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Base theme by DesignModo & ported to Powered by Vanilla by Chris Ireland, modified by the "theFB" team.
Comments
I found the amp sounds instantly usable and a lot less fiddly than the Helix.
I liked the touch screen too
Right now I do this by using separate drive/boost pedals and an M9 for all the time/mod effects, including song-specific patches. I'd love to simplify to just one box, and right now the GT1000 seems to be the only one that has this kind of global behaviour. They all have global EQ, but that's as far as they go
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The downside of that approach might be you tweak one patch and the other patches using the same amp sound worse.
See where you are coming from, but I wouldnt let that be the reason to pay the extra from a Headrush to an Axe FX, and personally I dont think the GT1000 sounds as good as other options
It has always been a bug bear of mine as I do tend to tweak a lot..."ooh...that's not sounding as good as I though it did...might try more treble on the drive sounds...now I need to do the same on 12 different presets ". It's a problem I have with my current setup, using the GSP1101 which is a traditional patch-based thing. You can tell it was designed to be used that way because a) they put a lot of effort into making patch-switching instantaneous and seamless and b) on the official controller, the front row of footswitches are dedicated to selecting patches and cannot be re-tasked.
It's fine but not ideal...the GT1000 and Helix both solve this in different ways...but they cost 5 times as much and take a lot more setting up...you can't have everything!
its not as quick as a global change, but mid song, or mid gig doint it its not so time consuming.
Friday's my first gig using it in 4CM with the Jet City, which makes it even easier - I can just tweak on the amp instead.
I don't think I could manage on a single preset, as I have a few song-specific delays, harmonies and other oddball effects that only get used once in a gig.
The other thing that attracted me to the Headrush is that I'm left-footed for expression pedals (right handed though), and I'd prefer having a remote pedal that I can place on the left side of my board. Always a downside with the bigger all-in-one units!
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When I'm using the 4CM patch, I use the crunch and drive channels of the Jet City amp, and the patch only has the clean amp model for when I need uber-clean.
3 delays (slapback analogue, longish delay, and a space echo (the last 2 have tap tempo, and the volume pedal controls delay level)
Phaser
Pitch shift
Shimmer reverb
boost
TS808
compressor
That gets me through a full gig on a single preset
I can never understand why they insist on putting the expression pedal on the wrong side of the unit! I never though of expressing this as being 'left-footed' but that's exactly what it feels like. I really struggle using my right foot for wah or volume duties.
I am also the same when it comes to tweaking setting from day to day or venue to venue. I wouldn't listen too much to those that say they just set and forget...I think that is more of a personality thing rather than being down to a specific unit. There's no guarantee that if you go and buy a Helix (or whatever) then you will immediately settle on one patch and never want to change it, just because that's what person x has done. I'd rather go with something that really meets your needs as you see them.
All of these units sound good now...I honestly think the sound quality is less of an issue these days compared to features that suit your needs.
Come to think of it, I use my left foot for all footswitching as a rule, not just expression pedals. I think it's because if I'm balancing on one leg, I naturally use my right for that and so my left foot is more used to hovering and pressing stuff.
And I agree regarding the sound quality issue. I'm sure I could get great sounds out of any of these units, but usability is the key, and the GT1000 seems to tick the most boxes for me at this point. Having six assignable knobs means I can bring the drive settings right to the top level and tweak all presets in real time with ease. The rest of the UI looks pretty clunky, but then it has a mobile app that helps bring it closer to the Headrush etc.
Another feature I want to explore is MIDI over Bluetooth. It looks like the GT should support it, in which case I could send patch changes from the OnSong iPad app so my lyrics and GT patches line up automatically. Handy for dep gigs where I need to queue up the whole set in OnSong. I don't know if any of the other units can do wireless MIDI without a dongle?
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You can have 62 parameter changes per snapshot
You can have 8 snapshots per patch
you can have 32 blocks of effects per preset
I get all my function and function dep work done in a single patch unless I need something very specific then I need to copy and paste to the next location and just add it there
I’ve now spent some time with boss and I honestly think you’d be making a mistake if you bought it
Helix, Ax8 and even the Amplfire are leaps and bounds better imo
https://www.thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/57776/handsomerik/p1
Currently I reckon I have two M9 scenes of generic effects that I apply a-la-carte to about 75% of the songs (that's 12 individual stomps). Then I have about 8-10 song-specific combinations of multiple effects that live in the other scenes. I guess each one of those would equate to a Helix snapshot. And on top of that I have two drive pedals (OD stays put once I dial it in, and the Crunchbox gets tweaked on the fly for a handful of individual songs), also two boosts (pre and post dirt) and a wah. Could all of that fit inside one preset, if I use just one amp sound?
Sorry for the thread derail by the way, for anyone who came here to read about the Headrush!
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I would say set up a single (or maybe 2 presets) which would cover your 75%, your song specific stuff really depends on what effects you use, and how different they are from your generic ones
Do these effects get used individually or in conjunction?
if individually you will need to do it over 2 presets possibly 3 but that’s all.
you can also have the top/bottom rows snapshots, presets or stomps depending how you want to mix it up
The set list is all over the map - ABBA to Black Sabbath via Bowie, Paul Simon, Chaz n Dave, Queen etc. We typically have roughly 2x 1hr sets, with about the same amount in reserve and to swap in and out from gig to gig.
This is how the M9 is used:
Scene1: Chorus, Phaser, bright delay, warmer delay, long plate reverb, shorter ducking reverb. This one covers more than half of the gig.
Scene2: (this is for the 50s/60s stuff). Trem, Slapback delay (two versions with different mix level), spring reverb, room reverb (rarely used).
Scene3: This is my "pitchy" scene. I have two harmony settings (one for Mamma Mia, one for Tiger Feet), and a subtle tap delay to fatten up Mamma Mia. We medley Don't Stop Me Now into Tiger Feet, so this scene also has a chorus and doubling delay I use for the solo in the Queen song
Scene4: This is my Bowie scene! Top row of three is for Heroes (vibe, delay and reverb - dialed in together to give some approximation of the Fripp parts with a hint of movement to help simulate some of the sweepy filtery bits). Bottom row is Let's Dance - vibrato, slap echo into tap delay (again, trying to straddle the guitar and synth parts on the record)
Scene5: Neglected recently, but this is where I parked some 80s- specific stuff. I had synth parts and mod/delays for Don't You Want Me and Just Can't Get Enough. One row of three effects for each.
Scene6: The hard-rock scene. Not completely full yet, but there's a univibe for any time I want a faux-Hendrix thing, a ring mod for the solo in "Paranoid" and a delay setting I use for a modern-rock arrangement of Paint It Black (a one-off for a Halloween gig we have coming up)
All my drives, boosts and wah are in front of the M9. I also have a Tech21 Leeds between the drives and the M9 so I can go into a power amp/FX return if I need to. Other times I'll turn that off when going into an amp front-end.
I actually really like the fact that the M9 only allows one effect at a time per block, as it means I can easily toggle between two settings (eg phaser and chorus) in scene1 with just a single press. Any effects that I never want to combine together, I just arrange them vertically and that takes care of it with no further thinking required.
I also tweak my Crunchbox on the fly for a few different applications. I usually set it for a saturated rhythm sound, but sometimes I will bump the level and roll down the tone (eg for the fuzz solo in Easy by the Commodores).
So, there's a bit of space left in scene6, but beyond that I'd have to spill out across more than one folder, which would be a pain to navigate live. I've grouped the scenes by musical theme like this because obviously you can't assign names to anything, so I have to remember which scene to open up for each song.
All this works for me now, but I'm aware that I'm running out of space, and I'd like to go to a single-box setup as well as potentially benefit from more diverse amp modelling options.
Sorry - I seem to have written an essay!
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