The Line6 HX Stomp is an amazing piece of gear that can serve as your full guitar rig. I’ve compiled a list of five things I both like and dislike about it to help you decide whether to get one or not.
Disclaimer: I purchased the HX Stomp with my own money, and even though I have worked with Line6 in the past, nobody asked me to do this video/post, and all the opinions expressed here are my own.
1st thing I like: Compact and powerful
What’s great about HX Stomp is that it can be your full rig whether playing electric, acoustic or bass guitar. And even if you’re using a real amp, you can use the HX Stomp as your full pedalboard. If you already have a pedalboard, you can use HX Stomp as a powerful multi-fx unit to do effects your other pedals can’t do.
It can also server as your backup rig and work as an audio interface.
1st thing I don’t like: Small screen and limited amount of footswitches
The HX Stomp has huge amount of amps, pedals, effects and options to rout your signal. But tweaking those settings and editing your signal chain on the small display can be slow and inefficient.
Having just 3 footswitches is also quite limiting when using the unit live. I’ve seen many HX Stomp users getting extra footswitches to pair with their unit, which adds to the overall price.
2nd thing I like: Great sounding amps and effects & Ability to create unique rigs
Lot (if not most) amps and effects sound great. And because we are talking about a digital unit, we can create unique rigs that would be difficult to achieve in real world. (If you check the video above, you can hear me play a Vox AC30 through a Revv 4×12 cabinet).
2nd thing I don’t like: Too many options can lead to option paralysis
With so many options available, it’s very difficult to settle on any kind of setup. I found myself second-guessing every amp, pedal and cabinet choice thinking I might find something that sound even better.
And it’s not just the number of amps, cabs and pedals: you can also tweak a vast amount of things within those blocks. In many cases Line6 gives you options to tweak things that don’t even exist on the real-life versions of those amps and pedals.
3rd thing I like: Great interface design
Considering the size of the HX Stomp, I think Line6 did a great job designing the user interface. There’s definitely a learning curve but after spending some time with the Stomp I found the pedal fairly easy to use.
I personally think the bigger Helix units are way easier to use because of their bigger displays and having more knobs on them. But for its size, the HX Stomp is well designed.
3rd thing I don’t like: The design of the desktop editor
While the HX Stomp’s user interface is limited by its physical size, the desktop editor isn’t. That is why I find it baffling how much wasted space there is when you open the editor on your computer.
I get the idea of having a similar looking editor on the desktop as on the physical units as well, but it’s a total waste of space and just bad design.
When you open the settings of any more complex amp/pedal or effect, there’s no structuring of what’s important and what isn’t. Whether it’s essential stuff like gain or master volume, or things like adjusting the bias or sag, everything has the same level of importance.
4th thing I like: It’s an audio interface
Besides being your full guitar/bass rig, the HX Stomp can also serve as an audio interface. It can be used with Mac and PC as well as with iPhones and iPads.
You can even monitor yourself through the headphone out of the unit.
You can record two mono tracks or in stereo. This means you can do things like recording both a DI signal and your full amp rig on separate tracks.
And it’s not just for the guitar: because the HX Stomp is a ‘real’ audio interface, you can record pretty much anything you can plug into the inputs of the unit.
4th thing I don’t like: The lag when using USB out
When I recorded the video above, the HX Stomp was famous for the lag it presented when using the USB out. For many people it made recording more challenging, while some people couldn’t record via USB out at all because of it.
As of writing this post in November 2023, I have sold my HX Stomp to buy other guitar gear. Hence can’t confirm whether the issue has been fixed or not.
5th thing I like: Downloading patches made by others
This is one of my favourite things you can do with the modern technology. Not only you can share sounds you’ve created with your friends, but you can also get patches made by professional musicians and artists you like.
The patch/preset market has absolutely exploded over the past few years and things like ‘tone matching’ help you get the sounds of a certain amp for example, way faster.
This found this especially helpful with bass guitar. I’m not a ‘real’ bass player and I don’t really know how to dial in the sounds for it. I have a friend who is a great bassist and him being able to share his patch with me is awesome.
5th thing I don’t like: Everyone uses the same sounds
I think it’s great that you can download patches for your HX Stomp and get great sounds faster. But the drawback with popular sounds is, that everybody uses the same sounds.
This is especially prominent in the worship guitarist scene, where sharing patches is very common, and it sometimes leads to everything sounding the same, which I find uninspiring.
The other drawback is people just taking a preset and using it in a context it wasn’t designed for, resulting in those ‘this guitarist is at the wrong gig’ videos.
Is Line6 HX Stomp Good?
The HX Stomp is great, but not perfect. It sounds great and offers incredible amount of tones you can use live or record with. It is also quite small and with just three footswitches can feel a bit limiting when using it live.
With things like HX Stomp XL and POD GO there’s more options now though, so no matter what kind of Helix unit you want to go with it, they have it.
If you’re interested acquiring a Line6 unit and support what I do, you can find affiliate links here:
►►Get Line6 Helix On Thomann (affiliate): https://thmn.to/thocf/f4zbo3gyex
►►Get Line6 Helix On Sweetwater (affiliate): https://sweetwater.sjv.io/KjYAE7
Leave a Reply