Upgrade from H7600 to H9000

[J20056]

I am contemplating an upgrade from H7600 to H9000. Currently my 7600 is part of a complex guitar rig that is centered around a 16 IO SwitchBlade switching system that can do literally any combination of serial/parallel and MIDI control. However I want to simplify and stop using all these rack units and pedals.
I have a few questions regarding the H9000 or preferably the H9000R as I prefer to control via software and this is for studio use.
1. The concept of FX blocks (forget the real term for it) with a graphical interface to combine algos seems awesome as it is equivalent to the GUI of the SwitchBlade. More importantly, it substantially eliminates the need to use VSig at all for me as I only care about combining meta modules, which the Emote GUI seems to be eminently capable of doing. However, it appears that one can only use 4 algos per block for a total of 4 blocks. The biggest problem seems to be that you cannot connect the output of one block to the input of another, and/or parallelize blocks. Is my understanding correct and if yes, is there a plan to enable that in the near future?
2. Expression pedals: with the SwitchBlade, I could assign pedal 1 to be a volume pedal; set it’s range (from -Inf to 0db or reverse) and I could insert such pedal in multiple locations in the wiring diagram on the GUI. Can that be done with the 9K? I see that it can handle 4 exp pedals, but can it be as flexible as what I described? Furthermore, can the same pedal be assigned a volume increase on one section of an FX block and a volume decrease on another, thus allowing for cross fades or does that need to be done in VSig, which is more arduous?
3. Custom scales: it is my understanding that the 9K currently doesn’t handle it but mostly because Eventide didn’t have time to get it done so far. The 7600/8000 clearly do that extremely well. I can live without it for a while (forced me to improve guitar soloing chops) but would need to know 100% that it will be added in the next 12-18 months.
4. I looked more closely at VSig3 screenshots and it still looks very similar to older versions fundamentally. Question is in what way is it easier to use than earlier versions?

I am really keen to understand all these issues, as I am hoping that Emote GUI and overall functionality can make my SwitchBlade and a bunch of analog rack gear and pedals unnecessary, and also make a somehow competing product (in a narrow way for guitar players) less compelling.
Looking forward to hearing from users and maybe the manufacturer.

[Author]

Posts