loydall

Yup - this is what I'm looking at - most likely my next purchase. I can take that thing to rehearsal and hook up to the 4x12s they have there and also use it at home with a smaller cab - pretty much looks like the best solution.

Thanks for your responses. Yeah - it's a tough one as I want to be able to dial in tones at home and be (reasonably) confident they will sound similar at rehearsal/live - which is why I'm looking at the solid state stuff as (I imagine) their characteristics don't change as much as Valve the more you push them. (Plus they should be more reliable than a valve-based head) I actually play into my 40w Egnater combo (all valve) at home and it sounds great going straight into the effects return. The other night at rehearsal I tried, out of curiosity, plugging into the Laney head (solid state) and 4x12 they have at the studios - it sounded amazing! Obviously what was at play there was the 4X12 vs the single 12 inch in my combo but I've decided not to take my combo in any more and just use the effects return of the stacks they have there as they sound great. This doesn't help with consistency though so I'm still going to look for a portable head solution that I can use everywhere and get reasonably consistent results. I've heard really good things about those Quilter tone block amps...

Hi - I'm looking at getting a power amp head/pedal, something like the Orange Pedal Baby or the Electro Harmonix 44 Magnum - that way I can take my helix plus a power amp to rehearsal and plug into the 4x12s there but also use it plugged into a smaller cab at home. My question about these power amps, whose primary purpose is just to "make louder" the signal from my helix, is - is there that much advantage of using a Valve power amp over a solid state power amp given that all my "sounds" are coming from the helix? It's not that I'd be looking to push valves into overdrive - all I want to do is amplify the Helix signal and push it through a cab (not going the FRFR route here). Cheers

Yeah, sorry, might have worded whatever I wrote oddly but certainly didn't mean that! As you say "The problem with doing this is that you will put the tone of one amp through another. The amps will NEVER sound like they are intended when you do that because the color of your AMP is always present." That's effectively what I was saying - which is why I'd always thought going straight into the effects return would make more sense - to avoid that colouration....

Thanks - currently going straight into the effects return on a tube-amp (Egnater 40w combo). Are you saying that you go into the main input on a tube amp but still use pre-amp, amp blocks in your helix? I haven't actually tried that as it seemed logical to me to bypass the pre-amp if I was using a preamp/amp block in my helix and go straight into the effects return on the amp.

Thanks - I just had a play around with going straight into the effects return and actually, for the most part, I think I prefer using an amp block rather than preamp - the amp block feels a bit fuller in sound and gives more more tonal options than the preamp alone. The thing I'm still struggling with is getting a convincing overdriven sound for a Strat on neck pick up.. it sounds great clean but the slightly overdriven sound sounds sort of, well, like any distortion sits on top of the guitar sound - not like it's part of the guitar sound. It's too metallic sounding - not creamy with a slight breakup which is what I'm after.

Hi - when I get a chance I'll try this but I'm going to set up some patches using just a pre-amp block (no amp/cab/ir) block and go straight into my combo-amp's effects return. This makes sense to me - by going straight in to the effects return I'm bypassing my combo-amp's preamp effectively replacing it with the HX Stomp preamp. But - I've read some people are getting better results using an amp block rather than a pre-amp block (still no cab/ir) but using the full amp block and then going into the effects return of their amp. Anyone got experience of this? Seems more logical to use just the pre-amp to me.

I'm not sure I understand the point of the second step - can't you just run left/right outputs from the Helix - one to your Amp (as you already have) and then one to your Headrush (that path would need an amp & cab/IR patch(es) on it)?

Wouldn't that require 4 cables? How is that neater?

Follow-up on this. I managed to get an Egnater Tweaker 40 112 at a ridiculously good price. Tried it out last night with the Stomp in 4CM and absolutely love it. Just running the Egnater clean and letting the Stomp do its thing - obviously replacing the amp/cab/ir patches with a loop out to the amp. I found it so much easier to dial patches in and the sound of that amp is just incredible - I'm now getting the tones I was looking for but unable to get with the Headrush. As far as I can see there are 2 possible reasons for the Egnater (to my ears) sounding better than using the Headrush: 1: I'm rubbish at dialling in amp/cab combos - this could well be the case but I did have a good read-up on the subject and thought I'd got reasonably close with the Headrush but still not quite what I wanted. 2: The Headrush doesn't quite compliment the Helix - or at least it makes it harder to tame the sound it produces. I appreciate there are other active PA speakers which may do a much better job. What I'm really pleased with is that the Stomp sounds even better than I thought it was - it really is seriously impressive. With the Headrush the majority of OD/Distortion patches sounded harsh and produced a muddled sound - through the Egnater pretty much all of them sound good. I feel I've just gained a whole load of new pedals. Even reasonably overdriven/distorted guitar sounds still have that wonderful clarity to them but with that sort of, what I call "chewiness" I was looking for. I was going through all of my existing patches removing the amp/cab blocks and every one of them sounded so much better. Obviously this is all personal taste but for me this is a huge improvement - I get consistency of amp tone and volume (but also still get tweaking/voicing options with the amp). This does raise the question, for me, whether I'd be better off with the HX FX unit rather than the Stomp...

Yeah thanks - I have my FRFR on a low-down speaker stand for rehearsal and then on a higher stand for live. i generally start with my IRs or Cabs low cut at 100 and high-cut down to about 4.5 and work from there. I have actually managed to tame it pretty well but there's still something not quite right - plus the variation in volumes I still seem to get. It's not that bad.. just something that's niggling me. And yes - I play acoustic through HX Stomp into the FRFR as well and have to say it sounds fantastic.

Also like cars, washing machines and horses - there's only so many of them you can buy before the wife starts asking questions.... especially horses. I've heard the Power Cab Plus struggles a little for volume when in a band with a reasonably loud drummer?

Yeah - thought about this as well. I think I just want to simplify the whole process and get something more predictable and natural sounding.. We've got a few tunes where I get heavily into weird FX so the Stomp is awesome but for the most part it's fairly classic amp sounds.

Hi. My setup is pretty simple - HX stomp and the Headrush FRFR. I appreciate the Headrush isn't the best FRFR but it seems to do the job to a point. But - there's just something I'm not quite happy with. It's just something that's niggling me when I'm dialling in patches. Now - it might well be that I'm rubbish at putting together decent patches but there's something about the sound of the Headrush that can sometimes rasp or, just not sound organic/real enough. Sometimes it sounds great though - more on cleaner sounds. I'm also finding the Stomp sometimes difficult to get consistent volume levels and eq levels across my patches (I know this sounds silly - just go through them and set them equally.. but then you edit a patch and things change etc..) So - I'm wondering if simplifying things a little might help - go down a more pedal platform amp route and run the stomp without amp + cab patches. That way I get a consistent amp sound and let the Stomp act purely as a set of fx pedals. I'm just finding dialling in patches at home and then playing them at volume at rehearsal can result in quite unexpected sounds (I do know about how frequencies play at different volumes but the whole process/impact seems more pronounce on a FRFR speaker than just turning up a guitar amp. I'm sort of tempted by a katana artist amp and running the stomp in 4cm. Or maybe go full clean channel tube amp and run the Stomp 4CM again. Would I regret switching from the FRFR or is it worth switching to a more conventional amp set up for easier dialling in of (and more predictable) volume and EQ across my patches?

!

Hi, This should be a simple one but I'm really struggling. I'm trying to create a patch (on my stomp) that sounds like the guitar in Naked by Reef. It's that classic, neck-pickup Strat rock sound and it has a dropped D. Should be simple... But - I'm struggling to get the sound right - any suggestions? Cheers

Hi - I run my Stomp into a Headrush 112. I want an EQ pedal for after the Stomp to help me quickly shape my tone in different places/environments. My question is (maybe a daft one) this - I set the output on my Stomp to Line level output which is recommended for use with the Headrush - if I run the Stomp output into an EQ pedal, will I still get a Line Level output from the EQ pedal or do they output at instrument level? I appreciate that might be a daft question but need to make sure I'm getting the correct level into my Headrush. Cheers.

I just got a great price on a blackstar ht dual - will be interested to see how that sounds hooked up into/before the stomp.

From my experience with the Headrush 112 with my stomp: Raise the headrush off the ground - even a low, folding speaker stand will help massively. Add an amp block with drive set just at that point where it's about to break up a little. Try the JTM45 model, normal channel (can't remember the name of the amp in helix). Then an IR block (I use the ownhammer IR files) - cycle through the IRs until you find one you're happy with. On the IR cut the lows around 100 and then pull the high cut down until it starts to dull the sound then go back up slightly. Then add an overdrive block before your amp - try the TS808 (again, can't remember what it's called in helix) - set the drive to low to start with. See how that sounds as a starting point - then think about a reverb and/or delay after your IR and then I quite like the LA Studio Comp right at the end of the chain. I'm certainly no expert with the Stomp but that would be starting point for me to build on and I'm quite happy with the results.

Thanks - the only reason I'd think about running it in the FX loop is because I might want a compression block before the distortion pedal. Otherwise it would make total sense to place it before the stomp.

Hi - I've had the HX Stomp for a few months now and pretty much loving it. I was wondering though - how does an additional overdrive pedal in the FX loop compare with the built-in stomp overdrives? Do you gain any additional quality/"warmth" in your sound? Cheers.

Thanks - I'll give these a try tomorrow when I get a chance. (I didn't even notice the volume dial on the side of the expression pedal!)

Hi - I just bought a cheap expression pedal - the M-audio EX P. I've plugged it into my HX Stomp and it sort of works - but only a small part of the range of the expression pedal (from heel-down to about 50% toe-down) maps to 1-100% of the position on a, for example, wah block. The rest of the range of the expression pedal switches between exp1 and exp2 active (or something like that) so - if you use the expression pedal from full heel down to full toe down, it effectively keeps switching the wah on and off an, when on you only have a very small range from 0-100%. I've tried using the 'learn' feature but when I move the pedal it switches out the 'learn' mode... Basically, all I want the expression pedal to do is control the position parameter of a wah block going from 0-100% using the full range of the pedal. Any ideas? Thanks

On this subject - if you're using any of the above methods, how do you actually know what the correct volume for a patch is?

Fantastic - thanks. Thought this might be the case. Think I might hire a rehearsal room for an hour or so myself and get these patches right... that or seriously annoy my neighbours.