HX Stomp FS Customization

[jfeniello]

Hi, I have a question about the Foot Switch configuration.

First, here's my use case:  I'm in a cover band.  I have a preset for each song (say 50 songs).  I currently use a pod HD500.  I currently use fs1 on the HD500 on some presets for what would be equivalent to snapshots on the Stomp; maybe boosts gain/delay/etc for a solo, then i can click fs1 to revert back to the standard preset.

So i need to move though presets, and would like to have access to snapshots (or maybe just 1).  I don't need the tuner.  Can i customize the switches to be a combination of preset scroll and snapshot?  I guess i can always add external foot switches, but just thought i'd throw it out there for any creative solution i don't see in the manual.

BTW, my stomp is on order, don't have it yet to try things, just trying to prepare :)

 

thanks

0jim

[Kilrahi]

My understanding is no. You would first have to bend over and click one button to change from snapshot mode to preset mode, but I'll mess with it today and let you know if I find out you really can.

[Kilrahi]

Strike the above, based on page 10 of the manual you can do exactly that. Check out the description of preset mode on page 10 of the manual.

HX Stomp Manual - English .pdf.pdf-compressed.pdf

[jfeniello]

Thanks @Kilrahi for looking into it.  So, first, is it easy to step on fs1 and fs2 at that same time?  And second, that still wouldn't allow me to easily get into snapshots without bending down to get into that mode, right?  

Wonder if a single external switch to switch between preset and snapshot modes would work?

 

Thanks again, appreciate it

-jim

[Kilrahi]

11 hours ago, jfeniello said:

Thanks @Kilrahi for looking into it.  So, first, is it easy to step on fs1 and fs2 at that same time?  And second, that still wouldn't allow me to easily get into snapshots without bending down to get into that mode, right?  

Wonder if a single external switch to switch between preset and snapshot modes would work?

 

Thanks again, appreciate it

-jim

 

I tested some of this tonight. First off, without shows it's nearly impossible to do them both at the same time (not that most of us would ever do that in a gig setting - but just a friendly FYI). Otherwise with shoes on I'd say it's not a big deal OTHER than it is one of those things you'd need to practice, but you'd get the hang of it rather quickly. Within a few minutes I was banging away at it just fine.

 

Now, there does not appear to be anyway to switch between Stomp Mode, Scroll Mode, Preset Mode, and Snapshot mode without first bending down and hitting the "page" button. Not that that is a huge ordeal, but if you want to switch between those you have to hit page.

 

As to jumping around within the view, I think if you're a person who wanted to really use HX Stomp presets to its most powerful, you would want to be in snapshots mode. From there you can hit either FS1 + FS2 to scroll to previous presets, or FS2 + FS3 to advance forward, and from there easily stomp on FS1, 2, or 3 to choose the preset you want, and from there select the snapshot you want. 

 

I'm actually glad you asked this question because my natural tendency is to ignore the whole snapshot or preset way of doing things because I just don't usually get that crazy (I am the type of guy looking to replace a single pedal board, not create 3 billion pedal boards). However, after trying to answer your questions I'm blown away by just how powerful you can get with this little thing.  

 

Honestly, the three footswitches can seem really limiting, but if you were okay programming things really thoroughly you could easily make whatever you wanted happen using the snapshots mode and only three switches. 

[jfeniello]

So, in snapshot mode,

i can choose a snapshot of the current preset (1 of 3)

and/or i can push FS1 and FS2 or FS2 and FS3 to "queue" the previous/next bank of presets.

Once doing that, does it show those 3 presets, then you select one of them and it goes directly to the snapshots for that preset?

 

If i'm on snapshots for say 14B, can i get to 14A, or have to go to the 15's?

 

Thanks again for you help.  I could just wait till i get it in a week, but just curious :)

-jim

[amsdenj]

On 10/29/2018 at 2:54 AM, Kilrahi said:

Now, there does not appear to be anyway to switch between Stomp Mode, Scroll Mode, Preset Mode, and Snapshot mode without first bending down and hitting the "page" button. Not that that is a huge ordeal, but if you want to switch between those you have to hit page.

 

As to jumping around within the view, I think if you're a person who wanted to really use HX Stomp presets to its most powerful, you would want to be in snapshots mode. From there you can hit either FS1 + FS2 to scroll to previous presets, or FS2 + FS3 to advance forward, and from there easily stomp on FS1, 2, or 3 to choose the preset you want, and from there select the snapshot you want. 

Interesting idea. This allows you to use presets to overcome the 6 block limitation for most tones, and use snapshots to control the effects within a given patch.

 

Since you can do anything with snapshots that you can do with stomp foots switches and more, using snapshots instead of stomp foot switches makes sense for controlling three different tones.

 

In Snapshot mode, you can press FS1+FS2 to access the previous bank of three presets, and FS2+FS3 to access the next bank of three presets. You can't do this from stomp mode without bending down and pressing some buttons. If you press two foot switches at the same time in stomp model, this will do whatever each foot switch does at the same time - toggle two settings - just what you would expect. I wouldn't want to change that.

 

Once you select a preset, HX stomp automatically goes back to snapshot mode in that preset, where you are able to again select three different snapshots for three different tones in that patch.

 

FS4 and FS5 can still be used for stomp type controllers if needed, independently of the snapshots. 

 

I see three issues with this. First there's no tap tempo. You can get to the tuner by pressing ACTION and PAGE> together, but you can't tap the tempo for effects that sync to the tempo. That may not be a big problem in many cases, and is consistent with most traditional modulation and delay effects that didn't have tempo sync. I've heard many great players say that syncing the delay repeats to the song tempo isn't all that necessary in many cases.

 

Second there's the problem of the reliability of accurately pressing the two foot switches at the same time. If you miss, you're going to pick the wrong snapshot or scroll to the wrong group of 3 patches. It takes some practice to get this right. 

 

Third, three snapshots give you three tones, one for each snapshot. Two stomp foot switches (leaving FS3 for Tap tempo) gives you 4: all possible combinations of FS1 and FS2 (2**(number of foot switches)). Three foot switches give you 8 different tonal combinations, not 3.

 

Of course any individual patch can combine the two. You can still setup FS1 and FS2 (and FS4 and FS5) for stomp controllers, and have FS1, FS2 and FS3 do similar things with snapshots. Then no matter what mode you're in, you have reasonable and consistent control of the tone. 

 

If you only need to change patches between songs, then maybe bending down and turning the upper knob in play view to select the patch isn't that inconvenient. In my acoustic band, I mostly only change patches when I change instruments (mandolin, acoustic guitar, electric guitar). So bending down to turn the knob is fine, and something I routinely do with Helix because it was often faster than pressing the mode switch, selecting the patch, then pressing the mode switch again to get back to stomp mode. But at my age, bending down is getting harder all the time! So options are good.