el_duberino

I think the choice of "amp" vs "preamp" block also depends on your external amp. I run my Helix into the FX return of an Orange Micro Dark, which has a solid state power section. In this case it sounds great using an amp block. I also keep a separate cabinet block that I can turn on if I plug the Helix straight into a FRFR speaker (or play through headphones).

I recently bought some used, powered PA speaker (EV ZLX-12p). These are mainly for acoustic gigs, but I wanted to play around with various HX Effects shenanigans, as well. I normally use the HX in front of an AC15, but I'm always curious about DI options. Yesterday I downloaded the Line 6 Allure IR pack and loaded it up. I then ran the FX Loop 1 send from the HX into the guitar input of my Orange Micro Dark, and connected the FX loop send from the Orange back to the FX Loop 1 return on the HX. I put some compressor and drive blocks before the loop block, and some delay and reverb blocks after. I then connected the mono output to my mixing board via a passive DI box, and ran the board into one of the EV speakers. For the IR I chose the 90's V30 mode. Wow! It sounds awesome. The Micro Dark has a solid state power section, so I'm essentially cutting that out and using the 12AX7-driven preamp section in a loop on the HX. The three knobs on the Orange are all still in the circuit (Vol, Tone, Gain). It sounded massive! It's much nicer than the crap headphone output on the Orange. Anyway, figured I'd share in case anyone else wanted to have a go. Next I'll try setting up a preset with this IR but without the amp in the loop, to see if I can make a reasonable emergency tone in case my main amp craps out.

HX Effects user here. Can anyone explain whether there's any reason to use a stereo distortion block, assuming there's no stereo blocks which come before it? I can imagine that if you have a stereo effects block, like the univibe, and you want an overdrive after it, you'd use a stereo block to maintain that separation. But if your dirt comes before any other stereo effects, is there any benefit? Does it sound different? I've been experimenting with running two amps, and am just curious about the best ways to do different things. I've tried wet/dry (running a loop send out to the "dry" amp), and am now playing around with stereo, including messing with the Double Take effect. There's so many options! Having fun and getting good tones so far.

They work for me. In HX Edit I select an empty preset, click import, then navigate to the folder where you saved the downloads and show "all file types". Then you select one or more downloaded patches and click ok. If you select more than one, they will overwrite additional presets, working down from the one you selected.

I've been downloading the customtones and loading them on my HX Effects to give them a try. When importing them into HX Edit, you have to be sure you view all file types. My main gripe is that there is no description given! What I want to know before downloading a patch is a list of the signal chain, plus a bit of background from the creator regarding the context in which they use the patch and what sort of tones they are trying to achieve. Names like "GTR SHOP" are simply not helpful.

I seem to have gotten it! There were a bunch of factory presets I wasn't using, so I pasted empty presets over those. Then I used copy/paste to rearrange my own user presets. The backup was successful after that! Odd, though, since I didn't clear any of my own user presets. I wonder if it was one of the factory presets causing the problem.

Gotcha. I tried again and it got to 6%. How do I figure out which preset is the offender? There's 128 slots, so maybe slot 8?

I'll give that a try. Can you tell me how to delete a preset? I've actually been trying to figure that one out, as well! The user guide covers using, saving, and naming presets, but that's it.

I'm running HX Edit 2.52 on a Windows 7 PC and trying to create a backup of my HX Effects running the 2.50 firmware. When I click "Create backup," then give it a name, then click OK, it goes through a checklist of three steps, always failing on the last step, citing something about a bad preset. What should I do here? I was able to export my presets individually.