Firehawk needs these improvements to remove big limitations

[bhtwinge]

Hi. I have discovered some rather big limits on my Firehawk (FH). I will try to describe them as best as I can, and I hope your response is that Line 6 are planning to remove these limits on a later software release. Okay, here it goes.

Background:

I have a Matchless DC30 amplifier I often would like to use without the FH emulating any other amps in front. Hence, I would like to use the FH just as a regular good old stomp box board. So if I have everything OFF on the FH, it would be the same as plug my guitar directly into the DC30. I have managed to do that by choosing 'no amp' and fiddle with the EQ. I guess I have to change the EQ based on which guitar I play on and save that into different banks, but for simplicity, lets use one saved clean bank as the example.

 

Challenge:

First of all, I would like to have the compressor in front of the amp, and not after.This cannot be done.Second,if I would like to have the compressor always on or off, like the EQ, and be able to assign another effect on say FS1, okay I can do that, but I cannot exchange the compressor with another effect or stomp, so, one FS needs to be for the compressor, so I assign FS1 for that. The same thing applies to the reverb FS5. This cannot be swapped with another stomp or effect in my experience, so this is assigned to FS5. This leaves only three foot switches left to play with.These three shall then cover both distortion of different types, modulation and delays! That is very hard to accomplish.

My proposal solution:

Make the compressor and reverb to work as the EQ does. Make it possible to have five stomp boxes, not only three. That's a huge limitation. Make it possible to set the chain of effects and amp freely. Today it is very locked.

[silverhead]

I have moved this thread into the Firehawk forum.

[mcbeddall]

I think you can overcome most of those problems just by setting up different patches for different songs

I'm guessing that ideally you'd like to be able to remove the amp and cab sims entirely and spend unused processing power on more fx blocks

[Stratotron]

If I Understand the post....You can assign any FS to any effect in a patch group. For instance as a routine, I assign my FX loop to the default Reverb FS4. EG: Simply open the FX loop in the patch editor and tap the Orange Reverb FS Icon at the bottom of the editor screen, save. I do this because, once I have a reverb on, I never turn it off.

I agree with the post in regards to the static state of the comp, eq, reverb etc. They should all be editable, moveable wildcard effects blocks.

[bhtwinge]

Hi. Regarding different patch set for different songs, I'd like to avoid that and rather have different patches based on the guitar I use and type of music, like jazz, rock, folk and so on.

@stratotron, could you please elaborate what you mean by activating the reverb inside the fx loop? How does that solve the reverb problem?

Thanks for all replies, I really appreciate it.

[mcbeddall]

What he means is you don't have to use a footswitch to turn reverb on and off , you can assign that footswitch to control a different block

[bhtwinge]

...I assign my FX loop to the default Reverb FS4. EG: Simply open the FX loop in the patch editor and tap the Orange Reverb FS Icon at the bottom of the editor screen, save.

 

 

But how can you get a fourth foot switch to be something else than compressor or reverb?

[Stratotron]

By reassigning the switch in the editor...Ill try again. Open a patch in the editor. With the editor open tap on the fx loop. at the bottom of the editor, you will see a row of footswitch buttons. In my example, tap the Orange footswitch 4 button. Look at the pedal board. Footswitch 4 is now a bluish color, because the fx loop has been assigned to Footswitch 4.

Any block that is editable is assignable to any upper switch. The BAD news is, if you want for instance 2 Drives, you will need to give up one other editable block. My thinking is ALL blocks should be up for grabs. I don't use the EQ all of the time, and would like to use it for something else. 

[Stratotron]

Just got to thinking...what I described is patch specific. I don't know of a way to Globally reassign switches. In other words you need to go patch to patch reassign and save.

 

Or, if you would like, tell me what effect you want to assign to FS4 and Ill describe how to do it.

[silverhead]

..... The BAD news is, if you want for instance 2 Drives, you will need to give up one other editable block. My thinking is ALL blocks should be up for grabs. I don't use the EQ all of the time, and would like to use it for something else. 

 

Yes - that idea requires a design that includes dynamic DSP allocation, like the Pod HD500X. With dynamic DSP the user can keep placing FX blocks of any type in any order until the DSP limit of the device is inevitably reached. Then you can't add any more, and you get the system message that says "DSP Limit Reached". That's one design approach.

 

The other, and more common, design approach is to constrain the number and placement of FX blocks so that the DSP limit can never be reached, and the user never sees such a message. That's the design that Firehawk uses, with the constraint that some FX blocks are fixed in type. That explains why you can't swap an EQ block for another (more DSP-intensive) FX type like Delay or Mod. You have a smaller number of FX blocks that are fully assignable in order to ensure that the DSP limit is never exceeded.

 

 

.... so the short story is that you will never see fully flexible FX block assignment in Firehawk. If you really need that sort of design, look at the HD500X.

[bhtwinge]

Thanks for all replies. I don't know if I was unclear or if I misunderstand your answers. I know that any foot switch can be assigned to any type of stomp box or modulation or delay etc.

What I try to point out is that there are five foot switches to assign as you like, FS1-FS5. But in reality, only three of them can be chosen freely, since two of them are fixed to control either compressor, fx loop, reverb or loop. Or am I wrong? Is it a way to choose a fourth FS assigned to whatever I want? If yes, how? I cannot figure it out..

I was hoping that Line 6 could add / fix this issue in a later sw release..

 

Please correct me and teach me if I'm wrong :-)

[Stratotron]

FS-1 thru 5 are all assignable. The limitation is in what to assign to them. So for instance you can move your Mod to FS-1 if you would like, only to put what on the Mod switch. ( I misspoke earlier, my FX loop is assigned to FS-5 not 4. )  So really all I am talking about is swapping my reverb FS-5 for FX loop FS-5. Once again, my FX loop has an EP Boost and a Line 6 M5 Modeler.

 

The HD500X is miles ahead of the Firehawk in assignability, Firehawk, with it's limitations has ios editing. In my current economy, editing wins.

[mcbeddall]

Search for tone "Bj clean" it has 4 assignable fx blocks instead of 3

I've been using it for weeks without any issues

[bhtwinge]

Search for tone "Bj clean" it has 4 assignable fx blocks instead of 3

I've been using it for weeks without any issues

I will check it out and study the details. Thanks for the tip.

[bhtwinge]

Yes - that idea requires a design that includes dynamic DSP allocation, like the Pod HD500X. With dynamic DSP the user can keep placing FX blocks of any type in any order until the DSP limit of the device is inevitably reached. Then you can't add any more, and you get the system message that says "DSP Limit Reached". That's one design approach.

 

The other, and more common, design approach is to constrain the number and placement of FX blocks so that the DSP limit can never be reached, and the user never sees such a message. That's the design that Firehawk uses, with the constraint that some FX blocks are fixed in type. That explains why you can't swap an EQ block for another (more DSP-intensive) FX type like Delay or Mod. You have a smaller number of FX blocks that are fully assignable in order to ensure that the DSP limit is never exceeded.

 

 

.... so the short story is that you will never see fully flexible FX block assignment in Firehawk. If you really need that sort of design, look at the HD500X.

 

I think you can overcome most of those problems just by setting up different patches for different songs

I'm guessing that ideally you'd like to be able to remove the amp and cab sims entirely and spend unused processing power on more fx blocks

 

 

 

Thanks for your answers. So the DSP is the big bad wolf here then.

But as mcbeddall suggests, removing the amp and cab sims entirely and free up DSP to be used on other fx blocks could be a solution.

 

And this should be a possibility I think and would improve the FH usability. This way, the FH might become "true bypass" as well ...

 

Meanwhile I will have to play with solutions using different banks/patches for different guitars that I have.

 

Another thing:

My Matchless also have an "Effect send/return" in the back, which makes it possible to use the four-cable-method.

Could you please advice how the cabling will look like using the four-cable-method and an example on how the effect chain in the FH remote will look like, in regards of stomp and mod boxes? 

[RockDaddyNL]

Search for tone "Bj clean" it has 4 assignable fx blocks instead of 3

I've been using it for weeks without any issues

 

This is absolutely a great tip! 

Would be even nicer if the "FX loop" block was available instead of the "Compressor" block.