A used Helix Floor and backback, both in good condition, has just turned up locally for 750... I'm really tempted and have been contemplating it for the last week or so (can't believe it hasn't been snatched up yet).
I was so curious that I grabbed my HX Stomp back from our bass player who currently uses it as his only pedal (he'll get it back before our next rehearsal). It's been on firmware 2.something since I lent it to him and I haven't checked out the modeling in a long while. I've been using the Headrush Pedalboard exclusively for the last 3 years. And I've been really happy with it. There's just a few things that are hard to do with that unit - the most important one, to me, is shaping the stereo image. I'm the only guitar player in a rock band with just drums, bass, vocals and guitar. And we all rehearse/jam with headphones on. So getting a good stereo image really helps with the whole experience. The HR has great stereo sound and IMO very good modeling. It's just really hard to do things like wet/dry and dual amps with a 25 ms delay on one side to get that nice stereo spread.
So I sat down this morning with the HX Stomp, updated it to 3.8 and started to build some sounds in order to see if 1. the modeling had gotten better since 3 years ago and whether or not I could get a good stereo image. And I must say that I really enjoyed the new amp models! I think I could use the Ventoux model exclusively in all my presets and be happy. Although I also really liked the 2203, especially for cleans. We play a lot of grunge, especially something like Audioslave, and I could really see the 2203 come in handy for Tom Morellos clean to mean sounds. Also, getting a good stereo spread using either the "new" dual cabs or dual IRs was a breeze! I love how there's panning and delay controls for those blocks right there, easily accessible and sounds great. Last but not least, I had forgotten how great an overdrive can sound when you just put it on a separate path and blend in the clean signal.
So I'm slowly convincing myself to jump on the Helix Floor. Sure, I could do with the LT but I really love the scribble strips on my HR and would be sad to lose them. I would already have to say goodbye to a great UI and fairly responsive touch screen - letting go of scribble strips would be too much. I just can't figure out if it's a stupid time to switch. I'm not an early adopter so even if Line 6 announces a new flagship floor modeler tomorrow, I wouldn't be jumping on board for at least a couple of years until everything is up to par, usability wise, with everything else out there. Besides, it would probably be priced around twice of what a used Floor would cost me, so I probably wouldn't feel it was worth it either.
And before you ask: I will most likely never buy a Fractal modeler. They're just too expensive IMO over here in Europe (we pay about 50% more than in the US) and even though I travel to the States from time to time, I feel like I would need more local support than Fractal could offer. And then there's of course the matter of the UI which I just don't think I'd want to deal with. I don't want to be tethered to a screen for every little editing I need to do and from what I've seen, the onboard UI is not for me.
I just like it.
