I love my HX Stomp. I love the Pod Go, which is roughly the same thing in a different form factor.
Like a lot of people, I heard the hype that you needed to pay for some good IR files to get the best of a Helix-based product, and that the presets sucked. And I didn’t believe it until I bought the HX Stomp. And heard the presets and the cab simulators. And then I believed.
Here’s the deal. I believe the presets on the HX Stomp were designed for recording – they are sounds that you can put in a DAW, along with drums, bass, keyboards, and vocals, and they’ll work in the mix. If you aren’t a sound engineer, I’ll hip you to something – guitars in a mix are not mixed to sound good. They’re mixed to sound good IN a mix. You don’t want a lot of low end, because it’ll compete with the bass. You don’t want a lot of thick, full midrange, because you won’t hear the vocals. Often, engineers will cut midrange out of the guitar so that you CAN hear the vocals.
As a result, most of the presets on the HX Stomp sound thin and wimp city. You’re used to having a big, heavy, thick guitar sound in your bedroom, and then you put the HX Stomp through your speakers and what do you get? Wimp city. It sounds like a guitar track from a Maroon 5 song soloed. NOTE – James Valentine, guitarist for Maroon 5, talked about this on the “No Guitar Is Safe” podcast. I love his guitar playing. Listen to “Harder To Breathe,” from back when Maroon 5 was a rock band. That guitar kicks ass. In later recordings, it was, well, wimp city.
Here’s the problem – NO GUITARIST WANTS THEIR GUITAR TO SOUND THAT WAY, LINE 6!!!!! DAMMIT! I had my HX Stomp for two weeks and then I was able to make way better patches than what the thing shipped with.
Now let’s talk about the two elephants in the studio – Line 6 YouTube Shills, and How Line 6 Doesn’t Get IR Files
Line 6 YouTube Shills
There are people on YouTube who make and sell Helix patches. These dudes are always playing Yamaha guitars (bend over, Line 6, so’s they can pucker up) and they always make patches that use the built-in cabs… never IR files. But the pros who use a Helix always load their own IR files. Why? Because they’re BETTER.
How Line 6 Doesn’t Get IR Files
The Line 6 Cabs give you a lot more options than most regular IR files – you can swap the microphone, move it closer to or farther from the cabinet, lots of different variables. I do use some of the stock Line 6 cabs – some aren’t too bad. But my fave cab is the Ownhammer Friedman V30. There’s nothing in the HX Stomp that sounds as good. Line 6 was smart to allow you to load your own IR files. But if you buy patches where the authors are intentionally handicapping the sound by not using IR files, you’re not getting the best sounds. Yes, it’s inconvenient to have to spend 20 bucks on a IR file bundle. But Line 6 sells them on their own website. That’s where I got the Ownhammer IR files.
Why can’t Line 6 make something as good as the IR file I love so much? Will they eventually update the software and give us some better cabs? Sheesh! The speaker cab emulation is half the damn sound! And they struggle with it, and some small time outfits can nail it. I don’t get it.
Don’t get me wrong – for my money, the entire Helix line is the best of class. Yes, a Kemper sounds better, but a Kemper is four times the cost of my HX Stomp. And nothing can touch the wonderful $450 Pod Go. But they ought to just buy Ownhammer and incorporate their IR files, and then hire some folks to make presets that understand their market. On the other hand, I’m picking at nits – the Helix family is easy to program, crazy powerful, and it can sound fantastic if you learn how to use it. It’s entirely too much fun. I will point out every flaw in the product line, but to me it’s still the BEST product line in its class.
