the (pins? blades?) are turned 90 degrees on that old supply... so there was no good way to plug it in if you were using a power strip. Depending on the orientation of the power strip outlets, the old Line 6 wall wart either stuck out at a 90 degree angle, hung way off the end, or covered three other outlets. ha ha

Pure joy!

5sg.

 

[Collin Lyle]

I got momentarily excited for this [Line 6].

I use a self powered cab and love the Woody Blue head for driving it. I've been looking for a preamp that can replicate it so I can free up a block and some space for other things. For that one brief glorious moment I thought "Great! My solution has arrived!!" Nope. Effects only. No amp mods. Booooo Line 6!. Boooooooo

 

[SteveC]

Well, the One is $300. On a good day you can get a used Stomp for $500 or less. Maybe a pair of Stomps?

 

[TheBass]

Fun Trivia:
My backup Stomp just came in came with a newer smaller power supply. New(ish) Stomp owners won't know the joy of the original honkin' big and super awkward power supply that Line 6 was originally shipping with the Stomp. ha ha!

(The Voodoo HX Current Doubler easily took away that joy on my pedalboard with my Zuma though. )

5sg.

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Looking at this you may get an idea why I don't like the use of messy and fragile wall warts on stage. They are a continous source of trouble, hum, noise, accidential kicks by yourself or another musician ect.

 

[LM Bass]

I just picked up the Combinator Helix “ALL” patches, made by Sean Fairchild, and I’m enjoying tweaking them- some pretty well-thought out sounds in here. No affiliation- here’s the link:

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[silky smoove]

I just picked up the Combinator Helix “ALL” patches, made by Sean Fairchild, and I’m enjoying tweaking them- some pretty well-thought out sounds in here. No affiliation- here’s the link:

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Sean’s a great guy and a personal friend. We’re hanging out Sunday actually. I know he put a lot of work into this, so I’m glad to hear that folks are digging his work.

 

[Combinator]

I just picked up the Combinator Helix “ALL” patches, made by Sean Fairchild, and I’m enjoying tweaking them- some pretty well-thought out sounds in here. No affiliation- here’s the link:

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Hey hey, thanks so much man!! Really appreciate that shout out! I've spent countless hours over several years working out the sounds I use live, on recordings & videos, and these presets are the result. Hope they help others too!

 

[richntiff]

I'm looking at the Stomp for a potential new project I'm thinking of starting. There will be a decent amount of 90's-current pop type stuff. Britney Spears/Christina Aguilera/Dua Lipa/Billy Eilish type tunes - so lots of that bass synth sound, but not super synthy, more wubby or whatever - I don't know how to describe tones like that lol. I know a lot of that territory can be fairly convincingly covered with an octave/fuzz/chorus combination in individual pedal land - but can the Stomp do it with one of the onboard synth effects? If not, has anyone tried stacking onboard octave/fuzz/chorus to achieve the effect? If neither of those two is an option - can the Source Audio C4 make those noises?

Sorry for the rudimentary questions!!!

 

[Naigewron]

I'm looking at the Stomp for a potential new project I'm thinking of starting. There will be a decent amount of 90's-current pop type stuff. Britney Spears/Christina Aguilera/Dua Lipa/Billy Eilish type tunes - so lots of that bass synth sound, but not super synthy, more wubby or whatever - I don't know how to describe tones like that lol. I know a lot of that territory can be fairly convincingly covered with an octave/fuzz/chorus combination in individual pedal land - but can the Stomp do it with one of the onboard synth effects? If not, has anyone tried stacking onboard octave/fuzz/chorus to achieve the effect? If neither of those two is an option - can the Source Audio C4 make those noises?

Sorry for the rudimentary questions!!!

Could you post an example of the tone you're after?

The synth effects in the Stomp are not as flexible and advanced as the C4, but many of them are still very usable. Here's one I recorded earlier this week:

 

[SteveC]

I'm looking at the Stomp for a potential new project I'm thinking of starting. There will be a decent amount of 90's-current pop type stuff. Britney Spears/Christina Aguilera/Dua Lipa/Billy Eilish type tunes - so lots of that bass synth sound, but not super synthy, more wubby or whatever - I don't know how to describe tones like that lol. I know a lot of that territory can be fairly convincingly covered with an octave/fuzz/chorus combination in individual pedal land - but can the Stomp do it with one of the onboard synth effects? If not, has anyone tried stacking onboard octave/fuzz/chorus to achieve the effect? If neither of those two is an option - can the Source Audio C4 make those noises?

Sorry for the rudimentary questions!!!

My main preset has chorus, drive and octave as individual effects options. I turn them all on for a quick synthy sound. The "Poker Face" tone is definitely in the Stomp.

 

[Digital Igloo]

The 400 price difference it a far cry being in the same ballpark. For 299 this is a killer pedal. Most folks who would be interested already have some type of foot controller...the only negative I can think of is that it wears so many hats, where do you place it on a pedalboard when it covers everything. If this had a looper I would get it....

From the FAQ:

• If you’re willing to sacrifice stereo operation, HX One can be switched into one of two different locations on your pedalboard (or in 4-cable method), per preset—say up front for distortions and pitch effects and toward the end for delays and reverbs

They missed it by that much!

No we didn't.

PRICE
Whammy V is $299, same price as HX One. Drop is $239. EHX Freeze is $150. HX One does all of these (by many accounts, better than the standalones), plus another 250 effects, including a bunch of unique offerings you can't get anywhere else (unless you buy HX Effects or better). 3.70 will add a better, more controllable version of a $239 pedal plus a bunch of other stuff. 3.80 will add even more.

SINGLE STOMP
Line 6 would be stoooopid to have made HX One a complicated, multi-block HX Two or HX Three affair (which wouldn't work right anyway without much clunkier UI/navigation, adding a third—and maybe fourth—switch, blowing things up into a pedalboard-unfriendly footprint, confusing DSP allocation, and/or a higher price), instantly making it a non-starter for the vast majority of traditional pedalboard guitarists/bassists. We'd be crippling our target market viability to what end? Placating modeler/multieffects users who'd likely never buy an HX Two/Three anyway because they're happy with their HX Stomp, GT1000 Core, FM3, etc.?

There's a reason why relatively few multieffects appear on Pedalboards of Doom and other stompbox-centric environments. Things are getting better (thanks, HX Stomp!), but not quite fast enough for us. HX One adoption could eventually help everyone in this space (including Fractal, Kemper, Atomic, and Neural), just like DL4/MM4/DM4/FM4 and M13/M9/M5 helped push digital forward many years ago.