amsdenj

Man, a blast from the past. I have a Lexicon MPX100 and MPXG2 I'd love to get rid of. These units were fantastic in their day, and still sound great. There are some effects in the MPDG2 that still don't exist anywhere else. But I love the flexibility of the POD HD(500x). I hate to admit it, and I'll deny it in public, but I like to tweak. Its part of the fun to me. Just to prove I'm crazy, when I use to play live, I liked setting up and tearing down too. And more than once I was taking my old Fender Showman amp and external reverb unit apart during breaks, got out the soldering iron, and tweaked the hardware patches I made before the gig. At least software doesn't burn your hands.

Reamping with the HD500 series is a bit tricky. You can use the SPD/IF output to get a clean guitar into one track and the HD500 modeled sound in another. But if you need to reamp for some reason, you have to use POD Farm or route the dry track back through the HD500. I'd use S-Gear or Bias instead if all you want is something on the computer.

Regarding MainStage, yes, MainStage has looper and backing track plugins you can put on a track. You can create a concert, sets and songs. Each song can have a different backing track. These can all be stored as a single consolidated .concert file for easy management. Hard to beat MainStage for the money.

I have the MIDI connector. And the footswitches do work. My issue is that I have no control of the footswitch lights from MainStage. What I think is happening is that the footswitch lights display the state of the effect block they are mapped to, and are not designed to be controlled remotely from MIDI. If you send a MIDI CC command to the HD500 that changes the state of an effect block, that will be indirectly reflected in the footswitch light. But if the footswitch is not mapped to an effect block, and is only being used for MIDI send, MIDI receive on the same CC has no effect on the footswitch light. Not sure if this works as designed, but this could be a missing feature in the HD500.

I'm setting up the POD HD500X as an audio and MIDI controller interface to MainStage to use with S-Gear and a Fishman TriplePlay MIDI controller. I have a bunch of HD500X foot switches mapped to MainStage controls and all is working great. These foot switches are not connected to any HD500X effect block in order to keep the MainStage and HD500X effect controls independent. However, I would like to have the HD500X foot switch lights reflect the state of the control in MainStage. MainStage has the ability to configure MIDI thru back to the sending device. I used this with an Apogee GiO to have MainStage control the GiO foot switch lights. I thought something similar could be done with the HD500X. But it doesn't seem to work. Should sending a MIDI CC to a foot switch (with the right channel, CC command and value of course) be able to control the FS light?

I've used quite a few cabinet models in S-Gear and find quite a bit of variability. Certainly it starts with the actual cabinets and speakers that were sampled. Even speakers in the same cabinet can sound different. Next are the microphones used to collect the samples. Then the room in which the sample are made can make a big difference. And finally there's the algorithms required to deconvolve, and trim the in pulse response. The latest version of S-Gear has some IRs that Mike Scuffham created himself. These, and the Rosen IRs sound a bit better than the Redwirez BigBox set that I got a while ago. Hard to know why. Bottom line is you can spend a lot of time tweeking cabinets with all these models, and never be able to decide which one is "best". Sometimes they're just different. Too many choices can be as paralyzing as not enough. I think the HD500 sounds pretty good. I too would like to see some improvement in the cabinet models. But maybe the DSPs and memory constraints might result in some limitations for future expandability. That's ok with me, I like the HD500X quite a bit as it is, and if I need something more for certain situations, then that's what the computer is for.

Seems to me that turning off the HD500 speaker emulation, and using external IRs limits the value proposition of the HD500. Once you've introduced the computer and plugins, you might just as well go the whole way and use S-Gear for the amp too. I use my HD500X this way as an audio and MIDI interface to MainStage. This gives the flexibility to use the HD500X standalone when its tones are good enough, and use it with S-Gear when I happen to need the computer for other purposes anyway. The tones with S-Gear and its cabinet IRs is significantly better than what I can get out of the HD500X by itself. But that's not saying the HD500X isn't great too. I like having the flexibility and choice.

The Looper switch effectually acts like a Mode switch for FS1-FS8. When you turn on the Looper switch, each foot switch send a fixed MIDI CC message on the MIDI channel configured for the POD HD500. You can't change the MIDI channel, or the CC message for these presses like you can for FS1-FS8 when the Looper switch is off. But you can map them to anything you want in your receiving device. I do this with MainStage for example. You will also need to turn the Looper Playback volume all the way down. Unfortunately there's no way to turn the looper off even though FS4 in Looper mode looks like it does this, and the documentation says it turns the looper on/off, it doesn't - rather FS4 sends the same MIDI CC message with the Looper switch on or off. Its the only switch that does this. And the Looper playback volume is global and not saved in a patch. So you have to adjust it every time manually.

Generally as distortion increases, bass and treble need to decrease. Too much bass makes the distorted sound muddy and indistinct. Too much treble makes it sound bright, fizzy, ratty, or has an ice pick feel. I use the Vintage Pre or Mid Focus EQ right before the amp to control the distortion tone. When I turn on the Vintage Pre, it pushes the amp harder and I use the low and high pass filters to adjust the boosted tone. Then I use the Tube Drive or Screamer in front of the Vintage Pre to get even more distortion. Bass, Treble and/or Tone controls on the Tube Drive or Screamer can further tailor the tone for the increased gain. Basically these effects are used to voice the amplifier for different gain settings. By using these two effects in front of the amp, I can get 4 different settings on two switches: 1. Clean - Vintage Pre and Tube Drive off 2. Blues - Vintage Pre on, Tube Drive off 3. Crunch or more aggressive - Vintage Pre off, Tube Drive on. 4. More metal-like - both on You can set these combinations up differently for different amps. High gain amps will behave quite differently than low gain amps and will need very different settings.

What specific POD Farm Acoustic is being included? American Classic Console Lo-Fi Modern Vintage Vintage UK Tube Preamp And will this preamp be HD? Or does HD mostly mean how closely the model reproduces the original, rather than the performance of the model (frequency range, distortion characteristics, etc.). That is, I want to use this for acoustic instruments and not have it strip of the instruments tone the way the POD X3Live did. Is HD really mostly about the cabinet impulse responses? These seem to make a very big difference in software amp modelers.

I got an HD500X for convenience, and because I have a Variax 700 Acoustic and a Variax 300 with a Fishman TriplePlay added. I use MainStage with S-Gear to manage the tones, S-Gear is the digital amp, and other MainStage tracks contain the VIs for the TriplePlay. I like technology I guess. When I first got the HD500X, I spent some time trying to reproduce the wonderful tones I can get from S-Gear. This proved to be quite difficult. S-Gear does not model amps, it is a small collection of boutique amps that just happen to be implemented in the digital domain. Mike Scuffham has made an outstanding product that seems to be way ahead of the typical amp modelers. So my setup is to use the HD500X as an audio interface and MIDI controller for MainStage and S-Gear, using some of the front of the amp effects from the HD700X into S-Gear, and using S-Gear's modulation, delay and reverb after the amp effects. This is a fantastic sounding setup, and is quite easy to use. I'm planning on a blog post on this as soon as I can get to it. The setup was somewhat complicated (but I actually like that). But, the HD500X is certainly convenient by itself too. So I studied what Mike has done in S-Gear to make those wonderful tones. What I found was there's a lot of tone voicing in the drive, channel, bass, mid and treble shift switches. Typically S-Gear amps roll off more bass and treble the more distorted the amp becomes. This avoids mud in the bass and fizz/ice pick in the high end, and keeps the distortion musical and responsive. I found by using the vintage pre directly in front of the blackface or other amps, and using the low and high-pass filters plus the gain controls helped create similar voicings in the HD500X. Removing the cabinet resonance and using the vintage pre for voicings seemed to result in very nice tones from the HD500X. They're not as good as S-Gear, but they're certainly useful. This setup seems pretty flexible and provides a lot of setup options to deal with different situations and needs. Overall I'm very happy with the results from the HD500X. I did a similar study a while back on Bias. See: S-Gear and Bias/JamUp. This was before Bias desktop, but I think some of the points still apply since whatever you create in Bias desktop can be loaded into JamUp on an iOS device.

Very interesting setup and application. Any sound clips available? If you have a Mac, you can use the HD500 as an audio/MIDI interface into MainStage and do all the backing tracks an looping (longer loops) directly in MainStage. Mics can go into the HD500 still, or using separate audio interface an an aggregate device to support the two mics in their own MainStage tracks. You could then create a UI and MIDI controls that are tailored for exactly what you're trying to do. The BlueBoard and HD500 could both be used for MIDI control, especially using the HD500 Looper switch as a "mode" switch which gives you 7 more MIDI switches that can control MainStage (you'll have to turn the HD500 looper volume all the way down though). And if you have an iPad Logic Remote works with MainStage giving you remote, touch, wireless access to MainStage.

The signal chain view shows you where the looper actually is, at the head (pre mode, post displayed on the footswitch) or tail (post mode, pre displayed on the footswitch). Anyone found a way to turn the looper effect on and off? I want to turn the looper off so that I can use the MIDI CC messages on the Looper footswitches to control MainStage. Currently I'm turning the looper volume all the way down - but that is a global parameter and doesn't get saved with a patch.

Regarding gain staging, here's a simple approach. First consider the placement of effects in the signal chain. Of course there are no rules, and you have to use your ears to find what you're looking for. But a typical signal flow might follow this pattern: Static Tone Shaping: Tone shaping comes first, including guitar tone and volume and pickup selection, followed by compression to control pick attack and sustain. Dynamic Tone Shaping: Next comes variable tone shaping devices like phase shifter, Wah Wah or Univibe, possibly Flanger too. These are modulation devices, but modulate phase or tone more than frequency, and therefore can go in front of distortion. Distortion and Overdrive: Overdrive, possibly gain staged for different boost/distortion and voicing levels. One should be for controlling metal lead distortion, and another for tailoring the overall amp sound. The second should clean up well when turning down the guitar volume while the metal distortion will often need significant bass and treble cuts and won't sound good with the guitar volume turned down. This section can also be handled completely by the amp if it has sufficient gain staging options like S-Gear. Using overdrive pedals however can give more control over the amount of distortion and overdrive, as well as the tone shaping. Amplifier: The actual guitar amplifier, especially if its a digital amp or a plugin into a DAW would typically come next. This allows all the modulation and ambient effects to be “in the air†and not over impacted by the amp itself. Modulation Effects: Mod effects like flanger and chorus. More classic tones came from pedals before the amp which provided most of the overdrive. In some cases, these effects were produced after the recording, especially flanger for a more pronounced effect that is operating on the distorted signal rather than being distorted by the overdrive. Flanger might go before or after distortion depending on how pronounced the effect should be. Chorus would generally be after distortion in order to simulate doubling or Leslie effects. Speaker cabinet. Mic Room Ambience Ambient effects: these go last. Usually Delay comes before reverb. Looper: You generally want the looper at the end (post) so that it records everything you hear. Its also not a good idea to put more than one signal at a time through a distorted amplifier. This is because when one signal is loud enough to cause distortion, the amplifier has no headroom left for the other signal and it will be ducked away and not be heard. That can be an interesting effect, but wouldn't be typical. You can use the looper at in the pre position if your tones are clean and you want the recorded and played signal to go through exactly the same signal chain. Another good use of the looper in the pre position is for hands free tone setup. For gain staging, start by turning off every effect except the amplifier. Put the Looper in the pre position, and record a short loop where you play pretty hard, ensuring your guitar is pushing the POD at its maximum. Then start at the head of the signal chain and work towards the tail, setting the levels for each effect, one at a time. To set the gain for an effect, turn the effect on and off, and use the effect's level or output control to get the on and off levels more or less the same. Turn the effect off and move to the next effect in the chain. This will ensure that you're not getting a lot of gain buildup when you turn on multiple effects that might result in some internal digital clipping. You'll also find that effects have sweet spots where they work best with a certain input level. If they are under or over driven, the effects may work ok, but not deliver their best results. It can take some experimenting to find the sweet spot, and set the effect controls to get the tone you want. Your ears can quickly tire and you may need to take rests or you may get less predictable results. Its ok to have an effect or two add some gain in the signal chain. I use the vintage pre right before any Fender model to provide extra gain, and a high pass filter to roll off some of the bass. That makes the Blackface amps distort much better and makes a nice switch from clean to driven. But be careful about having a compressor, distortion effect and the vintage pre all adding some additional gain, and all on at the same time. That might push the front of the amp, or even one of the effects too hard.

If you're set to FS5-FS8 mode, you can think of the bank switches and the Looper switch as "shift" switches to temporarily change the functions of FS1-FS8. I use this mode all the time as I don't change patches in a song that often, and two presses isn't that much more difficult than one. The bank switches change the FS5-FS8 mode to ABCD patch selection until you change the patch, then they revert back to controlling effects (or MIDI devices). The Looper switch also changes the MIDI CC messages sent be each footswitch so you can use them for different purposes. This way I also get 16 footswitches into Apple MainStage, treating the Looper switch as a mode shift switch. I have to turn the looper playback all the way down - I can't seem to find a way to turn the Looper off in a patch - although the manual and view display seem to indicate FS4 does this - but it doesn't seem to do anything but control the effects block.

Try S-Gear - www.scuffhamamps.com. And you can use it very nicely with a HD500X for an even more flexible rig. I think this comes close to beating anything but the very best tube amps.

Make sure you using the right expression pedal EXP 1 or EXP 2 to control the Wah. Which one to use depends on which position the expression pedal switch is in when you configure the Wah. Look on the HD500 to see which light is on, when the toe switch is pressed it will go to the other EXP controller. That's the one you want configured to control the Wah

I like the HD500X as a live unit, either as-is or into a computer. But you might like S-Gear for recording. See www.scuffhamamps.com. I have this setup with Logic Pro X or MainStage using the HD500X as an audio/MIDI interface, and provide a nice selection of front of the amp effects into S-Gear. Its a nice combination that allows the HD500X to be used by itself for simpler, no-computer live settings. I've also learned a lot from looking at how Mike Scuffham designs his digital amplifers, and how this translates to Bias on an iPad and the HD500X. Basically he appears to be revoicing the amps for increased gain, reducing bass a lot to clean up the mud, and reducing the high end to avoid fizz and ice picks. This can be done quite nicely by putting the Mid Focus EQ, or Vintage Pre just before the amp block in the HD500. Then use the high and low pass filters to adjust the voicing as desired, and control the gain into the amp front end. This works great to add more gain to the blackface and bassman Fender amps.

I probably does. Balanced and unbalanced shouldn't be mixed. I use a cable with XLR on one end and 1/4" TRS on the there to go from the HD500X XLR out to balanced 1/4" on the PA. Works fine.

When connecting the HD500X to MainStage, I want to be able to use the Looper switch as a "mode" switch so I can get two different functions on FS1 to FS8. For example, I set System > Utilities > FS Mode to FS5 - FS8, that makes all 8 footswitches available to control MainStage. I use these to control 8 front-of-the-amp effects blocks into a MainStage track with the S-Gear plugin. Then I use the Looper switch as a mode switch in order to send another set of MIDI CC messages with FS5 - FS8, I configure these footswitches to control the MainStage looper plugin, and the next/previous song. FS1 - Undo FS2 - Clear FS3 - Next Song FS4 FS5 - Record/Overdub FS6 - Play/Stop FS7 - Previous Song FS8 So the MainStage looper is mostly setup similar to the HD500X looper, and I have two extra footswitches to navigate the MainStage concert. I'm not currently using FS8, but it could be used to control something else in MainStage. My question is on FS4. The HD500X Advanced Guide on page 8.2 says FS4 can be used to turn looper mode on and off. The presentation mode display shows the looper icon on FS4. However, FS4 doesn't do anything different when the Looper switch is lit - it still sends CC 54, the same as if the Looper switch was off. I need to be able to turn the HD500X looper off entirely since I'm reusing its footswitches to control MainStage's looper and I don't want both loopers running at the same time. I currently do this by simply turning the HD500X looper playback volume all the way down. But it would be nice if there was some way to turn the global Looper block on and off, just like any other block - perhaps by selecting it in the signal chain and pressing the enter key. Is this a bug? Is the manual incorrect on page 8.2 and is describing the Looper switch, not FS4? Is there some other way to turn the HD500X looper off? Perhaps sending CC 99?

I did some experimenting tonight and found that the Flip Top bass amp with no cabinet model is the flattest amp, and works reasonably well with a Variax 700 acoustic. Its a little darker than with no amp, but pretty transparent with the tone controls set at 50%. The voicings probably aren't great for acoustic guitar since its a bass amp. But I do recall that Ampeg bass amps used hi-fi boost/cut tone controls, not the all boost controls used by Fender. This is an option to explore until version 2.6 comes out.

Check you Preferences and Java version. Maybe that's the problem.

I'm using a stereo power amp into a Fender Tremolux cabinet that has two Eminence coaxial, full range speakers and crossovers. This setup covers everything including acoustic guitar (Variax 700 Acoustic), mandolin, electric guitar and bass.

I found the answer in the advance manual of all places. The foot switches do respond to received MIDI, but on specific CC numbers, not the ones you configure in the MIDI control page. All I need to do is change all the MIDI mappings in MainStage to use the default CC messages assigned to the foot switches, then I think it will work. Will try that tonight. The more I dig into and use the POD HD500X, the more I like it.

Odd, the POD 2.0 could be completely controlled by MIDI - I created a Palm Pilot application to do exactly that many years ago. What API does the HD Editor use to interface with the POS - its not MIDI since its done through a USB connection. Is that API or the protocol it uses available?