Headrush Core

Spoiler before you give my review a read. Headrush Core is providing absolutely jaw-dropping tones but in a very unexpected way.. I was upgrading from HX Stomp XL. The primary reason was Bluetooth music streaming for practicing and integrated vocal effects. I was reading and watching reviews and it seemed a bit risky because the hype about Headrush Prime had evaded over time and Fender Tone Master Pro completely killed momentum in my opinion. I took the risk anyway and I want to share my experience after the first 3 weeks of use.
Disclaimer - I am not a professional musician, but an avid home player. I have been building my own analogue pedal bords but recently gravitaed towards modelers due to the compact size, versatility and simplicity. I mostly play blues and rock styles, but no metal at all, mentioning this because I see many of the Headrush fans being in the metal party.

I started with the factory presets/rigs and I can agree with many reviewers that most of them are crap and would suggest not to waste your time unless you want to. Then I tried to compose my own. Tried to find amps that sounded the best for what I was looking for and I could get good tones. But nothing really exceptional came out. Then I viewed some videos with someone making clones their amps in the Heardush and thought that I should give that a try. And man, that changed the game for 300%. I can't even express how good cloned amps sound. Some of my favorites I purchased from fremenpresets.com. Take a look at the Boutique amp clone collection, wow its amazing. I still ltry to create models that sound as good, but I cannot get even close. If you are going to get Headrush unit, I strongly suggest you give clones a try, and there are many more guys cloning various amps for any taste and flavor.
But there is one more thing I was not expecting where somehow Headrush shined and that is how presets and cloned amps sound via FRFR spekers (I use Bose S1 Pro). When I used HX Stomp I had to wheak very heavily any preset that sounded good on headphones but then sounded really bad via the speaker. This is a well-known issue with most modelers, but somehow I find Headrush to sound very well and require very little adjustments.
I have a dedicated looper pedal but the built-in one actually is very usable and for simple single-track loops it works really well.
All the cloud connectivity and ability to sync my own backing tracks form Dropbox and ease to play them makes this feel like iPhone of the modelers (again I have experience only with HX).
The last thing on the pros I would say is that most effect pedal simulations sound great and they work with amp clones or models amazing, I would say way more realistic that HX effects but that is subjective and someone might be able to dial them in better than me.
UI is very very well thought out and there is no need to read manuals whatsoever. Also, the performance of the unit is awesome. There are no delays on button presses and it feels very quick to respond.
On the cons, I would mention that I tend to want my Core on the table most of the time for easy display access for adjustments. A PC App would be a really nice upgrade, but at the same time UI is so good that you do not need it. With HX I even didnt know how to use the UI ont he tiny screen, and I used mostly the MAC app. This led me to a MIDI footswitch controller purchase to be able to use.
Another tiny con is that rig folder has no support for sub-folders so you can't organize your rigs in any hierarchy. Over time I got so many of them that this started to feel a bit painful. But thankfully the search function and typing on the display is so easy that it compensates for the lack of sub-foldes and I have worked out my own rig naming conventions that improve this as well. Hopefully, this will be solved with future SW upgrades.
One more problem I have is that bluetooth playback on repeated reconnect of my iPhone has some crackling noises. To get rid of them I "Forget the device" on my iPhone and pair again, then it is good for the whole session until I reboot my Core. It's SW issue that should be solved imho. Luckily this takes just 10-15 sec to do so it's not a major issue to me.
In conclusion, I can say that for the price there is no competition. There is no other than this advanced and modern feature-packed modeler. Maybe the ones in the 1.5k + range offer even better tones and more sophisticated signal chain routing options but 14 slots are plenty for me.
I think this modeler deserves way more attention and good reviews.

I own a hx stomp, Helix floor & TC Helicon voice live 3 extreme , I mainly play acoustic shows or sessions live shows & wanted to slim down the amount I carry to live shows , the headrush core is a beast on a small compact unit that delivers killer guitar tones as well as killer vocal effects & slips into my backpack , worth the cash & kicks the ass out of the competition, not as many effects & amps etc as other modellers but what is there is enough & decent , quality over quantity 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻

Ich suchte nach einer transportablen Lösung für E-Gitarre – fürs Wohnzimmer, Wohnwagen oder kleinen Proben. Dabei schien das Headrush Core als am meisten geeignet. Aber ich habe es zurückgeschickt...

Pro:

Was mir sehr gut gefallen hat, war die flexible Möglichkeit der Fußtaster-Belegung – dem weine ich etwas nach.

Das Touch Screen ist super zu bedienen und man erreicht die Einstellungen sehr schnell und effizient.

Man kann wirklich viele Effekte integrieren und die die Routing-Möglichkeiten sind toll.

Die Sounds sind brauchbar, wenn man Zeit investiert.

Contra:

Leider war mir das Headrush Core doch etwas unhandlicher als gedacht. Klar, es ist immer ein Kompromiss zwischen Größe, Leistung und Anschlüsse. Für meine Anforderungen bot das Gerät aber „zu viel“ und war für mich zu groß.

Es gibt leider keinen PC-Editor. Auch unterwegs habe ich immer mein Notebook dabei und mir ist eine PC-Oberfläche tausendmal lieber als mich bücken zu müssen – auch wenn die Oberfläche am Gerät super ist.

Sound finde ich ok (war schon als positiv genannt), aber auch nicht übermäßig. Ich bin vielleicht etwas Kemper verwöhnt. Ich habe meine Profile die gut klingen. Etwas vergleichbares am Gerät hinzubekommen, dauert und erfordert Geduld und Geschick. Ich glaube, ich habe beides nicht – ich will doch eigentlich Gitarre üben …

Was mir vom Sound her wirklich nicht gefallen hat, waren die Reverb-Effekte. Die haben versucht den Klang stereophon zu machen. Für mich hat das alles zu künstlich geklungen und beim Spielen indirekt gewirkt.

Das Amp Cloning funktioniert zwar vom Vorgehen her super, aber das Ergebnis hat mich nicht so sehr überzeugt. Der Klang von meinem JVM410 war zwar ähnlich, aber selbst ein Tubescreamer vor dem geclonten Crunch-Klang war nicht mehr schön (das funktioniert bei Kemper besser).

Fazit:

Ich finde das Gerät wirklich gut, aber vom Sound nicht so, wie ich es mir vorgestellt habe. Ich habe hin und her überlegt und war mir sehr unschlüssig. Dann habe ich einen Kemper Profiler Player ausprobiert und dann war für mich die Sache klar. Für meinen geplanten Einsatz (Mobilität, aber gute Sounds; PC-Editor; Profiling statt Modelling) hat der Kemper Profiler Player die Nase vorn gehabt – das liegt aber sicherlich daran, dass ich schon einen Kemper Profiler besitze.

This is the best multifx I have ever used both for guitar and vocal.

Whether you are a guitarist, vocalist or both, this unit has marvelous sounding fx, amps and cabs as well as many functions which have been dreaming for years and I was able to fully substitute my pedal board with just this unit and just the reverb and delay pedal I used to use on the pedal board over the headrushes fx loop.

There is a sligth latency as with all dsp fx however if you are not me you might not even feel it, but note that the fx loop does add a little bit of latency as well so I am using it for my reverb with 100% wet settings to avoid any issues with this.

I am very happy for the midi capabilites as we perform live with a maschine+ and we have set things up so that the maschine+ when changing to a new scene for a new song to perform live, the headrush receives program change over midi and changes the guitar and vocal patch to the correct for the song. I am also using midi cc messages to trigger various fx on and off both on the vocal mic and on my guitar during each song so the guitar gets the distortion turned on automatically when the solo hits, then when its time for the chorus, the vocals get the delay on so it sounds even stronger live, and I dont even have to think about pressing these pedals, I have pre-programmed all of this over midi and the unit handles it nicely!

If you are thinking between this and the other units in the price range, my vote is for this!

Also some people may feel restrained by the small number of 5 switches, but for me the size and weight of the unit is such a plus that I am very happy with this small limitation.