[TL;DR: Line 6 HX Stomp worth the price over the IK Tone X?]
I’m thinking about getting myself a multi-purpose amp sim pedal for recording guitar & bass direct in. For years I’ve used a cracked copy of Guitar Rig 5, and while it works ok, I think a lot of the fuzz / distortion sounds are pretty cheap sounding. In general, as an amp sim, I would say it is more cheap / thin sounding than not.
It seems like amp sim tech has gotten significantly better in the last five years, and so I thought I’d finally spend the money to get a decent one.
I’m between two options: the Line 6 HX Stomp and the IK Tone X. Has anyone used either of these? The price difference is pretty significant, and so I’m curious if it’s worth it to shell out more for the Line 6 (it’s about double the price at $500-600). This pedal would not be for any sort of live application—just direct into Ableton.
I quite like my HX Stomp, but you can also get the VST version and I have used that more to make my presets for the pedal. I kinda got sucked in to Line6 in the 00s though so I’m probably not super open minded to other brands. I still have a Pod XT Live in the garage.
I’ve done quite a bit of digging on this topic and here are the best options ATM IMO. With some tweaking I don’t think any of these sound inferior to the others for amp+cab sounds. It’s more about what other bells and whistles you want (e.g. flexible routing, more FX, MIDI control, USB audio routing etc):
Line 6 HX Stomp
Pros: flexible routing, frequent updates, great FX (ex-Digitech engineers wrote the new pitch and feedback algorithms - think polyphonic Whammy and Freqout algos), great MIDI implementation, 8x6 USB audio interface.
Cons: poorly specced looper, expensive, uses a single 450MHz SHARC processor that’s now nearly 10 years old.
Hotone Ampero II
Pros: cheaper than HX Stomp with more flexible routing (e.g. dual signal paths with I/O), frequent updates, fast processor, great amps and cabs, solid looper, 8x8 USB interface.
Cons: FX aren’t as good as HX Stomp (especially pitch). No reverse reverb.
Headrush MX5
Pros: cheaper than HX Stomp, fast processor, great amps and cabs, excellent looper.
Cons: FX aren’t as good as HX Stomp (especially pitch). No reverse reverb. Basic 2x2 USB interface.
IK Tone X
Pros: Not sure it has any over the above
Cons: Inflexible routing, no send/return for 4CM, expensive compared to the Ampero II.
Poly Ample
Pros: (or con depending on your use case) Focused on a core set of great amp tones.
Cons: As with pros - it’s only focused on a core set of amp tones.
I absolutely love the HX Stomp. Every time I think ‘maybe I can get a better IR loader’ all it takes is to play with it and I realise there is no more flexible package on the market. Also, if you register the hardware on the Line 6 website, you get the plugin dirt cheap. The plugin may be the best option for you if you’re only gonna go direct into Ableton Live anyway. I like the hardware because I also play into an amp, plus there’s something satisfying about tweaking hardware.
Yeah - that’s my pick because I really want decent pitch shifting given I’ll be selling my PitchFactor to help fund the purchase. If I didn’t need best-in-class pitch shifting I’d go for the Ampero II as it’s cheaper and has better routing. And if I needed a really good looper to go with my amp+cab models I’d go for the MX5 as its looper has midi sync and the ability to overdub multiples of the original loop.
Instead, I’ll be plugging an old iPhone into the USB port of the HX Stomp and running digital audio and midi to and from the Quantiloop app for looping mayhem without the need for additional D/A A/D conversion. Both the Ampero and HX Stomp enable this - effectively you get a digital USB FX loop in addition to the analog one for adding iOS apps and plugins to the ‘in the box’ digital signal chain (in series or parallel).
I’ve own 3 of the UAFX amp pedals (trying to sell the, right now) and have just recently gotten the Ample. I absolutely love it. As someone who struggles to focus, it’s clean GUI and finite subset of options is a big plus to me. It simply does what it does and, imho, it does those things very, very well.
I find the models to be very flexible and it feels good to play them. I use a board for FX, which I prefer. It takes all gain/fuzz/dirt pedals very well. It’s also been a lot easier to avoid my biggest problem with amp pedals, clipping the front end and getting nasty artifacts. You can clip the Ample, but I’ve found a good sweet spot with the output gain at a moderate volume where it rarely ever happens now. That means kicking on tons of dirt before the Ample just makes more and more glorious noise, not clippy trash sounds.
It’s a great fit for me and I’m enjoying it a lot. The builder, Loki, is also a very engaged guy and is dealing with little fixes and improvements.
Lastly, I’ll note that I’ve had an HX Stomp as well and it I never felt 100% on the amp sounds. That could have been down to me not hunting the best IR’s or working enough to dial things in, but it just wasn’t right for me. Too much depth inside something too small for my brain.
The ToneX pedal amp sims sound a lot more high resolution, detailed and natural than the Helix amp & cab sims.
If @bartlebytaco is looking for an all-in-one solution, the HX Stomp is the way to go due to its FX. If it’s primarily about high quality amp sim sounds, I’d highly recommend the ToneX pedal. The ToneX pedal also comes with the ToneX Max software, which makes it even more economical and crazy value-for-money compared to anything else out there. Finally, the ToneX pedal also has a (simple) reverb on board.
I should add that I own both, a Helix LT and a ToneX pedal.
Yeah there’s definitely a boatload of settings to muck around with on the HX Stomp. And agree that Loki is great - his designs are unique and always high quality. He actually lives not far from me in Melbourne and during one of our lovely covid lockdowns he was close enough that I could ride over to his place and pick up a Beebo.
I’d really urge you to demo the Ample if you can since you’re so close. If you don’t need the extra fx, the lack of features has a very focusing effect on me. I love it. So few things are finite today. I hate it.
I’ve gone down a rabbit hole with amp sim plugins recently… my main hardware setup has been to have a Helix Floor with a UA Dream 65 pedal in its loop to handle amp duties; I much preferred the Dream 65 as a Fender DLX amp than the equivalent Helix model.
In software, I now have;
NI Guitar Rig 7
IK Amplitube 5 Max
IK Tonex
NeuralDSP Tone King and Morgan Amp Suite
Helix Native
UA Dream 65
UA Ruby
UA Lion
I also have a bunch of York Audio and Ownhammer IR’s covering Fender, Vox and Marshall cabs.
I don’t think any of these plugins are bad, it’s amazing how good you can make any of them sound.
However, the absolute standouts to me have been the NeuralDSP amps. They’re that good that I’m now eyeing up a Neural Quad Cortex to replace my trusty Helix Floor.
The IK Tonex is also very good, especially if you use IR’s; and there was a deal on the pedal I saw for £249, that is an absolute steal… that would be a great option (although I get option paralysis from Tonex tbh).
With you mentioning using Guitar Rig 5, the other huge factor of using amp plugins is making sure you have a good Hi-z instrument input. If you use a regular line in most amp plugins can/will sound underwhelming.
The plugins are also very sensitive/responsive to input gain… I’d maybe explore that before dropping money on hardware. (I’ve been using an RME UCXII that has an Inst/Hi-z function, and it works great).
No love for Strymon Iridium?
I am no specialist in the subject, but you can get it for less than 300€ second hand, it’s very minimal but solid, and sounds good to me.
A small room reverb, 9 flavors of amp with decent overdrive, and you can load your own IR.
You can also plug headphones.
I bought and returned almost every pedal /sim you could think of until ended up with the Quad Cortex. It’s the only one that didn’t go back.
Should add some more detail. It covers my inputs for Guitar, Bass and Vocals (latency free monitoring too). Is quick and easy to record into my Push 3 or Move and replaced my audio interface.
Quad Cortex is amazing, I agree the NeuralDSP plugins are among the best. Just the price for the Quad Cortex is one to match as well. Same goes for Fractal Audio FM3/FM9 - the other top tier hardware modeller.
I have the HX stomp but tbh it’s not super good as an amp/cab sim. I’d rather use it only if you need the FX.
I also got the Boss IR-2 and it’s ok as long you tweak it as a compact swiss knife as it also got a reverb.
I tried Tone King from NeuralDSP once and I was shocked. The main problem I had with Amp sim in pedal format is the feeling when playing. It doesn’t react as good as playing on an amp and it’s very frustrating when playing live. The HX Stomp has a perfect format, UI and options but as an amp sim i’d go more with the DSM & HUMBOLDT Simplifier which is analog or aTorpedo C.A.B. M+ from Two Notes.
If a Quad Cortex is as good as NeuralDSP software, that’s a no brainer.
Maybe a Kemper is good as well or a Friedman but the price point starts to be too much for what it does for me.
I like the Iridium. I own it and a couple of the UAD pedals, and think it is better than people make it out to be. I noticed the same thing with the Deco. It’s also a great pedal that kind of fell out of favor when other things came on the market.
While I don’t watch many Andertons videos and am more of a Fender amp person, I did recently see that the Iridium won in their blind test for Marshall amps (was picked as the real Marshall over the real Marshall).
Somebody on the guitar thread was asking about good clean sounding amp models and I posted a few examples of videos with some nice jazz sounds out of the Iridium.
If you have a sound card you can try some plugins eg tonex has a free version. Supposed to sound like the hardware. I bought the tonex one very cheap during Black Friday.
My favorite though is the yojo or Harley Benton „American“ analog amp and cab simulator for 30€ I jus trove the warmth of it. But I am not a pro guitarist.
First I was surprised no one mentioned Tech21 sims. But it seems options here are more going towards boxes with presets and many possibilities.
I started to use a Tech21 TriAC a long time ago and I now use some of the Character Series. The Blonde, for example, which is the one the Joyo American kind of clones. The VTBassDI is very cool too.
But yes, each pedal is like 1-4 amps, not a full IR-customizable box. I prefer less options and those sims sound good.
The Strymon Iridium is a fantastic sounding amp sim pedal, and it’s SMALL, which may also matter if, for example, this is for a live rig. I have a Line 6 Helix rack I’ve been using for years, and it’s great – very quick and convenient. But when I’m recording, I use my amps through a Suhr reactive load box, and the Helix is just hosting the IRs – I get much better sound that way for what I’m trying to do. My Iridium is with my Elektron gear and serves as the amp sim for my GR-300 guitar synth rig, which I have running into my OT (I find the GR-300 sounds better with an amp or amp sim than straight into the OT). When I first got the Iridium, I tried it out in place of the Helix and had a moment of wondering if I could sell the Helix and just use the Iridium with my outboard pedals. It sounds that good. If you want/need to have lots of onboard effects, the Helix family is great. But for sound, to my ears the Iridium has it beat.