Al Krow

Which bit? The embargo? Was meant to be a light hearted footnote, but seems to have caused a certain amount of righteous indignation - lol! It's a straightforward decision in product market segmentation by Line 6 that makes very good commercial sense from their perspective. Same processor capacity in Stomp and HX Effects? I thought that was relatively well known. But happy to be corrected if that's not accurate.

Time we had a proper pic! The last one I remember of yours was a rack of headstocks! PS do you have a favourite of the three?

What is interesting is the fact that the 1200S is very much regarded as BB royalty. And MattiZ's post seems to confirm that it holds its own very well against even its modern day successor, 30 years its junior, the 735A.

You fessed up about 2,500 posts ago when we were all listing our BB collections! Now I just need to find that post....😂

TWO x BB1200S!! That's just plain greedy 😂

It's a 608 mile round trip to Hexam from E London. I'm not convinced I could get away with it being referred to as "essential travel". PS just remembered these two straps are supposed to be my birthday pressie from the missus, so I'd best not open the box for a few days yet then! 😁

The pedal in the loop(s) can be put anywhere in your Helix signal chain, so you choose whether you have them in series or parallel and exactly where in relation to the rest. They would use up one (or two if you are using both external loops) of your 6 on/off switches if you are going for the one fx stomp per single effects pedal mode (although tbf I've not used them set up in that mode. You would need to switch them off or on yourself unless you are going down the midi route with midi enabled pedals, but we are getting way above my pay grade at that point!), or one of the 9 blocks available on HX Effects if you are using them as part of a "patch". Worth adding, I'm looking to keep things uber simple and just have the Helix HX Effects as my standalone "pedal board" in the immediate future, as an alternative to my mini board, so all of the above will be for another day for me!

Now that's an offer I look forward to taking you up on next time I'm way uuup north (or south if you're a Scot).

Teacher's pet 😂

And the Stomp is purely to stomp on right? 😁 Since when was an amp and cab sim (which HX Effects doesn't have) not an "effect" any more than a BDDI sim or a compressor sim is not an "effect" (which the HX Effects does have)? It's a commercial "embargo" in the sense that they are trying to carve out a separate market niche for each. I totally understand that.

From our very own @bassfan who spotted this recently: New forte with built in drive/tube (BFT) tone & presence https://bergantino.com/forte-d-bass-amplifier/

Levy and Minotaur straps both at depot for me to pick up, hopefully tomorrow and so we should have a veritable strap feedback frenzy over the weekend. (Hint: we're both going to say they're amazing / best thing since sliced straps. Walshy will then have have his up for sale in 6 weeks as he doesn't have any gear more than two months old in his den as far as I can tell 😁)

Impressed you have both a C4 and FI!! 8 blocks is a great idea - and really good to know that Line 6 are both hearing and open to meeting the needs of their customers. Comments from TBers suggest that the amp and cab sims are particularly DSP heavy on Helix and I guess that this has been a key reason for the Stomp having 3 fewer blocks available than HX Effects, which lacks the amp and cab sims, and worries about comments about not being able to make use of all the available blocks. Well they've clearly sought to CTA on that score with their comments which Cam quoted for us! They just need to stop the unnecessary embargo on amp and cab sims on the HX Effects now, given that the Stomp and HX Effects have exactly the same processors and DSP capability! 😁

Polyphonic pitch models sounds good! And not surprised they take up a lot of DSP - seems to be one of the tougher asks for a multi fx to do well.

@51m0n has got himself a wee reputation for knowing as much about compression as just about anyone on BC! So it won't be helpful to mention that he's just bought the grand-daddy Becos... However it's worth mentioning, they're pretty clean and the fact you like the Diamond because it colours the tone might mean it's not the right one for you.

Totally get the desire to have your comp at the end of the chain to limit signal spikes. Otherwise I would agree with @franzbassist (and actually also seen in @AinsleyWalker's signal chain) of having the octave as near the start as possible to give it the cleanest signal to bite on and having the filter at the back end to give it the most complex waveforms to filter. Indeed octave-->drive-->filter is a classic DIY synth bass set up. Pulling that together would give you: tuner-->octaver-->VMT-->filter-->comp Nice thing about this is that it's not set in stone - and you can mess around to your heart's content. Must admit I'd tend to agree that the VMT is a little muddier than some drives; another pedal that would get my vote would be the Tech 21 VT DI which will give you a ton of tone shaping options as well as drive, but you'd need a bigger pedal board to fit it on! (Although if you replaced your Diamond with the compact but very capable Becos CompIQ...😊)

It's a date! 😎

Two black BB300?! Black is definitely your favourite colour, for basses anyway! 😁 So your full collection of Yammy BBs is now what? Full family photo please!

"St John's Ambulance is training up 30,000 volunteers to help the NHS administer the jabs" I appreciate this won't be what the half glass empty brigade, who seem all too happy to put this country and it's democratically government down at every opportunity, will want to hear. Of course mistakes are going to be made along the way - it's not like there's a play-book for dealing with this current global pandemic. But personally, I believe in the resilience and capability of our plucky nation to get through this Covid-19 crisis, together.

Yeah I did think twice about using BF as an abbreviation for Black Friday on a BC thread. And obviously in day to day use BC also has a completely different meaning... 😄

If you spot any great BF deals - let us know! On the other hand if you see any blatant pre BF price bumps to make it just look like they're offering reductions - feel free to call them out. Here's one. Normal price £399, but you can currently get a HX Stomp for a bargain basement £539 from these guys... https://www.dawsons.co.uk/207797/line-6-helix-hx-stomp-multi-effects-processor-amp-modeller

A funny question when I wouldn't ever be looking to use that particular effect in the mix? It was a home use bit of fun for me e.g. in creating a Royal Blood harmony layered sounds with the pitch shift set at +octave +5th & 4th below etc. You mentioned the chorusy result on the Zoom - that is exactly right. Then multiply that up with several layers and you have total mush on the Zoom. I wouldn't be using that ever in a band context. Helix, however, can handle this. No chorusy effect on a single pitch shift and then combine the layers in parallel - again something you can't do on the Zoom which is series only. It's a simple illustration of the enhanced DSP that the Helix has compared to the Zoom. Not a particularly controversial point, I wouldn't have thought? You should have a go at using your Helix looper to record some time - no DAW required! Although tbf the loopers on both the Zoom B1-4 (I appreciate that this is not available on the MS 60B) and the Helix are very limited. (Aside: the Lekato is a great value little looper, although I've had my head turned by the latest release of the Boss RC-500, which seems a very worth successor to the RC-30 I previously had).

You do have perfectly adequate home tech for recording same as me: the looper on your Helix. My main use of a pitch shift has been at home so yup I can hear the difference very clearly (and it's painful on the Zoom B1-4). Personally I don't have a big use for it in a band context: one of the big plusses of a 5 string is how easy it is to change key! Don't get me wrong - I'm a MASSIVE fan of the B1-4: it's the best value bit of kit I've bought this year. But it has its limitations.