Ok, I’ve cracked. I have a nice pedal board and I can get some nice sounds from it. But I’m selling almost all of it and moving to Helix. Keeping a rams head muff and blues driver. But the expandability, versatility, simplicity of setup and no need to worry about patch cables, power supplies etc…
Am I going to regret it?
No, you won’t regret it unless you sell pedals that are niche or hard to come by again. Definitely keep your fuzzes.
Helix has a ton of great FX and the quality of most are nearly indiscernible form their pedal counterparts. The fuzz in all modelers isn’t quite right in my experience. I’ve got an HX Stomp (had the older Fractal floor unit before that) and I have kept my favorite pedals and a couple of niche or rare-ish pedals not in the Helix library. I’ve sold off the majority of my pedals.
After 6-7 years into my modeling journey (had a Fractal AX8 before the Helix), I am now into a less is more mindset. I still prefer a real amp with as few pedals as possible. I own amps that don’t need additional drives, EQs, or boosts. They either have a great built-in attenuator or a usable sweep in the master volume for bedroom use. 99% of the time I’m going guitar->amp these days. For that reason, I’ve only fired up the Stomp for updates. I don’t want to fiddle with things. I just want to play.