Hello, I'm Bora Ince, a guitar player from Istanbul who plays mainly metal and heavy rock (We've released 3 albums, 2 ep's and a live record with Furtherial and one album with Razor Inc., we also play a lot of cover material with Razor Inc.) I 'm a new HX Stomp user. I've been actively gigging for almost 15 years and over the years I've had many multi-effects units, analog pedal setups, hybrid setups etc. Before getting the HX Stomp, I had been using the Atomic Amplifire AA6 for about 5 years. I really loved the form factor and the build quality of the AA6 but its software is a bit ancient at this point.
I really love the HX Stomp, I think Line 6 first created it to be a part of a larger board but it's so powerful that many players, like me, use it as their entire rig with expression pedals and midi controllers. I'm very happy with the sounds and the flexibility.
I wanted to share my impressions and the changes I'd like to see on HX Stomp after using it for over two months.
All of these changes I'm going to mention seem simple and easy to implement to me but I'm not a programmer of course, so forgive me if I'm talking nonsense.
1) More Snapshots: I really think the stomp could use more snapshots. Since there's a preset change gap, you can't use different presets for different tones, so you need to manage with snapshots. I currently have a clean, a dirty rhythm and a lead snapshot. I'd love to add more snapshots such as a lead with a level boost and a lower gain version of the same rhythm tone. I don't think there's a foundational reason that we can't have more snapshots since Pod Go and Stomp XL have 4. Say that we have 6 snapshots, we can access these by an A/B feature on snapshot mode, snapshot stacking with the command center or an external midi controller.
2) More Virtual Footswitches: Atomic AA6 had MIDI commands for extra footswitches, you could designate extra 6 midi switches to be footswitches 7-12 and so you could make use of them without fancy midi commands. For example if you're utilizing all fs 1-5 on the stomp, you need to use midi commands to toggle stuff and toggling blocks require one command for turning on and another for turning off. Having the ability to assign virtual footswitches (for example up to 8 like the XL) could really make the midi and automation stuff easier.
3) Ramp up and down speeds for the momentary switches: I had a Digitech Whammy Richocet for my whammy sounds. It's operated with a momentary footswitch and you can set the speeds for going up to and down from the note separately (it's not pressure sensitive like the TC stuff, you just set the speeds and it goes up at the speed you dial in when you press down and comes down the speed you dial in, there are separate controls) . It's really an awesome solution, so much easier to use compared to the standard whammy.
4) Amp blocks with channels and noise gates: It would be awesome if there were some version of a 2 or 3 channel amp block. It's really limiting to have to assign another amp block for a simple clean tone. Same thing goes for the gate as well. I know there's an input gate, but it's just not the same as a proper gate after the drive or the amp. So like many real amps do, I think we should have some amp blocks that have extra channels, noise gates or boosts even. I think most of the time I run out of blocks before I run out of CPU, so I don't think it would be an issue if these changes increase the cpu load of the blocks, it probably would be less than using two amp blocks since features like the eq would be the same. Also, more combined versions of simpler blocks could be very useful, such as a delay+reverb or a boost+gate etc.
5) Ability to disengage expression controlled effects like wah and whammy after a certain amount of time: AA6 had the ability to disengage the wah after a certain period of inactivity, so you could leave the pedal at any position and it would turn off after a specified amount of time. I think that'd be another useful feature.
6) Ability to assign signal paths to the two outputs and to disable the mono summing when only using the left output: It would be awesome to be able to simply split the signal at the end and assign one of the outputs to each side. I'm using an IR block for the FOH and a non cab simulated out to the fx return of my amp and the need to split and pan the signals seems a very unnecessary hurdle. Also, when I only want to use the side with no cab on, if I only plug in the left side, it automatically sums to mono and sends the cab simulated signal to the left out as well. I'd love to just assign two paths to one output each so that they don't interact with each other.
7) Ability to choose to display flats or sharps on the tuner.
Thank you if you have read it all the way through. I hope we can see some of these changes in the future. Feel free to comment and add yours!
Cheers from Istanbul!
