Can I Recreate My Pedalboard in the HX Stomp?
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- Опубліковано 1 чер 2024
- I got my hands on an HX Stomp recently, and the first thought I had was: can I re-create my real life pedalboard inside of this compact unit?
Obviously I'm a little limited by only having six blocks to work with, and even more limited by some of my pedals not existing in the Helix universe. But many of them absolutely do exist on there, and some of the ones that don't, it's not hard to find close equivalents.
Here are my results, going through in order and trying to replicate my rig in this little box.
Download the finished HX Stomp preset from this video here:
www.dropbox.com/s/egd6pd8aer9...
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Unless I state otherwise in the video, everything I test out on here is stuff that I bought myself. There are no paid reviews on this channel and only a couple times have I ever had items sent to me for review. All opinions are my own!
AMAZON LINKS FOR THE GEAR IN THIS VIDEO:
(These are affiliate links so if you buy something, I may earn a small commission)
Line 6 HX Stomp: amzn.to/41Izi30
My guitar is a Fender JA-90: amzn.to/3Kd9LJ7
Some of the real pedals I'm comparing to:
Timmy: amzn.to/411qEMz
J. Rockett Archer: amzn.to/3YPEXlD
Source Audio Nemesis Delay: amzn.to/3xnY1fe
Strymon Iridium: amzn.to/3E5WduM
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Chapters:
0:00 Intro
1:44 Noise Gate
2:24 Impulse Response
2:55 Amp
5:39 Compressor
7:15 Timmy (Drive 1)
10:08 Rook (Drive 2)
14:21 Archer (Drive 3)
16:53 Delay
19:04 Reverb
20:55 Finished Tones
24:20 A Note About the IR
25:05 LeFevers Audio Plug
I’m not the “leave a comment” kind of guy but, in this case, I felt I have to! For last couple of months I’ve been watching dozens and dozens of videos about the HX Stomp to see if I could buy a unit and “replace”, as accurately as possible, my pedals. Finally I come across with this video that answers all of my questions. Thank you very much! On top of that you kindly shared your presents freely. The HX Stomp is not as cheap in Europe as it is in the US (EUR 655, about USD 712) and, within the EU we don’t have a true used gear marketplace (people seems to think they own a brand new piece of gear and, after using them, they probably think they have “The Midas Touch” and things get even more expensive as opposed to buy a new one). After seeing your video I’m now pretty confident I can spend that much cash and, with a little bit of tweaking, get almost all my pedalboard in a small and compact equipment. Thanks again for the enlightenment and l’ll be following you from this day forward. Best regards from Portugal.
Excellent - glad it helped!
This has been one of the most fun hx videos I've seen in a while. It was fun watching your process to match stuff and be creative working around the limitations. Thank you!
Thank you!
Very interesting test of the Pedalboard Recreation capabilities. I think the HX Stomp got pretty close for the most part. The Rook Drive tone was not a good match. You might want to try the Pillars OD, or some of many other Drives in the Stomp. I also use an HX Stomp.
A couple of weeks ago, I was looking at ways to add more ways to dial in the tone of Effects using a Preamp Block, and discovered that some people prefer a Preamp Block instead of the full Amp Block in the Helix Family of Modelers, as it provides a smoother/creamier tone in general, and this is particularly noticeable on Drive Block Effects. I've only tested this a little, but was very impressed, and I think this is something worth exploring as it actually sounded better to my ears. An additional benefit of using a Preamp Block is that is uses much less DSP, and in one comparison I saw, it more than doubled the amount of Effects available in a particular Block!
When running out of blocks, a handy tip I got from Steve Sterlacci is to duplicate the Preset in an adjacent Slot, then switch out the Effect Blocks that you couldn't add in the main Preset, but that aren't needed in the second Preset. This works surprisingly well and reduces pedalboard tap dancing.
Sounds great! In my experience, the power in the HX Stomp is automation. Often I find better drive sounds from assigning the amp drive parameter to change per snapshot or something so I can get multiple gain stages out of one block. That would give you enough room for chorus at least, though poly effects are super DSP heavy so you might not get the pog in there.
This is what I do. I don't use a block for every pedal. You can often times acomplish the same thing changing parameters on snap shots.
Thats a good idea. There is a list somewhere that will tell you how much power different blocks use.
That’s awesome how you matched your pedalboard with the HX stomp. I tried the stomp was hesitant on its capabilities. I’m reconsidering.
Love this video idea, Matt! The stomp is really a marvel with all the flexibility they built in. Echoing your experience here, I would say the drives were always the trickiest for me to dial in to sound as smooth and open as my outboard drive pedals. With many of the models I feel like the mids get congested in a weird way and the breakup character turns very...unpleasant, for lack of a better term. I think our ears must be pretty similar as I run a pretty similar setup with my gain staging - in fact, I run pretty much the exact timmy settings for my always-on, minus the fact that I use the middle toggle setting and boost the level a bit more as I feel like it sounds a bit more open that way.
Maybe a couple things to tinker with and try out, if you were so inclined - for my 2nd stage with the stomp I feel I always had the best luck either with A) just upping the gain on the amp model itself with one of my snapshots, or B) using the Heir Apparent model, which I know you played with for a min here. I feel like I always jump between the OD and boost settings, and the tone knob always ends up being dialed down a lot more that I would typically think, to find the most "right"-sounding tone haha if that makes sense. I feel like the 808 ended up causing the biggest departure in sound from your pedalboard here, but even so, you were still able to dial it in really close and this would patch would work well in a pinch as a backup or travel rig. I think I even liked the stomp's base AC30 tone with the york IR a bit more - sounded a bit more present and lively compared to the iridium. Either way - great job with this one!
Thanks! Yeah I gotta check out the Heir some more… there’s a reason I historically avoid tube screamers and that congested mids thing is exacerbating it. I’m pretty happy with everything else though.
Bro… amazing. I’m using my Kemper with an HX stomp in the loop but you got me wanting to try just the stomp on Sunday
Great video! It's crazy what you can get out of the Stomp. Now I think I need one 😂. Interested in your thoughts about amp models vs the Iridium as well. I am currently using an Iridium.
Do it but consider just getting the Native and running a laptop and a midi pedalboard as the DSP on the Native is much more powerful so can run far more options......I hybrid and do my amps and verbs and any stereo stuff from the Native and then have stomps for effects on my HX XL.
I need the extra board for my looping setup so I just have 5 Major presets and 5 looper options and the
thanks. Planning on getting one for my bass, and a D.I/tone hammer. Was trying to decide if I also needed a compressor. just watched your older video "Combo Pedalboard | Bass & Acoustic Guitar". What would you change on that bass/acoustic pedalboard if you were using the hx stomp for the bass?
I just love that you "hand selected" your pedals.
Artisanal and straight from the farm 👍🏻
As for the tubescreamer, have you tried the legacy one? It has a 3 band EQ and what you needed seems like what I hated about dialing it in back in the POD HD days when it was the only option
Interesting... no I hardly ever think to look at the legacy options. Good to know!
I did go in yesterday and try the Pillars (?), whatever the Earthquaker one is called, and liked that better. Just gotta keep poking around in there, I guess.
Most of that stuff comes from the pod hd which, cabinet emulation notwithstanding, was a great unit. I spent a lot there while migrating from it to the Helix and I still rely on some of those FX; especially reverbs and the Boss Dimension emulation. Spend some time in that section and I'm sure you'll find something interesting
@@leavingsoulsBO Octo and Tile reverbs from the old modeling units have always been so fun and useful! Definitely can't sleep on the legacy effects.
I’d be curious to hear your thoughts about the amp models in the Stomp versus the Iridium!
That’s definitely on the short list for one of the next videos I’m gonna do 😇
@@LeFeversAudio Thanks! I think the hardest part of a direct setup is the amp part.
You should give the Pillars overdrive a try. I believe it's supposed to be a tube screamer that keeps more low end - based on the Earthquaker Devices Plumes
Oh, that’s a good idea… thanks!
@@LeFeversAudio you could also try horizon drive, which it another screamer type, a lil unorthodox but it's a good shout
would love to have your IR. Can you point me to the right direction where to get it?
I use these ones - www.yorkaudio.co/product-page/mtch-212-esd-v2
Specifically I think it’s the Blend #2 IR from this pack.
The timmy on the hx stomp has this mid hump compared to the analog pedal
Yeah it’s really not as close as I wanted it to be…
I think theyre pretty close. I thought there needed to be a little more mids from the hx amp model to get closer to real thing. I think without matching that up as close as possible upfront that way, obviously shift the way that you dialing things down the road. Also, if you’re using the Tammy to cut more bass and give more of a boost on you just do that on the amp and bump up the volume a little on the compressor so you don’t even need to use the Timmy? Seems like its redundant. Great video and thanks for posting
Do you lead from your electric?
Not often but occasionally.
@@LeFeversAudio Do you go straight out, or are you using your stomp for it?
I haven't come up with an amp preset on the Stomp that I love yet, so right now the Stomp is handling delays and stuff and I'm using a Strymon Iridium as the amp.
@@LeFeversAudio I do something similar, using my stomp just for effects with the acoustic.
Im not audio maniac, but I hear difference and I thought drives will be not good, but now I think delay in HX isn't good( low sample rate
interference here