Tried out going direct with HX Stomp at practice last night (for science)

[spawnofthesith]

Disclaimer: I absolutely love the HX stomp. It’s an invaluable piece of my rig for infinite reasons. The amp modeling ain’t one of them

It fucking sucked

I kind of new ahead of time that might be the case based on the inordinate amount of time I’ve wasted trying to dial in some decent tones. I thought maybe it might be different in a mix. Nope. I’m a bit of a paycho and like having all my amps/cabs at home with me and I was half heartedly hoping maybe I’d be happy enough with this method without having to leave any heat and my drummers house

The presets I settled ahead of time were using ownhammer IRs (spent plenty of time mucking with the HX cabs ahead of time though)

In fairness, I also immensely dislike the sounds I’ve gotten attempting to go cabless at practice with the captor and IRs as well. The captor is a cool tool for tracking demos/ideas and such and actually what I’ve ended up using it the most for is the -20dB attenuator at home for amps like the mark IV. But ultimately I can’t even jive with the sound of a real amp and IRs for most applications (would be curious to give the Suhr RL a shot at some point as by all accounts it has a more accurate impedance curve than the captor)

I do feel like there almost might be some user error because I’ve heard plenty of great HX clips online and even bands using it live. At the same time, I know I’m stupid, but surely I can’t be that stupid to have such little success in a losing battle. A lazily dangled e906 sounds infinitely better than anything direct I’ve been able to drum up

We do use IEMs live and in practice but having some room volume still makes a difference so I had the PA hooked up with guitar coming through as well. First issue… IEM feed sounded so dramatically different than the PA… like not even close. That’s a problem as far as I’m concerned. A miced cab sounds fairly consistent through either

Also noisy AF?? Idk what’s up with that. My bass player recently started using a QC and was initially experiencing way more feedback than what one should experience. But he’s sorted that out mostly now. But I had to modify all the presets I made to have the input gate threshold maxed out for high gain sounds, and even then still was running into lots of feedback issues


Interestingly, what I’ve been finding is that clean and mid gain tones sound almost convincing. Anythjng heavy and high gain is just trash though. And it’s not just a matter of finding the right amp model. The unpleasant sonic characteristics I’m not liking are consistent regardless of the amp. Historically I’ve always felt like people hVe said for high gain this is there but not so much for clean or crunch. I’m finding the exact opposite


Anyways that was fucking terrible and I don’t think I’ll be doing that again. But I did feel obligated to give it a fair shake, and I’ve also wanted to set up a bank at least to go direct as a backup in the unlikely event an amp ever failed on stage. I won’t say unusable, but fuck me sounded like shit

[greatmutah]

Yeah… I had the LT and it was cool for effects but the amp and cab modeling… it’s still not there. Even through a real tube amps loop it’s not there. Especially for Mesa stuff. It’s such a step back from the real amps.

[spawnofthesith]

Yeah… I had the LT and it was cool for effects but the amp and cab modeling… it’s still not there. Even through a real tube amps loop it’s not there. Especially for Mesa stuff. It’s such a step back from the real amps.

Yeah, even the upper tier stuff has yet to truly wow me. What time I’ve spent messing with my bass players QC has been meh, and while admittedly I have indeed used an Axe III for some cleans on some of my bands recordings… also meh…

I’ve heard all this stuff sound great in other peoples hands but at the end of the day modeling, IRs, going direct… not for me. No fucking thank you

[Guitarbilly]

This post sums up what happened every time I used a modeler for heavy tones. I don't think it's user error, I don't even like when Metallica or Rammstein or some other major act etc do it. There's just no weight at all to those tones.

Amp modeling today reminds of camcorders in the 80s "A Cinema in your pocket" and everybody was going crazy about that stuff, when you watch those old VHS videos now you realize they sucked ass

It will get there eventually but right now amp emulation still has a LONG way to go before it gets even close to getting convincing live tones.

I think Friedman is onto something with his IR pedals, they do sound good direct. But they are tube driven so I don't think they count as modeling,

The Stomp is cool for things like Reverb, Delay etc because that's a fully developed technology. You can get a digital reverb from 4 decades ago, like a Lexicon PCM and it already sounded as good as it is ever going to get.
Conversely, modeling from 4 years ago is already outdated, because the technology is not fully figured out yet. So it's not only analog vs digital but it's also something that's proven to work vs something that is still not quite ready yet.

[Vladimir Putin]

I didn't like the Helix modeling at all. The feel was the worst.

[spawnofthesith]

I couldn’t even get a good enough base tone dialed in to even begin to start paying attention to the feel

[Vladimir Putin]

Good point

Honestly the effects are only a bit better quality after spending time with it. Time for an H90

[spawnofthesith]

Good point

Honestly the effects are only a bit better quality after spending time with it. Time for an H90

Man I still love the stuff I’m using the stomp for FX wise mostly wonky stuff, the poly capo for djenting 6 strings, tossing basic reverbs on my amps that don’t have it, and the fact that it has a killer model of a Mesa 5 band was enough to push me over the edge on the non-GEQ purple stripe III I just grabbed. Love it immensely

H90 is still intriguing, but truthfully I’m even more interested in the new fractal VP4….

But I don’t see any pedalboard changes headed my way in the near future. I’m basically the happiest I’ve been with my dolly collection… possibly ever? Maybe some new guitars in the future but I’m pretty stoked with what I have going on right now

[Landshark]

I didn't like the Helix modeling at all. The feel was the worst.

after my experience with the L6 Vetta II combo amp years ago, i have a real distaste for L6 amp models.

i wanted to love that amp, but it was so dead and lifeless. not inspiring at all ... 95% of the time was spent turning knobs, hoping for a better sound, then doing the same the next day.

for me, i think feel is even more important than tone. i can play my $30 Vypyr all day. had a $700+ Mooer GE300 ... same as Vetta ... lifeless and got sold.

[greatmutah]

Funny… I had a Vypyr VIP2 and I really enjoyed that little amp. The models actually sounded like their real counterparts. I lived on the 6534+ model on that thing.