Playing live
The short list of things to settle before the gig rather than during it.
08 · 6 min
Level-match your presets at home. Everything else on this list is recoverable in a soundcheck; that one is not.
Before you leave
Level-match every preset you plan to use against every other one. A preset that is 4 dB louder than the rest is the single fastest way to lose an engineer's goodwill, and it cannot be fixed from the front of house.
Back up your presets. Firmware updates and factory resets both exist, and neither asks twice.
When you arrive
- Balanced outputs to the desk. Ask whether they want mono — most do — and give them the LEFT/MONO jack only.
- If there is hum, reach for the ground lift before you reach for a DI box.
- Check you are in the footswitch mode you expect. It is the commonest surprise on a dark stage.
- Set your volume, then leave it. On devices with a lock for the volume control, use it.
Things that look like faults and are not
Delay and reverb tails cutting off when you change preset. That is what a preset change does — build the change as a snapshot instead.
The screen changing when you have not pressed anything. The footswitches are touch-sensitive; a resting foot selects a block without switching it.
The device refusing to add a block while the meter looks half empty. That is a hard cap, not a fault.
The troubleshooting page marks every entry that is documented behaviour rather than a fault. “Your unit is fine” is a useful answer and nobody publishes it.
HX Stomp Cheat Sheet (Rev C)Keep this open
The reference track is built to be opened mid-session with a guitar still on, rather than read front to back. Bookmark it.
The reference track →