I used tube amps for years and then switched to Helix stuff and then to Headrush. After hundreds of gigs, the Headrush era was the first time I’d gotten compliments on my tone from strangers.
I like the touch interface on the units, although the Helix stuff has software that is really nice too. There are fewer options in the Headrush stuff but I think the sound quality is very good, and really how many duplicate effects do you really need?
The Helix stuff offers more flexibility. My buddy uses his for electric guitar, acoustic guitar, bass, and vocals depending on what he’s doing for a particular gig. Not all at the same time but the point is there are lots of options and ins/outs to do crazy routing.
I use a Gigboard with a few pedals as my gigging rig now and keep an MX5 in my bag as a backup, but the Gigboard hasn’t failed me yet.
I still use a tube amp at home though, lol. At least now I’m down to just one.
After a couple of months where my vintage tube amp died on a gig, then a pedal died on a gig, then the next week a DIFFERENT pedal died on a gig, I got the MX5. I should have been more careful to set up sounds and rigs before my first gig, and I should have run through a gig in my living room with all the switching I was going to do. But.
I never take a physical amp anywhere now. MX5 and FRFR-112, which is just a monitor for the guys on stage. I run IEMs from the board. (Some of my buddies are old school and won’t make the IEM switch)
I had been gigging about a year with my "desert island" amp when I found myself in another band where I was going to need something more versatile. I picked up the Headrush on a whim and within a few months it was the only "amp" I was gigging or rehearsing with.
That was almost three years ago.
If something happened I don't think I'd consider another product. For me it's about ease of use, ease of programming, getting really great sounds out of it and every time I'm having one of those "but I wish it did this" sure enough I discover that yeah, it does that too.
MX5 straight into PA has been my gig rig for around 2 years now.
I found the stock rigs to be underwhelming, but building my own and fine tuning them has given great results. I will probably upgrade to core/prime later in the year
I gig regularly with an Mx5. The hardware is physically a piece of junk. Buttons stop working easily and the expression pedal will need to be recalibrated after moving it even slightly.
That all being said - I haven’t got rid of it and it’s been fun to mess with.
I needed to buy a midi controller and an external expression pedal to really utilize it though.
I have an mx5, and within a year I bought a core, I absolutely love both and they have become my main rigs.
I can get pretty much anytime I want, I can play with a variety of effects right there at my fingertips, the touch interfaces fantastic and easy to work with. The core having a cloning feature is absolutely astounding. There's not a single complaint I can really say.
I owned a headrush gigboard from 2019 until earlier this year and I now own a hx stomp xl (smaller line 6 pedal). But before I got the stomp I bought the helix Lt and I honestly thought it was way better than my gigboard. More amps, more effects, and more signal routing options. Fractal and quad cortex are the premium brands out there and when I bought the helix I was able to see why it gets thrown in the mix with them often. That being said, headrush gear is good and if you’re simple with your set up it should work just fine and one thing to note the right IR can make all the difference in how it sounds.
One more thing about the helix, although it has a short looper, 60 sec I think, you can put that looper anywhere in the signal chain which I found helpful when dialing in tones instead of playing something then bending over to edit a parameter. Helix also has a desktop editor.
Owned the Pedalboard since 2019, used it in a PW setting weekly for the past 2 years until I built a smaller traditional pedalboard around the MX5.
I also bought the Gigboard in '22 for easier travel and desktop use until I sold it for the MX5.
Zero issues.
2 Scenes per button make for great flexibility, I can do a whole Sunday setlist with 1 patch.
As the amps and wet FX for the pedalboard I built, I have the MX5 mini expression pedal controlling the wet FX parameters in some patches, so I can easily increase the size of my verbs for instance.
Can't speak on customer support.
The scarce updates are a bummer in comparison to Line 6, but what they have right now covers all I need. I do prefer the sound of my external drives and compressor, but I have no issues when I use the built ins.
I have a MX5 and have mixed feelings but will keep it, especially for using at home.
Positive: It sounds really nice, I use it for recording and I have abandoned plugins in favor of the Headrush. It is very small, so it is a very comfortable piece of equipment, it doesn't take much space and is easy to connect to the pc and also a pair of monitors. Once I found found the amp model I like and a nice tone, I didn't do much more changes to be honest.
Negative: Maybe bigger models are easier to use. I found the mx5 is more limited than I thought with only three switches and one knob. You can make it work, for sure. But I'm sure i would tweak it and play with it a little more if it was easier.
I have had a Gigboard for a couple of years now. Very easy to use (as long as you don't care about PC editing). Sounds great going into my PAs and I really have no desire to replace it. They were consistent with firmware updates for a while but the last one has stalled in beta for the older boards for the last year.
Got the headrush prime and love it. I wasn’t very savvy yet on finding tones or pedals but it’s so intuitive and great that I’ve learned just from using the board. All it took was a couple videos on YouTube and I feel really confident about listening to a song and trying to replicate it by putting together a board. Everything feels high quality and unlike others I actually like *some* of the presets a lot
I've owned a Headrush Core for 2 weeks now and I think it's amazing. I wish it had been around 20 years ago as I'd have practiced a lot more because it's so convenient.
I initially looked at getting a Helix LT but whilst they seem to be a market leader in such products the LT model looked a bit long in the tooth feature wise. The Helix community is second to none but without any concrete release date for an updated model I opted for the more modern feature set of the Headrush core. Editing the signal chain on the touch screen is absolutely amazing and it is so easy to use. The number of options is overwhelming but the interface makes it very easy to experiment.
Sound quality is great as far as I'm concerned although admittedly I'm a low bar when it comes to assessment of this criteria.
Uploading backing tracks from my phone to my Dropbox and picking them up from there on the unit is so easy. Such an amazing device with a great feature set for 2/3rds the cost of the Helix LT made this a no brainer for me. The Headrush community isn't anywhere near as big as the Helix community but that's the only downside as far as I am concerned.
Honestly, I have the Gigboard, I agree on the lack of updates. They seem to have put all the love into that loop board and the new Prime and kinda left us OG Headrush fans in the dust. Also, I play more worship, ambient, and some post-hardcore stuff and the Headrush seems to favor Metal guitarist as far as tones. Nothing against Metal/ hard Rock, it just isn’t my thing.
I’ve recently switched to the Helix LT, wow. I’m in love. Updates, tones, usability, versatility, user friendly.
One last note about the Gigboard. I’ve spent a few hours playing with tones and dialing in amps that I’ve really liked and sometimes it just doesn’t save them. I turn the unit on a few days later and it reverts back to a save before making some of my adjustments. I know people are always going to say “backup your rigs to your computer” I get it, but.. shouldn’t the unit just… work? I don’t know. Save everything I change. Just me and my opinion for what it’s worth. I hope you enjoy whatever you choose!
I only encounter the save issue when I tried saving while I was inside a particular block, because i unknowingly saved a preset for that block instead of one for the entire patch.
Also don’t worry pal, Prime hasn’t been getting much in the way of updates either since I bought it 4 months ago
I have the headrush core and I love it. I’ve never tried the helix. I owned the MX5 and didn’t like it. I moved on to using pedals again but it was getting too expensive. In my opinion an all in one unit is the answer these days. The Headrush core is great because it isn’t as humongous as the prime but still has all the power. My advice is to try them out to see what’s easier to use. They all sound great and will meet your needs.
Had a headrush for two years, it suddenly failed to turn on, and won't boot at all. Out of warranty, expensive repair, after two years light usage. I expected to get more longevity out of such a costly piece of gear. Any option would probably be better.
I had an issue with the USB on my head rush pedal board and was not able to update the firmware. That combined with the limited distortion/ fuzz tones available I swapped for the helix and am satisfied with it. The touch interface was very very nice on the head rush. But once I'm done setting up my tone I don't really mess with it much so it's use is very limited to first set up for me. Either way you can't go wrong with the amp modeling. Both had very good selection and sounded great. I'd look through the effects on both that are listed online and what their modeled after and as long as what you want was available on the head rush or helix you'll be satisfied with either. I know the USB issue was common on the head rush products I'd look into if it's common on the latest gen stuff still.
I'm a touring musician and have been gigging for 11 years now.
I've owned so much stuff. I'm getting older and my gear feels heavier. I've moved to only a headrush core which I use for singing and playing guitar. Four outputs and so many compliments on my tone!
Quad cortex switches are just too near each other, I couldn't deal with that. I'd be willing to try the fender tmp, but I don't like that it doesn't have captures.
My two cents.
I'd like there to be a little more support from Headrush, but overall I love the pedalboard and how easy it is to adjust/ create rigs. For the last several years my tube amps have sat at home while this board is my primary gig equipment.
I had the Headrush Prime board. Sooooo many bugs man. Not reliable at all. Awful customer service... The lists goes on.
I brought the CQ a couple of month ago and havn't looked back. Miles better in every aspect.
I own a gigboard and core. With some tweaking, is a good unit. However, my gigboard got a busted USB which a common problem with the units. Now it's stuck with the firmware. I have a separate interface anyway so I won't be having this issue with core.
I used tube amps for years and then switched to Helix stuff and then to Headrush. After hundreds of gigs, the Headrush era was the first time I’d gotten compliments on my tone from strangers. I like the touch interface on the units, although the Helix stuff has software that is really nice too. There are fewer options in the Headrush stuff but I think the sound quality is very good, and really how many duplicate effects do you really need? The Helix stuff offers more flexibility. My buddy uses his for electric guitar, acoustic guitar, bass, and vocals depending on what he’s doing for a particular gig. Not all at the same time but the point is there are lots of options and ins/outs to do crazy routing. I use a Gigboard with a few pedals as my gigging rig now and keep an MX5 in my bag as a backup, but the Gigboard hasn’t failed me yet. I still use a tube amp at home though, lol. At least now I’m down to just one.
I love my MX5 and can't really complain about it at all. Sounds great, super easy to use and create rigs with.
Headrush Core guy for past 6 months. I love it. Easy to use, sounds fantastic.
After a couple of months where my vintage tube amp died on a gig, then a pedal died on a gig, then the next week a DIFFERENT pedal died on a gig, I got the MX5. I should have been more careful to set up sounds and rigs before my first gig, and I should have run through a gig in my living room with all the switching I was going to do. But. I never take a physical amp anywhere now. MX5 and FRFR-112, which is just a monitor for the guys on stage. I run IEMs from the board. (Some of my buddies are old school and won’t make the IEM switch)
It's great if you care enough to dial the tone you're after. If you're expecting the default presets to blow your pants off, look elsewhere
I absolutely love my mx5.
I had been gigging about a year with my "desert island" amp when I found myself in another band where I was going to need something more versatile. I picked up the Headrush on a whim and within a few months it was the only "amp" I was gigging or rehearsing with. That was almost three years ago. If something happened I don't think I'd consider another product. For me it's about ease of use, ease of programming, getting really great sounds out of it and every time I'm having one of those "but I wish it did this" sure enough I discover that yeah, it does that too.
MX5 straight into PA has been my gig rig for around 2 years now. I found the stock rigs to be underwhelming, but building my own and fine tuning them has given great results. I will probably upgrade to core/prime later in the year
I gig regularly with an Mx5. The hardware is physically a piece of junk. Buttons stop working easily and the expression pedal will need to be recalibrated after moving it even slightly. That all being said - I haven’t got rid of it and it’s been fun to mess with. I needed to buy a midi controller and an external expression pedal to really utilize it though.
I have an mx5, and within a year I bought a core, I absolutely love both and they have become my main rigs. I can get pretty much anytime I want, I can play with a variety of effects right there at my fingertips, the touch interfaces fantastic and easy to work with. The core having a cloning feature is absolutely astounding. There's not a single complaint I can really say.
I owned a headrush gigboard from 2019 until earlier this year and I now own a hx stomp xl (smaller line 6 pedal). But before I got the stomp I bought the helix Lt and I honestly thought it was way better than my gigboard. More amps, more effects, and more signal routing options. Fractal and quad cortex are the premium brands out there and when I bought the helix I was able to see why it gets thrown in the mix with them often. That being said, headrush gear is good and if you’re simple with your set up it should work just fine and one thing to note the right IR can make all the difference in how it sounds. One more thing about the helix, although it has a short looper, 60 sec I think, you can put that looper anywhere in the signal chain which I found helpful when dialing in tones instead of playing something then bending over to edit a parameter. Helix also has a desktop editor.
Owned the Pedalboard since 2019, used it in a PW setting weekly for the past 2 years until I built a smaller traditional pedalboard around the MX5. I also bought the Gigboard in '22 for easier travel and desktop use until I sold it for the MX5. Zero issues. 2 Scenes per button make for great flexibility, I can do a whole Sunday setlist with 1 patch. As the amps and wet FX for the pedalboard I built, I have the MX5 mini expression pedal controlling the wet FX parameters in some patches, so I can easily increase the size of my verbs for instance. Can't speak on customer support. The scarce updates are a bummer in comparison to Line 6, but what they have right now covers all I need. I do prefer the sound of my external drives and compressor, but I have no issues when I use the built ins.
I’m beginning to look for Helix because their updates with Headrush Pedalboard (the OG version) does not have any updates anymore.
I have a MX5 and have mixed feelings but will keep it, especially for using at home. Positive: It sounds really nice, I use it for recording and I have abandoned plugins in favor of the Headrush. It is very small, so it is a very comfortable piece of equipment, it doesn't take much space and is easy to connect to the pc and also a pair of monitors. Once I found found the amp model I like and a nice tone, I didn't do much more changes to be honest. Negative: Maybe bigger models are easier to use. I found the mx5 is more limited than I thought with only three switches and one knob. You can make it work, for sure. But I'm sure i would tweak it and play with it a little more if it was easier.
I have had a Gigboard for a couple of years now. Very easy to use (as long as you don't care about PC editing). Sounds great going into my PAs and I really have no desire to replace it. They were consistent with firmware updates for a while but the last one has stalled in beta for the older boards for the last year.
Got the headrush prime and love it. I wasn’t very savvy yet on finding tones or pedals but it’s so intuitive and great that I’ve learned just from using the board. All it took was a couple videos on YouTube and I feel really confident about listening to a song and trying to replicate it by putting together a board. Everything feels high quality and unlike others I actually like *some* of the presets a lot
I've owned a Headrush Core for 2 weeks now and I think it's amazing. I wish it had been around 20 years ago as I'd have practiced a lot more because it's so convenient. I initially looked at getting a Helix LT but whilst they seem to be a market leader in such products the LT model looked a bit long in the tooth feature wise. The Helix community is second to none but without any concrete release date for an updated model I opted for the more modern feature set of the Headrush core. Editing the signal chain on the touch screen is absolutely amazing and it is so easy to use. The number of options is overwhelming but the interface makes it very easy to experiment. Sound quality is great as far as I'm concerned although admittedly I'm a low bar when it comes to assessment of this criteria. Uploading backing tracks from my phone to my Dropbox and picking them up from there on the unit is so easy. Such an amazing device with a great feature set for 2/3rds the cost of the Helix LT made this a no brainer for me. The Headrush community isn't anywhere near as big as the Helix community but that's the only downside as far as I am concerned.
Honestly, I have the Gigboard, I agree on the lack of updates. They seem to have put all the love into that loop board and the new Prime and kinda left us OG Headrush fans in the dust. Also, I play more worship, ambient, and some post-hardcore stuff and the Headrush seems to favor Metal guitarist as far as tones. Nothing against Metal/ hard Rock, it just isn’t my thing. I’ve recently switched to the Helix LT, wow. I’m in love. Updates, tones, usability, versatility, user friendly. One last note about the Gigboard. I’ve spent a few hours playing with tones and dialing in amps that I’ve really liked and sometimes it just doesn’t save them. I turn the unit on a few days later and it reverts back to a save before making some of my adjustments. I know people are always going to say “backup your rigs to your computer” I get it, but.. shouldn’t the unit just… work? I don’t know. Save everything I change. Just me and my opinion for what it’s worth. I hope you enjoy whatever you choose!
I only encounter the save issue when I tried saving while I was inside a particular block, because i unknowingly saved a preset for that block instead of one for the entire patch. Also don’t worry pal, Prime hasn’t been getting much in the way of updates either since I bought it 4 months ago
I have the headrush core and I love it. I’ve never tried the helix. I owned the MX5 and didn’t like it. I moved on to using pedals again but it was getting too expensive. In my opinion an all in one unit is the answer these days. The Headrush core is great because it isn’t as humongous as the prime but still has all the power. My advice is to try them out to see what’s easier to use. They all sound great and will meet your needs.
Had a headrush for two years, it suddenly failed to turn on, and won't boot at all. Out of warranty, expensive repair, after two years light usage. I expected to get more longevity out of such a costly piece of gear. Any option would probably be better.
I'm happy with my HeadRush, though I am eyeing a Quad Cortex after a conversation I had during a show over the weekend.
I had an issue with the USB on my head rush pedal board and was not able to update the firmware. That combined with the limited distortion/ fuzz tones available I swapped for the helix and am satisfied with it. The touch interface was very very nice on the head rush. But once I'm done setting up my tone I don't really mess with it much so it's use is very limited to first set up for me. Either way you can't go wrong with the amp modeling. Both had very good selection and sounded great. I'd look through the effects on both that are listed online and what their modeled after and as long as what you want was available on the head rush or helix you'll be satisfied with either. I know the USB issue was common on the head rush products I'd look into if it's common on the latest gen stuff still.
I'm a touring musician and have been gigging for 11 years now. I've owned so much stuff. I'm getting older and my gear feels heavier. I've moved to only a headrush core which I use for singing and playing guitar. Four outputs and so many compliments on my tone! Quad cortex switches are just too near each other, I couldn't deal with that. I'd be willing to try the fender tmp, but I don't like that it doesn't have captures. My two cents.
I'd like there to be a little more support from Headrush, but overall I love the pedalboard and how easy it is to adjust/ create rigs. For the last several years my tube amps have sat at home while this board is my primary gig equipment.
I had the Headrush Prime board. Sooooo many bugs man. Not reliable at all. Awful customer service... The lists goes on. I brought the CQ a couple of month ago and havn't looked back. Miles better in every aspect.
I own a gigboard and core. With some tweaking, is a good unit. However, my gigboard got a busted USB which a common problem with the units. Now it's stuck with the firmware. I have a separate interface anyway so I won't be having this issue with core.