A few general POD HD500X Questions

[brispo]

I skimmed through the product manual, but I wanted to double-check on a few 'must-haves' before I invest in the pedal:

1. I assume the footswitches can be manually assigned to different guitar effects?  Ie, I could have a delay on FS1, Volume Boost on FS2, and an Octave shifter on FS3, etc?
2. Which brings me to my next question: Is there an Octave-shifter effect?  With my current guitar pedal, I do a lot of looping, and will add a layer that is shifted an octave down as 'bassline'. Is that possible with this unit?
3. On-board tuner right? Does it mute the output while in tuner mode?
4. I saw there there is a 'half-time' feature for the loop function. I don't see myself using this ever, so would I be able to just leave it at 'half-time' so I have 48 seconds to record?  I still would have undo capability in 'half-time' mode correct?
5. I will mostly be using this with an acoustic guitar. Does it have a ground-lift / built-in DI?
6. One of my main reasons for buying this unit would be to eliminate my need for a dedicated mixer. Most of my gigs are me with a vocal mic and acoustic guitar.  I noticed that this unit has a "mic in" input.  Is that a separate dedicated input that I can apply separate effects to, and am I able to blend the mic input and 1/4" input together into a single output, having control over the mix between the two?  (this is the MAIN feature I'm looking for)

I think that's all of my questions. Thanks so much in advance for the help!

[silverhead]

1) Yes.

2) Yes. There is a Pitch Shifter that adjusts to =/- 1 octave. It performs best as a monophonic shifter so does well for a bass application.

3) There is a setting for that.

4) Yes, and Yes. Although you may have to set the looper to half-speed after every power-up. Don't know if that setting is retained.

5) It has a ground lift for the XLR outputs but it is not specifically a DI box. However, an acoustic guitar into the Guitar Input and directly out from the XLR to a mixer/PA works fine.

6) Yes. You are limited to a maximum of 8 FX that can be shared between the two distinct signal paths - vocals and guitar. Some of these FX can be used to control relative volume levels in the mix.

[pianoguyy]

*NOTE: I answered these one at a time, in order, without knowing what came next. 

 

 

 

1. YES. Although, I just want to preempt the follow up question --- you can have 1-4 or 1-8, you cannot have 5-8. 

And if that isn't a question that you will have later, I will leave it up there for the next guy, because I KNOW THAT SOMEONE is going to ask that question. 

You can run multiple effects on one switch. You can also run them in opposite directions -- such as turning one on while turning another off. 

 

2. I don't know if there is a dedicated Octave Shift. But the unit has a 4 octave range, so doing one octave is a definite yes.

I haven't a clue about the looping part of the question.

 

3. There is a tuner, but it does not actually mute. It takes the volume down to almost 0, and it removes all of the effects, but you can still hear it. 

 

4. Previously said - I don't know anything about looping. 

 

5. The HD500 does not need a DI. It can go straight to the pa. The unit does have a Mic input(XLR), but I don't know if that works for guitar (if that is the type of jack your guitar uses). 

 

6. Yes, you can run them at the same time. But it is not separate in the sense that you can run 8 and 8. You have 8 to split between the two. Yes, you can run individual volumes. --- This will probably be easiest to explain/understand once you have a unit. 

[brispo]

I thought of one more question: is it possible to set the looper to only record the 1/4" input and not the mic input? I usually build loops while I'm singing verses so it would be bad if the vocal got recorded too.

[pianoguyy]

THAT is probably the only looper question I know.

 

Yes, the looper can feed off of just the one input. I don't know how you do it, but I know it can be done.

[martindholmes]

Coming back to #3: I had an older POD HD that did mute everything while the tuner was on. I find it really annoying that the HD500X doesn't do that. Has anyone figured out a way to make it work?

[phil_m]

Coming back to #3: I had an older POD HD that did mute everything while the tuner was on. I find it really annoying that the HD500X doesn't do that. Has anyone figured out a way to make it work?

 

The HD500x should behave the same way. You just have to turn knob 2 while in tuner mode until you see "Mute" on the screen.