HD500 Screaming Static Noise all of a sudden.

[powbob]

I'm a trumpet player using the HD500, last week at a gig of course, it died. The sound guys said my mic level knob on the back was not working, because they found a way to send/return my sound, and still get the effects, something to do with the pre-amp in that knob or something.  The next day, when I connected it to a powered speaker as well as a guitar amp to test it out with some guitar friends, it just screams static noise. Different from what happened at the gig.

 

I scrambled to get some regular individual guitar stomp pedals to get me through the rest of the week, and it worked out okay. Most if not all of my guitar friends are urging me to go with individual guitar stomp pedals at this point, and I may just do that.

 

Now that this has happened, I realized that my Tuner button had not been working very well for several weeks, so perhaps something had been going south in the unit. During the winter, I play outside at our local ski area every Saturday in blizzard conditions, minus 15 temps, high winds, sometimes a little rain. I keep the unit in a soft sided case to protect it from the elements, but it has certainly been exposed. 2 weeks ago, we played a garden party, and it rained on us. I didn't have my protective case, but I was able to keep the unit fairly dry. The patio we played on had a coating of loose sand on it. All the cords, monitors, speakers and other stuff on the ground were coated with this sand after it rained. I wonder if some sand got into the back of the unit where the mic level knob is....

 

Anyone know how I can decipher what it's doing now, into a repair job....? What kind of repair, how extensive, how much...? Just a stab in the dark, but thought I'd ask. I bought the unit in 2011, so 6 years was a good run, and I may decide to move on to individual pedals now that I've kinda refined my needs.

 

Thanks for any ideas, help, recommendations...

 

 

 

 

[joel_brown]

My suggestion is find an authorized Line6 Repair center and take it to them.  Or buy another one used on eBay.  I've seen some good deals on people dumping the HD500 going to the 500x or Helix.  Pedals can get expensive quick.

[spaceatl]

I like Joel's suggestions. Talk to a service center and see if you can get a deal on a cleaning. Probably around 2 hours of labor I would guess...$100 would be a great deal IMO...You might find a new one for around $400...You can find great condition used ones for around $250 or so...

 

...I am not exactly sure how you are using it, but I guess you use a mic with the trumpet and play some guitar sometimes? Anyway, you might know that the tuner only works with the GTR input...If you use the AUX or MIC, tuner does not work...maybe there is sand in the XLR? Might be worth trying to clean it...hard to say

[powbob]

Here is a reply I got from a certified Line 6 service tech:

 

 

From everything you’ve written I’m pretty positive the sand/rain was the cause of the static. More than likely it has affected the pcba boards in there somehow, and they would need to be replaced. The problem is these are older units and the boards may or may not be available, depending on what it needs.

*** You would spend more fixing it then simply buying another one from the used marketplace.

 

So now I've got several thoughts going on:

* single guitar pedals on a pedal board

* tc helicon vocal processor of some sort

* find a used H500 replacement, upload my saved patches from my computer and make this simple, but start exploring those other 2 options.

 

Thanks for your input..!

 

[napynap]

With those extreme cold conditions, maybe pedals would be more apporpriate for long term, considering the root cause.

p.s. I'm fascinated by your cold weather gig since I play Line6 in the opposite extreme condition, 105 degrees - 4 Points Swapmeet, CA.