I've been on a little modelling journey.

rossyamaha

As I start to write this I am in full appreciation that this is simply me writing my own thoughts but I'm posting here in case anyone finds it useful. 

As many of you know, I was a product specialist for Line 6 for a bunch of years both in the early days as well as recently so I know Helix etc very well and can get pretty much everything I want out of it. But, I like pedals and messing with things so I got to experimenting. I'll do a brief overview of what I found and where I am now at. 

Helix/ HX products: This is home for me. From the UI to the quirkiness to the own brand amp models, I know these units inside out. They do everything and there is still nothing that is as tricked out as the Stomp. I have been so invested both financially and emotionally in them for so long it would have to be something special to get me to move away. But shiny things and Youtube pulls you in. 

Tone X: Granted I went in with the Tone X One which may have been a mistake that's what I went with. Spoiler alert, it lasted 3 days. Out of the box it sound really good. Whatever preset it was on was plenty good enough to be useable. The problem started when I tried to edit and make my own preset. Naturally loaded up the editor and as nice enough as it is and as easy as it seemed to navigate, the whole process was just bad. No real time editing, no instant gratification, no real instructions on how to do it. I spent so much time looking, reading and watching videos I just gave up. I now understand they have updated things and it's easier so maybe I'll jump back in.

Quad Cortex: It looks awesome, the feature set appealed and I had some new projects to work on so the time was right. It is a very beautiful unit. Helix beautiful but different. I'm sure it would mark easily so I was very careful. UI was good but interestingly, as much as they took from Helix, it was different enough to be annoying. Little things like setting up scenes or footswitches. Not super intuitive and had to find some videos to help. Tone wise, it was just OK. Initial tests it didn't give me anything better, it didn't feel any better and it was harder to dial in certain things. High gain tones were easy and did sound great. But the clean/ low/ mid gain stuff where I live most of the time just wasn't happening. They seem to be more focused on amps than pedals and finding the right combination was very hard work. Adding external drives did help but the noise was almost unusable. I never use gates but had to with this. It wasn't for me so off it went. 

POD Express: Yes I know, it's cheap and still Line 6 but it came out after I left. This thing sounds fantastic. It could because of what I used to but the amps were just great right out of the box. I would really only use this as a pedal platform so thats how I tried it and have been using it since. It has stayed on my mini board for a while now. Takes pedals really well and the effects are perfectly adequate albeit limited. I would like to be able to move them around in the signal chain but at this price you can't really moan. Definitely worth getting on if only for a back up. 

Hotone Ampero II: I currently have this on loan from the UK distributor to do some videos for my channel. I was pleasantly surprised by the build. Obviously at the price point I would expect it to be much more flimsy but nope, very sturdy indeed. Like the QC there is a touch screen but my god it's small. Yes I know the unit is small but if you have larger fingers I think you might struggle. I gave up with the screen for the most part and used the editor. First preset was meh. Typical modeller of old, good sound but a little sterile. Scrolled through a few and the levels were a bit out. As I started messing around and making my own stuff, it started to come alive. Like everything, there were things I liked and didn't but after some tweaking it started to sound really good. Then it started to sound great. Then I forgot I was using a modeller (this is my feeling with Helix now). Everything felt and sounded great.
I got into loading NAM profiles and loading a free Victory Kraken (one of my go to amps in QC) was easy and again, sounded fantastic. One pedal I wanted to capture on the QC was the X100. I tried the new "Tone Catch" feature with the Ampero. Followed the very easy instructions and within a minute, it was done and pretty close. Refined and it was almost perfect. Tweaking the controls within the unit it was almost better. Very impressed. 

I do also have the Ampero Mini in my studio so will check that out too and add to this later. I'm not that interested in looking at Fractal stuff largely because I know the UI is hard work but the fact I can't get one next day from somewhere is a problem for me so they're out. 

So I think I will definitely be adding the Ampero to the collection. I'll use it in the same way I use HX Stomp, like a utility do all if needed but only use it for some things and as part of a larger pedalboard. The tone catch does appeal to me and I think I would use it. But after all this, HX Stomp still comes out on top. After all these years and how it now almost looks outdated, it still does the thing. Ampero is really cool though. 

louis_LLM

Not the modelling I had in mind, I feel cheated

Voxman

Hi Ross, interesting post & thanks for sharing. I have a Pod Go that you'll be well familiar with of course, but If you ever get hold of a Valeton GP200 I'd be interested in your thoughts. In addition to my GP200X I've also got the little Valeton GP5 & I'm still staggered at how much is in it and how good it sounds. 

thomasw88

I think if you’ve used various modellers and know your way round them then you wouldn’t find the fractal  hard to use.   Sound wise in my experience it’s leap years ahead of the helix, and the ampero.  
Not tried a quartexso can’t comment on that.


i am quite happy editing on the unit and the editor is excellent for pc usage, and after a year trying to get a boss gt1000 and helix working live I really didn’t find moving to an fm9 hard.   The vp4 is an absolute doddle to use if you want to dip your toes in

rossyamaha

thomasw88 said:

I think if you’ve used various modellers and know your way round them then you wouldn’t find the fractal  hard to use.   Sound wise in my experience it’s leap years ahead of the helix, and the ampero.  
Not tried a quartexso can’t comment on that.


i am quite happy editing on the unit and the editor is excellent for pc usage, and after a year trying to get a boss gt1000 and helix working live I really didn’t find moving to an fm9 hard.   The vp4 is an absolute doddle to use if you want to dip your toes in

I have looked at the VP4 just from a snobbery point of view. The problem I would have is I would need to add a couple of extra bits to cover the "all in one" solution I use these things for. Maybe for a different board one day. 

rossyamaha

Voxman said:

Hi Ross, interesting post & thanks for sharing. I have a Pod Go that you'll be well familiar with of course, but If you ever get hold of a Valeton GP200 I'd be interested in your thoughts. In addition to my GP200X I've also got the little Valeton GP5 & I'm still staggered at how much is in it and how good it sounds. 

I will definitely check it out. They keep popping up son worth looking into. 

guitarmangler

Are you gonna get the new Helix? I’ve got an LT and an hxfx for when there’s no room on the floor. I’m really happy with both, but will probably chop both of them in when they release the smaller version of the stadium.

thecolourbox

Re your comments on the Tonex, i think one of the accidental advantages of their software being a pain in the arse is that when you do find a sound you like, you're more likely to just leave it as it is and not mess with it endlessly. 

Yes they've improved it, but still unnecessarily inconsistent with how it works and a bit of a faff, so it's really a case of getting a sound you like then leaving it alone

ZenRigsMan

Just to,clarify - you CAN get fractal stuff ‘next day’ now in the UK ;-)