New Headrush pedalboard: Headrush Prime

[Jim Roseberry]

What's odd is that Mooer already did this. But they either did it badly, people were put off because they assumed they were stealing the code, or a combination of both. The Mooer didn't seem to make any splash at all at the time?

You have to use an iPAD to create the captures.
Royal PITA (doesn't work with many higher-end audio interfaces)... and the results didn't sound (IMO) as accurate as QC or ToneX.

Tone matching is on the GE-300... but that's just FFT Filter.

 

[Jim Roseberry]

Judging by the chatter over at the other place this might be old Revalver tech and the "cloning" might just be basic EQ match.

If you watch ToneJunkie's video, the "Amp Clone" process is not a simple FFT Filter (tone-match).
The process uses test-tones similar to those used by Kemper, QC, ToneX.

 

[James Freeman]

It reads like a compiled wish list from anything anyone's mentioned on a gear forum (sometimes verbatim) in the last 10 years.

I'm watching the video review posted earlier in this thread, and so far I'm impressed with all of the above.

Yep, I'm impressed too.
ToneJunkie is on point.

I like that it's all drag & drop, and the cloud option is available but not a necessity.

If you watch ToneJunkie's video, the "Amp Clone" process is not a simple FFT Filter (tone-match).
The process uses test-tones similar to those used by Kemper, QC, ToneX.

I will guess it is more like Kemper where it matches a built-in preamp rather than neural network based.

 

[mbenigni]

Yep, I'm impressed too.
ToneJunkie is on point.

I like that it's all drag & drop, and the cloud option is available but not a necessity.

I haven't seen the ToneJunkie review yet. I'm still chipping away at the Sterlacci review. (He's making all the same points I made in my post above.)

About the only downsides I can see here are: form-factor (read: enormous), and limited parallelism (meaning, if you want parallel effects, it looks like you only get one signal chain. If I had to guess, I'd say a single-CPU design is probably what's made it possible for Headrush to maintain this price point.)

 

[mbenigni]

P.S. I'll be patiently waiting for the "Is there anything about the Headrush Prime they didn't steal from X" thread.

 

[dronerstone]

What's odd is that Mooer already did this. But they either did it badly, people were put off because they assumed they were stealing the code, or a combination of both. The Mooer didn't seem to make any splash at all at the time?

There's two Mooer units that do this.

1) Preamp X2:
unusually small form factor for what it does, limited input/output/loop and footswitch capacities, needs iOS for captures

2) Preamp Live
Awesome idea, poorly executed, sounds alright, but most of them end up bricked a few years in

 

[James Freeman]

P.S. I'll be patiently waiting for the "Is there anything about the Headrush Prime they didn't steal from X" thread.

Nope, it's definitely a Greatest Hits unit.
But they didn't piss on the entire guitar community and called it rain either.

 

[Sleezy E]

P.S. I'll be patiently waiting for the "Is there anything about the Headrush Prime they didn't steal from X" thread.

Don't talk about it.. BE about it

 

[mbenigni]

Nope, it's definitely a Greatest Hits unit.
But they didn't piss on the entire guitar community and called it rain either.

Fair enough.

 

[JiveTurkey]

Am the only person that is bothered by the term "Amp cloner"?

 

[TubeStack]

Am the only person that is bothered by the term "Amp cloner"?

 

[mbenigni]

Am the only person that is bothered by the term "Amp cloner"?

It's only going to get worse...

 

[Lysander]

Am the only person that is bothered by the term "Amp cloner"?

Hey, it's a crowded market by now.

Guess "capture" and "profile" were too overloaded already.

 

[JiveTurkey]

~1 minute capture time is very impressive. Touchscreen looks pretty crisp.

 

[James Freeman]

I like that they have a Metronome and Practice Tool, people have been asking for a Metronome in the Helix since the beginning.
Just don't enable it when performing at Wembley in front of 120,000 people, that would be embarrassing.

 

[Lysander]

@2112 dropped his review video not an hour ago.

 

[Bob Zaod]

Gotta say, even when the product is provided (review payed for?), not exactly a stellar review.

FWIW watching/listening right now the tones are PFG if you ask me but I am only about 7 minutes in. Steve always sounds great though.

 

[Foxmeister]

Latency might be an issue for some when using amp "clones", at least according to GuitarJon.

 

[Lysander]

Latency might be an issue for some when using amp "clones", at least according to GuitarJon.

Oh, Jon...

I have to say, this is the first time i can actually hear differences on a profiler/capturer/cloner test. Those differences are minimal though, specially given how this thing takes an impressive ~1 min to process a clone.

 

[Jarick]

I'll be curiously watching this.

My wish list for the Headrush, as I've said about 100 times, is that they really improve their foundations/basics. They need better signal routing first and foremost, then improving stereo functionality of existing blocks, and then on to expanding their amps and effects. You can't be in the $1000+ price range with 1/3 of the models as the competition.

It's interesting that they kept with the same exact hardware configuration of the original. Makes sense from a cost standpoint but it's the biggest floor unit and the trend is to smaller devices. I would have loved to see a Gigboard with another row of switches at the $1000 price point. That would be very intriguing.

Not having watched any of the videos yet, is this basically the Headrush Turbo? Not an overhaul of the modeling engine but maybe new DSP chips that can handle more (and more powerful) effects?