All you need is...

A Stomp haha. I sold all my pedals to move into a stomp and I don't regreat anything, it does all I was able to do and way more things too!

It's not gonna leave my board

By now I'm using it in conjunction with some pedals and amps with reactive loads. It's just too good and too useful to get rid of. It keeps getting free updates with more gear added, or overhauled, or optimized, and it doesn't look like that'll stop any time soon. Don't think there's much else to say, to be honest. Well, there is, but it would be one hell of an essay.

Awesome

Capabilities are endless with this thing, however it does seem to ruin my signal on the lower end, I find some bass gets lost in it.

From Gear Setup

Game Changing.

Remember when the iPhone hit the market for the first time? Technology so light years ahead of the competition that it changes the game forever? Yeah that's what the HX Stomp did for gear when it came out IMO. It can do so much, it's so powerful and more importantly the interface is super intuitive. I'm old and I hate products that require an interface to learn or one that requires a computer or tablet/phone, so being able to quickly navigate, select and save effects blocks and amps feels amazing and you can quickly find a sound that works with you. It's also small enough and has more than enough ins/outs that it can work in almost every signal chain period. Is it perfect? No. Can improvements be made? Yes, absolutely. The pro's outweigh the cons with what you can do I feel. There are only so many blocks of effects processing this guy can handle (8 effects in all) but it can do a lot with what it has. It sounds amazing in any scenario, in front of amp, in effects loop of amp (either direct to a power amp or 4 cable method), in a FRFR, plugged right into PA, plugged into laptop DAW. You'll wonder why you didn't jump onboard with this guy faster. Highly recommend and a must for any serious gigging or recording musician.

UPDATE:> All these years later and I still own an HX Stomp. It is still on my live board (Even though it's relegated now as a backup to my main rig). I still use it when creating new patches for my Helix Rack, for home practice and always comes with me to gigs just in case my main rig goes down. To this day there hasn't been a piece of gear that I have purchased that has lived up and surpassed any expectations I've had for a piece of gear. It has paid for itself tenfold in every scenario imaginable. Seriously I feel like any professional guitarist needs one of these.

Not bad for outboard effects, but expect compromises.

I got the Line 6 HX Stomp as outboard effects to use with my Boss AC-3. While I would've considered better options such as the Fractal FM3, the HX Stomp is compact-sized and fits in my rack drawer perfectly, which is why I decided to go for this unit.

The user interface, as well as MIDI, are amazing. Lexicon seriously needs to start taking notes here, because Line 6, just like Strymon, Boss and Eventide, succeeded where Lexicon has failed - providing the best user interface possible that doesn't work against the goals of making music. The menu scrolling was a breeze, allowing me to dial in effects quickly. This allowed me to focus less time on troubleshooting my gear or worrying about my gear, and spend more time making music. Delays and reverb also spillover when changing snapshots, which is amazing for bringing studio tones into live settings.

What really surprised me were the Ganymede reverb, chorus effect and ADA converters. I was expecting to hate the effects on the HX Stomp, but they're actually pretty damn good. You can actually fake a Cloud reverb from the Strymon BigSky with the Ganymede on the HX Stomp, and the chorus effects actually didn't completely suck this time. The ADA converters were also a step up as well - not the best, but definitely a step up from the lower-end modelers.

However...there are shortcomings as well. Line 6 didn't include shimmer reverb in the HX Stomp, or any other Helix lineup units for that matter. Seriously, Line 6?

But what I seriously detested were the pitch effects. Do NOT (and I repeat, DO NOT!) attempt to make pitch effects work with the Helix. Single notes aren't bad but as soon as you get into chords territory, the blatant shortcomings will start to become apparent. If you need to use pitch effects, you'll need to use third party units such as the Digitech Whammy V and/or Digitech Whammy Ricochet just to get good pitch effects.

I won't comment on the amp modeling since I don't plan on using any of it in my rig.

Final Verdict: Not bad, but I personally wouldn't overhaul my line mixer setup with any of the Helix products anytime soon. For outboard effects for the acoustic simulator, it does the job pretty damn good, but for modelling and effects for the electric guitar in itself, there are better options.

However, since the HX Stomp does achieve the intended needs for my guitar rig as outboard effects for my Boss AC-3, I'll give it a thumbs up.

Nothing missing here.

AxeFX and Kemper have set new standards in digital amping, but with the Helix-series Line6 got back on the map with a complete renewal: pedalfunction and a big step up in DSP-power and sound. But some may argue the original Helix was huge… not only in functionality but also in size. The Helix LT was a step in shrinking the whole thing. But the HX Stomp goes even further and squeezes the whole Helix to the size of a stompbox.

Of course in comparison to the original some features had to be reduced. Less routing options, less effect slots available and only 3 footswitches. So you have to really think about how to use it efficiently. But the controls are well thought out, you won’t miss a thing. And it works well in many situations, from DI to stompbox-use. The amps are way improved to the emulations on the POD. Especially for high gain this thing delivers the goods. Same for the effects. You can even import your own impulse responses which makes it even more flexible. Easily this thing became my flight rig. You get insanely big bang for the buck… and it still fits in your pocket (though this may look a bit like the “Sticky Fingers”-cover).

Great way to consolidate gear

So far I've used a stomp along with a compressor and an OC-2 for live gigs where I'm plugging direct and amp modeling or even in a lot of recording scenarios. Sounds great and the hx edit software makes dialing in a sound easy.

I'm also very interested in introducing this to a larger board to use as my time-based machine. The delay and reverb sounds this produces are amazing as well as some other synth style sounds. It's been really fun trying to replace pedals on my board with a block in the stomp.

I couple this with a 2 button stomp box to add another 2 stomper options but in more controlled gigs where patches are catered to a song, I simply use the snapshot modes. Super versatile. Nice swiss army pedal for several use cases.

Small but mighty was never truer.

This device has the form factor of Your standard two sided stomp box but the power of the helix floor. Coming fully loaded with all of line 6’s awesome amp, cab and effect models as well as space for after market IR’s this is essentially all you would ever need for lots of the gigs you may wish to do. It’s three switches are fully customisable and it’s UI is intuitive. This is not to say however it is perfect. It only allows for 6 blocks worth of models. And with in that the processing limitations of the device mean some of the more complex rigs you wish to run may not be possible. Further more the physical limitations mean that you will have to do some careful planing to use just this live.

In all however I believe this to be one of the greatest value pieces of equipment you could buy at the moment. I would think of this not as a rig replacement in the way that a helix of Kemper could be but as a excellent pedal board addition or emergency rig. I would defiantly recommend to anyone.

Amp in a box!

I find myself using this as my live amp, more and more often. I don’t really need a full sized helix so combined with the other pedals on my small board, I can play any gig, anywhere, as long as there is good stage monitoring. It also allows me to crank the volume to a place where I can feel it in my chest.

I love amps but it’s difficult to get them loud enough on stage without compromising the mix when you play in a loud band.

These things are great!

If I had to choose...

... one pedal of all the pedals I own, it would be the HX Stomp. Its distortion models sound 90% to 100% (depending on the model) like the real deal, it has great sounding amps galore (that Supro reminds me a lot of my rhythm master) a stereo-looper it’s really great to be able to pan your loops), the pitch-shifter are the best I ever heard (apart from the POG) - the only downside is the modulation models. Except for the new pebble Phaser there is not one phaser/flanger/chorus-type effect that sounds like the analog original. So I‘m just gonna keep my modulation pedals - and the HX Stomp.