Headrush FX Pedal Board

Started by admin, January 09, 2017, 07:46:57 AM

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admin



http://www.headrushfx.com/










Developed by the team behind Avid's Eleven DSP, HeadRush boasts a quad-core processor and Eleven HD Expanded DSP, which aim to deliver "the most versatile, realistic-sounding and responsive" models ever found in a floorboard guitar FX processor.

A seven-inch touchscreen handles the bulk of editing, offering drag-and-drop rig creation and clear visual feedback
The pedal's 12 footswitches each feature their own OLED displays, while a seven-inch touchscreen handles the bulk of editing, offering drag-and-drop rig creation and clear visual feedback - handy when using hands-free editing.

There are no full specs on model types yet, but HeadRush promises a "generous and diverse offering", including amp, cabinet FX and microphone models, as well as the ability to load custom impulse response files.

It's also touting unique features, including gapless preset switching, a 20-minute-plus looper, the ability to peel off loop layers in the reverse order they were added and more.

HeadRush Pedalboard is available in Q1 2017 for £899.99 - head over to HeadRush Electronics for more info.

With its cornucopia of screens, this newcomer is destined to go up against Line 6's all-conquering Helix - but will it make our rundown of the best multi-effects pedals in the world today?


https://www.facebook.com/HeadRush-607114622824667/





admin

#1
My 2cents , many of the same folks are on the board of directors of Line-6 and Avid 

Would not be surprised if this was developed by Line-6

And Akai might take exception to the name


gumbo

Quote from: admsustainiac on January 09, 2017, 07:50:42 AM


And Akai might take exception to the name



...as a longtime owner of the Akai version, I was wondering the same thing.... ???
Read slower!!!   ....I'm typing as fast as I can...

Elantric

#3
Apparently the new Headrush MFX  is distributed in USA by InMusic Brands - same company that distrubutes Akai
http://www.inmusicbrands.com/
http://www.inmusicbrands.com/about

aliensporebomb

#4
And it does have a looper (20 minutes where you can peel layers off in reverse order they were added) so I suppose it might have the ability to capitalize on the looping heritage of the Akai product since they are affiliated companies - it does seem a bit odd though.

Okay, the one thing I have to say - if I saw that on stage, I'd go "ah, they're using a Helix!" (it looks almost indistinguishable) but thinking about it, a touchscreen interface (delicate) and floorboard (rough and ready gigs) makes me wonder about the longevity.

Even if it has a sturdy metal casing.  It's got a built in USB recording interface at 24/96 though.  Gapless preset switching.  Stereo effects send/return.  Some nice features.   Quadcore CPU?  I wonder if some of these devices are using modified android operating systems.  No factual info about that, just a hunch.

The price is easier on the wallet than the Helix.

And, interestingly, they didn't hire a big name high profile guitarist to pimp the wares so to speak: Sarah Longfield.

Based out of Wisconsin who had some Youtube views (plus 23,000 facebook followers) as a solo guitarist playing a really unique Strandberg guitar before she formed a band called the Fine Constant and mainly she's got a new record on iTunes but this is another person who leveraged the internet to raise her profile and this endorsement isn't hurting her any as she's got even more exposure due to this. 

My music projects online at http://www.aliensporebomb.com/

GK Devices:  Roland VG-99, Boss GP-10, Boss SY-1000.

HecticArt

I've had some luck finding product information by searching the US Patent Office in the past.
Not much time to look for this, but sun stuff still shows up.
Take this: http://pdfpiw.uspto.gov/.piw?Docid=D0768764&homeurl=http%3A%2F%2Fpatft.uspto.gov%2Fnetacgi%2Fnph-Parser%3FSect1%3DPTO2%2526Sect2%3DHITOFF%2526u%3D%25252Fnetahtml%25252FPTO%25252Fsearch-adv.htm%2526r%3D36%2526f%3DG%2526l%3D50%2526d%3DPTXT%2526p%3D1%2526S1%3D%252522akai%252522%2526OS%3D%252522akai%252522%2526RS%3D%252522akai%252522&PageNum=&Rtype=&SectionNum=&idkey=NONE&Input=View+first+page

They have a lot of brands, so finding the right one to search for might take a few tries, but you can usually answer questions like the Android OS and find some other interesting factoids too.



HAMERMAN409

That user interface looks excellent. I like that it has a built in power supply and that they didn't feel the need to make it thicker (I hate products that waste space).

I would add rack handles to each side of the LCD so that it's got a bit of protection if something falls on it and I would want a clear "condem" over the whole thing for live use (Saran Wrap would do in a pinch). I would maybe even go as far as to add a Plexiglas cover over the LCD for live use. I'm not worried about myself but on a crowded stage it's pretty common for a fellow band member to not watch where they are going and back into my gear.

Paresh

This looks cool. The thing that is most important to me is not so much what tones it offers, but how responsive they are to touch (& I don't mean just high distortion/compression). I have yet to figure out why pedalboards often put screens to adjust + one or more pedals in the same unit. Am i supposed to keep it on the desk to adjust & then lift up my foot up to the desktop for wah? :)
paresh

aliensporebomb

Exactly.  Touch sensitivity is one of the reasons people like tube gear (or at  least one of my reasons) and if this is similar it could be an attractive device.
My music projects online at http://www.aliensporebomb.com/

GK Devices:  Roland VG-99, Boss GP-10, Boss SY-1000.

aliensporebomb

#11
The guitar video blogger people are talking about it now:


Although someone by the name of "SevenString Senator" posted a comment on this video reporting:
Quote
I used to work for AVID. Headrush is lying. Not Chris not Hiro NONE of the original Eleven team has anything to do with this. InMusic got the Eleven code when they bought
M-Audio and slapped it into a floor chassis that looks just like a Line6 Helix. Knowing In Music it will probably never get new amps or features and you'll all be stuck with a door stop. I love our Eleven Rack but this is a desperate cash grab trying to pretend a lot of hard working people are still working. Buy a used Eleven Rack or AX8 instead.

Ouch.  Well, it's obvious a different team was behind this one taking the work over from the previous team.  Branding.

My music projects online at http://www.aliensporebomb.com/

GK Devices:  Roland VG-99, Boss GP-10, Boss SY-1000.

Elantric

#12
Quoteused to work for AVID. Headrush is lying. Not Chris not Hiro NONE of the original Eleven team has anything to do with this. InMusic got the Eleven code when they bought
M-Audio and slapped it into a floor chassis that looks just like a Line6 Helix. Knowing In Music it will probably never get new amps or features and you'll all be stuck with a door stop. I love our Eleven Rack but this is a desperate cash grab trying to pretend a lot of hard working people are still working. Buy a used Eleven Rack or AX8 instead.

As an owner of a M-Audio Venom Keyboard that was released when Avid still owned M-Audio,  I have to agree with the above!
http://www.m-audio.com/products/view/venom

https://www.inmusicbrands.com/news
http://www.inmusicbrands.com/
http://www.inmusicbrands.com/about

They have already nearly killed RANE ( InMusic  acquired them a few months ago.
http://www.rane.com/

and obtaining spare parts for my Alesis Alpha 112S has been near impossible

Headrush MFX is Built at the same assembly room as these




and IMHO - I don't need a "Floor Eleven Rack"

https://www.vguitarforums.com/smf/index.php?topic=10335.0

Jim Williams

I don't know about this one but it looks like the dream multi effects that lives in my brain. Elantric has made some good points and it will be around 1100.00 in US dollars, still a pretty big price tag for a pedal that might not offer ant support for the consumer. Be that as it may I hope to see some demos and eventually try one out.
Skype: (upon Request)

Everything from modeling to the real deal, my house looks like a music store.

admin

#14


I fault the ergonomics - I'm concerned that the bright multicolored  rectangular LEDS above the separate small B/W scribble scripts will result in difficult reading the text on these LCDs on a dark stage

and it shares the same poor Helix design of a flat surface for all foot switch's - too easy for a shoe to accidentally hit the front row foot switch when aiming for the back row foot switch

have to point your foot on tippy toes  like a ballerina to hit that back row of switches ( and avoid hitting the front row switch ) at the gig


would have preferred a  "stepped" design like this


whippinpost91850

I know everyone wants "smaller" But I'm not a big guy and I find when the knobs are as close together, as they appear to be, that it's too easy to hit a wrong switch or hit 2 at the same time in the heat of battle on stage....
Having this issue with Kemper Remote right now

gumtown

Free "GR-55 FloorBoard" editor software from https://sourceforge.net/projects/grfloorboard/

aliensporebomb

#17
Just tried one 20 minutes ago at the local Guitar Center who had gotten their initial unit in two hours before. I have pictures but can't upload till I get back to my server later today.

System:
Low budget Mitchell S-S-H strat style guitar with vintage trem (bar not installed) (seriously not a great guitar but doable)
Amplifier: Vox AC-10

Thoughts: system control panel seems intuitive. LCD display viewable from multiple angles. Board seems sturdy - the top seems like there's a polyvinyl coating over the aluminum top - the pedal also has a grippy surface over the aluminum. Seems SOLID. Size - as big as an aircraft carrier (bigger than Boss RC-300, bigger than Roland FC-300) but probably comparable with the Helix big model.  They didn't have one to compare against.

The scribble strips did seem bright enough to be seen on stage from what I could tell.  You can color code your programmed effects so blue for distortion, red for chorus, yellow for delay etc.

AC-10 as an amp tends to be a bit trebly so I had treble to about 40%, bass about 60%. I had it set clean as a whistle, no reverb.

After a 10-15 minute test run, I tried the Elantric "hold a barre chord for a solid minute and see if it acts like a tube amp" on some of the overdriven patches it really did pass that test.
It also did the "play lightly and the tone cleans up, play heavier and you can spur it into overdrive" nicely. The one thing I also liked was the compressor that seemed to respond nicely.

What I also noticed was that the noise suppressor was employed too aggressively on some patches.  But not all.  When that happened held notes would fade almost to silence and then the gate would kick in and out really rapidly.  What's weird is it was pretty quiet even with the cheap guitar so the gate wasn't needed on that patch.

I really like the tuner deal - press a button and start tuning and it uses the whole LCD display as a strobe tuner with big letters which helps us aging players who can't read small text easily.

Also, I may have been using it incorrectly since one patch that was called "synth bass" sounded like a Robin Trower "Bridge of Sighs" sound (overdrive with tremelo and delay).

The octave above pitch transposer was really not good - in fact pitched two octaves up it sounded like hissing snakes - a lot of aliasing in the upper octave.  The octave below was pretty good.  I'm guessing this is mainly to be used in the first octave above a pitch if you go up.

It also suffered from VG-99 patch syndrome in some ways - some patches were "hey I can use this with some modifications", but others were "I want to see what monitoring system they used because this is really lousy". Some of the Marshall/metal type patches were all right.  There was also a bluesy patch for strat use that was nicely dynamic.

There were a couple of nice patches that let you turn your guitar volume down and get a nice clean to semi clean and then using more force overdrive the thing like a real amp does. 

Some of the patch had a ton of effects on them and it was hard to determine what they were going for.

There is a way to categorize your sounds though so you can assign a category to a sound and scroll thru the categories instead of just going one through a billion or whatever hoping to find the right sound.   That will help people with option anxiety.

I want to try the Helix LE now.   Like I said, pics forthcoming.
My music projects online at http://www.aliensporebomb.com/

GK Devices:  Roland VG-99, Boss GP-10, Boss SY-1000.

aliensporebomb

Like I said, the Helix LE will be the one to try and see which one has the edge.  There's already some videos comparing the two (some well heeled guy owns both the original Helix and the new headrush).
My music projects online at http://www.aliensporebomb.com/

GK Devices:  Roland VG-99, Boss GP-10, Boss SY-1000.


lespauled

Wonder how this compares to an Atomic Amplifier.

aliensporebomb

That was a nice demo.  Now I hope he does one for Helix LE.
My music projects online at http://www.aliensporebomb.com/

GK Devices:  Roland VG-99, Boss GP-10, Boss SY-1000.

Smash

#22
I found it massively underwhelming - all a bit samey - reminded me what a powerhouse the VG99 still is and how difficult it will be to replace it.

Panthersn

#23
Quote from: Smash on May 27, 2017, 12:24:20 PM
I found it massively underwhelming - all a bit samey - reminded me what a powerhouse the VG99 still is and how difficult it will be to replace it.

The video or have you tried it?  I'm tempted to give this unit a try.   Having more than adequate CPU power is a very good thing, I'm running into issues with my AX8, not enough CPU power for some of the complex Reverb/shimmer FX. 

The biggest question in my mind is, will Headrush  keep adding and refining the firmware?   I loved my Eleven Rack, but was very frustrated how Avid abandoned the unit.  If I remember right there was only one update, I think they added one OD pedal and that was it.

A big 10-4 on the VG99!!!  I remember doing an A/B blind test with a few people when I tried a Helix, VG99 was the winner 100%







Smash

 Not tried it - just based purely on the video.