ElKrukador

Awesome--thanks for all the replies! I haven't even tried my acoustic guitar with the HX Stomp yet, but I absolutely love the way the pickup sounds on it's own and don't really want it to sound like a different guitar, so I think I'd most likely skip the IR there--but since there are so many available it still might something I can experiment with. With the banjo, however, I'm using an under the bridge pickup that I think at least somewhat suffers from the darkness Kilhari describes above--and from my research this is a complaint with most banjo pickups leading to mics being heavily preferred when possible. Within the context of the louder rock-ish band I'm using it for, even the pickup is getting pushed towards feedback at times, so a mic is pretty much out of the question. All that said, I've only even run across one banjo IR online and it was on this forum as a part of Glenn Delaune's banjo simulation pack--so I might pick this up at this point after trying a show or two without an IR. Has anyone stumbled across IRs for non-guitar instruments like banjo, ukulele, and mandolin? Beyond that single Banjo IR, I didn't have any luck on google thus far, but it also seems like the search gets a bit confused and spreads into a lot of non-related topics. I don't feel like I NEED them, but certainly seems like something that would be fun to have in the toolbox. Thanks!

In the past when using acoustic instruments with pickups, I would generally just plug straight into the board and play--but in my current band I switch off of electric guitar to play some banjo or ukulele and have just plugged them through my pedalboard to pickup some simple effects like reverb/delay. Over the past month or so I've been working towards incorporating the HX Stomp into my rig and I've found a lot of great advice for using the Stomp for acoustic stuff. By using the Studio Preamp, the LA Studio compressor, and EQ, I'm able to create a pretty sweet preamp setup and still leave room for some other effects. The part I'm still very confused by when it comes to acoustic instruments is the usage of IRs. In most of the videos/posts discussing using HX stuff with acoustic guitars, there was an IR of an acoustic guitar used in the chain. The results sounded great, but it was impossible for me to tell what role the IR played--do they make a huge difference? If I'm using the Stomp with a banjo and ukulele, would there be a great benefit to tracking down a banjo IR and a ukulele IR? I'm not displeased with the sound I'm getting from either, but am always interested in making it sound/feel better and even more interested in learning more about how all the stuff works. Thanks!

I think it's a very viable alternative both in the modeling world and in the physical pedals/amp world. Like you said, you're able to get a very similar high gain sound--and I've also felt these type of stacked gains can provide an added level of clarity/articulation. I've always loved super high gain sounds, but don't get to use them live often with either of the bands I play in--so my compromise has always been to use stacked overdrives that can in combination hit high gain sounds, but be used alone for the lower gain sounds that I get to use more often. With Helix stuff, I guess there are any number of ways of arriving at these sounds--but I think stacking pedals in front of a clean amp sound can provide a lot of flexibility and added perspective when it comes to distortion in general--and for me personally, it provides an easier pathway back to clean or just crunchy. Plus, if you think it adds added articulation to what you're doing, at least giving it some experimentation seems worthwhile. Were you running the Minotaur first into the Tone Sovereign or vice versa? I've had a lot of fun flip flopping the order distortion models and testing the settings and have found some fun combos/interesting results and I feel like I'm barely scratching the surface.

So after seeing your reply--I only have 4 modes as well, but have never seen a Snapshot up and down mode. For me that's the Preset mode you're looking for--I tried looking around for Global setting to switch between these but didn't have any luck. A snapshot up and down mode seems kind of weird given that the regular snapshot mode let's you pick between the three possible snapshots with 3 buttons--I don't really see the advantage of being able to scroll up and down through them with two buttons... hoping you find a way to switch it back!

That's really strange. For me, the Preset up and down mode comes up between the Stomp mode (individual effects) and the Preset select mode (1A, 1B,, 1C) when I use the page buttons on the Stomp to change modes. The only other way I know of to access the mode is by using an external footswitch. I have FS5 set to toggle between the different footswitch modes so each time I press it it switches between Snapshot>Stomp Mode>Preset Up and Down mode>Preset Select mode and then back to Snapshot. Very weird :\

@Kilrahi Thanks a lot--your replies have been very helpful and insightful! I think for me, having SO many options for adjusting tone can get a little overwhelming--but ultimately, I'm learning that there are many differing pathways to getting to the sound I want--and I couldn't agree more with the sentiment of sounds great = is great. I've never shied away from using my music equipment in unconventional ways in the past, but after being somewhat amazed at the depth of Helix modeling knowledge found here in the forums and on YouTube, I'm also sort of putting myself through the paces of learning what experienced sound-crafters consider conventional. It's been very enlightening and helpful so far. I'll need to test my presets at live band volumes tomorrow, but after setting up some of the patches with the 10k setting, I'm really not bothered by the difference through my practice amp or headphones thus far when compared to the majority that are still in In-z "auto." It is interesting to me that a lot of the editing I do on the default settings when using the "auto" In-z is geared towards lowering some of the unruly high end/fizzy harshness and that the lower In-z settings allow for somewhat of a darker starting point. I guess in general it makes more sense to start with a brighter sound and pull away from it than trying to pile brightness back on, but it's pretty cool to have both avenues available. For the crazier harsher distortions at least (such as the aforementioned Aribitrator Fuzz--and tonight I had a similar experience with the Triangle Fuzz) starting from the darker spot is giving me easier access to usable tones that I just wasn't able to quite find from the other approach. I'm hoping this will serve as good training wheels into finally feeling OK about throwing in some digital distortions when appropriate. I never was able to truly successfully utilize the distortions on the M13 because of their general harshness and less tweaking options being available, but already have reeled in a couple models on the Stomp to places I feel good about. I'm not quite ready to abandon my analog distortions yet, but it's nice to have a few more crayons in the box!

Thanks for the responses--really appreciate the advice! I think I may have oversold how bad these distortions are. I'm rather new to the pedal board part of guitar playing. Over the years I've heard a lot of pedals make a dull popping noise when engaged. Both these distortions seem to do that--but I've used them effectively in gigging situations for the past two years and other than making a noise, they work great. From what I've read on the subject, this isn't particularly uncommon with pedals at all sorts of price ranges--though the solutions usually involve altering the pedal which I'm not particularly interested in doing with inexpensive pedals. That said, this led me to investigate further and I've determined that ONLY the Caline Orange Burst pops when hooked up by itself. While the other 3 are virtually silent. Unfortunately, when chained, it seems the Orange Burst can add a larger pop to the other pedals as well. I guess what I was really wondering was what the disadvantages of running patches at an In-Z of 10k to compensate for this pop might be. At this point, I intend on replacing the Orange Burst with something similar that doesn't pop because it's a 30 dollar pedal and it seems silly to work so hard to work around it, but this is all a big learning experience for me. So since this distortion is signature to a handful of solos with my band, I'm going to at least try to workaround it for our show next week. For now, for songs that require this distortion, I'll use 10k as the In-Z and on other patches, I'll just use Auto and make sure I don't engage the distortion. The other aspect of this I'm curious about is whether or not the In-Z setting should ever be changed based on the pedals in front of the Stomp. I watched a very interesting video on how the Helix Arbitrator fuzz model sounds a lot more usable at an In-Z setting of 10k (and whole-heartedly agreed after my own experiments)--but wasn't sure if this would be the same case with external pedals running in front of the stomp. I'm assuming based on what I've read that the higher In-Z settings are generally preferred, but since it's something I can set patch by patch, I'm curious about how to best use it. Thanks again for the help and knowledge!

I picked up an HX Stomp to serve as the centerpiece of a small board I'm working on and I absolutely love it so far. I've used the M13 with a few external stomps on gigs for the last 10-12 years and this unit is for most of my purposes a much smaller and more flexible version of that. So far, I'm trying to run two cheap OD pedals that I really like and use a lot with my band--both are by Caline--the Pure Sky and Orange Burst respectively in front of the HX Stomp. On their own, these cheap true-bypass pedals can create a decently heavy popping sound when engaged/disengaged. This seems to greatly vary based on the amp/environment. At two separate band practices at different locations, however, these pops became ridiculously loud and thunderous--to the point that they left an almost... static like echo in my signal that was only remedied by turning off the amp and unplugging the HX Stomp and my pedal board. This was relatively disturbing and caused me to take everything apart and check all the cords--the problem seems to not happen anymore with home testing, but will have to confirm at higher volumes this week. All that said, I started messing around with the In-Z setting out of curiosity and found that the lowest 3-4 settings (10k, 32k, etc.) majorly serve to lower the intensity of these pops to the point that they are WAY more usable. The 1M setting (which seems to me to be what Auto often results in) creates the harshest and most insane pop from the Orange Burst pedal (which is positioned directly in front of the Stomp). The 10k setting certainly seems a little darker and less distinct than the higher settings, but I feel like I could use other settings to compensate for this tonal difference. Are there any negatives to taking this approach? Does this have anything to do with the output from the Orange Burst needing to match the In-Z for HX Stomp? I didn't find ANY mention of this kind of thing on the forum, but there were many In-Z discussions with the Helix that seemed unrelated to this particular issue. At the very least I could use 10k on presets of songs where I'm engaging the Orange Burst and avoid it on tunes where I don't use it, but part of me would just like for it to be the same across the board just to ensure that stepping on the pedal isn't going to create insane noises or a complete noise disaster. Thanks for any advice or help anyone can provide!