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.
