adagosto

Yes and no. First yes. Yeah you can do this with a A/B/Y box and even do it post Stomp. But....here's the no.... No because, while the A/B/Y box might control the signal, it will not control the Stomp preset or Snapshot, unless.... If the A/B/Y box was also MIDI controllable, then Yes to your question in full. But, for the cost of an ML-5 and a Stomp, gotta question not just getting a Helix LT or Floor, but that another story.

RIGHT!! Similar kinda thing.

So this post cannot be considered "news" by any stretch and there's no questions in here either. I just wanted to post what might be obvious to some and interesting to others....and so you can feel my joy over this success story!! So I happen to have a Carvin semi hollow that has two outputs, one for the humbuckers and one for the piezo. I also have a Vox AC30 and a Genz Benz acoustic amp. But I've never been able to get them to play together. I have the Vox connected via 4CM. So what I did was connected the piezo guitar out and into the Right Input. Then the Right output of the Stomp into the front of the Genz Benz. Next I created a Split-Y and paned A to L100 and B to R100. Same with the Mixer. In the output section I did the same with the panning and then assigned the Foot switch to toggle (Latch) the left and right outputs. It's pretty slick! I have the A path for electric and that includes a distortion block and my FX Loop L block the is for my Vox preamp. Path B has a compressor and EQ block. Then after the mixer I added a Modulation, Delay and Reveb block. So the last three blocks are "shared" by either amp. I think I will now create a Snapshot that pans the output to Center and that will have both amps going. This happens to be on the Stomp XL, but it's all the same with the smaller unit. I've got to say, this is an amazing piece of gear!!

Unless you are listening to Yes. In their case live music is always better than the recording....by a mile. But they are the exception to your distain for live sound. To me the intro sounds like a Fender Tweed-style amp with a fair bit of gain, but he's playing with a very gentle pick attack and might even be rolling off a touch of guitar volume. Then, in the more driven section it could simply be where her rolls up the volume on the guitar and digs in to get the overdriven tone. I also hear some reverb, but that's a tricky one to ID. Short answer is maybe start with a US Small Tweed amp model with the gain about 5. Roll off your guitar volume from 10 to say 7 or 8, play gently on the pick and see how that sounds for the intro. Then roll it up to 10 and go nuts for the rest of the song. Then try out some reverbs, but I do think there's some very low-mix shimmer going on in there in the intro. Good luck.

I'm having problems getting the split path output settings correct. Reference page 25 of the Stomp XL manual. Its under "The Blocks" section. I can't get the "output Main L/R+ SEND L/R to appear. But that's probably only part of my problem. What I'm trying to do it output my signal to effectively two amps. Well, its actually one amp that has two inputs. The Amp is a Vox AC30 and I'm trying to output one cable to the Normal channel and another output to the Top Boost channel. I'm thinking that I should be able to do this using the PAN L100 (for Normal channel) and PAN R100 (for TB channel). I think in order to do that I would need to add an additional cable from the Output R to the TB input on the amp. Can someone explain how to cable up the Stomp and setup the path to direct the output signal to two different outputs? Thanks!!

Question for all you 4CM power users... I have a Vox AC30 now and it has 2 guitar inputs (Normal and Top Boost). It would be super cool to leverage both of those inputs when connected with the Stomp XL using the 4CM. But how? Can that be done? My current setup is with a Stomp XL and it is connected to the Vox via the 4CM. I'm also using external pedals in the FX Loop R. I do that with a slitter cable that comes of of the HX Stomp SEND. At that point I split that and the TIP side goes to the Vox instrument input and the RING side goes to some pedals and back into the Stomp RETURN R. But, in my case I now want to split the TIP into two cables with one going to the Normal channel and the other going to the TB channel. I kinda don't think this is possible with the Stomp itself, but I could do this with an A/B/Y external switch. Effectively that external pedal would be the amp channel changer. BUT, is there anyway to do this using the Stomp? THEN, assuming the answer is no....what about the Helix Floor? Could that do it? I kinda think yes, but I don't know for sure... Any smart folks out there that can explain how to do this?

Yes. Well said.

I'm not suggesting Line 6 should. I just asking the question if other effectively use it this way. I imagine this wouldn't make sense for those not using their Helix with a tube amp. Well exactly! That's what I would expect, but when trying this out in a variety of 'real' amp settings, it doesn't seem to have a huge impact on the tone. Key word is huge. Where in fact it does, but in no way is it unusable or a turn off. I think the real application is in home use. But I guess in a gig setting if you're being told to turn down for any reason. And fwiw, the amp opened up with the Helix wide open does in fact sound the best, but that's also freaken loud. Also, and this probably goes without saying, but here I go....the cleaner the amp settings, the less impact the Helix volume control has on impacting the tone. This was a very pleasant surprise to me. When I use my Mesa Boogie, I almost always have it in 5 watt mode, so my Stomp volume control is only reducing the overall sound by about 20-30% if that. When my wife is not around I have it louder. But with the AC30, I cut it back to 50-60% (I'm just guessing based on the needle position) and the tone is still there. Anyway, like the other guy said...we are free to do what we want. It seems to work!!!

I use my Stomp XL with a Mesa Boogie Express 5 or 50 watts) and a Vox AC30 (30 watts) and I've got to say, the Stomp seems to act as an attenuator. I can get both amps cranked up pretty good but use the volume control of the Stomp to keep things acceptably comfortable on the ears without loosing a lot of tone. Is this a thing? Line 6 doesn't seem to market this as a "feature". I imagine many of you already know this and use your Helix/Stomp this way. But any thoughts on this? Do "real" attenuators do a better job or does the Line 6 really suck more tone out than I think it does?

Thank you all for the feedback. UPDATE: I bought the Vox AC30. It's the CC2 version. Its even more outstanding than I thought it would be especially for how I like to hear my sound. It's a great match!!

Thank you for the feedback!! That's what I was thinking, but, then..... HAHA!! Great point. An no this is not to do a video comparison. It's just home use stuff. I guess at the end of the day it boils down to trying it and seeing just how much of a pain it is. I think you are right in that "preset management" will be more difficult. But at least its possible.

Can someone confirm if this "rig setup" is possible using the Helix Floor? I'm pretty sure this is doable, just not sure how it would work. I would like to have two amps connected where both are in a "4CM" setup. Is this called 7CM? AND I want to connect my acoustic amp as well. So in all I'd have three amps connected and in theory they could all be working. My use case is this... I would want my Mesa Boogie Express connected using the 4CM and I am contemplating buying my buddy's Vox AC30. His is old and has an effects loop. So, I would want to bounce back and forth between the the two, but I really don't want to move cables around each time. Is there a way to set them up where both amps can be connected in a 4CM manner and not have to move the cables around? Then, in addition I would want to connect my acoustic guitar amp so that its connected all the time as well. All it really needs is a 1/4" input or and XLR input. It also happens to have an effects loop as well, but I don't think I really need that. My guitar has a dual output with one being a humbucker and the other is the piezo. So in this case Guitar 1 might be the humbucker and Aux In would be the piezo. I would think I could build presets that direct the outputs to their appropriate amp. Can you do this and how would that work? 7CM for the Mesa and Vox and XLR out to the acoustic amp? Thanks for the guidance!

Yes you are absolutely correct. I read that and wasn't totally sure if I understood that correctly (wishful hoping). But its even better than the 4CM. So in this case for me the next question is, how well will an acoustic guitar sound through this? If its good sounding like what the Powercabs do then this is slam dunk for me. I honestly really don't need the power and features of a Powercab, but they seem like the best fit for what I'd like to do with my Stomp XL at home. That is until this little amp showed up. Thank you for clarifying this.

Yeah I agree we'll need some videos. One of the retailers, I think Sweetwater stated it was not an FRFR, but still, to your point, there are many aspects that indicate the speaker must be designed to specifically handle digital "modeling" and therefore must sound really good as a 4CM platform. I'm kinda tempted to preorder one, try it out and decide during my 30 day window. It's just such a pain shipping an amp back!!!

DunedinDragon, Thank you so much for responding. I was starting to feel left out in the cold....LOL. I actually just figured it out. This is stupid!! From day 1 I have used the Stomp with my amp in using the 4CM. Not one of my preset's has a amp+can block. I use all amp blocks and of course a few no amp preset's as well. So I'm either an idiot or I have discovered as assumed gap in the manual because no where in there was a handy note saying that in order for headphones to be used, the preset you are on must have a Amp+Cab or a Amp and Cab block in order to drive the sound to your headphones. Most will think the former of me. I'm ok with that. Now that I have it working, in retrospect, I might agree....LOL. Call this closed!!!

Can anyone at least confirm what the headphones are supposed to do? When you plug them into the Stomp, does it automatically kill the sound to your amp and the headphones work or do you need to do something in the menus each time or first?

Can you help be understand this, and I have to admit I think I'm off topic a little. But what it sounds like you're say is this.... You start with a clean tube amp (say a Fender xxx) and you build a pedal board with a few over drive and distortion pedals (first in line) and you then have a modulation or two pedals right after the distortion pedals. Then a delay or two pedals followed by a cool reverb pedal. Everything is in series (one to the next to the next) and THEN you plug that last reverb pedal into the input of you clean amp. Is that what you're saying you do? If so, my question is how do you prevent your dirt pedals from having dirty repeats on your delay and dirty shimmers and stuff OR do you just live with that OR am I not understanding you? I'm not challenging you on the effectiveness of this because I'd love to be able to do this too, but I just think that I can't....

How do you get your modulations and delays after the pre-effects? How do you do that without using the 4CM?

Line 6 has repeated the talking point that they are a software company and they release software updates for their gear. So in other words, 'don't worry about our hardware, you're good to buy into our flagship and not have to worry that we'll release a model-up right after you do. You're good, stick with us.' If they did not keep Helix going for another 5 years or so, it would kill these talking points and lollipop off a huge population and the trust would be gone for more than a decade. They really can't afford to do that especially now that the Quad Cortex is available. There's just too many better "sounding" options out there. For someone who gigs, the Helix is still the most reliable. Its funny how you can have EVERYTHING dialed in at home and the rehearsal studio, have it all planned out and in the first 10 minutes at the gig, you're entire plan starts to unfold in front of you. Helix still reins supreme in being able to adapt to changing conditions. So keeping that reputation is critical to their long term business plan. That being said, you are correct in that newer models are sucking up more recourses and I'd expect new amp models will do the same. But they only have one choice, make the software more efficient and stay within the constraints of the hardware. This will take some crafty coding, but if they cannot, IMO, they will have to release a new hardware solution inside of 3 to 4 years. The way I would look to see which way the wind is blowing here is to watch their updates. Two things to look at. (1) how often do the updates come and (2) are the updates causing DSP constraints? If the updates like 3.15 come somewhat often AND they are not causing conflict, we are likely good for another 5 years +. If the updates are slow AND causing problems, that means they are having problems writing crafty and more efficient code. That's my take of this very good question.

That's super easy. I have the same pedal too. Its a hard one to replace. I really like it. But there's a question you need to answer first. As you know that pedal can be used in front of an amp as an overdrive OR you can place it into your effects loop. How are you wanting to use it? I assume from your post you also want to use it in front of the Helix amp models? If you want to use it as an overdrive, its very simple: Guitar --> TC Stark --> Helix Input. That's all there is to it. Turn the Spark on and off as you need. In my opinion, I find myself moving away from external pedals and the Helix (Stomp XL in my case). I really don't dig the sound of my physical pedals mixed with the amp models. I do have my amp connected via the 4CM and if I use my the Stomp with NO AMP model, then I'll use my physical pedals and supplement with models like compressors, modulation, delay and reveb. That's totally good. But mixing amp models, with physical pedals....not so much. That's just me and that has NOTHING to do with what you asked!! If you want to use your Spark in the loop, that's a bit different and then I need to understand if you are using the 4CM or not.

This is weird... I turned my amp on and also plugged the headphones in and I can hear sound going into the headphones now, but of course the amp is also outputting sound a s well. I would think the headphones would disable other outputs, but I've never tried it until yesterday. Any help here?

I hope this is just a settings thing....but I cannot get my headphones to work on my Stomp XL. I currently have it hooked up to my amp using the 4CM, that works of course, but then, when I plug my headphones in, I get no sound from them. Yes I played around with the volume. I removed all the cables and plugged the guitar directly into the L/Main Input so I only had the guitar in and the headphones plugged in, still no sound. I checked Global and changed the volume knob to just headphones and that didn't change anything. I set it back to main. Can someone suggest what I might look at in the settings? From the manual it seems like plug and play, so I figure this is something simple...I hope. Thx!

Yeah after I posted this question I learned that the Catalyst is not an FRFR speaker. So, at that moment I was thinking this was not a good alternative. But hold the phone.... Being this is a "modeling" amp and used "modeled" effects, the speaker must be optimized for, well, models...right? So I kinda have to agree with Teknotard in the assessment of pros and cons.

Ok gotta ask, how well will this amp work with the HX Stomp using the 4CM? Seems to me this could be a great option as compared to the Powercab option. Not exactly sure anyone can answer this, but, if you happen to know, please do tell!

See this is exactly what I was hoping to learn from this thread. Very interesting. Thank you!!