Mini Helix - HX Stomp...

[Quatschmacher]

26 minutes ago, CameronJ said:

Other than my analogue octavers

Interesting, I did wonder. 

[CameronJ]

24 minutes ago, walshy said:

No I’ve had the 751 for a while now, it’s unbelievable and worth the extra weight, I think the Barefaced cab balances it out 😂 The sound is amazing. That’s why I’m wondering if I ‘need’ the helix? 

 

Ah really? I’m mighty close to buying 🤔

To be fair, if you love your backline tone and don’t ever need to go direct to desk...or don’t have much need for the Stomp’s Audio/MIDI interface and practice amp capabilities...you still have a vast wealth of effects and routing options. Selling the pedals you mentioned would pretty much pay for the Stomp and give you a load of extras, should you ever need them.

[walshy]

4 minutes ago, CameronJ said:

To be fair, if you love your backline tone and don’t ever need to go direct to desk...or don’t have much need for the Stomp’s Audio/MIDI interface and practice amp capabilities...you still have a vast wealth of effects and routing options. Selling the pedals you mentioned would pretty much pay for the Stomp and give you a load of extras, should you ever need them.

Yeah I see what you mean. I think for the outlay it may be a neat solution especially for festivals which can be quick changeovers. I would use it in house for practice and recording too, eventually. Hmm, two weeks til next gigs, gives me time to experiment too

[Al Krow]

1 hour ago, walshy said:

So close to pulling the trigger today! I’m still tempted with this fella to replace my main pedal board, just wondering who uses live with a bass rig? I run Cali 76 compressor, Tech 21 drive, full tone bass drive as my main run ( Buffer at the front of the loop and an Emma Discombobulator too ) all through a Barefaced 610 and a DB751.

 

1 hour ago, CameronJ said:

A Stomp will replace all of that with ease - and more. I’m doing a mental inventory of which pedals to sell at the moment. Other than my analogue octavers, almost everything else is on the chopping block.

I agree with Cam that the Stomp has the potential to replace a bunch of pedals on both our boards.

But in response to your Q as to who is currently using a Stomp live with a bass rig, I presume you mean in the mix with their band, right?

If so, Cam's and my use is 'bedroom' only at this stage (Cam please jump in if I have this wrong in your case). Although unlike my B3n, which only ever was for home use with me, I've got every intention of gigging my Stomp when I'm up to speed with it.

Edited March 2, 2019 by Al Krow

[foxyFuze]

I used mine for a pub gig the other night into a class D amp. Pretty happy with it; to my amateur ears the amp sim and compression alone justifies it, and I can simply adjust the amp EQ according to the venue. It's not simple to dial in like my old tube amp (patience and experimentation needed), but the convenience in moving and setting up for playing to a load of drunk Bristolians is well worth it! 

I'd say get one online with a return guarantee and see how you fair with it.

[CameronJ]

8 minutes ago, Al Krow said:

I agree with Cam that the Stomp has the potential to replace a bunch of pedals on both our boards.

But in response to your Q as to who is actually currently using a Stomp live with a bass rig, I presume you mean in the mix with their band, right?

If so, Cam's and my use is 'bedroom' only at this stage (Cam please jump in if I have this wrong in your case). Although unlike my B3n which only ever was for home use with me, I've got every intention of gigging my Stomp when I'm up to speed with it.

Truth. Mine has so far only seen bedroom/living room use so far. Like @Al Krow I will have no hesitation gigging it when the time arises!

[Woodinblack]

1 minute ago, CameronJ said:

Truth. Mine has so far only seen bedroom/living room use so far. Like @Al Krow I will have no hesitation gigging it when the time arises!

Why has the time not arisen? are you not gigging at the moment or some other reason you are not gigging with it?

I must admit I would like one but don't need one, the FX is good for me as I am only going through an amp anyway rather than the PA and actually I am still using the B3 until I get power sorted (and patches I need done). Must remember to order a power socket!

[Al Krow]

5 minutes ago, Woodinblack said:

I must admit I would like one but don't need one, 

Tbf I don't think any bass pedal is necessary. They are a 'nice to have' and can be a lot of creative fun. 

But I've happily gigged with bass-->lead-->amp and cab for several years and it's been just fine  

Edited March 2, 2019 by Al Krow

[la bam]

I used the aqua51 (db51) and ir 810 cab last night, and it sounded lovely. Very full and rich. 100% authentic.

[CameronJ]

4 minutes ago, Woodinblack said:

Why has the time not arisen? are you not gigging at the moment or some other reason you are not gigging with it?

I must admit I would like one but don't need one, the FX is good for me as I am only going through an amp anyway rather than the PA and actually I am still using the B3 until I get power sorted (and patches I need done). Must remember to order a power socket!

I’m an actor by day, on tour with a musical at the moment. As a result, it’s impossible to be in a band as I’m in a different city each week and have performances at the times gigs would be. Not ideal but I bring a bass and my Stomp on the road with me to try and keep the chops up. I’m actually getting the odd lesson here and there with our show bassist @mikenichols!

Believe me, the Stomp will be gigged the first opportunity I get.

[Woodinblack]

3 minutes ago, Al Krow said:

Tbf I don't think any bass pedal is necessary. They are a 'nice to have' and can be a lot of creative fun.

Well, obviously but by 'don't need one' I mean it doesn't answer any problem I have. It doesn't give me anything over the HX, and frankly not sure that that gives me anything over the B3 in a gigging situation.

But that obviously doesn't mean I don't want one, or if it had more buttons I would have already got one!

[Al Krow]

1 minute ago, CameronJ said:

I’m an actor by day, on tour with a musical at the moment. As a result, it’s impossible to be in a band as I’m in a different city each week and have performances at the times gigs would be. Not ideal but I bring a bass and my Stomp on the road with me to try and keep the chops up. I’m actually getting the odd lesson here and there with our show bassist @mikenichols!

Believe me, the Stomp will be gigged the first opportunity I get.

You've also very modestly left out that you have one of the best male vocals of any bass player I know!

[CameronJ]

1 minute ago, Al Krow said:

You've also very modestly left out that you have one of the best male vocals of any bass player I know!

Haha thanks Bas. Worry not, I shout it from the rooftops over on Voxchat 

[walshy]

1 hour ago, CameronJ said:

To be fair, if you love your backline tone and don’t ever need to go direct to desk...or don’t have much need for the Stomp’s Audio/MIDI interface and practice amp capabilities...you still have a vast wealth of effects and routing options. Selling the pedals you mentioned would pretty much pay for the Stomp and give you a load of extras, should you ever need them.

Trigger pulled, arrives Monday😎

[dannybuoy]

2 hours ago, walshy said:

So close to pulling the trigger today! I’m still tempted with this fella to replace my main pedal board, just wondering who uses live with a bass rig? I run Cali 76 compressor, Tech 21 drive, full tone bass drive as my main run ( Buffer at the front of the loop and an Emma Discombobulator too ) all through a Barefaced 610 and a DB751.

Hmmm

If you have an audio interface you can download a free trial of Helix Native and see for yourself if it can replace all of those.

[Al Krow]

8 minutes ago, walshy said:

Trigger pulled, arrives Monday😎

Oh dear, another one bites the dust 😂

Enjoy - pretty hard not to  

[Cato]

I spent a good few hours last night just playing with chaining together various reverb effects.

I'm not sure the resulting almost choral effect is of any practical use but it was a lot of fun.

Edited March 2, 2019 by Cato

[Al Krow]

11 minutes ago, Cato said:

I spent a good few hours last night just playing with chaining together various reverb effects.

I'm not sure the resulting almost choral effect is of any practical use but it was a lot of fun.

IMHO you've just articulated the second part of what great pedal-board effects are all about: inspiring that creative spark through interesting soundscapes.

(The first being, of course, to hit our live audiences with funk and dirt to make their experiences of our gigs that much better!)

[stoo]

20 hours ago, CameronJ said:

Bloody hell. I think I speak for a few people when I say you might have a market in building and selling more of these footswitch controllers in various configurations. Good work sir!

Cheers! I'm not that convinced I'd want to build a load of them, but I'd definitely be up for helping anyone out that wanted to do something similar for themselves. More than happy to share wiring diagrams and the code I used, and can guide people through how to tweak them for different configurations.

As long as you can get/make/modify a suitable box to house it in, and can solder wires to the tabs on the switches and midi socket, there's really nothing tricky about making one of these. Mine has a soldered circuit board in it, but it's not really needed - you can get a ready made adaptor board so all the fiddly soldering bits are replaced with nice easy screw terminals.

[Wolverinebass]

On 01/03/2019 at 21:15, stoo said:

I've had my stomp for a couple of weeks now - and while it sounds great, I've been finding the three footswitch implementation a bit limiting. Even the old Zoom B3 managed to let you use the same 3 switches for stomp on/off, patch selection and tuner access...

So I raided the spare parts drawer and knocked up a double footswitch to let me cycle through stomp/scroll/preset/snapshot modes on one switch, and tap/tuner on the other. It works OK, and it at least made controlling the thing from my feet just about viable, if still a fairly clumsy affair.

And then I kept noticing mentions of the Morningstar MC6.... looks like a great bit of kit, but I couldn't justify the price - especially as once I've got more used to the Stomp and got sounds and settings dialled in, I may well be happy with just using the stomp on its own or with the double footswitch..... So back to the spare parts drawer it is then..... A bit of 3d printing, soldering, crimping and (quite a lot of) swearing later, I present the Afternooningstoo MC8 !

OK, so it's a bit rough and ready compared to the real one, but it works, it's got even more buttons, and I think it only owes me about £30 in parts total.... and the only thing I had to buy in specially was the MIDI socket!

So what's the functionality of the 8 switches then? Patches? Blocks? Everything?

[stoo]

34 minutes ago, Wolverinebass said:

So what's the functionality of the 8 switches then? Patches? Blocks? Everything?

It's fully programmable, so pretty much everything! I've not really settled on a config yet, but so far I've got it set up with 3 pages - 

Page 1 is

SW1 - snapshot 1

SW2 - snapshot 2

SW3 - snapshot 3

SW4 - tap tempo / long press for tuner

SW5 - Preset mode

SW6 - Stomp mode

SW7 - emulates FS4 (which I currently have set to Preset Down)

SW8 - emulates FS5 (set to Preset Up)

Page 2 has the same for SW1-4, and SW5-8 directly jump to my favourite 4 guitar presets

Page 3 has the same for SW1-4, and SW5-8 directly jump to my favourite 4 bass presets

SW1+SW2 at the same time cycles page down, SW2 + SW3 cycles page up, SW7+SW8 is a panic reset type thing which changes the controller back to Page 1 and sets the Stomp to Preset 1 and puts it back into stomp mode.

 

There's lots of options though - it can change anything which the HX allows control of over MIDI.... Preset and snapshot recall, block bypass, parameter control (possibly not that useful unless I add an expression pedal input). It can also expand the 1 switch looper so you get separate buttons for play / stop / overdub / record / play once / undo/redo / forward / reverse / full / half speed.... and anything else they add MIDI control for in future updates.

In fact I think I'm going to add an extra page of looper controls and have a play with that just now....

[OzMike]

For me the Stomp has been quite the revelation, and like others I've been offloading most of my individual pedals. The stand-out points IMO are:

• sound quality; most of the amps / cabs / FX sound 'real' and 'musical'. My separate bass wah and fuzz do sound a bit 'better', but seeing as I hardly use these pedals I'm fine getting rid of them and using the Stomp / Helix equivalents. No more schlepping around a pedal board and some pedals that take up space and weight and only get used once in a blue moon.
• experimenting with different blocks, especially 'bread and butter' items like compressors and EQ, is very easy; there is no cable swapping to try different FX orders or combinations
• a lot of the FX offer 'blend' capability, so even without using a parallel processing path (which is possible too, of course), it's easy to retain bottom end or some of the natural characteristics of the instrument (which especially with compressors is very handy)
• lower maintenance risk / concerns; if you have 5-6 pedals you are talking about 5-6 chances for a footswitch to fail and need replacing, or 10-12 chances for an audio socket to become slightly dodgy, or a number of chances for inter-pedal connections to have issues and need diagnosing
• the stomp can be used alone (making it easy to throw into a gig bag), or it can be expanded to varying degrees at varying levels of expense (going from simple single momentary switch -> dual momentary switch -> switch / expression combo -> simple MIDI controller -> complex MIDI controller); if cash is tight it allows you to 'get going', and then enhance your gig as money and circumstances allow
• 'bonus' functionality; I used the Stomp with an iPad and headphones for 'away from home' practice, and have tested simultaneous four-track recording (using the aux-ins as well as the standard inputs) - works well
• huge amount of community support, with advice, recommendations, patches etc all available for free; and Line 6 seem committed to updating the firmware for extra amps / FX / etc. There are also a number of sources of 3rd party IRs.

Many of the above points apply for other multi-FX units, but the Stomp IMO has hit a real sweet spot. I used to build FX commercially, and one reason I stopped is that I realised with Helix (and other manufacturer's solutions) it's kind of silly to be selling individual pedals any more when the DSP ones sound as good (in many cases) or almost as good, and are - effectively - far cheaper and more convenient. It really is a golden age for modelling and the convenience it brings, even to 'serious hobby' bass players like myself. And no more building pedal boards for a particular type of band, and then selling them off again after getting shafted and kicked out; now one can just delete all the patches and efficiently move on. 😉

 

[Wolverinebass]

23 hours ago, stoo said:

It's fully programmable, so pretty much everything! I've not really settled on a config yet, but so far I've got it set up with 3 pages - 

Page 1 is

SW1 - snapshot 1

SW2 - snapshot 2

SW3 - snapshot 3

SW4 - tap tempo / long press for tuner

SW5 - Preset mode

SW6 - Stomp mode

SW7 - emulates FS4 (which I currently have set to Preset Down)

SW8 - emulates FS5 (set to Preset Up)

Page 2 has the same for SW1-4, and SW5-8 directly jump to my favourite 4 guitar presets

Page 3 has the same for SW1-4, and SW5-8 directly jump to my favourite 4 bass presets

SW1+SW2 at the same time cycles page down, SW2 + SW3 cycles page up, SW7+SW8 is a panic reset type thing which changes the controller back to Page 1 and sets the Stomp to Preset 1 and puts it back into stomp mode.

 

There's lots of options though - it can change anything which the HX allows control of over MIDI.... Preset and snapshot recall, block bypass, parameter control (possibly not that useful unless I add an expression pedal input). It can also expand the 1 switch looper so you get separate buttons for play / stop / overdub / record / play once / undo/redo / forward / reverse / full / half speed.... and anything else they add MIDI control for in future updates.

In fact I think I'm going to add an extra page of looper controls and have a play with that just now....

So what can you see on the screen? Does the stuff all have to be programmed whilst hooked up to a PC or Cam you just programme the modes on the fly in use?

[OzMike]

On 02/03/2019 at 20:47, stoo said:

More than happy to share wiring diagrams and the code I used, and can guide people through how to tweak them for different configurations.

I know I'd be definitely interested if you would be so kind as to share the code + details of the micro board + screen that you've utilised. If you did want to do this, do you want people to contact you privately?

[stoo]

15 hours ago, Wolverinebass said:

So what can you see on the screen? Does the stuff all have to be programmed whilst hooked up to a PC or Cam you just programme the modes on the fly in use?

 

10 hours ago, OzMike said:

I know I'd be definitely interested if you would be so kind as to share the code + details of the micro board + screen that you've utilised. If you did want to do this, do you want people to contact you privately?

I've stuck some more details in a separate thread so as to keep it all in one place and not to hijack this one too much..