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Bad tone through headphones HX stomp


Mike-GTR
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I spent the day trying to program my  new HX stomp ready for rehearsals on Monday. I'll be going straight into a PA. Because I don't have any monitors in the house I used my Sennheiser Momentum headphones out of the stomp to get the tones dialled in. I literally went through every amp and cab combination, tweaked all of the advanced parameters  including the global EQ (even tried bypassing this) and EVERYTHING just sounded fizzy and processed. For the most part left the impedance level on auto but tweaking it didn't make a difference. I get that the Stomp is digital and will never be as good as a tube amp but it sounded really bad, almost like clipping with unpleasant high frequencies. The demos I've heard sound fantastic so i'm a little disappointed if this is as good as it gets.  Has anyone experienced the same results and also will the sound I'm hearing be the way its gonna sound through PA speakers? 

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2 hours ago, Mike-GTR said:

I spent the day trying to program my  new HX stomp ready for rehearsals on Monday. I'll be going straight into a PA. Because I don't have any monitors in the house I used my Sennheiser Momentum headphones out of the stomp to get the tones dialled in. I literally went through every amp and cab combination, tweaked all of the advanced parameters  including the global EQ (even tried bypassing this) and EVERYTHING just sounded fizzy and processed. For the most part left the impedance level on auto but tweaking it didn't make a difference. I get that the Stomp is digital and will never be as good as a tube amp but it sounded really bad, almost like clipping with unpleasant high frequencies. The demos I've heard sound fantastic so i'm a little disappointed if this is as good as it gets.  Has anyone experienced the same results and also will the sound I'm hearing be the way its gonna sound through PA speakers? 

 

You won't like this, but if you're new to modeling, one day with any modeler in existence won't get you very far....prepare for a bit of a learning curve. Even with experience, these aren't the kind of devices that you pull out of the box today and use at a gig or rehearsal tomorrow.

 

At a minimum, you will find that both high and low shelf EQ cuts are essential with any kind of FRFR output (that includes includes your headphones, a PA, studio monitors, etc. etc). Stay away from the global EQ... that's for minor tweaks in different acoustic environments, not creating your tones.


It's not a guitar amp... you can't treat it like one. And it's never gonna sound like an amp sitting next to you in the room, so don't try... that's not what it's designed to do. It will sound like a mic-ed amp in the live room next door, while you're listening through studio monitors at the board. You have to think like an engineer in a studio, because that's what Helix is emulating...an amp, a cabinet, and the mic in front of it, all being monitored elsewhere.


At the beginning, the manual and YouTube tutorials are your friend. Check out Jason Sadites' channel. It's not as simple as just setting all your tone controls at noon, your gain where you like it, and calling it a day.


The tones are in there.... but the experimental phase, particularly with cab/mic choices and the appropriate use of EQ, is not optional. We all went through it.

 

 

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On 6/2/2019 at 9:22 PM, Mike-GTR said:

Because I don't have any monitors in the house I used my Sennheiser Momentum headphones out of the stomp to get the tones dialled in. ...

...Has anyone experienced the same results and also will the sound I'm hearing be the way its gonna sound through PA speakers? 

 

Hate to tell you this, but trying to set your tones this way is only going to lead to you not being happy with the result.

 

It has been an ongoing debate on this forum about headphones - which are best for etc.

 

Maybe you should research these threads:

 

https://line6.com/support/topic/23319-helix-through-headphones-sounds-awful/

 

https://line6.com/support/topic/26959-the-mother-of-all-headphone-complaint-answers/

 

From what I have read about your Sennheiser Momentum, wireless version or not, they are low impedance 18ohm with mini jack connection that seem to be aimed at the mobile user eg: phone, tablet etc., so I’m not sure that they are ideal for setting your tones, but that’s just my comment.

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I'm at a definite crossroads with headphones & swore I would not use them. Then I ran across some Sony MDR-7506's and they sounded pretty good. What really got my attention was recording a guitar track in Studio One with the headphones on and THEN listening to the track without them on. They sounded pretty freekin close, which really changed my attitude about saying "never" and "Headphones" in the same sentence again. ; ) 

 

Never tried any on a Stomp yet (cause I don't have one yet).

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