stoo

1 hour ago, dave_bass5 said:

Guys. Need some advice. I was planning on selling my Stomp and getting a Pod Go, mainly for more switches for live use (lol). What puts me off is the size, and i will never use the Expression pedal. 

Last night i thought about getting a midi controller instead, to work with the Stomp. I really only want one box on the floor, and not a pedal board. My idea is to have the Stomp on the amp, and the midi controller on the floor doing all the patch changes, block on/off stuff. So it needs at least 5 foot switches. 

I really like the Tech 21 Midi Mongoose, but I believe it cant be used to replace the foot switches for effects on off, only patch changes. The from  factor is ideal though, as is the price. I prefer a line of switches rather than two rows. I guess i might be able to use it and use Snapshots if that’s possible. Not ideal though, but an option I’m open to. 

Any thoughts and suggestions? Is it even possible? Ive seen the Morningstar but it seems cramped, and this is what I’m trying to get away from. I know i can use a 2 way foot switch, which i have in the past, but its not as neat as i want, and I found it getting moved to easily on stage (and i don’t want to use a pedal board), I’d also like some visual indication one the pedal to show which foot switches is on.

I forgot to say, must be smaller than the Pod Go, or else i might as well get that. I think that rules out the Behringer one. 

If you need the pedal to display footswitch status, things get tricky as the Stomp doesn't output any status information over MIDI other than current preset number. You can program some controllers to alternately display an on/off indication each time you hit the switch on the controller, but as there is no feedback from the Stomp, there's no guarantee the Stomp and controller will be in sync.

If you only use preset changes and snapshots then you can make that work OK with a remote display, but not (AFAIK) for FS1-5 in "stomp-to-toggle" mode.

I made a custom 4x2 controller with a touchscreen on it with hopes of being able to do the same - leave the Stomp on the amp out of the way of punters and booze, and just have the controller up front..... never did find a good way of displaying enough info on the controller screen to make it viable. One day I might try and reverse engineer the comms between stomp and HX edit on a PC and see if I can't make it work that way.... probably not anytime soon though

If you don't have, or can't be bothered to fire up, native then this web based helix preset viewer can sometimes do the trick...

https://dbagchee.github.io/helix-preset-viewer/

1 minute ago, LukeFRC said:

The latest update was supposed to have the 8 blocks wasn't it. I wonder if they rushed out the latest updated with the compressor for everyone stuck at home and moved the "more blocks" to the next one. 

Nope. 8 blocks was never slated for 2.9.

Eric Klein has confirmed that Stomp will be getting Command Centre with 3.0

(sorry don't have a time stamp, but it's in the last part of his interview - maybe 10 minutes or so before he signs off)

1 minute ago, JamieMillsBass said:

Monitoring through headphones on the helix.  Can't remember if I checked bypass more or not, but will again tonight! 

You know what, I didn't even realise there was a manual other than the little cheat sheet that was with the stomp, obviously too excited to start messing with it!  I'll dig out the box and find the manual - probably the best place to start!! lol  

They're available online.... https://uk.line6.com/data/6/0a020a4010c935bb66a4c0c44f/application/pdf/HX Stomp Manual - English .pdf

6 minutes ago, Leonard Smalls said:

RIP Hamilton!

 

+1 - this one's a belter too..

11 minutes ago, dave_bass5 said:

Cool. Can you tell me how I can do this? Not copy and paste to a new location, but to overwrite the basic settings using a variation. 
 

Cheers. 
 

EDIT: I’m replying while I’m out and about, so I’ll figure it out when I get home. It’s not something I need to do, just wondered if it’s possible. 

Not sure if this is exactly what you're asking, but if you make changes to snapshot 2 and then resave the preset, the next time you recall that preset then snapshot 2 will be automatically selected.

Alternatively if you want to copy the settings from snapshot 2 to snapshots 1 and 3 you can... 

<From page 33 of the Stomp manual - https://uk.line6.com/data/6/0a020a4010c935bb66a4c0c44f/application/pdf/HX Stomp Manual - English .pdf >

Copying/Pasting a Snapshot

Instead of creating a new snapshot from scratch, you may want to copy an existing one to another snapshot location and tweak just a few things.

1. From Snapshot mode, while touch-holding the footswitch for the snapshot you want to copy, briefly touch and release the footswitch for the snapshot you want to overwrite. A dialog panel appears: Cancel OK Copy Snap 1 to 2?

2. Press Knob 3 (OK).

1 hour ago, JamieMillsBass said:

Straight to the point.  I like it.

Ok a couple of concerns to alleviate then I think I will pull the trigger today.

1. I see a lot of chat about updates.  I assume some kind of software is required for this.  How likely is said software to work smoothly on a 2010 mac running El Capitan with 4GB memory?

2. Is it possible to record via USB from the stomp into logic or am I better just running via the audio interface as I mentioned above

3. Anyone know the cheapest place to order from?

 

If you use the stomp as your interface, you get the ability to easily record the unaffected input signal as well as the normal output... So if you later wanted to tweak the sound you could reamp without having to rerecord the take

38 minutes ago, cattytown said:

I wouldn't bet on it 🙂

That would be a pretty hilarious move on Line 6's part.... 

"Yeah - we know you've been waiting a long time for 2.90.... we had it ready a while back, but there was so much beaching on the internet about how long it was taking so we decided to just not bother to release it. Anyway - here's 3.0 beeeeeyaaaaaatches." 

22 minutes ago, burno70 said:

On my HX FX I'm trying to figure out how I can use the sameexpression pedal as both a volume and expression pedal but be able to switch between the two by using 2 blocks and 2 separate switches. I'm struggling to figure this out. Any ideas? Looking to off load my volume pedal if possible.

With 2 separate switches?

The "normal" way of doing stuff like this is to have a wah (for example) block and a volume block both set to use the same EXP input, and have the block bypass for both set to the same footswitch. Make sure one of the blocks is set to on and the other is set to bypass. 

Now a tap of the footswitch will turn the wah on and the volume off (or vice versa) and the pedal will only have any effect on the block which is active.

You could have separate footswitches assigned to the bypass function of both the wah and volume block, but then if both wah and volume blocks are active then the expression pedal will control both at the same time

9 minutes ago, Al Krow said:

Thanks - that's kinda what I was getting at with my initial question to you about "whether it was something your av bassist could do"? But my confusion with Mooer Tone Capture on its GE250 hasn't helped this discussion. Apologies! 

Never tried it, but it doesn't look massively complicated assuming you have a mic, a computer with some sort of audio interface and a DAW available... 

4 minutes ago, Al Krow said:

Yeah - my bad, I'm getting IR confused with the Tone Capture function on the Mooer GE250 which allows you to sample an amp to create new models on the Mooer GE250 in the way you can on a Kemper. Completely forgot that Tone Capture is not available on the Helix range.

Technically, you can create your own IRs.... but the process isn't exactly trivial, and con't be done on the Helix models themselves.....

25 minutes ago, krispn said:

I don’t quite follow...

The HX range has any number of cabs both bass and guitar and I’m guessing you can use those on HX Native. Not sure if you can export from Native into the hxfx but if you can then you’d have access to all the Line6 IR’s which you could experiment with in Native or the relevant HX device of you have more than one. 

The cab blocks which are available in Helix Floor/Rack/Stomp/Native are not the same thing as IRs.... They perform essentially the same function, but they work in a somewhat different way.

None of the Helix models come with any IRs from the getgo, you have to acquire them separately. Some are free, some are paid for - I think Line 6 even offers a couple of free ones on their site somewhere.

If you have any IRs already in Native you could back them up and then import them into HXFX or any other helix unit.... but to get them into Native in the first place you'd presumably already have the IR files which you used to get them into Native in the first place.

The non-IR cab blocks can't be exported. You can back up their settings, but that wouldn't help you get them onto HXFX unless Line 6 release a HXFX firmware update including the relevant cab blocks.... which seems unlikely.

1 minute ago, Al Krow said:

I guess the other key point is that if you're going down the IR route you're pretty much limited to your own cab, whereas something like the Mooer Radar allows you to 'sample' a whole world of cabs which could be interesting / useful in itself.

You can have 128 IRs stored on the HXFX and select a different one for each preset or even snapshot.

I think you might even be able to have the IR selector assigned to an expression pedal and sweep through all of them

Just now, Al Krow said:

Good shout. You'll need to talk me through that, please, and in particular whether the HX Effects can do IR's both well and relatively easily with the gear a typical bass player is going to have at their disposal? 

Anyone uploaded IRs onto the HX Effects and been pleased with the results?

I'm not going to be much use to ya on that score.... I rarely bother with IRs on my Stomp as I don't usually use cab sims for bass and usually just use amp+cab blocks for guitar due to the 6 block limit. I have tried out a few guitar cab IRs, but don't prefer one way over the other enough to worry about wasting a separate block for an IR...

Can't the HX effects do IRs? Wouldn't that render the Mooer a bit redundant in that case?

17 minutes ago, Gottastopbuyinggear said:

I’m thinking hard about getting a 3D printer.  @stoo, what material did you use for the case - I’m wondering whether PLA would be strong enough or whether it would have to be ABS?

The first one I did with the tiny screen was done in PLA. The v2 is PETG for the main enclosure, with PLA for the bezel and bottom cover. I tend to be fairly generous with wall widths / perimeter and top and bottom layer count, but both enclosures are way stronger than they need to be. If I hadn't had to split them into multiple sections to fit on the build plate of my printer, they'd have been stronger still.

Maybe I could have got away with using less material if I'd used ABS or nylon, but I can't be bothered building an enclosure for my printers. 

I'm going to get some ASA filament next time to try next time I make an order... From what I can gather it's similar to ABS, but less hassle to print. Mainly for increased UV resistance... Which isn't really a massive concern for the footswitch enclosure!

1 hour ago, dave_bass5 said:

After i posted last night i read some reviews on the 500 and realised its not a 500watt in to 4ohms head like it seems, so yes, its the 800 or nothing.

According to their manual from https://www.gallien-krueger.com/legacy-heads it's not really 500W at any impedance... unless the 300W @ 2ohm is a typo... which probably makes sense. 

And... the 1200 doesn't appear to be any more powerful than the 800 unless you're using 2 cabs, with at least one of those being a 4 ohm. There doesn't seem to be any mention of a stereo effects loop return, so the 1200 looks to be a pretty weird proposition. I guess it's not a massive price jump over the 800 but how many folk are likely to be using 2x 4ohm cabs big enough to benefit from >400W each and yet still want a dinky amp head? Am I missing something here?

Quote

 

Output Power:

Legacy 500:
190W @ 1% THD+N, 8Ω
300W @ 1% THD+N, 4Ω
450W @ 1% THD+N, 2.7Ω
300W @ 1% THD+N, 2Ω

Legacy 800:
400W @ 1% THD+N, 8Ω
800W @ 1% THD+N, 4Ω
800W @ 1% THD+N, 2.7Ω
800W @ 1% THD+N, 2Ω

Legacy 1200:

1 CHANNEL:
400W @ 1% THD+N, 8Ω
800W @ 1% THD+N, 4Ω

2 CHANNEL:
800W TOTAL @ 1 %THD+N, 8Ω PER CHANNEL
1200W TOTAL @ 1%THD+N 4Ω PER CHANNEL.
950W TOTAL @1%THD+N 4Ω ON ONE CHANNEL 8Ω ON THE OTHER CHANNEL

 

1 minute ago, Skybone said:

Still think it sounds like an interesting bit of kit, and gives a few more stage friendly options over the HX Stomp (similar price point).

Haven't looked into the HX effects too much recently, so don't know if there's an option on any of the effects to have a wet/dry mix control. If they have the option, then it sounds like it's going to be a good unit.

Still hankering after a Helix LT though!  

HXFX has the option for a parallel path, so if you have an effect model with no wet/dry mix parameter, you can move it (and any others you like) to path B, and then you have separate volume controls for path A and path B at the merge block...

3 minutes ago, EBS_freak said:

@stoo - how many pins are you utilising at the moment? Was thinking about projecty stuff last night whilst driving. ESP8266 may give you the option of a web based editor which may be easier for bulk configuration... meaning that touch screen could be for just on the gig changes. Mind you, if you've got your phone with you...

8 for the footswitches

2 for the nextion TX/RX

1 for the midi TX

1 for the pedal pot

1 for the pedal toeswitch

Funnily enough, I've just about finished up a completely unrelated project with a Wemos D1 Mini in it... Not enough pins available on those, but I think the bigger D1R2 might just be able to squeak it..... hmmmm

3 hours ago, Gottastopbuyinggear said:

Rather than a Nano what about one of the Teensy line - even Teensy LC has twice the memory of the Nano.

I’ve built a basic 4 button foot switch using a Teensy LC board which will do MIDI via 5 pin DIN connector and USB MIDI in parallel, so I can use it on either my Stomp or with AmpliTube on my Mac.

I’ve now gone a step further and used a Raspberry Pi to give me USB MIDI thru so I can use USB on the Stomp instead.  Target is to build a second MIDI controller to give me the amp EQ and volume controls in a controller on top of my amp so I can tweak easily during a gig.  

 

 

The Teensy stuff looks like a good shout for USB MIDI with minimal hassle... Would need to be sure the display was OK with running on 3.3V or you'd have to add in a level converter to the plan somewhere.

I love the idea of having a physical amp controls module though.... Have you got any more detail on your build posted up anywhere? 

4 hours ago, dannybuoy said:

Sounds like a downgrade for more money then!

Has UK pricing been confirmed yet? I thought the USA price is supposed to be considerably less than the HX FX / Stomp price point...

10 minutes ago, Skybone said:

Managed to figure that one out on the HD500x. Use a second amp, set one up as clean, one up as dirty and then use the channel volume to blend.

That wouldn't work on pod go.... Only one amp at a time

17 minutes ago, EBS_freak said:

Ah true. Is there a MIDI implementation chart? As you say though, no feedback to acknowledge program change.

Yeah - they've published it all, but - for the HX stomp at least - it's pretty much all one way. When the preset is changed it does send out a PC message to confirm it, but that's only any use if your midi controller knows the initial state of that preset, which FS each block is assigned to, whether it starts on or off, what type of effect is in that block etc etc.

With the old Zoom stuff it was totally the other way round - they sent out a Sysex message with all the info in it that you could ever need, but the data format was deliberately obfuscated and there was no documentation on it at all, so you end up spending ages with MIDI sniffers trying to work out what the hell was going on.... and it was slightly different for each Zoom pedal, so the work someone else had done wouldn't necessarily work on yours.

Not to worry though - my controller's at the point where I'm not too bothered about doing anything else with it for a while.... Functionality-wise it's doing everything I need it to. Might tweak the preset pages here and there, but other than that I'm OK with it. I'm not very happy with the enclosure, but it's not bad enough that it's worth printing another one. 

4 minutes ago, EBS_freak said:

Hey @stoo - was thinking about this project again thinking about easy to implement small little improvements. Playing with my Kemper, (which annoys me due to the lack of scribble strips on the foot pedal) I thought... aha, you could assign LED colours/state colours (maybe for FX type etc) using ws2812b pixels - at a cost of only one pin because the strip is addressable. Cheap, easy to implement... and if you are going down the programmable route anyway, gives you an easy at a glance colour coded status.

Anyway, just a thought. There's plenty of pixel libraries out there which would get you up and running in minutes. 

It's something I did look into - my first arduino project was an LED lighting controller for my van with 420 addressable LEDs around the ceiling. Slight overkill, but hey-ho

The HX Stomp has got LED rings around each footswitch which change colour depending on effect type and brightness depending on it's enabled or not...  but it doesn't send much information out on MIDI for the controller to know what's going on.... I suppose you could manually program the controller with settings for each preset and then update the LED behaviour depending on the last Program Change, but that seems like a lot of work programming in dozens of presets worth of config into the controller, and having to keep them updated whenever I make changes on the Stomp.

I think all the other Helix models have got a MIDI command centre which allows you trigger various MIDI messages on all sorts of various conditions..... but if I'd got one of the bigger Helix models then I wouldn't need the MIDI controller in the first place! 

10 minutes ago, themorb said:

Hi Stoo 
I didn't check you swap to arduino mega. Now the challenge :
Do you belive it is possible to realize this controller fitting your code on Nano ( with Nextion but without Expression Pedal)?
The final .ino file :Just  copying and pasting ....: 01_includes 02_globals (in this order)? I get a lot of errors (simulating a Mega board)

What about single_double_long file? Do I past it into the ino?

What about the booting page on nextion?

Thx for your time

Hiya,

I'd never really thought about whether the code Nextion version could fit on a Nano before... it would definitely need some optimisation but it might be do-able... couldn't say for sure without trying it though!

When I did the OLED + Nano version, I remember the main limitation was RAM. One thing that helped a lot was making sure all the char array text strings were set to use PROGMEM using the F() macro. I know I didn't bother doing that on the Nextion version because the RAM was plentiful enough it just wasn't worth it.

Some other things you'll need to take into consideration with Nano : 

Nano only has one Serial... the MIDI port needs one, and so does the Nextion. You should be able to create a SoftwareSerial port on the Nano, but it's not something I've done. The Arduino IDE also uses Serial to upload new sketches to the Nano... so you may find you need to disconnect your MIDI devices or the Nextion (whichever you have plugged into the hardware serial port on the nano) when you upload a new sketch. 

Power - I was able to power the Nextion from the 5v pin on the Mega, but I'm not sure how much power the power regulator on the Nano can supply safely. If you're running from USB power, it might be a good idea to power the Nextion using the microUSB adapter that should come with your screen, and then power the Nano from the spare pins on the back of that adaptor.

I'm not totally sure what you mean by the "final .ino file".... I had all those files saved separately, and they should appear as different tabs in the Arduino IDE. When it compiles it should work through them in the order the tabs appear in the IDE. Having the different parts of code split into separate tabs made it a bit easier to find stuff as I was going along. I've attached a screenshot so you can see what I mean.

The single_double_long file can be ignored.... it's just a flowchart I was using to plan out the code for single press / long press / double click / multiple switch press functionality and track which bits I'd implemented. You can open it with a free program called yEd if you want to see what's in it, but other than that you can ignore it.

You could get rid of the Booting page on the Nextion if you wanted - there's probably a few other pages in the Nextion HMI file that aren't needed too. It won't hurt to leave them on there though - deleting unused pages on the Nextion memory won't free up any memory on the Nano. Be wary though - if you delete things in the Nextion editor, it can end up automatically renumbering other items with a higher ID#.

Hope that helps....!