SimonGugala

Great! I’m glad you solved your problem. It always makes it difficult when people don’t understand why you are trying to add an amp head into a loop. For some reason this happens with and unbalanced loop with an extra ground. It is not the usually “ground loop” noise but is actually caused by a ground loop. Happy jamming!

i know this sounds like a high pitched feedback but with hx effects, but it’s an issue with adding another ground when you insert your amp head into the loop. Like I stated you need to lift the ground of the amp in a safe way which is called isolating the ground. Assuming the head, pedalboard and what you are plugging into are the only grounds, and you don’t have the problem till you insert the head, try lifting the ground temporarily with one of those 3 to two prong adapters on the amp. Do not use this long term because you want your amp grounded (it’s dangerous). If you test this with the 3 to 2 prong adapter on your amps power, and it works, the ebtech hum x is your solution to isolate that ground but still have it “safe”.

@heikobear i get what your trying to do. Use a real amp in a loop and use an ir to have a full amp sound before effects. I did this with a rock crusher load box and my heads and had a similar issue. First make sure that the effects loop is set to line, but the send is -20 (around Inst level). Tweak from there for levels. Next, adding an amp head introduces another ground which causes this problem. I was plugging my pedal board out into an interface hiz’s that were not able to ground lift. So either using ground lifts on actually di boxes or getting a ebtech hum x to isolate the amp ground should solve your problem.

Use a ebtech hum x to isolate the ground of the amp. Not the same as lifting the ground (dangerous). If you want to make sure that is is a ground loop caused by your pedals and amp w the switcher connection. Use a 3 to 2 ground lift plug for testing. Do not use this for live shows as a long term solution because it is dangerous. It will tell you if the ebtech will solve your problem .

@AlchemyStrat I have been working on this problem and I think I found a fix. When you plug a 1/4" cable into your interface you have a ground connecting from the interface, guitar head, as well as your pedalboard. I had a hard time finding out if there is an isolated ground in my equipment but I'm guessing there isn't generally and I was getting this bleed too as well as a high feedback hum. Instead of plugging into a hi-z input I went through a direct box that lifted the ground and it solved the problem (eliminated the ground loop and weird bleed). I think adding an amp head into the equation brings in another ground connection that can cause problems. I intend to but an ebtech ground isolator to use on my amp head for live. Another thing I would recommend is taking the return of your amp load box and starting it down at -20. You have to use the INST setting on the send, which makes the return do the same which is too hot for LINE return from the load box. You can have the send/return block on a switch so you can bypass it in and out to match levels. Hope this helps.

There are a couple people (including me) that have post about this and are trying to figure out how to make this work. From what I've worked through, plugging the out of your helix into an interface while using this setup can cause some unexpected ringing and dry bleed of the raw amp sound. I think the main culprit is that it is creating some ground loops by having the pedalboard, amp head (that is in a loop), and hx effect (or stomp) plugged into an input without a ground lift. I would recommend trying to safely isolating the ground of the amp by using. an ebtech isolator or trying a di box with a ground lift before plugging into the interface. It might not be an issue for you depending on your setup but it has proved an issue.

I have an HX Effects that I want to use a guitar amp head with (making it a complete direct solution). Eventually I want to have effects before the amp, Send-2 to amp, amp to loadbox, back to return-2, IR Block and wet effects, and finally to a stereo di. This way I can use my guitar heads live and have a stereo direct solution without having to buy anything extra. To make sure this setup can work I plugged into the head, went to the RockCrusher load box, out the line out (560ohm unbalanced ts), to return 2, IR block, wet effects and stereo out. Everything sounds great but I noticed a low level direct-amp-without-ir sound present. When I bypassed the return-2 block that the amp loadbox was connected to (effectively muting the amp) the low level raw amp head sound remained. To add some craziness to it, when I turn down the send from the loadbox to nothing, it does nothing to the volume of the low level sound. I would love to figure out why this is happening before I connect everything into a send/return loop to use live. This is also happening to someone with a HX Stomp but was told to start a new thread. IR block is 100% but as I mentioned, the return from the amp happens before that, and even when muted, the sound remains. Thanks,

I'll start a different post if that seems more helpful. Good luck @AlchemyStrat. I have your problem and feel your pain!

This is my exact problem too. When even when I bypass the input to the Hx Effects so NOTHING is hitting the IR block, the unprocessed signal is still present at a low level. When the IR is on, although it is much louder, it still mixes with this phantom level of unprocessed signal giving the tone a fuzzy top end when the amp head is distorted. Completely unusable until that is fixed.

On the Hx Effects the Global Settings> In/Outs only controls the instrument/line toggle for outputs. There is no return type. I'm guessing that is a helix or stomp setting that you are referring to.

I have this same issue when trying to use Hx Effects as a ir after a load box too (rock crusher). There is always some raw amp sound mixed in even when I disable the return that the load box is sending signal to. For clarity, I stripped the complexity of my board to see if this worked. I plugged into the amp directly, to load box, line out to the return 2 (this is the input I would use when using the amp as a send/return block). I have a return 2 block that feeds an IR and goes out the helix to a big sky that goes stereo into my interface. When I turn down the line send from the rock crusher, the fuzz sound still remains. When I di the amp into my interface and use and IR through a plugin, it works great with no issues on the rockcrusher send so I don't think that is the issue. If I can get this to work, I can have a stereo di setup using a real guitar amp head (3rd power and a fender bassman) so I'd love to get it working. Also, this is still a problem even if I disconnect the usb (using hx edit)