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Base theme by DesignModo & ported to Powered by Vanilla by Chris Ireland, modified by the "theFB" team.
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From my perspective I've got a Helix and I like it a lot, but I would like the flexibility of a small unit that can either be paired with other pedals that I already have, or dropped in a gig bag for a quick jam.
My other gripe with the Helix is how it responds to increasing volume, with more of the extreme frequencies coming through. I have to dial them out a lot with EQ, but I enjoyed the simplicity of touring with valves back in the day.
Now I'm playing recreationally, I'd be using it for home practice, band rehearsals through monitors, and live via FOH.
How do you think it'd hold up to that?
It behaves and more importantly feels like an amp, if you like to ride the volume control on your guitar then you can clean it up by rolling back. But you can also get a great Plexi-ish clean out of Ch1.
I've got a Helix (albeit a poorly one) but in my opinion the sound and feel is night and day different (others might disagree). Bear in mind it won't be as flexible as a Helix but the core tone is excellent. (I'm a fan of the Friedman sound).
There's a Facebook group called 'Friedman IR-X User Group' - https://www.facebook.com/groups/1095895024897909 that has quite a few videos on it.
Also @JohnCordy has done a brilliant video on it here -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AdR9_1fungk&t=800s
And this chap has done a few useful videos too - https://www.youtube.com/@peterglavanov/videos
Just a couple of quick questions, but does this function as an audio interface - i.e. if I connect headphones to the IRX and then connect the IRX to my laptop via USB and play a backing track on my laptop, will the backing track audio come back through the headphones - or do I need an audio interface?
Second one, but how quick in your experience is the power up, with the valves? I am sometimes literally just grabbing 5 minutes where I can so a quick start up is helpful.
Overall though I am very interested in this amp. Even with all that the Helix offers, for each band/project I only ever play on one amp so that I've got some consistency in my fundamental tone.
The USB port is purely to connect a computer for updates and editing presets. It's not an audio interface.
The valves take a few seconds to power up, just like other valve amps. I think it sounded a bit better after a few minutes of playing, too, just like other valve amps.
Is it the answer to world peace and perfect tone? Who knows, but it's reassuringly familiar for me.
Give it a try. You might find you forget you ever knew what a Snapshot is or what running out of DSP means! :-)
It's not an audio interface. You'll need one to run it into the computer. And it powers on instantly :-)
In my videos with it, using a strat, I'm setting the treble control for drive stuff nearly all the way off, and for the lead tone I found adding in an EQ for a bit of high cut (like I would for normal high gain tones) helps to get things where I'd be with them.
But, overall I've really enjoyed the unit and am glad I bought one. Haven't had a chance to gig it yet, but am hoping to with this set up:
But then on Saturday our wardrobe fell apart so I'll have to spend my money on that Rock and roll.
Overall I think a pause in buying is good for me. It gives me a chance to get more feedback and see where I can get to, live, with the Helix. I've a final gig for this year at the end of this month; my HX is sounding great at rehearsals (Placater, obviously) so hopefully I've got it dialled in well for live.
There are four things I love about the Helix that I wouldn't get with the Friedman - flexible routing, bass compatibility, audio interface, and snapshots - so the 'tone/feel upgrade' of the Friedman would need to be enough to get over that.
Interesting as well that there's still digital fizziness in it. The digital elements of it are the power amp and cab emulation, as well as there apparently being an analogue/digital conversion in the FX loop. Assuming that the valve pre-amp can't make that fizziness, then I wonder if it would be solved going through a tube power amp/FX loop of a tube amp?
Anyway, still super interested but I'm going to wait and see for. a few more opinions over the coming weeks.
As a preamp pedal into an amp return, it's pretty good. I really like the cleans I'm getting from channel one. But I don't enjoy the sounds from channel two. It's a bit too "full on" for my tastes. Setting the two channels up for tones I like and then trying to get balanced volume levels isn't working for me. I have to turn channel two down too much and it loses something (for me) when I do. It's nicely responsive to using the volume control on the guitar on both channels.
I liked the extra volume controls for use when the boost is on. My Rivera amp could do with that feature. I also liked the boosts. I can see how someone could set up four tones just from this and maybe drop an overdrive or two from their pedalboard.
Going direct, the digital side of the unit doesn't sound as good to me as the Simplifier Mk II I own. It's fizzy, just like the distorted tones on every modeller I've used is fizzy. I prefer the Simplifier when going direct. I'm finding I can hear artefacts in the output that aren't present in the Mk II. I had the same issue with the Two Notes CAB M+. I'm not the sort of person who is happy to then start using EQ to cut the fizziness from the signal. It's not the sort of workflow I want.
Oh well... the search continues! :-)
As a preamp into a separate power amp it's very good - even though channel two doesn't quite match my preferences. But once you start going direct or through headphones using the power amp sim and the IR, it's definitely digital, surely? And that's when I started hearing the fizziness that is definitely not there when feeding the preamp into the front or the effects return of a guitar amp.
I had the same thoughts as you. It just didn’t sound quite right for me so I also returned it.
I'm getting there with running it directly into my audio interface. Got lost in jam tracks for a couple of hours last night. Hardly doing any tweaking (which is something I've personally found happens with modellers). It also takes boost pedals really well on both channels
If I'm running the IR-X as a pre-amp, it sits in a loop using the input and send (rather than the output) so I don't get any power amp emulation. In that scenario, I think it's 100% analog. And as said previously is awesome :-)
Lately I’ve been trying it out in 4CM config and I think I prefer the sound of the amp hooked up to my analogue board.
Channel 2 was OK, chewy but it did have some fizz to it and wasn't my sort of thing. In contrast, I was very impressed with Channel 1 and managed to get a fantastic clean sound out of it that had just a hint of hair, some chime but didn't quite crunch with single coils and felt great for rhythm. I believe that Channel is based on a Plexi and I'd love a pedal that could achieve that type of sound? I had a Wampler Mini Plexi but even in the lower gain range, it wasn't doing what the IR-X is doing and that Channel 1 seems to be popular amongst with users. Friedman need to put that into a pedal.
This is the sort of clean/edge sound I'm talking about in this demo but this one happens to be a Tweed amp