amsdenj

It stays put for me, but I don't use it for a volume control. I prefer the control on the guitar, both for where it his, how it connects my hands to the volume, and the slight high-end rolloff that comes from cable capacitance. Basically one's foot is too massive for fine-grained volume control during playing. Its too easy to make volume changes that aren't easily controlled or musical. And it restricts your physical position too much.

Here's a way to re-amp with a POD HD500X in Logic Pro X. Your DAW may be different, but will likely have similar capabilities. First, you want to use the HD500 as an external plugin - that is, it isn't used for guitar input at the same time. So you need a separate audio interface for the initial tracking. Here's an overview of the steps. 1. Create a audio track, set the input to an input of your audio interface, use one that has a Hi-Z input for guitar. Plug your guitar into that channel of your audio interface. 2. Set the output of the audio track to stereo out (the default). If you turn input monitoring on for the track you should now hear your raw, unprocessed dry guitar. That's what we want to record. That way you can change the plugins to process that dry input different ways without having to re-record - the essence of re-amping. 3. Next add a Utility > I/O plugin to the track, you'll use this to patch in the HD500. 4. Set the output of the I/O plugin to an output of your audio device. This takes the dry output of the track (or your monitored guitar input) and sends it out through an output of your audio device. You'll need more than one output for this. Not all audio devices support this. If you have a simple 2-channel audio device, you can create an aggregate device (on Mac OS X) and include the computer output in the aggregate device, then use this for stereo output. This frees up your audio device to use for re-amping the HD500. 5. Connect that output of your audio device to the Aux input of the HD500. Use the Aux input, not the Guitar input so the impedance is better matched. 6. Next connect the output of your HD500 to the another input or pair of inputs in your audio device. I use a Focusrite Saffire Pro which has 8 inputs and 6 outputs. 7. Set the input of the I/O plugin to the input of your audio device that is connected to the output of the HD500. Select your HD500 patch and you should be good to go. You've used the I/O plugin and your audio device inputs and outputs to insert the HD500 as a plugin into the track. This works, but is complex and inconvenient. When you mix down, you have to bounce in real time, and you can only re-amp one track at a time. You can use the HD500 on multiple tracks, but you have to do them one at a time and bounce to a processed track to free up the device. This doesn't work well in practice because you generally want to re-amp a guitar in the context of the whole mix, changing the amp settings as you re-amp other tracks. A much better solution is to invest in a plugin like S-Gear or BIAS FX. These make re-amping easy and will sound better than an HD500 too. The HD500 is great for live use, but not the best solution for recording and re-amping. I highly recommend S-Gear (www.scuffhamamps.com). This is one of the best digital guitar amplifiers on the market.

I'd recommend using something like S-Gear for recording, and always record dry guitar input. The HD500X is a good live device, but there are better and more flexible solutions for recording.

The rotating speaker effect in Logic Pro X has many controls including fast and slow speed. I use the POD HD500X as an audio device into Logic Pro X and use the Mixer as a live digital mixer. You can use MainStage for similar purposes. Remember to turn off the speaker emulation when using a Leslie cabinet as it already has speaker emulation and you generally don't want it twice.

Boosting for a solo depends on what you are trying to accomplish. If you just want a gain increase, then a studio EQ at the end of the signal chain can do that. However, most of the time you want to do more than just increase the volume - you also want to change the tone, distortion, sustain and feel of the guitar. I use a four-way selection to do this: Base - no additional effects, good for rhythm and quite leads. Boost - a gain boost with Studio EQ with little or now EQ change. This just provides additional gain Channel - a larger gain boost with additional distortion and sustain. Use a distortion effect like Tube Drive or Screamer to set the level of distortion and use the tone controls to get more mid-focus - cuttin the bass to reduce the mud and cutting the highs to reduce the fizz/ice pick Boost + Channel - turn on both to get even more distortion. I use this inconjunction with the drive and tone controls of the amp to get four different tones out of the same amp with just two foot switches.

If you want to get vintage UniVibe sounds, you need to put it in the Pre section - simply because that's what everyone did when the device was commonly used and therefore is what we're use to hearing. This was true with most effects pedals because most guitar amps didn't have effects loops, and most guitar players used power amp clipping to get the desired level of amp distortion. So all effects were before the amplifer, preamp and poweramp. Since we have choices now, this raises the quesiton about what effects go where. Generally things that effect ambience (reverb, delay) and things that effect frequency modulation (chorus and maybe flanger) go after the amplifier so they effect the distorted signal, are generally in stereo, and aren't themselves distorted. These effects are more natural sounding without being distorted. Things that effect gain, tone and phase generally go before distortion. This inicludes compressors, wah, phasors and maybe flanger. The UniVibe mostly effects phase, so it can go in front of the preamp. Flangers are a special case because they can be configured to create a wide range of tonal modulation. This might be better before or after distortion depending on how the flanger is configured. Of course there are no rules, do what produces the sound you're looking for. There are just rough guidelines.

Compare with the acoustic instrument direct into a channel strip in the PA - I found the HD500X was missing some of the high end that really characterizes the instruments, especially with that big mid cut in the Vintage pack acoustic amp. It removes the articulation and ability to cut through the mix, especially on acoustic solos. It sounds too scooped to me.

You can probably get flatter by turning off cabinet simulation - set cabinet to none. Another option is to use the Line 6 Acoustic amp model in the new Vintage pack. its not completely flat, it has a low Q (wide band) 10dB mid cut at 1K Hz. You'll need to use an EQ effect block to remove that. But neither of these solutions will be that good for acoustic guitar since the tone controls appear to be voiced more for electric guitar than for acoustic instruments. Bottom line: the HD500X still isn't that useful for acoustic instruments.

I personally am very disappointed with the Line 6 Acoustic model. It is not at all flat, and the tone controls are not well voiced for any acoustic instrument, including acoustic guitar. Here's some simple analysis of the amp model: All controls at 50% has a wide Q 10dB cut at 1k Hz BASS - boost/cut at 125Hz MID - boost/cut at 800Hz with narrow Q TREBLE boost at 9k Hz, Cut closer to 2k Hz PRES - boost only at 6k Hz, no effect at 0 As you can see: 1. the bass control is too low, focusing on the very area that you want to avoid in an acoustic guitar 2. the 10dB cut at 1K Hz requires a separate EQ block to counteract 3. the MID control Q is too narrow, making an odd resonance for acoustic instruments that isn't very useful, and can't be used to eliminate the 10 dB cut because its the wrong frequency and the Q is much narrower 4. The treble and presence controls overlap too much and the frequencies are not voiced for acoustic guitar. To me this amp isn't any where near as useful as the acoustic models in the POD X3 Live and is pretty unusable for a Variax 700 Acoustic. I'm assuming Line 6 designed it for a very specific purpose, not general purpose acoustic instruments, and my application doesn't fit that purpose. I've given up on the HD500X for acoustic instruments and use it mostly as an audio interface into Logic Pro X (or MainStage) for live use so I can get more appropriate plugins. I'm mostly using S-Gear for electric guitar amp models and the same plugins I use for mixing for acoustic guitar, mandolin and bass. Logic Pro X is actually a pretty nice digital mixer. We use it for the whole band. And you can just press the R key to record what's coming out of the PA. The HD500X does make a pretty good, and flexible audio interface and MIDI controller, so I'm still happy enough with the unit.

The HD500 was designed to have proper gain staging with an instrument in input 1 and input 2 set to Same, regardless of mono or stereo effect blocks, or whether the effect blocks are before the A/B split, in the A or B path, or after the A/B mixer. How this is done is somewhat complicated, but you don't really need to know that. To preserve the gain staging as designed, input 2 should be set to Same unless you are actually using two different instruments, in which case you would generally run instrument 1 into path A and instrument 2 into path B, then mix them at the mixer. Of course there are no rules. If you like the tone from input 1 set to guitar and input 2 set to Variax (so it is essentially off), in most cases you will get a 6dB drop in gain. That may be fine as it will drive the effect blocks and amps at a lower gain and give a different tone that might be just what you're looking for.

I use my HD500X as an audio I/O and MIDI controller device into MainStage with S-Gear. It works very well and is quite reliable, wakes from sleep and reconnects correctly every time. Note you can use the Looper switch as a "shift" switch to get 7 more MIDI CC messages. The MIDI messages are fixed, but you can usually use other techniques to map them to whatever you need to control. The only odd switch is FS4 which is the same with Looper on or off. Probably a bug as FS4 does not work as described in the manual.

I think you could. I have used a Roland AC90 which is a similar amp. You won't be able to play that loud, but it should sound good a relatively low volumes. So think about the environment/context in which you're using the configuration to determine if an amp that small meets your needs. This is a FRFR amp, so it should sound better than Spider. An AS100D would be more flexible.

I do use the TriplePlay as a MIDI input device for a channel strip, and then use any software instrument available in MainStage/Logic. You can also use the TriplePlay plugin in MainStage, but its not really necessary, and you can't send MIDI messages to plugins in MainStage. There are also a lot of 32/64 bit issues with the TriplePlay software - its a bit out of date.

The attached PDF appears to be missing in the first message of this thread.

I meant the X3Live has EQ like the HD500X Global EQ, but separate for every patch.

You can certainly use enough EQ effects blocks to get a good acoustic tone. But: 1. The Drive, Bass, Mid, Treble and Presence controls only work on the Amp block 2. It uses up a lot of effect blocks for EQ that aren't available for other effects 3. None of the EQ effect blocks are voiced that well for acoustic instruments, they're more focused on electric guitar frequency ranges. 4. The effect blocks have limited parameters (5) The X3Live had a number of preamps that were well designed for acoustic instruments, and had global EQ for every patch. Too bad the HD series didn't keep this up. I had hoped the Line 6 Acoustic amp would be one of the X3Live preamps, but as far as I can tell, it isn't.

I'm away from my HD500X at the moment, but I think volume sensitivity provides an automatic speed control. With volume sensitive up, the harder you play the faster the speed. Then as the guitar fades out, the speed automatically slows down. That might be it. I had a Univibe many years ago, and I seem to remember it being pretty subtle. The HD500 model seems more extreme. Maybe its that feedback control.

The 2.6 announcement indicated the POD Farm Acoustic model was included in the vintage pack. Reading the POD Farm 2.5 advanced guide, there is no "POD Farm Acoustic" model. However there are three candidate models: 1. Line 6 Tube Preamp - a general purpose tube preamp (this would be best) 2. Line 6 Piezacoustic 2 - voided for an acoustic guitar with piezo pickups 3. Line 6 Variax Acoustic - voiced for a variax acoustic guitar into the front of a regular guitar amp Does anyone know which one was included in 2.6. My testing would seem to indicate its the Line 6 Piezacoustic 2, but I'm not sure. I was hoping it would be the Tube Preamp.

That documentation is for the Line 6 Variax Acoustic Model in the POD X3 Live. I don't think that's the model that included in the 2.6 update of the POD HD500X. It would be too limiting for a general purpose acoustic model. It also doen't have the extreme high frequency boost described in that model. Rather it only has about a 6-9dB mid cut at 1k Hz. But you could be right, it could be that model. Unfortunately we don't know as there is no documentation for these new models that I know of.

That's the way I was using the HD500X for acoustic tones too, and I run the EQ essentially flat. That works, but the controls on the HD500X aren't functional. I had hoped the Acoustic amp would be mostly flat, and voiced for acoustic instruments so 1) I could free up effect blocks that are currently used for EQ and 2) have functioning knobs for tweaking during performances. The Acoustic amp gets part way there, but is not flat, is too low gain, and does not seem to voiced for acoustic instruments.

Agree that the gain and channel volume for the Acousic amp are very low - forgot to mention that. I'm running the Drive all the way up and the Channel Volume around 75% to get unity gain through the block. This seems very low. Designing an "Acoustic amp" that is tuned for either piezo pickups or a variax acoustic played through guitar speakers would be a very specific purpose amp model and doesn't make much sense. Rather it appears that this amp is either modeling something specific that we are not aware of, was designed as a compromise to limit DSP or memory space, or was designed based on some requirements that escape me. I await documentation from Line6 to indicate what their intent was for this model. To use it, I'm using a mid-focus EQ right before the amp to replace the missing mid frequencies, provide a low pass filter, and boost the gain to more reasonable levels. I had that effect block anyway because there wasn't any acoustic amp. I had hoped to be able to use the block for some other purpose. As it is I have the mid-focus EQ, two sudio EQs and one studio preamp along with the Accoustic amp in order to get good Acoustic tone. I had hoped to simplify this, but the Acoustic amp isn't adequate. Even after all this, the Mid and Treble controls don't really work that well for acoustic guitar, vocal or mandolin - all my requirements. They seem to be voiced towards electric guitar. I can make this work, but it isn't what I was looking for or expected.

Well, after much anticipation, I'm a bit disappointed in the new Acoustic amp. I wanted to use it for a Variax 700 Acoustic and mandolin, as well as for occasional vocal use. Its better than nothing, but I was hoping it would be similar to one of the acoustic preamps in the POD X3Live. Here's what I found: DRIVE: is a very gradual drive control, 0 - 100% doesn't make a huge difference, and to my ear doesn't add any distortion. So it appears to behave like a gain control into the preamp, and has pretty much the same effect as the CH VOL as far as I can hear. BASS: typical medium bandwidth/Q boost/cut around 125 Hz, flat at 50% This is good for acoustic guitar, but is too low to have any much on a mandolin. Also pretty low for vocals. MID: a narrow bandwidth/Q boost/cut at around 800 Hz. The high bandwidth makes it ok for cut, but pretty harsh for boost (its generally advised to use subtractive EQ, and to cut narrow and boost wide). Not only is it not that useful, but there is a wide bandwidth mid cut around 1k Hz with BASS, MID and TREBLE at 50% that this control can't get rid of. You can boost it a little to raise the level at 800 Hz, but because of the narrow Q, it still leaves a dip at 1K Hz. TREBLE: a medium bandwidth/Q boost at 9k Hz and cut closer to 2K Hz - somewhat of an odd treble control. PRES: All boost at around 6K Hz, flat at 0%, so it overlaps with and is a bit lower and therefore more harsh than the TREBLE control. Setting BASS, MID, and TREBLE at 50% and PRES at 0%, you get a pretty deep wide cut at 1k Hz which make a typical smily face. That sounds ok by itself, but tends to make an acoustic guitar or vocal disappear in the mix due to the loss of important midrange. The MID control is too low and too narrow to correct this dip, and the narrow boost at a fixed frequency and Q don't make for a very useful MID control. TREB and PRES overlap at similar frequencies and might have a crossover point that is a bit too low for acoustic instruments. Looks more appropriate for an electric guitar. I could get a reasonably flat sounding setting with BASS 42%, MID 64%, TREB 50% and Presence 5% with the Variax 700 acoustic. I'll stick with the Acoustic amp since its close, and does enable the use of the POD controls during performances to tweak the tone as needed. But I was really hoping for a more flexible acoustic preamp like those in the X3Live that have controls more like those of the global EQ. Not sure what Line6 had in mind for this amp or what amp it might have modeled. It might demo well because of that mid range cut, but it doesn't seem that useful as an acoustic amp to me. My measurements could be off. I used the Fast Fourier Transform in the AudioTools app on an iPad to do the analysis. I fed pink noise into the POD and viewed the output result in the app. My ears aren't as good as the use to be (a long time ago) either. So maybe you'll have a different experience/result.

It looks like the HD500 documents have not yet been updated to include more detailed descriptions of the new amp models. Any idea when the docs will be updated? Or is there a place that describes the new models I missed?

Very much appreciated. Maybe you could include a posting on how you did the measurements?

Here's a blog post I created that contains guidelines and advice I've collected over the last couple of months: Creating POD HD500X Electric Guitar Patches.