Al Krow

Which Pharrell was nowhere to be seen in (not!) and thereby escaped equal criticism - lol!

Makes it even more incredible that his reputation has been barely touched then, whereas RT's has been trashed.

I was a bit envious of the decent metering on the compression / limiter patches on the LT and Floor, which could be really helpful when setting them up in terms of how much peak volume reduction is occurring and then applying appropriate make-up gain. Discovered that on the Becos pedals which has an excellent meter. Sounds like the HX Effects is actually the better overall option for you then.

Been having my eye on this for a little while: It looks to be a cool successor to the Boss RC-30 loop station, which was a pedal I enjoyed using for several years and only moved on last year when I was starting to run up against some of its limitations. As it's only been out a couple of months I really wasn't expecting to see it being discounted for BF. But it's on Amazon with a cheeky (but actually tempting!) £14 off...

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The elitist point comes about 'cos there is often an implicit assumption from many BCers that gear use with a band is "proper" use. @dave_bass5mate I'm not suggesting you're guilty of or were intending this - it's just that it is a pretty commonly repeated theme on BC. Frankly IMO it's a tosh viewpoint (along with lots of other implicit prejudice that we see in different guises all the time - just ask the US police force about theirs!). It's entirely up to folk how they use their own gear and where they use it, whether at home or in a band context. Some of my most creative BC buddies are not even in a band right now. Doesn't make the use of their gear any less valid. And tbf I think we are all agreed that in a band context a heck of a lot tonal subtlties and nuances can be lost, whereas you might actually appreciate them more at home. So evaluate them in whatever context makes most sense for you.

Yeah - but IMO it's totally elitist to regard "band use" as being somehow superior to "home use". It's just a different use. There are plenty of bassists who are not in bands and who get a ton of pleasure from using their gear at home.

+1 ^^ Unbiased reviews rock.

Yup one bass, a lead and an amp & cab. Job done. No question that the last decade on Basschat thinking about gear was not very utilitarian was it? Now remind me exactly how many drive pedals you've been through? 😁

Light hearted quips aside - I'm in exactly the same boat. Very happy with my actual amp and cab so don't really need those particular DSP hungry sims (although more is always a "nice to have" to muck about with and try out!) and very appreciative of being able to set the HX Effects up as a series of pedal boards comprising 6 pedals and a stomp switch for each. The one thing that would be really nice would be the recently introduced metering on the Floor / Rack / LT also being available on the Stomp and HX Effects.

Agreed about the Pitchfork - which is a shame as it's otherwise a super versatile little pedal in compact format and not too pricey. Linking you up with @ToneFree who took my Fishman Fission off my hands when I found that I could get something passably close with my Helix HX Effects by parallel routing pitch shifters (and something I had singularly failed to do on my much loved Zoom B1-4 where all I was getting was an unusable mush - partly due to fact Zoom only permits series routing. But hey for the price, I'm not complaining!).

He's still got my old Yamaha BB 425 which I want to buy back off him (as do several others apparently!) 😁

Very interesting point you make about Pharrel, which I hadn't really registered until you mentioned it. But it's much easier to slag off white blokes though, isn't it? (And I say that as someone who isn't one). Fits folks' stereotypes much more comfortably.

Yeah I was referring to Helix generically rather than specifically to the Helix Floor (or Rack). Can't remember whether he had a Stomp or HX Effects previously. Have you felt limited by HX Effect's DSP vs the LT's at any point?

Haha! Or perhaps equally true that you maybe have greater sonic imagination than your average bass player? Like this chap who is not atypical of pedal board users... Or this one? (Who I know has a great deal more creative juices running through his veins than your average chappy!) And there's an equally well trodden case that you don't need any pedals at all!

Welcome. I think I read recently someone had just upgraded their Helix to a LT and found it to be a decent step up. Kinda makes very good sense in terms of additional DSP and blocks available and provides a true "pedalboard" alternative.

So what I've been able to find from the net, which confirms what I had understood, is that in terms of DSP Processor(s): Helix Floor, Rack and LT all have 2x SHARC ADSP-21469 @ 450 MHz HX Effects and Stomp both have 1x SHARC ADSP-21469 @ 450 MHz Stomp was given three fewer effects blocks than Effects because it had amp and cab sims which are DSP hungry, so that users didn't find themselves running out of DSP when trying to fill the blocks (although some TB'ers were finding that they were on occasion struggling with > 4 blocks on Stomp) My light hearted quip which seems to have earned the wrath of some (lol) is that given Line 6 have just increased the number of blocks available to Stomp users to almost the same number available on HX Effects, it would be a nice quid pro quo if they also made amp and cab sims available to HX Effects users. For obvious commercial reasons i.e. product segmentation, I appreciate they are not going to.

Which bit? The embargo? Was meant to be a light hearted footnote, but seems to have caused a certain amount of righteous indignation - lol! It's a straightforward decision in product market segmentation by Line 6 that makes very good commercial sense from their perspective. Same processor capacity in Stomp and HX Effects? I thought that was relatively well known. But happy to be corrected if that's not accurate.

Time we had a proper pic! The last one I remember of yours was a rack of headstocks! PS do you have a favourite of the three?

What is interesting is the fact that the 1200S is very much regarded as BB royalty. And MattiZ's post seems to confirm that it holds its own very well against even its modern day successor, 30 years its junior, the 735A.

You fessed up about 2,500 posts ago when we were all listing our BB collections! Now I just need to find that post....😂

TWO x BB1200S!! That's just plain greedy 😂

It's a 608 mile round trip to Hexam from E London. I'm not convinced I could get away with it being referred to as "essential travel". PS just remembered these two straps are supposed to be my birthday pressie from the missus, so I'd best not open the box for a few days yet then! 😁

The pedal in the loop(s) can be put anywhere in your Helix signal chain, so you choose whether you have them in series or parallel and exactly where in relation to the rest. They would use up one (or two if you are using both external loops) of your 6 on/off switches if you are going for the one fx stomp per single effects pedal mode (although tbf I've not used them set up in that mode. You would need to switch them off or on yourself unless you are going down the midi route with midi enabled pedals, but we are getting way above my pay grade at that point!), or one of the 9 blocks available on HX Effects if you are using them as part of a "patch". Worth adding, I'm looking to keep things uber simple and just have the Helix HX Effects as my standalone "pedal board" in the immediate future, as an alternative to my mini board, so all of the above will be for another day for me!