Hd500: How Many Inputs Can You Use At Once As An Audio Interface?

[clay-man]

How many inputs can you use at once with the HD500?

 

I'm looking to use it as a new Audio Interface, and my current interface has 2 inputs at once. I need at least 2 inputs or more at once, for mic and guitar.

[clay-man]

2 outputs is fine, but I was just wondering how the inputs would work with a DAW.

I know some audio interfaces are sometimes limited. 

 

Also, does anyone know if they can use ASIO4ALL with the POD HD500? I like to use ASIO4ALL to route outputs to Virtual Audio Cable in my DAW.

[Rewolf48]

"with the POD you can have up to 4 instruments simultaneously connected and working:
guitar, Variax, aux, mic"

 

You missed FX Return L&R, so you can have 6 at one time.  

 

FX Loop is perhaps more practical as a general purpose input as it is balanced and stereo as long as you place it at the end of the chain

[Rewolf48]

does anyone know if they can use ASIO4ALL with the POD HD500?

 

You could, but the Line 6 ASIO drivers provide all of the functionality that the HD500 can support.  

 

In terms of how it works think of the Computer I/O being inline just before the final outputs from the HD500.  So output from the computer is merged with any HD500 output to whatever amplification you have, and what would have been the Output from the HD500 is what the Computer gets as input.  If recording via USB/ASIO you generally want to turn off Input monitoring otherwise you hear the original HD500 signal + a delayed copy that has been to the computer and back again

[clay-man]

"with the POD you can have up to 4 instruments simultaneously connected and working:

guitar, Variax, aux, mic"

 

You missed FX Return L&R, so you can have 6 at one time.  

 

FX Loop is perhaps more practical as a general purpose input as it is balanced and stereo as long as you place it at the end of the chain

 

Hm, let me rephrase my question.

How many audio channels would show up with the POD HD500 in a DAW? Sometimes audio devices combine inputs. Will I have 6 separate channels altogether?

[Rewolf48]

No, Inputs 1 and 2 = HD500 L and R outputs.  That is all that it supports

[clay-man]

does anyone know if they can use ASIO4ALL with the POD HD500?

 

You could, but the Line 6 ASIO drivers provide all of the functionality that the HD500 can support.  

 

In terms of how it works think of the Computer I/O being inline just before the final outputs from the HD500.  So output from the computer is merged with any HD500 output to whatever amplification you have, and what would have been the Output from the HD500 is what the Computer gets as input.  If recording via USB/ASIO you generally want to turn off Input monitoring otherwise you hear the original HD500 signal + a delayed copy that has been to the computer and back again

 

Huh? You can't assign the output directly to the DAW? 

 

I figure I would use ASIO4ALL to allow me to use the HD500 and Virtual Audio cable in conjunction.

 

Basically:

 

500 input -> DAW --> 500 monitoring output

.............................\-> Virtual Audio Cable input

[clay-man]

 

your DAW will see only 2 separate channels L and R

 

Ok thanks, sorry I misread your post. So I was right, you assign the inputs onto 2 channels. That's not bad. It would be nice to upgrade from 2 inputs to maybe 4 or more, but 2 is fine. If ASIO4ALL works out, I can use my M-Audio as well.

 

I've been using ASIO4ALL to tie in multiple devices. I know it's recommended to use default ASIO drivers, but obviously those won't let me use multiple devices together unless the ASIO driver itself supports that.

[Rewolf48]

"I've been using ASIO4ALL to tie in multiple devices. "

 

Wow...  I didn't know you could do that! And there is me switching between device specific drivers and completely ignoring an old M-Audio Quattro because they haven't updated the drivers in a decade.  Going to have to investigate this a bit more.

 

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/feb06/articles/pcmusician.htm

[TheRealZap]

keep in mind there is some risk to using multiple interfaces and ASIO4ALL...

biggest of which is that it no longer truly adheres to the ASIO specifications...

meaning any reported latency numbers are false. ASIO controls latency, jitter and figital artifacts by requiring that the input and output are controlled by a single HARDWARE clock.

switching to a SOFTWARE clock, that was entirely reverse engineered, defeats those specs... which were essentially the entire reason for the creation of ASIO... that and to bring some uniformity to audio interfaces... before there was a ton of proprietary drivers and nearly no compatibility between them.

my recommendation is to get a single interface that does what you need it to do...

i've used ASIO4ALL in the past, because i was too broke or too poor to do so... so clearly it has it's place...

but it's certainly not the best way to do things.

[silverhead]

I second the cautionary note about using ASIO4ALL. It works with Line 6 products for some people, and doesn't work well for others. A couple of key things to note about it:

 

- The ASIO protocol defines that only one audio device is used; it must be both the input and output device. The very fact that ASIO4ALL can allow you to use different devices tells you that is not an ASIO-compliant driver. That means results are going to be unpredictable.

- Line 6 supports its products when they are used with its drivers. Hence, anyone having any DAW-based trouble while using ASIO4ALL is not going to get any support from Line 6. Their response, rightly, will be: 'Stop using ASIO4ALL and use the Line 6 ASIO driver. Let us know if you still have problems.'

 

But, as mentioned, ..... it works for some people.

[clay-man]

I like to use ASIO4ALL because I use Virtual Audio Cable to route my processed DAW sound to other applications for live application.

It works well with my M-AUDIO Fast Track Pro, with reaper reporting a 4ms round trip latency.

 

I know that ASIO4ALL isn't exactly meant for that, but I've found it great for that. 

[TheRealZap]

fixed that for you.

in the end though whatever works...  but don't fool yourself.

 

 

It works well with my M-AUDIO Fast Track Pro, with reaper FALSELY reporting a 4ms round trip latency.

 

[clay-man]

fixed that for you.

in the end though whatever works...  but don't fool yourself.

 

I understand what you mean, but either way, the latency wasn't too bad. I think the best setting was 6ms round trip. The new drivers for my Fast Track Pro reported down to 2.2ms, but the drivers were buggy and had a problem in Reaper where the buffer wouldn't always trigger correctly, and the output would be silent until I reset the buffer again.

 

I'm not sure how accurate that representation is, but I could virtually not even hear a gap between panning the 0 latency dry signal feature on my FTP with the processed latency output left and right.  With 6ms I could, but it's bearable on its own.

 

I'm assuming a POD HD500 would allow less latency than that though, as my Fast Track Pro is actually poor in the latency department because it's a v1.1 USB bus, I guess to lower the cost of the device.

 

I'd also like to have a lower noise floor, as I've noticed when I listened to a dry signal of my once working POD GX, the noise floor was a lot lower than my Fast Track Pro. The Fast Track Pro has nice features, but the quality is rather poor, and I should have done more research (which is what I'm doing with the 500 so I don't make the same mistake)

 

Thanks for all the help.