paulmphillips813

One great thing about the Strat is that the volume control is so effective. You really don't need much in front of a cranked up tweed amp to get a great rock sound (not metal, like late 60's through the 70's and anyone who uses that base sound afterwards). Since you have basically every amp worth mentioning in your box, try putting a small tweed deluxe and a Bassman together and use your volume on your guitar to clean it up when you need to. Kind of defeats the concept of having hundreds of effects at your disposal but not really necessary. Maybe a boost or overdrive if you don't want to fuss around with the volume knob on your guitar?

Fender tweed amps (like the Deluxe) and the champ and Harvard get a really beefy tone in the studio (or your bedroom). On stage the bigger ones really cut through (I think they sound a lot like the smaller ones when you turn them up loud in a bigger space but they sound awful in the studio unless you don't mind destroying your hearing and turning them up to stage volume). I love the way Marshall amps sound when they are turned up loud but the Fender tweed-style amps seem to work best with a Strat in my opinion. But I guess it's all personal taste, right? I don't use amp models (just a Dr. Z with an Air Brake so I don't blast my ears) so I suppose I shouldn't weigh in on models. But, if you tried a 'big' fender turned way up (but the actual volume turned down) I bet that would sound pretty good.

I’ve been using the HX Effects into my Dr Z (JAZ 20/40) and it works great. Dr Z amps are great with pedals going into the front end. Honestly, I never noticed a difference between buffered loops and true bypass - my understanding is that if you have a lot of effects and no buffering it can cause some parity issues. I prefer to have everything buffered so my amp can just live in its sweet spot and I don’t have to fuss around and mess up the clean sound to get the volume evened out. If you only have a small board I doubt it even matters. That said, the HX Effects can be set up to do both so either way is available. If you use it in your unbuffered loop on your MAZ (you can do both straight in and in the loop, by the way. There is a send/return and you can set up the order of the effects any way you want including having some effects coming after the pre-amp section of your amplifier) then the box will handle the buffering job. Its a really flexible tool tool and the snapshot function is really useful. One foot switch to turn on/off and adjust the knobs on as many as 9 effects instantly. If you spend the time to set things up you won’t have to touch your amp once no matter how many songs you have in your set.

Hi, I've been using my KOT pedal sometimes in the in/out loop (might take it off if the new version with the KOT model sounds the same, though) and it works well. I didn't opt for the four jack option because I don't need to have another pedal in the middle. It's an interesting idea to have the Helix allow you to select either/or but you'd have to ask yourself if you plan to have the KOT on your board (where you can just hit the buttons if that's your plan) or in a rack well behind where you are playing. So, I guess I'm not really helping you much in that area lol. In terms of the high gain options, I went with the high gain ONLY on the red side when I bought mine years ago. The 'slightly less gain' on the right side works really well as a boost with a little bit of overdrive. Nobody is going to run a boost side turned way down so going with the high gain might give you a little more flexibility. I hadn't considered that when I bought it, kind of wish I had. I keep mine at around 1 o'clock all the time and it sounds just the way I need it. The higher gain side sounds incredible when you have that extra boost. The pedal is a lot like an amp - once you get the sweet spot set you'll probably almost never mess with it. Maybe a little tone adjustment if you switch from a single coil to a hum bucker, I suppose. One interesting note - I can get an identical tone from the Klon (compared to the KOT) that is already in the Helix. I guess those pedals must sound a lot alike. A friend of mine who tours with major acts has both the Helix, the Klon and a KOT and he said the same thing. He doesn't bother using anything other than his Helix anymore. He doesn't even use amps. His last tour grossed $266.1 million (so you can probably figure our who he's supporting, too bad he's 'only' a hired gun!) so I guess the Helix is all you really need. I'd still buy the KOT though since it's cool and you might as well since you waited so long.

This sounds like a really helpful tool. I can mostly find what I'm looking for by doing some internet searching but a central resource would be incredibly faster and easier. When you put this out, where can we find it? I find the existing manuals for the HX Effects and the HX Edit software to be really useful (a little out of date on the HX Effects manual but pretty much has everything I need in it) but having something more thorough and up-to-date would be awesome. I also read something somewhere that you might include a KOT model. It will be nice to not have to loop my real pedal in, and have to change the batteries between performances (it is a pain with that pedal) so I'm looking forward to the update and hoping I didn't get some bad info. That KOT is pretty much always on for me.

You could use an interface into a DAW (which I think you will need in order to have amplifier and cabinet and mic emulations) and then use the headphone jack from your interface. I have a Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 and will try this tonight as I want to see how the HX Effects compares to Logic. I'll try to remember to reply once I've done that. But, it should work fine, I think.