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Line 6 HX Stomp

#9,561
I was finally able to (briefly) spend some time with the IMA patches I picked up on Black Friday. (IMA Sig, Vintage Synth, Modern Synth). Initial reaction is that I still (obviously) need to tweak them to my own rig/playstyle, but I like them all a lot right out of the gate. Particularly the synth patches, they sound really great.

It'll be really interesting to poke around under the hood and see how everything is set up though... I thought my own presets were pretty loud, but whoooooo boyyyyy, do IMA's patches come in HOT. The output blocks are all at 0.0dB, so I'm curious to explore individual block settings to see why his patches are so much louder than my own. And if I need to incorporate any of those settings/ideas over to my own patches. :thumbsup:

5sg.
 
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#9,565
SteveC said:
I believe pressing the two knobs will put it in true bypass.
Click to expand...
2 kinds of bypass, depends on the internal settings. Pressing the two knobs activates the bypass mode but it has options.
From the manual:

NOTE: There are two types of All Bypass in HX Stomp: Analog bypass

(sometimes called "true bypass"), where mechanically switching relays route

your signal directly from the inputs to the outputs with no processing or

A/D/A conversion, and DSP bypass, where any delay echoes and reverb

tails decay naturally. By default, HX Stomp is set for Analog bypass, but this

behavior can be set from "Global Settings > Preferences".
 
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#9,569
SteveC said:
I believe pressing the two knobs will put it in true bypass.
Click to expand...
And will that remain true bypass if the StompXL is powered down? I guess it's a way to bypass everything for a song or two?

Edit: Just tried that when it's on. That is a nice feature I didn't know about! It bypasses the Stomp until you hit a switch and then the Stomp effects return.
 
#9,570
furym said:
2 kinds of bypass, depends on the internal settings. Pressing the two knobs activates the bypass mode but it has options.
From the manual:

NOTE: There are two types of All Bypass in HX Stomp: Analog bypass

(sometimes called "true bypass"), where mechanically switching relays route

your signal directly from the inputs to the outputs with no processing or

A/D/A conversion, and DSP bypass, where any delay echoes and reverb

tails decay naturally. By default, HX Stomp is set for Analog bypass, but this

behavior can be set from "Global Settings > Preferences".
Click to expand...
Just checked that out. Depending on what setting you have, when you press the two buttons like SteveC mentioned above, it will bypass either analog or dsp. Turned the unit off and on with both settings and didn't notice anything different. So still not sure what is going on when there is no power to the unit, or it has power, but is turned off.
 
#9,572
Mayo Fan said:
Coincidentally I discovered this week that it does bypass when turned off. It froze on me so I turned it off. Then all of a sudden the sound of my bass came back on. Even during startup I had unaffected sound. Clever device this Stomp thingy.
Click to expand...
Yes, that seems to be correct. I'm still trying to figure out if it's a true bypass at that point, or is the Stomp doing something different? I picked it up to play with, but I'm still a little unsure of putting it in my signal chain as I'm worried what will happen if it craps out?
 
#9,573
TaylorJ said:
Yes, that seems to be correct. I'm still trying to figure out if it's a true bypass at that point, or is the Stomp doing something different? I picked it up to play with, but I'm still a little unsure of putting it in my signal chain as I'm worried what will happen if it craps out?
Click to expand...
I've heard of very few Stomp total failures, and if that did happen it would take less than half a minute to reroute my cables to remove it. If it sounds good in your signal chain then in my opinion you shouldn't really worry about what is technically happening in the circuitry. If it passes sound when the power is switched off and still sounds good, then that is better than tons of digital pedals that would cut your signal entirely without power. I've had pedals with terrible degrading bypasses, and the Stomp to my ears is great in either bypass mode.
 
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#9,575
Hi all, I've owned my HX Stomp for many years as my sole fx pedal. However I have not managed to figure out a solution to this problem, which is a loss of low end when using distortion blocks. I feel like I've tried everything - using parallel paths, blend options, increasing the bass eq etc etc, and it always sounds great through headphones. But when I get on stage and play at loud volumes, as soon as I hit that distortion or overdrive block, I just feel the low end disappear.

Has anyone figured out how to overcome this?
 
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#9,576
ReeV0 said:
Hi all, I've owned my HX Stomp for many years as my sole fx pedal. However I have not managed to figure out a solution to this problem, which is a loss of low end when using distortion blocks. I feel like I've tried everything - using parallel paths, blend options, increasing the bass eq etc etc, and it always sounds great through headphones. But when I get on stage and play at loud volumes, as soon as I hit that distortion or overdrive block, I just feel the low end disappear.

Has anyone figured out how to overcome this?
Click to expand...

You might have too much low end in your effects path, so even if you have a parallel path, half your low end still disappears when you kick in your distortion.

Crossover split might help, which will make sure your low end only goes to your clean path and always stays consistent.

Or maybe you could eq out a lot of low end in your effects path when it's clean, again to make sure that whatever low end you have in your signal is only coming from the parallel path, not your effects path.

What drives are you using? Heavier drives will always create much more upper harmonics, at the cost of low end.

It might also be that your drive tone is much louder than your clean tone, which neans that if the sound guy has a compressor on your channel, it will compress a lot more. Since the louder parts are the distorted frequencies (because of high-end harmonics), then the compression will turn down your low-end a lot more on your driven tone.
 
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#9,577
ReeV0 said:
Hi all, I've owned my HX Stomp for many years as my sole fx pedal. However I have not managed to figure out a solution to this problem, which is a loss of low end when using distortion blocks. I feel like I've tried everything - using parallel paths, blend options, increasing the bass eq etc etc, and it always sounds great through headphones. But when I get on stage and play at loud volumes, as soon as I hit that distortion or overdrive block, I just feel the low end disappear.

Has anyone figured out how to overcome this?
Click to expand...
As you'd expect, a lot of the Stomp drive models are guitar-oriented. Guitarists have the opposite issue to us- too much low end makes their distorted tones sound flabby. The classic Tube Screamer overdrive is a huge favourite, specifically because it has a mid boost and bass cut baked in.

Next time you're at a venue where you can crank your rig to stage volume, try switching to one of the Stomp drives that models a "transparent" drive.

Also, a lot of the bass patches on my Stomp are amp-only, no IR or cab. Maybe try running a bass amp model as a drive- the SVT definitely isn't going to trim your low end!
 
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#9,578
ReeV0 said:
Hi all, I've owned my HX Stomp for many years as my sole fx pedal. However I have not managed to figure out a solution to this problem, which is a loss of low end when using distortion blocks. I feel like I've tried everything - using parallel paths, blend options, increasing the bass eq etc etc, and it always sounds great through headphones. But when I get on stage and play at loud volumes, as soon as I hit that distortion or overdrive block, I just feel the low end disappear.

Has anyone figured out how to overcome this?
Click to expand...

Set a parametric EQ directly behind the drive and switch it on and off with it. No parallel path. What you lack in low frequencies you simply turn back in at the EQ. I make amps distort and in the process low frequencies are lost. At a certain level, even with the SVT, if you then boost the bass you only get more distortion and less low end.
 
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#9,580
XP2aficionado said:
Set a parametric EQ directly behind the drive and switch it on and off with it. No parallel path. What you lack in low frequencies you simply turn back in at the EQ. I make amps distort and in the process low frequencies are lost. At a certain level, even with the SVT, if you then boost the bass you only get more distortion and less low end.
Click to expand...
That’s an interesting point.

I use very little drive- at most I’m occasionally looking for a little hair on the note. I’ve never given much thought to what happens if you go for a really filthy sound.

That raises another question, though. If you’re pushing so much drive that a modeled SVT completely caves, how do you produce any punch or dynamics without a parallel path?
 
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