How can I easily turn the HX Stomp on and off?

[galbur]

No question. The HX Stomp is an amazing piece of hardware and the sounds are fantastic.

Still, I struggle with using the pedal. Mainly I want to use the HX Stomp in a live situation.

 

The stomp has its place on my pedalboard. But I am often unsure. Is the HAX Stomp now active or not?

 

If I use several effects in a chain I still only have 2 switches. How can I be sure that effects in the chain which are not assigned to a switch are switched off?

 

I thought ok, snapshots are a good idea. The problem is, I can unfortunately only switch between the snaphsots. I can't turn a snaphsot on and off. So I need snapshot1 for a signal with all effects switched off to be sure that I have a pure signal. Effects are then assigned to Snapshot 2 + 3. That seems like a waste to me.

 

What experiences have you had?

How do you solve these problems in a live situation?

Have I overlooked something?

 

Thank you for your help.

Best regards

Christoph

[cruisinon2]

I'm struggling to understand what the problem is... how can you tell if a given effect is switched off? If you can't hear it, then it's off...

 

And as far a snapshots are concerned, when any given one is selected, the rest are disabled... effectively "off", if you prefer that terminology. Doesn't matter how many there are, off is off... so I'm not sure what you think is being "wasted".  The whole point of snapshots is to simultaneously toggle the on/off state of various blocks, as well as allowing for the adjusting of multiple individual effects parameters, all with one click of a footswitch. They can simultaneously accomplish just about any combination of changes that your head can conjure up.

 

Imho, you're over-thinking things, and looking for a problem that doesn't really exist.

[PierM]

1. If you don't need the tap/tempo then you have 3 switch available
2. If you need more than 2 or 3 blocks to be controlled by a dedicated switch, then you need an extra MIDI controller, or 2 Footswitch to activate FS 4 and FS 5
3. If you need more visual feedback, you can keep the HX Stomp display in patch edit mode, so blocks are bigger and on/off status is more visible (but still, if you want a dedicated led, it's again point 1 and 2)
4. You can switch blocks AND snapshot, on the same session (without using hands), if you use the external FS4 and FS5 for Snapshot Up and Snapshot Down and keeping the 3 Switches for Blocks.
5. Remember you can assign more blocks per switch
6. Remember you can set blocks to be ignored by a snapshot memory (Action button, set snapshot bypass to OFF)

 

Said that, HX Stomp has max 8 blocks per patch. Assuming you are not tap dancing all of them, you should be totally fine with 3+2 Switches. If not, you need a more complex foot controller with leds, like an MC8 or similar. Or sell it and grab an HX Stomp XL.

[rd2rk]

Bypassing HX Stomp Completely

 

Page 14 of the HXS Manual v3.0 rev C

 

[datacommando]

2 hours ago, rd2rk said:

Bypassing HX Stomp Completely

 

Page 14 of the HXS Manual v3.0 rev C

 

Who reads a manual in 2021?

 

Oh, we have already covered that elsewhere. ;-)

[MusicLaw]

From the thread's original title, I was expecting to post a simple reply suggesting a power strip with an easily reachable on off rocker switch.

 

The title would be better worded using the terms Bypass and Enable rather than On and Off. ;)

 

 

[galbur]

Hi

 

Thanks for all the answers. And sorry for the misunderstandings.

English is just not my mother tongue.

 

Sure, I read the manual, but I wasn't aware that the two knobs for the bypass switch can also be operated with the foot. That works with a little practice.

 

So I will take 3 snapshots and switch the whole thing to "bypass" if necessary.

To make the whole thing a little easier, I'll probably get a footswitch to use it to switch "bypass".

Thanks at this point to PierM for the effort and the hint with the footswitch.

 

But I'm sticking to it. The whole thing takes a training period.

When I connected the HX Stomp for the first time, preset 01A was immediately active.

I was able to activate / deactivate 2 blocks but not switch the whole bypass (I hadn't read the manual yet -).

 

I also had the full-tone OCD in the chain. The following applies: Footswitch On = Effect On / Footswitch Off = Effect Off. It’s easy.

 

Unfortunately, this does not work with the HX Stomp. To see (and hear) the difference between "HX Stomp on" and "HX Stomp off" I had to switch to an empty preset.

Now that I know how to switch the bypass, this problem has also been solved ;-)

 

Thanks again and have a nice day

Christoph

Edited June 4, 2021 by galbur

[PierM]

26 minutes ago, galbur said:

Hi

 

Thanks for all the answers. And sorry for the misunderstandings.

English is just not my mother tongue.

 

Sure, I read the manual, but I wasn't aware that the two knobs for the bypass switch can also be operated with the foot. That works with a little practice.

 

So I will take 3 snapshots and switch the whole thing to "bypass" if necessary.

To make the whole thing a little easier, I'll probably get a footswitch to use it to switch "bypass".

Thanks at this point to PierM for the effort and the hint with the footswitch.

 

But I'm sticking to it. The whole thing takes a training period.

When I connected the HX Stomp for the first time, preset 01A was immediately active.

I was able to activate / deactivate 2 blocks but not switch the whole bypass (I hadn't read the manual yet -).

 

I also had the full-tone OCD in the chain. The following applies: Footswitch On = Effect On / Footswitch Off = Effect Off. It’s easy.

 

Unfortunately, this does not work with the HX Stomp. To see the difference between "HX Stomp on" and "HX Stomp off" I had to switch to an empty preset.

Now that I know how to switch the bypass, this problem has also been solved ;-)

 

Thanks again and have a nice day

Christoph

 

Yep. You can grab a cheap footswitch, stick it in the HX Stomp EXP port, and in the Global Settings set FS4 to All Bypass.

You can also set the HX Stomp to act as a True Bypass, instead DSP. I do personally prefer the second, but you have the option available.

 

As for the visual feedback, when the HX Stomp is in all bypass, does show a big yellow sign in the LCD screen, so it's very easy to monitor, even on the floor.

 

Keep in mind that, depends what blocks are you using (and if you are doing gain staging), the all bypass might produce a significant drop in the signal level.

[guitarboy_02451]

For my board I went with the Morningstar MC6MKII, which offers 6 programable switches for just about anything that can be controlled by Midi. Now the guys at Morningstar has added more functionality so that if you switch Stomp presets (1A) to (1B), the Morninigstar will now switch one bank up. So, 6 more programable switches.

 

The other great things bout the Morningstar is that you can program the assigned name of the switch to flash. So lets say for example I have only two buttons programed for a particular preset, Delay and Reverb. I have mine set so when I turn Delay to the on position, the title "Delay" flashes. 

 

Your use-case is fairly straight forward. If you are using the HX Stomp in front of your amp, or in the FX loop of your amp for effects only, you can create a preset and load up to 8 effects/blocks (depending on how much DSP). Now  here is the thing, you only have 3 switches. Reverb may leave on, Delay you may leave on, but maybe there is a distortion and some other insert effect, like flange or chorus, you can assign to the three switches. You're going to have to carefully plan your presets.

Snapshots are just that... save states. They allow you set any variable at one state, then change the parameter and save that in another save state... etc.. Lets take my first example: I have a clean tone with light delay and Reverb. That's Snapshot #1 (base level state)

 

Snapshot #2 will turn on the distortion, lower the percentage of reverb and maybe increase the percentage of delay a little bit. 

 

Snapshot #3 may increase the distortion even more for a singing lead, increase the delay percentage even more, turn off the Reverb, and maybe kick a flanger on, or whatever your little heart desires.

 

Snaps are only save states within one preset, with snap #1 being the base level (starting point)....

 

If the Morningstar MC6 isn't enough buttons, they make an MC8 with 8 buttons and more intense LCD display. The great thing about Morningstar is they keep coming out with updates and add more functionality.  

As far as bypass, there are a few modes on the Stomp and one is true-bypass. If you have a delay on, or whatever, and turn it off... that's your tone. If you're getting "tone suck" then look at your cable lengths. It may not hurt to use a buffer... I use the Empress Buffer +. This model eliminates the need from having a buffer at the beginning and ending of the chain (i.e. 2 buffers). The Empress Buffer + has essentially a loop, (out to effects pedals / return from effects pedals) along with a "guitar In" and "amp out". 

 

No one is more of a tone snob than me, I run two Dr.Z amps that are handwired point-to-point. My rectifier in both amps date back to 1959, and they have very natural sag and distortion.. Any pedal that is not boutique will suck tone on these amps... I can say without a doubt, when I used Effects Only Preset from the Stomp in front of either Z, I do not get tone suck. 

 

Look into the Morningstar MC6MKII.... that will probably cure all your ills. 

 

 

 

[galbur]

Hi

And thanks again. Maybe i will have a look for a midi controller in the future. For the beginning i started with a digitech Fs3x Footswitcher and a zoom FP02M Expression Pedal. With the FS3X i can easely now sitch to bypass and i have a visual Feedback on the HX Stomp. Prefect. Thanks again PierM.

 

All the best

Christoph