I've been a fan of Line 6 for a while and until building my new live rig have mostly just been recording at home, so I'm very familiar with using amp sims and plug-ins. I planned to get a new amp and cab, but wanted something to cover most of my effect needs. The guitarist from my current band that I drum in recommended the HX Effects. He has other outboard effects that he uses, but the HX Effects with an expression pedal covers most of his bases and it sounds great! I was worried because 1) I had never owned or used a multi-effects unit and 2) a lot of the people I saw using Helixes, Fractals, or other digital modelers locally just sounded kind of bad or "fake." All of my worries were assuaged as soon as I got it set up. I have the HX Effects running with the 4 cable method. Everything sounds great and is super easy to dial in. Once you get the workflow down it's incredibly intuitive and easy to use. I recommend learning how to set up presets on the unit as well as with HX Edit. This way if you need to tweak settings on the fly, you know how to do it. I previously had an EHX Small Clone, an EHX Electric Mistress Flanger, a Boss DD-20 GigaDelay, and a Boss PH-3 Phase Shifter. The HX Effects EASILY replaced those pedals and gives me SO much more to work with. Currently, all my delays, reverbs, pitch, and modulation effects are coming from the HX Effects. I have a Boss OD-200 for extra distortion and drive sounds in addition to the gain channels on my amp, but the distortion effects on the HX Effects are good too. The on board tuner is decent (though I still prefer a separate pedal tuner, but that's really just familiarity) and the built in looper is excellent for not being a standalone looper. Now I'm just working on figuring out how to use its MIDI capabilities to get MIDI messages around my board so I can eliminate the need to tap-dance. Overall, the HX Effects prevents me from needing like 15 different pedals. Definitely worth it!

I started this out on my Marshall DSL & the humming was bad! Any time I wasn't actually playing it was there. I had to have the noise gate so jacked up, I lost all sustain. My GNX4 is DEAD SILENT!! I hooked up to my Orange Rockerverb. But it howled like a Bigfoot at a funeral! So it sits unused. My 22 year old GNX4 does 88% of what this does & it has an 8 track recorder too!!

I've owned this 3 years and have been using Line 6 modelers for over two decades. This pedal is where digital officially matches analog. I'm super picky and I went back and forth between the settings on here against my Timmy, RAT, and DOD 250 and it's 98% there if not 100%. I was a M13 user for years and loved everything about it except the overdrives, they were just lacking something. The Helix additions takes them to where I'd be fine using them in any setting. The new pedals they recently added in the last update are amazing. You have two King of Tones, the Red Llama 25th anniversary (my fav), and all the boutique metal/ stoner rock pedals you would ever need. Plus, there's a new acoustic guitar modeler that sounds great. The functionality is killer. A little known fact is that if you hold down the mode switch you can operate the whole thing using your feet. I've always been the frontman/ guitarist in bands that switch genres song to song. These modelers proved to be the best way to do that quickly while keeping the energy up and joking with the crowd. I have my settings for each song saved as a different preset. Then once we figured out the set list I would arrange them on the software in about 15 minutes and then be able to switch my rig between songs in 3 foot clicks/ 5 seconds The other thing about this is that you're getting an evolving product. The first couple years this pedal was out it had bugs that needed to be worked out. For me it would have difficulty turning on and rebooting. With each update these problems got more and more rare, and they keep adding cool pedals into it. Since getting this pedal I've taken a lot of things off of my board and put them into the closet for resale so in a way it might eventually pay for itself!

Love the versatility and the wide range of available effects. The one down side is that you cannot use a pedal board isolated poiwer supply with the setup I an running. If you are simply using 1, 2, 3, or 4 effects in a single signal path a power brick works fine. However if you are running a more complex set of effects that has two signal paths and two seperate outputs, the amount of current the unit draws exceeds the power capabilities of any power brick I have seen thus far. This forces me to use the stock Power Supply provided by Line6 which is oversize and just plain bulky

I have not used Line6 stuff in a while. The interface, especially the Snapshots, its a great tool for live players. Takes a little time to learn but worthwhile. It can be a one-device solution for your entire live set for sure...BUT I would not suggest using this in a studio /recording situation. I have a mid sized pedalboard and Im not a snob but i do like decent sound, especially for my guitar drives and my more complicated effects, such as envelope filter. These just do not cut it compared to the Strymon and Keeley effects. I wish they did but its not a matter of tweeking. Also a bit disconcerting to see a lot of "Legacy" effects which seem to sound no better than those in my old M9 from 12 years ago Of course, for the price of the HX I only get 2 to 3 good pedals on my board, so certainly the HX is cost effective. Can the difference be heard in a live band situation? Probably not, especially if you play loud, and use distortion, lots of delay. For those folks, its going to really work for you so go ahead and enjoy. For me, not gigging stuck at home (where i can hear my effects clearly), I cant justify it for my current uses. Hope this helps people decide.

Great sounds and easy to use