Headrush Flex Prime

Another foray into the digital world. This is the new’ish Headrush Flex Prime – the device that followed the discontinued MX5. I bought this one for participating in a few jam sessions where I had some restrictions on gear. I have to travel light, so need something standalone that fits in the gig bag, plus I did not want to bring gear that costs a fortune and is hard to replace, because it’ll be sitting on stage, possibly played by others than me and I will not be around at all times to keep an eye on it. I was looking for a cheap MX5, but found this for a very good price and so I went for it.

I do have experience with the older generation Headrush gear. I have owned a Gigboard and played both the big pedalboard and the looper. With the new Prime generation, Headrush added more processing power, so it can run more stuff simultaneously. They also added wireless features, namely Bluetooth and WiFi. The latter comes in handy when you have the hands of a bassist and the eyes of a mid-forty-year-old, and the 4″ touch screen is a bit of an obstacle between you and sweet sounds. You can log the Flex Prime into your WiFi, then head over to your smart fridge, open a web browser and direct it to the Headrush’s IP address, and you’ll be able to manipulate everything in real time from there. Very useful.
They also keep adding more and more stuff with every firmware update, and firmware updates are now as easy as can be – since the device has internet access, it’ll do it all on its own.

I did opt for the Headrush system because I did not like the workflow on the HX Stomp which would have been even better in terms of size and how much it has packed in there. On the Headrush UI, I am able to bend down, add an element to the signal chain, select a preset for the thing and map it to one of the foot switches in less than 25 seconds. As you can see on the pic, the Headrush’s footprint is smaller than a Pedaltrain nano, and it fits in the pocket of my gig bag, which was the requirement.

The whole unit is made in a solid quality and feels nice to handle.
I’d like to offer two points of criticism straight from the start:
-There is a balanced out, but it’s TRS. I’d have preferred an XLR output.
-The laptop powerbrick. A solid IEC cable straight to the unit would have been so much better for live use.

….and from there, I plug it in and see what I can remember from my time with the Gigboard.
The bass presets you find on the thing are as expected: Mediocre or useless. Start with a blank sheet.
Since this is a Jounal about bass dirt, I will focus mainly on the dirt sounds that can be coaxed from the Headrush instead of the myriad other things it is capable of.
….and the list is surprisingly short! In the Overdrive category, there is a single pedal that really is advertised for bass, which is called Grinder Bass OD and as far as I can tell, it’s not based on anything. The funny thing about it is that it sounds and feels a bit like a Tube Screamer. It pushes high mids and sounds like your low end drops out – Bass Overdrive pedals have ONE job apart from overdriving the signal and that’s keeping the low end.
In the Distortion/Fuzz category, there is a clone of the Darkglass B7K Ultra V2, which is somewhat easy to set and works much better than any real life Darkglass pedal I ever used – which sounds like praise, but I hate Darkglass pedals.
There is also the “Slab of Meat”, which is aptly described as “Punishing Bass Distortion”. Activating it, I feel punished and quickly drag that icon to the trash can. I’ll revisit that when I have a bad conscience and find no order of the Flagellants nearby.
Let’s put it bluntly: The Bass Dirt Pedal options in the Headrush suck ass.

Luckily, there is more than one way to get dirt out of the Flex Prime. There is the option to use the Revalver software to add pedal clones, but that requires you to run the gauntlet:
You need to register your product at the inMusic website and for that, you’ll have to create an account. Once you have that account, you can enter the website and register the Headrush, which gives you access to download the inMusic control center app. Once that is installed and running, you will get the instructions on how to install the Revalver suite – which requires a USB connection to your Headrush device. Brew yourself a coffee and choose a comfy seat, you’ll be sitting at this for a while.

Should you opt to keep it offline, you can, with the use of scenes and presets, simply overdrive your amp of choice. Run the Gain a lot higher or add a pedal in front that boosts the input. The resulting volume spike can also be caught in multiple ways – it’s worth experimenting a bit here. It’s a real bummer that the selection of bass dirt pedals is so slim, I would have loved to play the copy of a pedal vs. the original thing, but I’m not gonna buy a Darkglass B7K Ultra just for that.
Having installed and set up the Revalver thing, you can browse clones, either on your computer or directly on the device. They are user created and the naming can be quite simple, but it can also be a bit off, sometimes with the name of the original thing written with a typo, sometimes cleverly disguised otherwise – which entails that the search function is more or less useless. You will need to scroll down a list that’s seemingly bottomless.
But here’s the problem with the clones: You only get that exact setting of the pedal it was in when it was cloned, and there are no options to twist knobs – you get volume and three band EQ.
I did try a few pedals and quickly found that people seem to use different settings than I want. The Fairfield Barbershop clone I found really followed the line: It sounded like ass, too.
By scrolling down the list, I saw a few other interesting pedal clones, downloaded them, tried them for a second, then gave up completely on that path. Maybe if your tastes are a bit more mainstream and you use a four string with rounds, you can find hidden gems in the muck, but I don’t have the faith to keep hoping that after 99 duds, the 100th pedal I download will be a gold nugget.
So I decided to give another option a go: Forking the signal path, which can be easily done on the Headrush – it’s a single tap on the screen. I set up the lower path with a LPF, a heavy comp and a bass boost for good measure, and the upper path with a HPF, a guitar drive pedal and a wah, then merged them and fed them into amp sim and such.
The result of that was fun, at least somewhat, and it surely did work a lot better than anticipated once I sorted out the signal levels, but just as the bass drive pedals, there is a lack of feedback. It just feels like playing with numb hands. The amps are the best bet, and out of the meager selection for bassists,
I only liked the SVT (the one with gain and master volume) and the B15. The SVT for a roaring overdrive, the B15 for a gentle, vintage breakup.

It is a bit of a bummer: The Headrush Flex Prime is a great tool. It really packs a punch, has a ton of versatility and the UI is good and fast enough so you can edit stuff mid song.
But this here is the Dirt Jounal, and in terms of bass dirt, the Headrush Flex Prime sucks.

Yeah, you get one or two useful sounds out of it when you experiment a bit, and they do sound good.
Since the other stuff is really good, I will hold on to this thing for a while longer to play a few upcoming jam session shows, but for the cultivated bass dirt lover, this digital abomination is not a replacement for a carefully gain staged analog board. It’s not even close.