fxloop Make FX Loop Great again

[ech0FX]

Title says: Make FX loop great again. 

They should! Here is how:

 

Having experiented a bit with the FX loop and trying a lot of things. There is so much wrong with it.

You wanna have a FXloop for on of your Gainpedals infront of your digital amp? Noise

You wanna have a OD Pedal before your digital Distortion Pedal which also is in front of your digital Amp? Even more Noise

 

You wanna extend your HX (Stomp or Effekts probally) with hardware Pedals cause your preset its allready packed full?
wakwaaaak

Your FXloop also requiers Blocks which takes space from your overall preset.

Sadly, if you think you can "upgrade" the capabilitys of your effects of stomp your mistaken.

Idk what it is with Send/return or Loop blocks. pretty sure it wont take much DSP away from anything.

We have come so far. Since Update 3.0 we enjoy 8 instead of 6 Block in HX Stomp and Effects.

 

Fix to get more out of the HX:

 

Whouldnt it be great to get Send/Return or Loop Blocks there own sort of thing? Like the Signal Split. We can allready to it, it takes no block.

I whould love to see Line6 implement 1 free FXLoop or 1 free set of Send/Return in non Helix hardware with limited Blocks. Just like the Signal Split.

---

And that noise.... Its pretty much unusable if you plan on using an Amp within HX and use Hardware OD oder SD.

Digital OD and SD are fine. And thats really a shame.

 

Not even the best Gate Pedal with 4cm will help you with that. Since it only takes to block with no hardware signal chain attached to throw white noise at you like nothing else.

 

Can we talk also about FXLoop in Stereo. If you plan on using the Stereo Loop with a Splitter cable to get FX L and R at the same time... yea, you get that. But one Signal chain will be left, the other right. Giving terrible phasing problems. Pretty much unusable that way.

 

Fix for phasing?:

 

Why is it that you dont have a option to make both inputs Mono instead of one R one L stereo.

So you can have both of your signalchains but the just produce mono sound.

Ofc you want that stereo stuff for delays or something like that. But the raw signal with OD. we dont need stereo for that.

 

Point 1 and 2 combined "Fix":

 

Imagin not having a Send/Return/Loop Right and Left in the first place.

 

Why not having just Send/Return/Loop and let us choose L/R in the setting of the block.

That whould mean if you want to create a Preset with 2 different loops, Left and right, you can change them via Snapshot or Button.

you have your X Pedal active and wanna switch snapshots and get your X Pedal off the Signalchain and add your Y Pedal.

If its an option to select which Channel you wanna have its an instand win. Leave the Trials in peace and you can have 2 signal chains for the price of one.

 

 

 

Overall i love my Stomp. But im just so disapointed of the FXloop. Its just a hassle and you litterly gain nothing from it. You actually loose more then you gain, since you cant adress normal pedals via Midi and can only have 1 loop at a time despite having the capabilitys for having 2.

 

 

I know this phasing issue is discussed for years. And i know that nobody from Line6 will even read this thread. but damn i wish they whould cause i feel like after making such great upgrades to the software, this whould turn the HX from 10 to 11.

 

 

If you have workarrounds for that. feel free to tell me.

I have my setup working now, but again, i have to delete Blocks to get Room for FXloop which doesnt really do a lot.

I simply cannot have stacks ODs or SD in a chain even with a Gate cause of the all present whitenoise which comes even when you dont have a pedal plugged in.

And i cant use the Stereo send and L/R return to its fullest cause of the phasing and Stereo issues.

 

PS:

All that stuff whould also make extremly good sense considering the new ishly HX One.

If you want to expand HX Stomp or Effects via HX One, you encounter the exact problems.

Noise - FXloop blocks ...

Fixing them or just adjusting the function of FXloops/Send/Return means HX One becomes actually more viable as an upgrade option.
 

listen to me Line6 :P

[cruisinon2]

Harrumph!!! ;)

[silverhead]

I couldn’t make myself read your post, just based on the title. I expect it’s full of untruths and misinformation.

[theElevators]

....civil war

[rd2rk]

This is a user-to-user support forum.

Nobody from L6 hangs out here.

If you want someone from L6 to hear your plea, post it here:

 

https://line6.ideascale.com/c/

 

Word of advice - keep it simple - "the FX Loop is noisy".

(SOLUTION - GAIN devices don't belong in FX Loops. Yes, TPS does it all the time - they're PROS with a VERY expensive DEDICATED loop device!)

 

Phasing problems are the result of Operator Error - you don't understand how it works.

 

If you want to use the FX Loop in pure MONO just use the L/Mono - (TIP) and Left Return OR RIGHT = (RING) and Right Return.

That just requires a simple TS (INSTRUMENT) cable.

If you want to use two mono FX loops and control them with Snapshots you need two FX Loop Blocks.

That requires a TRS to Dual Mono (INSERT) cable.

You turn the FX Loop Blocks ON or OFF or COMBINE them using Snapshots.

 

The solution to "I need more!" is to spend the money to get the right tool for the job!

You know which is the right tool for the job by reading the manuals and asking questions BEFORE you buy.

[PierM]

Im running an entire pedalboard filled with pedals in the FX loop (of course no gain, those are either coming from HX or BEFORE the HX main input) and always worked great. Of course the more AD/DA you stack, the closer the noise floor....but nothing to call home about.

[datacommando]

On 8/14/2024 at 6:52 PM, ech0FX said:

Title says: Make FX loop great again. 

Hmm… What exactly does that mean?
 

AFAIK, the FX Loops in my Helix are still the same as they ever were, and I have been using them since 2015. During that time I have hooked up all sorts of other stuff, from cheapo Zoom MS-70CDR boxes, to vintage rack mounted delays, and multi-fx units plus, at one point way back, a POD HD500, just to be able to use the “Dimension” effect prior to the legacy effects being implemented in the HX Firmware. 
 

Oh, yeah - if you insist on sticking gain, distortion and overdrive pedals in the FX Loop you’re going to get noise - the clue is in the name of the effects. Maybe you should re-think how you utilise the hardware you have.

 

As for your,  “They should! Here is how:“ comment, you should note that this is a peer to peer user forum. There are no Line 6 staff here and only very occasionally do they visit these forums - (See the “sticky comment” in the black banner stripe at the top of this page entitled “Welcome to the Line 6 forums”).

 

Hope this helps makes sense.

[ech0FX]

On 8/14/2024 at 10:09 PM, rd2rk said:

 

If you want to use two mono FX loops and control them with Snapshots you need two FX Loop Blocks.

That requires a TRS to Dual Mono (INSERT) cable.

You turn the FX Loop Blocks ON or OFF or COMBINE them using Snapshots.

 

The solution to "I need more!" is to spend the money to get the right tool for the job!

You know which is the right tool for the job by reading the manuals and asking questions BEFORE you buy.

I do own the HX stomp for a couple of years now.

And yes, i do use a TRS to dual Mono cable. But since you also come back into mono L/R , the signal from eath path also only L or R.

I havnt found a solution to this problem. If you know it let me know. but its 100% not ramming my preset full of sends and returns. Atleast for me.

[ech0FX]

On 8/15/2024 at 1:20 AM, datacommando said:

Hmm… What exactly does that mean?
 

AFAIK, the FX Loops in my Helix are still the same as they ever were, and I have been using them since 2015. During that time I have hooked up all sorts of other stuff, from cheapo Zoom MS-70CDR boxes, to vintage rack mounted delays, and multi-fx units plus, at one point way back, a POD HD500, just to be able to use the “Dimension” effect prior to the legacy effects being implemented in the HX Firmware. 
 

Oh, yeah - if you insist on sticking gain, distortion and overdrive pedals in the FX Loop you’re going to get noise - the clue is in the name of the effects. Maybe you should re-think how you utilise the hardware you have.

 

"great again" was just ment to be a joke.

I also know throuhg a lot of forum posts and videos that it seems they never changed anything with it. So nothing got worse.

But i feel like it chould be such much better.

 

Its not even only the OD/SD. Make a new preset with an amp and put the FXloop in front of it. If you dont hear any noise put a DS infront.
Now you have insane noise. And you havnt even put any cables into the FXsend/return. Its the block itself which does make noise.

 

I know OD/SD makes some noise and im ok with that aslong as i can gate them out. But not even that is possible. Its just insane white noise which. Putting the FXloop behind the DS is more or less silent. Behind the Amp is 100% silent.

But you litterly cant use Hardware Pedals like an OD to boost an Amp cause of that insane noise. Which you normally CAN do on any setup.

[ech0FX]

On 8/14/2024 at 11:21 PM, PierM said:

Im running an entire pedalboard filled with pedals in the FX loop (of course no gain, those are either coming from HX or BEFORE the HX main input) and always worked great. Of course the more AD/DA you stack, the closer the noise floor....but nothing to call home about.

Yea running the Loop after OD/SD/AMP works great. no noise at all. Only putting the FXloop Block infront on an HX OD or SD without any pedals hooked up to it you get white noise like hell.

For me the FXloop is pretty much unusable if i want to hook up an OD as a boost pedal

[ech0FX]

On 8/14/2024 at 9:12 PM, silverhead said:

I couldn’t make myself read your post, just based on the title. I expect it’s full of untruths and misinformation.

Actually no. Its just me explaining what does not work and how it whould be better.

TLDR: cant use FXloop infront of HX SD/AMP cause whitenoise

[rd2rk]

On 8/14/2024 at 6:17 PM, ech0FX said:

I do own the HX stomp for a couple of years now.

And yes, i do use a TRS to dual Mono cable. But since you also come back into mono L/R , the signal from eath path also only L or R.

I havnt found a solution to this problem. If you know it let me know. but its 100% not ramming my preset full of sends and returns. Atleast for me.

 

I'm not sure what it is that you want to do.

You have a choice of two mono loops or one stereo loop. Two MONO blocks or one STEREO block.

Where is the problem? Be SPECIFIC with an example of something that you think you can't do.

 

As for noise, yes, the FX Loops DO add a TINY bit of noise.

If you put a GAIN device in the loop, that noise is amplified.

If you then put that signal into another HX GAIN device, then on into an amp...

If you're getting MAJOR noise without ANYTHING in the loop, there's something else going on. Attach an example preset that demonstrates that.

[SaschaFranck]

As far as noise goes, I can't recreate that. My pedals create as much or little noise as they create outside the Stomp's loop. If you really wanted, I could possibly prove it.

As far as the loop taking up a block goes, I absolutely agree.

[PierM]

On 8/15/2024 at 2:25 AM, ech0FX said:

Yea running the Loop after OD/SD/AMP works great. no noise at all. Only putting the FXloop Block infront on an HX OD or SD without any pedals hooked up to it you get white noise like hell.

For me the FXloop is pretty much unusable if i want to hook up an OD as a boost pedal

 

Imho you should not put any Fuzz/OD in the FX Loop, nor any other pedal that is supposed to drive and boost a signal. That's a rule I personally follow since day one, and I do really believe it's related to I/O circuits at the ports, so nothing you can change software side. Even the most clean clone of Klone pedal I put the in the Loop sounds noisy, and also it does work differently then when it's running in front (as it should, imho).

 

Personally, the only real downside of the loops, is they do suck a bit of tone, which is most evident with clean sounds, but it's always a compromise I guess. :)

 

EDIT; added "IMHO" to prevent sensible people to feel offended.

[SaschaFranck]

On 8/15/2024 at 9:56 AM, PierM said:

You should not put any Fuzz/OD in the FX Loop, nor any other pedal that is supposed to drive and boost a signal.

 

Why not? It's working absolutely fine for me.

[PierM]

On 8/15/2024 at 10:15 AM, SaschaFranck said:

 

Why not? It's working absolutely fine for me.

 

Because the fx loop stacks another "layer" of noise as is, so any overdrive pedal it's pulling this noise up into the signal. Experience may vary, but I believe it's a well known issue with these loops.

 

This is the exact topic of this thread :D 

 

 

[SaschaFranck]

On 8/15/2024 at 10:25 AM, PierM said:

Because the fx loop stacks another "layer" of noise as is, so any overdrive pedal it's pulling this noise up into the signal. Experience may vary, but I believe it's a well known issue with these loops.

 

Well, yes and no. In case I decide to use the Stomp's input gate, at least the noise in playing pauses is filtered out already.

Also, in case you're using quality PSUs, the differences between pedal-in-loop and pedal-in-front aren't huge. And for me, the additional comfort of running it in a loop outweighs that little extra noise by far.