Helix Stomp - Pedal Board Wars!

[dannybuoy]

I've got MIDI built into my Godin A4 fretless, but I've never tried it!

[Al Krow]

4. Helix Stomp 0 - virtually any decent Looper 1

Stomp has just a 60 second mono loop ability (30 seconds in stereo).  My old Boss RC-30 had 99 presets and 3 hours recording and was a pleasure to use. More modern loopers (e.g. Nux Core) have up to 8 hours recording time.

[krispn]

If the stomp doesn’t have a synth engine is it fair to compare it to pedal which does? Comparing delay or drive makes sense but if an effect isn’t listed in the stomps modeling or effects list then it can’t really be criticised. It’s like saying a zoom has built in drum loops so it wins?

Just an observation.  

[Cuzzie]

@krispn you’re not talking sense are you......

[Al Krow]

That's fair. The purpose of the thread is really to give folk an unvarnished steer on which emulations the Stomp is going to knock out the park and can easily replace existing pedals and where it's going to find itself struggling and therefore re-considering whether it's going to be appropriate.

So e.g. if you're a Panda FI user then don't assume that the Stomp will match it.

But I suspect on chorus, flange, delay, dirt (particularly if we can get the low end preserved!), compression, octave down (but not up) and pitch shifting, amongst others, it's going to be great - I'm sure a bunch of other folk will be able to add to the comparisons which should then hopefully increasingly make the thread a useful initial reference point. 

Edited August 20, 2019 by Al Krow

[krispn]

Parallel mixing and setting the crossover should retain low end with any effect chain on the stomp. It’s all how you set the signal path so low end loss with dirt or any effect becomes a non issue once one figures this out. 

 

[krispn]

See from about 5:35 on this clip to help with setting this up.

 

[Osiris]

2 hours ago, Al Krow said:

That's fair. The purpose of the thread is really to give folk an unsubstantiated steer on which emulations the Stomp is going to knock out the park and can easily replace existing pedals and where it's going to find itself struggling and therefore re-considering whether it's going to be appropriate.

So e.g. if you're a Panda FI user then don't assume that the Stomp will match it. But in the absence of any supporting evidence then you can comfortably make that assumption until it's proven otherwise. Or not. 

Fixed

 

 

[LukeFRC]

5 hours ago, Al Krow said:

That's fair. The purpose of the thread is really to give folk an unvarnished steer on which emulations the Stomp is going to knock out the park and can easily replace existing pedals and where it's going to find itself struggling and therefore re-considering whether it's going to be appropriate.

So e.g. if you're a Panda FI user then don't assume that the Stomp will match it.

But I suspect on chorus, flange, delay, dirt (particularly if we can get the low end preserved!), compression, octave down (but not up) and pitch shifting, amongst others, it's going to be great - I'm sure a bunch of other folk will be add to the comparisons which should then hopefully increasingly make the thread a useful initial reference point. 

That’s where I’m finding it a useful thread - if I buy this well reviewed pedal - whAt will it struggle with, or get to 80% or 90% close to a specialist pedal. 

Whats interesting is If specialist boutique solution is 100% ... what % is your helix and also what % is your cheaper individual pedal 

[Al Krow]

@dave_bass5 as the most recent (about to be) joiner of the HX Stomp club really looking forward to getting your review of the Stomp vs one of the very best EQ pedals on the market i.e. the Tech 21 Q\Strip and whether the Stomp is going to be sufficiently good to let you sell your current Q\Strip for a third time  

[Quatschmacher]

Some C4 patches:

 

[dave_bass5]

On 20/08/2019 at 19:00, Al Krow said:

@dave_bass5 as the most recent (about to be) joiner of the HX Stomp club really looking forward to getting your review of the Stomp vs one of the very best EQ pedals on the market i.e. the Tech 21 Q\Strip and whether the Stomp is going to be sufficiently good to let you sell your current Q\Strip for a third time  

Yep, the Q/strip didn’t even get to unpack its bags lol. Not that I don’t like the Q/Strip, its just that I really don’t see a use for it now I have the Stomp, plus the, P34 doesn’t seem to need any extra EQ to sound good. 
 

I would like to add that my very brief testing of the Stomp’s BDDI sim shows it can pass for the V1, but really doesn’t compare to my V2. Then again north does my Programable BDDI which is also based on the V1 BDDI.

I do think I’ll use the Stomp’s version though. I used a V1 for many years and it was more than good enough.  

[urb]

On 17/08/2019 at 13:17, LukeFRC said:

There was a guy who lived near where I used to live and he had a Peavey midi bass, each fret was split so that he was getting the midi signals that was then fed into whatever actual synth he wanted. It was awesome. 

Hey guys - I’ve been doing a load of R&D on this whole midi bass thing - it’s a big subject - of course the only big snag with a midi / synth bass is getting the soft synths integrated into your live rig - the obvious answer is either s Bass GR thing or a soundcard running into and out if a laptop - I have to say I’ve been massively impressed with the Jam Origin Midi Guitar 2 - I tracks incredibly well and is polyphonic https://www.jamorigin.com/ - it’s also £80 - a damn sight cheaper than getting a Fret Trax midi neck built (£3,000 the last time I checked) - and that work really well running into a DAW (I use Ableton, but should work with any MIDI friendly DAW). 

Re Darude style synth sounds - I don’t know for sure but I suspect that fast choppy line is heavily edited and layered / sequenced - I doubt it was played live or if it was it was probably edited after - so very hard to replicate with a midi bass or guitar running some soft synths - but I’d love to see/hear someone try 🙂 

I’ve recently got an Enzo which I’m loving - very cool for seamless chords and arpeggios - the mono mode is great - can’t track that fast but it is dynamic and works great for synth bass lines 

 

 

[Frank Blank]

On 13/08/2019 at 19:18, LukeFRC said:

then setting compression to best effect is as much of a skill as creating killer bass synth tones but this might be a good starting point http://www.ovnilab.com/articles/setup.shtml 

This is really helpful, cheers!