New Headrush pedalboard: Headrush Prime

[Sedaxel]

Sorry was under the impression the g5/6 share same chips process power. Sure g6 and 11 are revamped interfaces but I guess I was wrong that same processors used

I don't know about the chips, honestly. You could be right on that... Even when I'd be surprised because of the touch screen and things like that.

Not wanting to enter a debate about how bad Zoom is (I always defend their merits, while being aware that they're not fighting with the top dogs), and how weird their latest design decisions have been...

But, why not to play the game a little? Let's have a little fun: if I had to choose a new unit (not a used one) and only had 300€ (not AliExpress biased prices) to spend... I have a hard time finding something more convenient than a G6. What would you choose?

Of course, I expect receiving lots of "compliments" for that sentence!

Peace!

 

[timbuck3]

I don't know about the chips, honestly. You could be right on that... Even when I'd be surprised because of the touch screen and things like that.

Not wanting to enter a debate about how bad Zoom is (I always defend their merits, while being aware that they're not fighting with the top dogs), and how weird their latest design decisions have been...

But, why not to play the game a little? Let's have a little fun: if I had to choose a new unit (not a used one) and only had 300€ (not AliExpress biased prices) to spend... I have a hard time finding something more convenient than a G6. What would you choose?

Of course, I expect receiving lots of "compliments" for that sentence!

Peace!

Well I was shocked at zooms g6/g11 prices when released.. I like the cdr70+

 

[GuitarJon]

Has anybody tried the updated amp cloner? Is it a big improvement?

 

[MadMaxG79]

So I just bought a used Helix Floor last week. And it's a great unit with countless options, great footswitch programmability and really good amp sounds.

But I must admit that I'm really missing the UI of my Headrush Pedalboard. It's just taking me way too long to navigate the unit. And I don't appreciate having to be tethered to my laptop when making or tweaking presets. I'm not a bedroom player, my main reason for having an all-in-one floor modeler is because I need to take it with me to band rehearsals every week. And I want to be able to tweak at rehearsals without deep-diving too much on the unit. The Headrush really nailed that part of the UI where it doesn't take you long to get in the ballpark and then you can hone it in later when you get home or have some spare time. With the Helix I pull up an effect or an amp and the default setting just never sounds good to me. I have too tweak a lot just to get in the ballpark of what I'm going for.

One reason I wanted to get the Helix Floor, aside from the scribble strips, is that it has a mic input. I do backup vocal duties in the band and would love to have the possibility to turn on some vocal effects from time to time. But with the Helix, I need to dedicate half of the DSP just to use the mic. On every preset I use. Because it doesn't even have dry mic through like the Headrush Prime. Besides, having spent multiple hours trying to create some presets on the Helix to match those I already have on my HR Pedalboard, I'm not exactly blown away by the Helix modelling compared to the HR. Nothing that would warrant a 50% price increase.

For these reasons I'm seriously contemplating letting the Floor go and go for the Prime instead. I'm just not a tweaker and the Helix really seems geared more towards that vs. the Headrush eco-system.

Yeah, I know. That's an unpopular opinion on these parts. But I like what I like and apparently I have other priorities than most people around here.

EDIT: If I do sell the Helix though, I'm keeping the Helix backpack. That is one really cool piece of gear that I would love to use to carry the Prime around.

 

[JiveTurkey]

So I just bought a used Helix Floor last week. And it's a great unit with countless options, great footswitch programmability and really good amp sounds.

But I must admit that I'm really missing the UI of my Headrush Pedalboard. It's just taking me way too long to navigate the unit. And I don't appreciate having to be tethered to my laptop when making or tweaking presets. I'm not a bedroom player, my main reason for having an all-in-one floor modeler is because I need to take it with me to band rehearsals every week. And I want to be able to tweak at rehearsals without deep-diving too much on the unit. The Headrush really nailed that part of the UI where it doesn't take you long to get in the ballpark and then you can hone it in later when you get home or have some spare time. With the Helix I pull up an effect or an amp and the default setting just never sounds good to me. I have too tweak a lot just to get in the ballpark of what I'm going for.

One reason I wanted to get the Helix Floor, aside from the scribble strips, is that it has a mic input. I do backup vocal duties in the band and would love to have the possibility to turn on some vocal effects from time to time. But with the Helix, I need to dedicate half of the DSP just to use the mic. On every preset I use. Because it doesn't even have dry mic through like the Headrush Prime. Besides, having spent multiple hours trying to create some presets on the Helix to match those I already have on my HR Pedalboard, I'm not exactly blown away by the Helix modelling compared to the HR. Nothing that would warrant a 50% price increase.

For these reasons I'm seriously contemplating letting the Floor go and go for the Prime instead. I'm just not a tweaker and the Helix really seems geared more towards that vs. the Headrush eco-system.

Yeah, I know. That's an unpopular opinion on these parts. But I like what I like and apparently I have other priorities than most people around here.

You could return the Helix and probably find a used HR for little $ and be able to pocket that difference. Use what you like!

 

[mikah912]

So I just bought a used Helix Floor last week. And it's a great unit with countless options, great footswitch programmability and really good amp sounds.

But I must admit that I'm really missing the UI of my Headrush Pedalboard. It's just taking me way too long to navigate the unit. And I don't appreciate having to be tethered to my laptop when making or tweaking presets. I'm not a bedroom player, my main reason for having an all-in-one floor modeler is because I need to take it with me to band rehearsals every week. And I want to be able to tweak at rehearsals without deep-diving too much on the unit. The Headrush really nailed that part of the UI where it doesn't take you long to get in the ballpark and then you can hone it in later when you get home or have some spare time. With the Helix I pull up an effect or an amp and the default setting just never sounds good to me. I have too tweak a lot just to get in the ballpark of what I'm going for.

One reason I wanted to get the Helix Floor, aside from the scribble strips, is that it has a mic input. I do backup vocal duties in the band and would love to have the possibility to turn on some vocal effects from time to time. But with the Helix, I need to dedicate half of the DSP just to use the mic. On every preset I use. Because it doesn't even have dry mic through like the Headrush Prime. Besides, having spent multiple hours trying to create some presets on the Helix to match those I already have on my HR Pedalboard, I'm not exactly blown away by the Helix modelling compared to the HR. Nothing that would warrant a 50% price increase.

For these reasons I'm seriously contemplating letting the Floor go and go for the Prime instead. I'm just not a tweaker and the Helix really seems geared more towards that vs. the Headrush eco-system.

Yeah, I know. That's an unpopular opinion on these parts. But I like what I like and apparently I have other priorities than most people around here.

EDIT: If I do sell the Helix though, I'm keeping the Helix backpack. That is one really cool piece of gear that I would love to use to carry the Prime around.

Interesting that you feel like you need to be tethered to a laptop to navigate the Helix. I (and I would say a lot of people would agree regardless of whether they like Helix modeling or not) feel the full-size Helix has one of the easier UIs to navigate and tweak on the fly.

Not to discount your experience.....you're probably really used to the skeuomorphic, double-tap touchscreen way of navigating the Headrush. I have to navigate both regularly because I have bandmates who have both a Headrush Core and an HX Stomp (plus I personally use a Helix LT, Helix Native and Fractal FM9).

Personally, I think it's always suboptimal to leave things up to tweaking in a room during band sessions. Nothing kills the vibe faster than telling everybody to hold up while you switch amps or cabs or try to find a whole-ass rig from the ground up for "the sound in your head." So your scenario wouldn't be the way I go with any platform, to be honest.

But yeah....life's too short to struggle with a solution you "should" like, but don't. Play what works for you, man. Don't settle.

 

[dronerstone]

Two words: User Defaults

 

[JCW308]

The Helix will actually be faster once you get the hang of it. Way more efficient and much better sounding, too. Also, the Helix can easily do a mic and a guitar in two separate signal chains. This can also be done by the Quad Cortex and ToneMaster Pro.

 

[Sascha Franck]

@MadMaxG79, three tips which will likely make your rehearsal/gigging life /w the Helix a lot easier (at least they did for me):

1) Try to assign as much blocks as possible to the footswitches (note: if you have two blocks' bypass statusses assigned to one switch, touching the capacitive switch will nicely toggle between them). That way, you just tap a switch and the most relevant parameters show up on the 6 encoders.
As sort of result, whenever you can, you should use snapshots to call up alterations of a loaded preset. That way stomp mode will be great for editing, while snapshots will give you all the required flexibility within a patch (personally, I usually went for the 4stomp/4snap combo).
No need to assign amps to a footswitch as the amp button will always take you there (and toggle between amps in case there's more than one).

2) For anything you're using more often, I cannot highly recommend enough to save your own defaults. The factory defaults unfortunately are pretty bad for the most part, so really, do that homework beforehand and your "need to tweak this patch quickly" moments will be *much* more enjoyable.

3) Create some meaningful template presets. Along with your own defaults, these will get you running much faster than an empty default preset.

 

[the-trooper]

That way, you just tap a switch and the most relevant parameters show up on the 6 encoders.

For easy, and FAST, access to other blocks go to options and change what turning the joystick does, instead of changing the model, to scrolling through chain. Which should be default.

 

[Sascha Franck]

For easy, and FAST, access to other blocks go to options and change what turning the joystick does, instead of changing the model, to scrolling through chain. Which should be default.

Defenitely.
But guess what? You can at least turn model-scrolling off with the Floor/LT (in favour of signal chain scrolling). With the Stomp you can't. For me that's the second biggest shortcoming of the Stomp in terms of onboard-editing-annoyances (the biggest being parameter order).

 

[MadMaxG79]

Thanks for all the responses guys, I love this place

You could return the Helix and probably find a used HR for little $ and be able to pocket that difference. Use what you like!

I would, only I bought it used But it was a fairly good price so I should be able to unload it fairly quickly.

Interesting that you feel like you need to be tethered to a laptop to navigate the Helix. I (and I would say a lot of people would agree regardless of whether they like Helix modeling or not) feel the full-size Helix has one of the easier UIs to navigate and tweak on the fly.

Not to discount your experience.....you're probably really used to the skeuomorphic, double-tap touchscreen way of navigating the Headrush. I have to navigate both regularly because I have bandmates who have both a Headrush Core and an HX Stomp (plus I personally use a Helix LT, Helix Native and Fractal FM9).

Let me just say that I'm not new to the HX user interface (or any modeler UI, for that matter) and the Helix has by no means a "bad" UI. I think my brain is just more skewed towards the Headrush way of doing things. And I probably shouldn't have used the word "tethered" as you can definitely tweak the Helix fairly easily with the onboard UI. It's just that the HX Edit UI is such a treat compared to the onboard UI that I often find it hard NOT to connect it to my PC if I'm at home It's just that with the HR Pedalboard, I know I only have the onboard UI. And that's not a bad thing because it makes me more confident in tweaking things on the fly. To that point:

Personally, I think it's always suboptimal to leave things up to tweaking in a room during band sessions. Nothing kills the vibe faster than telling everybody to hold up while you switch amps or cabs or try to find a whole-ass rig from the ground up for "the sound in your head." So your scenario wouldn't be the way I go with any platform, to be honest.

Oh, I hear you. And I'm not talking about creating a whole rig/preset from the ground up while I keep the rest of the band waiting. It's most often a band member saying things like "can you make it a little brigher/bassier/heavier/more distorted" or "could you maybe add some chorus/wah/delay etc." and I have to do it right there on the spot. In that situation, I don't want to call up an effect that has 10-12 parameters to sort through before I get it to sound halfway decent. I'd prefer having an effects block that sounds good/acceptable right out of the gate and only has 5/6 parameters to tweak.

Two words: User Defaults

I totally agree. User defaults are a great feature. And Headrush has it too only in individual presets for each effects block. And you can of course make your own effects presets. The difference is that HR actually gives you at least 3 presets for all of their effects blocks where as with Helix, I have to make those myself from the ground up. I actually started my Helix Floor journey scouring the internet for someone with some ideas for some "good" user defaults (this is highly subjective, I know, but it's nice with some ideas to work from). I found it difficult to find any besides Worship Tutorials, which are pretty cool. For Helix users, they have some pretty cool free presets that are much more easy to use just "plug-n-play" than the majority of the presets you download from Line 6's own CustomTone.

 

[MadMaxG79]

The Helix will actually be faster once you get the hang of it. Way more efficient and much better sounding, too. Also, the Helix can easily do a mic and a guitar in two separate signal chains. This can also be done by the Quad Cortex and ToneMaster Pro.

I'm sorry, but this just borders somewhere between highly subjective and plain wrong.

First of all, I don't believe the Helix will ever be faster to use/tweak than the Headrush, ever. Like I said, I'm not new to the HX eco-system, having had the Stomp for almost as long as it's been on the market. And I don't think it will EVER be faster trying to navigate between blocks in a signal chain with a scroll wheel compared to just using your fingers to double-press a block. So no, I don't believe that's it's "more efficient".

Second, I don't believe it's "much better sounding". The sound of a modeler is HIGHLY subjective by nature. And while the Helix definitely has some really good amp models and effects, the Headrush is by no means "bad sounding". I know that you've shown a lot of hate for Headrush products in the past, but have you actually ever played one? Or do you just refuse to because you've already labelled it as "re-hashed tech"? Because I don't think you'd feel that way if you'd actually played one for a meaningful amount of time. It's these kind of remarks, when stated so matter-of-factly, that might lead a new user of guitar modelling, scowering the internet for information, to believe that one device is just objectively better than the other. That's just not the case.

Third, the Helix can't "easily" do a mic and a guitar. That was my whole point. If you want to use the Helix with a mic, you have to dedicate half of the processing power and effects blocks to the mic's signal path. In ALL presets where you want your mic signal to go through. Effectively turning my Helix into an HX Stomp plus some minor vocal processing. That's probably fine for the acoustic player who also sings, but for someone using it primarily as a guitar modeler with some occasional backup singing, who just want to add maybe some distortion here or some megaphone-effect there, the Helix just can't accommodate this. Or if I wanted to share my rig with our lead singer, giving him some extra effects to use on some songs, this would be much easier to do on the Headrush than the Helix. And finally, the Headrush actually has effects that are dedicated towards vocals such as harmonies, de-esser, vocoder and auto-tune. Good luck finding any of that on the Helix (apart maybe for de-esser, you can obtain a similar effect by clever use of EQ).

And I'm not really interested in Fractal, Quad Cortex or ToneMaster Pro. These are a little over my price range. Besides, if I'm not absolutely crazy about the Helix onboard UI, I doubt I'll enjoy working with the Fractal devices. The QC has a really small footprint, a wonky power connector and neither the QC or the TMP has an expression pedal. Which means I'd have to start building a board with these devices and I'd rather not go that route.

@MadMaxG79, three tips which will likely make your rehearsal/gigging life /w the Helix a lot easier (at least they did for me):

1) Try to assign as much blocks as possible to the footswitches (note: if you have two blocks' bypass stati assigned to one switch, the capacitive switch will nicely toggle between them). That way, you just tap a switch and the most relevant parameters show up on the 6 encoders.
As sort of result, whenever you can, you should use snapshots to call up alterations of a loaded preset. That way stomp mode will be great for editing, snapshots will give you all the required flexibility within a patch (personally, I usually went for the 4stomp/4snap combo).
No need to assign amps to a footswitch as the amp button will always take you there (and toggle between amps in case there's more than one).

2) For anything you're using more often, I cannot highly recommend enough to save your own defaults. The factory defaults unfortunately are pretty bad for the most part, so really, do that homework beforehand and your "need to tweak this patch quickly" moments will be *much* more enjoyable.

3) Create some meaningful template presets. Along with your own defaults, these will get you running much faster than an empty default preset.

These are some great tips. And I've started doing all of these things. And like I said, the Helix sounds great. But the whole assignment of stomp and snaps are also a little bit complicated compared to Headrush. Sure, it's easy to select a block on the HX and touch a footswitch to assign it. And I've done that for basically all of the presets that I think I'll be using. But it gets a little more complicated when you want to mix stomps and snapshots. Because then I have to go into the control center (which BTW was a great update to the HX firmware back in the day). With HR this is just handled a little more elegantly. And I get it, the HR had the luxury of copying the Helix and taking what works, UI-wise, and improving on it and it's also a lot less flexible than the Helix with less options, meaning there are fewer options to fit into the UI. But that just means that it's obviously more suited for my personal use-case, nothing more.

For easy, and FAST, access to other blocks go to options and change what turning the joystick does, instead of changing the model, to scrolling through chain. Which should be default.

I did this before doing anything else, as I was guided to by the friendly soul who sold me the Helix Floor. And I agree, this should absolutely be the default behavior of the joystick. It's even more annoying than accidentally changing parameters in HX Edit when using the mouse scroll wheel to try and access some of the gazillion parameters on some amps or effects. And that's saying a lot because that has made me want to pull my hair out a couple of times...

Thanks again for all the comments, I really appreciate it. I haven't had a chance to try out the Helix in a full band practice yet but I'm looking forward to it. I've got all my basic presets ready with snapshot and footswitch assignments and done all my initial preset leveling in my DAW (again, this process is a whole lot easier on the Headrush by just using the levelling meters in the output block, but I digress). I believe that's really the ultimate test for any modeler I'm trying out: How it feels to play while playing with the band and how the sound sits in the mix.

 

[Sascha Franck]

But it gets a little more complicated when you want to mix stomps and snapshots. Because then I have to go into the control center

I would try to stay away from that. At least I did for my live/rehearsal presets.
Why? Because it'll "eat up" your stomp mode with snapshots, hence pretty much losing their capacitive functionality - which, as said above, I just love for quick tweakings. It's the reason why I was always using a combination of 4snaps/4stomps live, even if it mean some limitations in terms of flexibility (and I will never understand why there couldn't be at least a 5stomps/5snaps and a 10snaps mode, would've made things a *lot* easier for me).

Btw, the way I usually arranged things was to have the 4 snapshots to select between some basic sounds (I always only used one big kitchen sink preset per gig because I hate not having global access to some parameters - ultimately perhaps reason #2 for me to sell the Floor), such as clean, clean lead, dirt, dirt lead and then use the 4 stomps to alter these sounds (I excluded them from snapshot control).
I sometimes (but very rarely) switched to 10stomp mode, but basically I kind of reserved the 6 stomps not used in 4stomp/4snap mode for quick patch adjustments (so I would for example also have EQs, the IR block and what not on there, things I usually don't ever switch while playing).
Worked pretty well for me, but as said, there's severe limitations in terms of creating a great live switching environment (I'd possibly went for 4/snaps/6stomps if that had been possible outside of Control Center assigments).

Anyhow, I can perfectly understand how the Headrush UI is a much better thing for quick onboard adjustments, but otoh, once I had my HX Edit homework done, correcting patches during rehearsals, soundchecks and sometimes inmidst of a gig has never been an issue for me.

But then, it's obviously a very, very different thing if you really work out songs during rehearsals and are looking for new sounds to accomodate the vibe. For such things, the Helix can't even remotely keep up with whatever touchscreen controlled units. Fortunately, I hardly ever had to do that with the Floor.

Personally, I think it's always suboptimal to leave things up to tweaking in a room during band sessions.

Pretty much depends on the kind of tweaks you need to do.

For instance, smaller (or even not that small) corrections to make a sound sit in the context well can only be done properly, well, in context. Personally, I need these kind of adjustments pretty much all the time as I'm playing telephone band gigs with lots of variations regarding the band line ups, musical content and environments. This is why I finally went through great lengths to slap a setup together allowing me to do these kind of adjustments in what I think is the best way ever within the limitations of currently available units (for me at least - in case you're interested, I went pretty much into the details in the GT-1000 thread here).

Also, as said above, once you're in a band also interested in shaping their sound in creative rehearsal room sessions, I think it's a great idea to have quick access to all kinds of things. Kinda like "ok, let me look for a wobbly modulation of some sorts to suit the bridge". This is something you can't exactly prepare beforehand most of the times. And fwiw, back when I was more into these kinda things, my bandmates were abolutely fine with me looking for some interesting sounds every once in a while.

Ideally, the HX series would have decent mobile OS editors (not that Boss junk but true HX Edit versions). Would possibly even be worth to spend an extra 100 bucks (or maybe even less) for a tablet dedicated just for that job.
But we obviously won't see this happening for the current product line anymore.

 

[JCW308]

I'm sorry, but this just borders somewhere between highly subjective and plain wrong.

First of all, I don't believe the Helix will ever be faster to use/tweak than the Headrush, ever. Like I said, I'm not new to the HX eco-system, having had the Stomp for almost as long as it's been on the market. And I don't think it will EVER be faster trying to navigate between blocks in a signal chain with a scroll wheel compared to just using your fingers to double-press a block. So no, I don't believe that's it's "more efficient".

Second, I don't believe it's "much better sounding". The sound of a modeler is HIGHLY subjective by nature. And while the Helix definitely has some really good amp models and effects, the Headrush is by no means "bad sounding". I know that you've shown a lot of hate for Headrush products in the past, but have you actually ever played one? Or do you just refuse to because you've already labelled it as "re-hashed tech"? Because I don't think you'd feel that way if you'd actually played one for a meaningful amount of time. It's these kind of remarks, when stated so matter-of-factly, that might lead a new user of guitar modelling, scowering the internet for information, to believe that one device is just objectively better than the other. That's just not the case.

Third, the Helix can't "easily" do a mic and a guitar. That was my whole point. If you want to use the Helix with a mic, you have to dedicate half of the processing power and effects blocks to the mic's signal path. In ALL presets where you want your mic signal to go through. Effectively turning my Helix into an HX Stomp plus some minor vocal processing. That's probably fine for the acoustic player who also sings, but for someone using it primarily as a guitar modeler with some occasional backup singing, who just want to add maybe some distortion here or some megaphone-effect there, the Helix just can't accommodate this. Or if I wanted to share my rig with our lead singer, giving him some extra effects to use on some songs, this would be much easier to do on the Headrush than the Helix. And finally, the Headrush actually has effects that are dedicated towards vocals such as harmonies, de-esser, vocoder and auto-tune. Good luck finding any of that on the Helix (apart maybe for de-esser, you can obtain a similar effect by clever use of EQ).

And I'm not really interested in Fractal, Quad Cortex or ToneMaster Pro. These are a little over my price range. Besides, if I'm not absolutely crazy about the Helix onboard UI, I doubt I'll enjoy working with the Fractal devices. The QC has a really small footprint, a wonky power connector and neither the QC or the TMP has an expression pedal. Which means I'd have to start building a board with these devices and I'd rather not go that route.


These are some great tips. And I've started doing all of these things. And like I said, the Helix sounds great. But the whole assignment of stomp and snaps are also a little bit complicated compared to Headrush. Sure, it's easy to select a block on the HX and touch a footswitch to assign it. And I've done that for basically all of the presets that I think I'll be using. But it gets a little more complicated when you want to mix stomps and snapshots. Because then I have to go into the control center (which BTW was a great update to the HX firmware back in the day). With HR this is just handled a little more elegantly. And I get it, the HR had the luxury of copying the Helix and taking what works, UI-wise, and improving on it and it's also a lot less flexible than the Helix with less options, meaning there are fewer options to fit into the UI. But that just means that it's obviously more suited for my personal use-case, nothing more.


I did this before doing anything else, as I was guided to by the friendly soul who sold me the Helix Floor. And I agree, this should absolutely be the default behavior of the joystick. It's even more annoying than accidentally changing parameters in HX Edit when using the mouse scroll wheel to try and access some of the gazillion parameters on some amps or effects. And that's saying a lot because that has made me want to pull my hair out a couple of times...

Thanks again for all the comments, I really appreciate it. I haven't had a chance to try out the Helix in a full band practice yet but I'm looking forward to it. I've got all my basic presets ready with snapshot and footswitch assignments and done all my initial preset leveling in my DAW (again, this process is a whole lot easier on the Headrush by just using the levelling meters in the output block, but I digress). I believe that's really the ultimate test for any modeler I'm trying out: How it feels to play while playing with the band and how the sound sits in the mix.

K. Have fun with that. Helix is better, by far, in every way. You will see.....and it's going to cost you a lot of time, money and aggravation. Not sure why you are asking for help if you're just going to argue with the people who know and who have been in the modeling/recording/live gig world for years.

But hey. you are so up on things that you didn't even know Prime has an editor now......so don't mind me.

 

[JCW308]

Interesting that you feel like you need to be tethered to a laptop to navigate the Helix. I (and I would say a lot of people would agree regardless of whether they like Helix modeling or not) feel the full-size Helix has one of the easier UIs to navigate and tweak on the fly.

Not to discount your experience.....you're probably really used to the skeuomorphic, double-tap touchscreen way of navigating the Headrush. I have to navigate both regularly because I have bandmates who have both a Headrush Core and an HX Stomp (plus I personally use a Helix LT, Helix Native and Fractal FM9).

Personally, I think it's always suboptimal to leave things up to tweaking in a room during band sessions. Nothing kills the vibe faster than telling everybody to hold up while you switch amps or cabs or try to find a whole-ass rig from the ground up for "the sound in your head." So your scenario wouldn't be the way I go with any platform, to be honest.

But yeah....life's too short to struggle with a solution you "should" like, but don't. Play what works for you, man. Don't settle.

I agree. No need for an editor during a live rehearsal or gig with Helix. I mean it couldn't get any easier.

 

[Sascha Franck]

Helix is better, by far, in every way.

But hey, the Boss GT is even better, right?

 

[mikah912]

Pretty much depends on the kind of tweaks you need to do.

For instance, smaller (or even not that small) corrections to make a sound sit in the context well can only be done properly, well, in context. Personally, I need these kind of adjustments pretty much all the time as I'm playing telephone band gigs with lots of variations regarding the band line ups, musical content and environments. This is why I finally went through great lengths to slap a setup together allowing me to do these kind of adjustments in what I think is the best way ever within the limitations of currently available units (for me at least - in case you're interested, I went pretty much into the details in the GT-1000 thread here).

Also, as said above, once you're in a band also interested in shaping their sound in creative rehearsal room sessions, I think it's a great idea to have quick access to all kinds of things. Kinda like "ok, let me look for a wobbly modulation of some sorts to suit the bridge". This is something you can't exactly prepare beforehand most of the times. And fwiw, back when I was more into these kinda things, my bandmates were abolutely fine with me looking for some interesting sounds every once in a while.

Ideally, the HX series would have decent mobile OS editors (not that Boss junk but true HX Edit versions). Would possibly even be worth to spend an extra 100 bucks (or maybe even less) for a tablet dedicated just for that job.
But we obviously won't see this happening for the current product line anymore.

This is where "knowing your gear" and "being prepared" comes into play for me.

Of course, you want to be flexible if inspiration strikes in the moment in a session/gig. Sames goes for basic sonic adjustments to an environment. In @MadMaxG79's scenario, I would've done the due diligence ahead of time to know exactly what to dial up if the band says "Hey, add a wobbly modulation in this part" or "Can you add a spacey reverb to that clean part here?" or whatever the case may be.

He says with Headrush he can just call up whatever pedal and its default setting is mostly there (which again, having tweaked my bandmate's HR Core weekly, I find is NOT the case). No matter how intuitive the gear may seem, tho, I wouldn't leave it up to factory defaults AKA chance.

My main gigging rig now is an FM9, so any given category has tons of choices, each with tons of parameters. I put in the work ahead of time to know exactly what I want to call up and how to set it for chorus, flanger, subtle OD, aggressive OD, spacey reverb, lead delay, dotted rhythmic delay, etc.

 

[Sascha Franck]

My main gigging rig now is an FM9, so any given category has tons of choices, each with tons of parameters. I put in the work ahead of time to know exactly what I want to call up and how to set it for chorus, flanger, subtle OD, aggressive OD, spacey reverb, lead delay, dotted rhythmic delay, etc.

Still won't help you in case you find that your cleans are too loud. Which is why an FM9 was never part of my considerations (unless they added the global block functionality, which doesn't seem to happen).

 

[mikah912]

Still won't help you in case you find that your cleans are too loud. Which is why an FM9 was never part of my considerations (unless they added the global block functionality, which doesn't seem to happen).

Even a default layout for any preset would give you two separate level controls on the Performance pages. How is that not enough to modulate your cleans?