Ryan's Gig Guide - January 2019

I am sure you are all too familiar with the back breaking experience of lugging around your gor- geous, yet huge rig. Its true nothing moves the air around your legs like a 4x12, but you always pay for it the morning after. Recently there have been a few clever creations that have encapsu- lated the sound, response and character of our big friendly giants and crammed them into neat little packages. Perhaps the most compact is the recent release from Line 6, the HX Stomp. It is absolutely mind boggling how much they have crammed in this unit. Effects galore. If you tried to put all the effects built into this little monster onto a pedal board, even a shoe-gazer might think it was a little over the top. It is not however the intention for you to use every piece of gear emu- lated in its memory, but instead to give you a vast array of options for you to carefully select from. Filter- ing through all the built in sounds could be a hobby in itself. Very much like a sonic pick and mix but you never get full. For those of you au fait with prod- ucts from Line 6, the HX Stomp is an even more petite Helix. So why did Line 6 decide to go even smaller? Well now you can mount it to your pedal board. Hell, you could even just whack it in your backpack.This stomp box is not only jam packed with effects it also has emulations of amplifiers and cabinets. It has everything you need to just rock up at a gig and start playing. It is worth noting that this is not just for guitarists. If you flick through the presets you will see patches for keys, guitar and bass. It just stands out as the multi tool every musician should have kicking around. The interface is intelligently layed out.Again, any- one that has used Helix products will be able to operate from the get go. Capacitive touch footswitches allow you to make quick selections for editing and you can scroll through the neatly displayed graphic user interface with the rotary encoder button.The menus are simple, allowing you to get great sounds without having to crawl through dreaded sub menus. Different modes enable you to utilise the footswitches in whichever way is most ef- ficient for your setup. Stomp mode ac- tivates and deactivates three individual effects, a scroll mode gives you the ability to scroll through all your presets and a preset mode means you can allo- cate presets to each switch. It is com- p l e t e l y down to the individual as to which one of these modes will best fit their workflow but one thing is abun- dantly clear, you are not short of options. If the three footswitches do not give you the amount of control you desire, you are given the option to expand.Wether it be an expression pedal or just more switches, there is plenty of room for additional ways of manipulation. There’s more? If all that wasn’t enough, the HX Stomp also acts as a usb interface for recording directly into your choice of DAW. It is compat- REVIEW: Line 6 HX Stomp By Adam Roberts 28 rgg Jan 2019 www.ryansgigguide.com