MartinB

I built many a PC with parts from Scan back in the day

As above, if you want flat response with rolled-off highs, the Low and High Cut EQ block should do the job. Or the high cut control in the Parametric EQ block, or global EQ, which behave the same. If the roll-off isn't steep enough for you, you could try the high cut in the IR block instead - you can use this "empty" without an IR file loaded. Low/high block = green IR block = blue Both set to 6 kHz

Yeah for sure. For the OP's Stomp XL, it's pretty short at maximum of 2048 samples (< 50ms) - which is probably why the Line 6 docs only describe it for use as a cab sim, although people do routinely use it for acoustic instrument captures as well. It's just not going to be much good for a cathedral reverb 😄

It can't be that much cheaper - I've got three Chinese Squiers and none of them has a skunk stripe

Check how much space you've got - if it's tight, you might want to hold on for the more compact version 4 to be available in the UK:

Essentially just an EQ curve that matches the sound of putting a specific microphone in a specific position in front of a specific speaker cabinet. The green wiggly line is a Helix Cab > Single block for an Ampeg 4x10 cabinet, which uses a built-in IR. The blue smooth line is a Helix EQ > Parametric block with an approximation of the same overall frequency response. They should sound broadly similar - they're just different tools for the same job. IRs can be a bit more characterful because they've got all those little peaks and notches at different frequencies. An EQ-based "cabinet" can give you a bit more fine control. Settings for both blocks are below if you want to try them out:

If you approach it the other way around, flat EQ on the MojoMojo at 25-50% Drive is roughly equivalent to Bass 11:00, Treble 8:30 on the Spark at 100% Gain. It's not quite as close this way - the MojoMojo has a little more going on between 500Hz-3kHz, and a little less > 3kHz.

The Spark at 100% Gain and the MojoMojo at 25-30% Drive sound pretty close, if you tweak the EQ on the MojoMojo a bit. The Spark is slightly less compressed. Spark / Mode "Clean" / Gain 5:00 (max) / Bass & Treble 12:00 (flat) 1 Spark.mp3 MojoMojo / Voice "Up" / Drive 10:30 / Bass 1:00 / Treble 4:15 1 MojoMojo.mp3 Spark (settings as above) 2 Spark.mp3 MojoMojo (settings as above) 2 MojoMojo.mp3

Some folks have convinced themselves that a signature instrument is equivalent to a lifetime achievement award, and therefore only their favourites from decades past "deserve" to have one. Whereas I'm sure the only qualification that Fender considers is, quite reasonably, "Can we make a load of money by selling these?"

Dry recording (no pedal): Dry.mp3 Spark / Mode "Clean" / Gain 100%: Spark max gain.mp3 MojoMojo / Drive 0%: MojoMojo min gain.mp3 MojoMojo / Drive 50%: MojoMojo half gain.mp3 MojoMojo / Drive 100%: MojoMojo max gain.mp3

Very little 🤣 I have an old image from when I looked into this a while back. Dark green is voice switch "up", light green is "down": So something like a 1.5dB boost centred around 80-100Hz. You can barely hear the difference.

Different modes on the Spark @ Gain 50% / Bass & Treble 50% Blue: Fat Purple: Clean Yellow: Mid

Did somebody say "graphs"? No? Well you're getting them anyway, because I happen to have both pedals to hand. Green: Spark / Mode "Clean" / Gain 0% / Bass & Treble 50% Red: MojoMojo / Voice "Up" / Drive 0% / Bass & Treble 50% Green: Spark / Mode "Clean" / Gain 100% / Bass & Treble 50% Red: MojoMojo / Voice "Up" / Drive 100% / Bass & Treble 50% Green: Spark / Mode "Clean" / Gain 0% / Bass & Treble 100% Red: MojoMojo / Voice "Up" / Drive 0% / Bass & Treble 100% Green: Spark / Mode "Clean" / Gain 100% / Bass & Treble 100% Red: MojoMojo / Voice "Up" / Drive 100% / Bass & Treble 100% The MojoMojo is inherently dark-sounding, and cranking the highs is only going to get you close to flat at best. It gets a bit more mid-focused than the Spark as you increase the gain. I'll see if I can get some sound samples later. Edit: Apologies to anyone with colourblindess - I should have picked something other than red/green. Basically, whichever line has less treble is always the MojoMojo

If there are separate magnets for the A/E and D/G sides of the pickup, the D/G one could have been de-magnetised. I had a new bass arrive with a G string that was a quarter of the volume of the others. It wasn't the strings - if I turned the pickup 180 degrees, the E string became the weak one. In theory a pickup can be re-magnetised, but in my case the manufacturer just replaced it since it was new.

Black's the best of the those options, but would look better with black pickup covers. A plain white that matched the covers would also work. There's too much going on with the control plate to have a pattern on the scratchplate as well, IMO.