Line6's Helix (and legacy) lines of effects are well known and loved. This unit refresh of the legendary M5 into the Helix line: the perfect "multi-tool" pedal to cover those effects or utility functions that you don't have dedicated pedals for.
The modulation and pitch effects in particular sound really good and the reverbs are pretty great as well.
The interface is simple and intuitive, albeit with a couple of small issues:
- unlike in the HX Stomp/Helix, the effects are only split top level between effect type; there is no separate lists between Helix and "legacy" (from DL4 and M series) effect models.
Instead, legacy effects are shown in succession to Helix effects within the same effect type.
This makes it sometimes a bit frustrating when trying to find a particular model, since there is a huge amount of items in each effect type list. Maybe a "favorites" feature which would allow to only show some of the effects per list could solve this, hopefully they will provide some improvement in a some future firmware (?)
- the computer preset editor is really basic just for saving/recalling presets, there is no UI for live editing of effect parameters which is a real downgrade compared to the Helix/Stomp which can be tweaked live from the computer.
Both of these are really minor inconveniences that may be just my personal preference, so I still give it a 5 star rating on the "handling" category.
Overall, a great piece of gear.. so, why the poor rating you may ask?
Well, I'm waiting for my second replacement unit currently due to production defects!
- first HX One that I received was very noisy. As soon as the pedal was in the signal chain, even when no effect was in use, the noise floor was terrible: any gain boost/distortion after the pedal output made this very evident; Other people have reported this same issue and it's easy to find examples in youtube or gear forums illustrating it.
- the second HX One I got in replacement did not have the noise issue, it was super quite.. however it was malfunctioning when using it mono in - stereo out, even though the settings were properly configured for stereo operation: in most of the effects models, the effect's sound came out in stereo, but the clean signal was only coming out of one side, which made the pedal unusable when running stereo effects!
I'm now waiting on my third HX One hoping that the third one will be the charm .. normaly I would have already given up, but because the HX One is indeed otherwise perfect for me (and I have used other line6 gear in the past with great satisfaction), I will give it one last chance.
Seems like Line6 really dropped the ball on quality control this time around, or I was supremely unlucky .. or both! I can only recommend that anyone who purchases an HX One really gives it a proper check before committing to the purchase.
