Line6 HX Effects — Where do I Start?

[Jean-Luc Pickguard]

I've just taken delivery of a secondhand HX Effects from Andertons. Really chuffed that it looks absolutely mint and even came with the original box, PSU, USB cable and about a dozen bits of paper & plastic bags. My plan is to be able to create some bass settings for it, including making use of the stereo input with rick-o-sound on my 4003 to process each pickup separately.

 

Can anyone recommend any good YouTube videos for learning how to use the HX Effects & HX Edit?

 

I've managed to connect it to my MacMini & use HX Edit to update the unit to 3.80.0, then I reset it to the original factory presets to remove all evidence of the previous owner's apparent obsession with U2 & David Gilmour. Beyond that I'm flummoxed — I'm thinking I might even need to read the manual.

[Skybone]

Just start playing about in HX Edit. If it's anywhere as easy as the POD Go Edit, then it shouldn't take too long before you've got some nice patches up & running.

 

Though I must say that you piqued my interest when you were talking about using the Ric-O-Sound a while back, I was wondering whether the HX FX would do what you were thinking about, so I started a thread: Line6 HX FX Queries

 

Still contemplating between an HX FX or an HX Stomp XL, though the POD Go does everything I need it to and more than I will ever use.

[Wombat]

This is a good thread…

https://www.basschat.co.uk/topic/333619-helix-floorlthxstomppodgo-owners-club-tips-ideas-patches/page/94/#comment-5409015

but I will be ‘annoying’ and say, yes, good idea to read the manual…

[tauzero]

I'll echo the recommendations to RTFM - while a lot of it is pretty intuitive, there's some parts that aren't immediately obvious. What you don't glean from the manual, a quick trawl of Youtube should turn up.

[Wombat]

Of course, if ‘south of the river’ means anywhere near Bromley it might be possible to arrange a meet up for a few pointers if you think that would help.

[Jean-Luc Pickguard]

That's very kind of you old chap. I'm in Sutton — so just the other side of Croydon. I'll try to figure out the HX Effects over the next week, but if I'm still in a pickle after that I might take you up on that.

[Wombat]

No probs. Can possibly do something using Teams, screenshare HX Edit or sumint. I would council that you need to be able to mod patches on the device - I got into a terrible pickle with my HD500 where I could only make changes when it was connected to a computer (which I didn’t have at rehearsals or gigs!). But designing patches is far easier using the software.

[BigRedX]

The simplest way is to treat it just like a normal pedal board.

 

Find either a blank patch or if there aren't any, one that you definitely don't have any use for and delete everything in it. Then start populating the slots with modules in the same way that you would a pedal board made up of individual devices. Start with your most important effect first probably compression, distortion or chorus and work your way through the options to find the version and settings you like the best, and once you are happy with that start adding the other effects you need. 

 

One important point is not to discount any module that isn't designed specifically for the bass. In the real world this is normally because they can't cope with bass frequencies at gig volumes. With digital devices and modelling the worst that can happen is that you won't like the sound, in which case you can simply try something else.

 

The only thing you will want to consider in advance is if you are going to be changing sounds mid-song in which case you will need to be looking at Snapshots and to build your Presets with this in mind. Basically what a Snapshot does is to allow you to turn individual effects on and off and change selected settings on the effects in a Preset with a single foot switch press without any glitches in the sound.

 

Good luck.