FranCollQc

Had the same issue. Tried all sorts of desktop / laptop / USB port combinations and I keep getting errors all the time on Windows. On the desktop, after one attempt, started getting failed driver errors and software did not want to see HX FX, plus device was in a boot error state from which I couldn't recover. Device - cable - port combination seemed to be good, since I was able to backup 2.82 presets. Tried 2.82 HX updater and drivers on laptop, which ultimately failed, but at least device booted to 2.82 when powered back on. Then installed HX Edit 2.90 and tried again, HX edit sees device and preset, but connection fails systematically after 5 seconds. Tried to power off/on and install update immediately, which seemed to work until another failure was reported. I finally rebooted device, which now says it has firmware 2.90, but will continue to drop connection after 5 seconds. ... and then I remembered that the USB cable that came with the HX is a piece of garbage. Square connector is very loose in the device plug, it seems to disconnect just by looking at it. I switched it with a longer USB cable that I have for a X32 mixer and now connection seems to hold.

I performed another run of tests with a different interface, this time it was an M-Track with dedicated high impedance inputs for guitar (1 MΩ). I still have the same behaviour. I have to roll off the tone knob about halfway in order to match the sound of the analog bypass on the HX Effects empty patch, but I hardly hear any difference between a short cable and two 25' ones in either case. So I guess that guitarists who replace a pedalboard which had buffered pedals would not notice a difference, or maybe it depends on the pickups.

Let's recap: Ibanez guitar with ordinary pickups, no fancy stuff about active electronics. Guitar in - instrument level, HX out - instrument level. Analog bypass: no discernable difference betwen plugging in with only 1 guitar cable direct or 2 cables with the unit in between. If unit is not bypassed, but only on an empty preset, sound is noticeably louder and much brighter. Like 9 dB louder. Tried putting the input level to Line (even though guitar is passive) and then the volume discrepancy is much less discernable when I toggle with TAP + MODE. But it's still much brighter when not bypassed, event though there are no effects in the chain. The only way I could get it to sound the same is by putting a -10 dB treble shelf from around 4K in the chain. Someone on another thread suggested a buffering issue where the HX would be cancelling cable capacitance, but if that was the case, plugging in straight with a very short cable straight into the amp/sound card/mixer/whatever would sound much brighter as well, which I don't observe, even though there is a 49 foot of cable difference. I just tried with my bass, which does have active electronics, and then the bypass/empty patch switch is unnoticeable. So I guess it has something to do with how passive pickups are reacting to the input of the HX... As I mentioned before, I don't have a dedicated guitar amp to try this on, maybe this is a matter of soundcard vs tube amp front-end impedance, but I found other people complaining about the same issue with several amps:

I am struggling with the same issue. I am a bass player, I have created myself some presets where I use the HX Effects in front of my amp, which sound good, but I wanted to play around with guitar sounds as well, and whatever I did with any kind of overdrive it sounded like crap. I tried my guitar straight into the sound card into an amp simulation plugin in my DAW and it sounds like the amp it claims to represent, say a Fender Twin or a Marshall, clean but on the verge of breakup. Then I plugged the guitar into the HX FX, blank preset, and into the sound card to simulate what would happen if I ran the same setup into a Marshall, and it sounded nasty and brittle.If I hit the analog bypass, it sounds normal. Then I plugged the HX straight into a mixer, and I realized that the "blank slate" sounds radically different from analog bypass. It's significantly louder and brighter, like there is a treble booster that I can't turn off. So it's not so much "tone suck", rather it's built-in boost. The closest I got to getting "DSP transparency" between empty preset and analog bypass is to set global input to Line and leave output at Instrument level. But it still sounds tinny, so I have to "burn" one effect slot with a parametric EQ to shelve off a lot of highs from 4K up... I don't have an actual guitar amp to try it in, I don't know if it's got something to do with impedance, but if the idea is to ditch your "physical" pedalboard and replace it with this unit, then it's definitely not a 1 to 1 replacement. I haven't tried comparing the effect loop send with the main out yet, I don't know if the treble boost is at the beginning or the end of the processing chain, but if you are hitting the front end of an amp with something this bright, it's definitely going to change the characteristics of how the preamp "breaks up" with more gain.

I confirm the volume pedal trick works with a FV-50 L. I used a standard TS patch cord, no mods necessary. However, the pot taper is logarithmic, so the usable range is narrow toward the toe end. For volume swells or wah it works fine since I don't need a lot of throw, but for precision work like tuning a Whammy to a specific pitch, it might be easier with a linear pot.