DunedinDragon

I'm pretty sure if we all thought about it,this isn't the ODDEST question we've ever seen here.... :lol:

Sounds like good way to turn a 15 minute setup job at a gig into an hour setup job.... :P

You're not alone in this, but apparently people like us tend to be in the minority. There's a lot of metal guys using this gear, but if you have the patience you'll find you can get exactly the tones you want. But you'll probably end up building them yourself..that's what I had to do. This isn't unusual in the modeling world. Prior to getting the HD500x I was using a Mustang IV which has many of the same type of features as the POD. It came with all sorts of presets that were totally useless to me. So I'm already used to dumping the presets that come with it and building my own. You can get a jumpstart in some ways if you want to download other user's tones from CustomTone, but in all likelihood you'll end up having to modify those as well because they were built with different guitars/pickups and used on different amp or FRFR speaker setups. How many of these presets you choose to build for yourself is really up to you and your needs. Some people are happy with 4 or 5 different presets that cover the range of clean to overdriven and everything in between. As for myself, I enjoy building my own presets and because I use several different guitars depending on the song, I just build a preset for every song in the band's repertoire. Many are very similar, but have some minor tweaks. But it makes it easy for me to build a setlist because I have one set I names "Performance" and I copy the presets from the set I named "Base" into the appropriate slots in the Performance set when we perform. I also know that each song will sound closer to the sound I'm going for whether that be Eric Clapton, Queen, Chet Atkins, The Beatles...whatever. It's taken some time to get this all done, but it wasn't that bad...and it was a really good way of quickly learning the ins and outs of the POD. Right now I have roughly 58 of my own custom presets I've built over the last 5 months. And that was starting from scratch not knowing anything about the POD. And believe me, you're not too old. I'm 63 and I've had a blast learning this stuff and building presets. It's better than spending my time on a coin collection... B) As far as the presets that came loaded with it, I just saved them off to the PC's hard drive using the Edit program. They're there if I want them. And then I just write over whatever preset I want to use. Personally I just used the last two setlists on the POD for my purposes as that's what they're kind of meant for.

Just so you understand iknowathingortwo isn't the member's name, that's the member's status based on number of posts. A lot of the sound you're going to get is really based on the output. You're right in that with all the adjustments, amps, cabinets, and mic's as well as the adjustments and tweaks available, there' no reason you shouldn't be able to get the sound you want.....given you've got a speaker that's able to provide an adequate response. You're going to find that some users simply can't be happy with FRFR systems, and can only achieve the sound they want with an amp and cabinet. Over time I've developed a theory about this. I've been playing in live bands for over 50 years, and in that time I've used a pretty wide range of traditional equipment. Last year I decided to go the route of the HD500X and an FRFR system which was a complete change from traditional amps. What I loved most about the FRFR setup was the clarity and articulation of the sound...even heavily overdriven sounds. That clarity and articulation is really due solely to the difference between a FRFR setup and an amp/cabinet setup. I actually had to adjust my ears (and my technique) to this new sound. Traditional amp/cabinet setups don't really provide much in terms of separation of individual tones and frequencies like a FRFR speaker does. Everything pretty much blends together. I've adjusted what I expect to hear to this more precise and articulated sound. You can still mush things up playing with settings like BIAS and ResLevels on the cabinets, but now I actually prefer the newer sound because I can do more with it as far as technique and blending in a live setting. Many of the things I would do on traditional amps would get buried in the stage mix with the other instruments, but on the FRFR system can clearly be heard in the mix. I've also had to adjust my technique to be more precise for exactly the same reason...but I think of that as a good thing. In a way I think of this new sound as more like a studio recorded sound rather than a live sound because that's more what it's like and allows the whole band to sound closer to a studio mixed sound than a traditional live sound. Personally I like that...but your mileage may vary.

Or, alternatively, you could use your Laney as a simple power amp and use the HD500X for it's intended purpose as a modeler and be playing your guitar rather than monkeying around with your rig. Not only would it simplify your setup, it would reduce your setup/breakdown time at gigs and reduce the possibility of technical problems when you play out. Just a thought.....

Plenty of videos on YouTube regarding this. This one is pretty straightforward:

I can't help you on that. I don't have any need myself for such operations. I do know that multiple effects and/or amp model changes can be assigned to a given FS. Whether that can also include a MIDI sequence in conjunction with those operations is something you'll have to experiment with. I chose the simple life of the POD as a modeler connected to a FRFR powered speaker.

Do you have the volume pedal in your signal chain and is it enabled?

The POD provides a way to sent MIDI commands which can be configured to a given footswitch. If you have the Laney MIDI definitions for changing channels you can enter the info into a preset using the Edit program, then just connect a standard MIDI cable from the MIDI Out port on the POD to the port on the Laney (assuming it takes standard MIDI input). This is more an issue of what the Laney provides than what the POD provides. From the POD perspective it should be simple.

Am I to assume you're using your POD as an effects device and not as a modeling device? As a modeling device what you're wanting to do is quite simple if you're only using the power amp portion of the Laney.

Most likely since the POD is being seen as your audio device it's being defaulted for both input and output. You can change the default playback device through the control panel audio devices and select the computer audio device as your playback device.

I suspect this likely has more to do with resistance from retailers to commit money to stocking Helix due to an abundance of HD500X's in stock. They hope to free up that inventory so they'll be more likely to replace new inventory with Helix's.

Just a couple of points to consider here. I'm not sure what you mean by the "mic" volumes kicking in, but normally you're better off leaving the extra headroom for adjustment on the HD500X master volume control than to have the master volume maxed out. That way if you need to make an adjustment to your overall volume it's right there on the HD500X rather than reaching around to the back of the speaker. It's the same volume level either way, just easier to adjust. You should be relatively safe from triggering the speaker limiter at 50% volume setting on the speaker. That leaves plenty of capacity, and then lower the master volume on the POD to match up with the volume level of the band. Lowering the master volume on the POD has no effect on the patch itself. The limiter is simply a digital algorithm built into the speaker's DSL circuit that monitors the outgoing signal and, when it senses anything that would exceed the capacity of the speaker, chops off the peaks. This is generally referred to as "clipping" and causes the signal to sound a bit muffled when it happens. I pretty much keep all powered speakers at 50% which leaves more than enough headroom before clipping occurs. On very high quality powered speakers like line array systems I have pushed those limits up as far as 65%, but only if I know that signal level that's being sent to it is being kept relatively low as in the case of a master fader on a mixing board.

I have to agree with most of the responses here. I suspect your Alto is plenty capable of keeping up. And as long as you're plugged in via 1/4" you should be sending a good signal, so in all likelihood the problem is in the configuration of your patches. Generally speaking I keep my HD500X master volume at about 50%, and the volume of my Yamaha DXR12 is at 50% as well. A typical patch I might have for a heavier rock JC800 would be Drive around 50%, Bass - 40%, Mid - 70%, Treb - 50%, Presence - 30%, Volume - 70%. With my mixer volume set at +4db on both channels I'm at an almost uncomfortable peak of 85 db as measured in SPL. That should be more than enough to keep pace with everyone unless they're a bunch of garage band kids who haven't learned how manage their volumes correctly. You may also want to check and make sure your Input1 in global settings is set to "Guitar" and Input2 is set to "Same" as that accounts for a somewhat minor difference in line signal level coming through the signal chain. It may be that you've been keeping the amp model volume too low, but it appears to me that the amp model volume has been modeled in such a way to produce a more full sound at the higher range the way these amps used to work in the real world back in the day. Crank them up along with the mixer volumes and you should have plenty of volume headroom left on your master volume control as well as on your speaker volume control.

I will also throw this out there as well. If you're going through a house PA most sound people will resist doing stereo panning on two channels because in a live environment it really doesn't work all that well given the nature of the room and the dispersion of the people to the left and right of the PA speakers. It's not very likely your stereo effect will be heard correctly by most of the audience. Stereo panning effects are generally something best left to recordings where you can be more assured the people or person listening to it are somewhat centered between the speakers.

I have numerous situations that require switching between a clean and crunchy tone and have always been able to address it within a single patch. As AlexKenivel pointed out, just create your clean tone first. Then you can add the crunchy tone by simply adding/subtracting effects which I can typically accomplish through one button press. For example, I have one preset that uses a clean amp with reverb and a tremelo. My FS1 has a Tube Drive and the Tremelo assigned to it. By default the tremelo is on so when I press FS1 the tremelo turns off and the Tube Drive turns on. When I press it a second time the Tube Drive turns off and the tremelo turns on to return to the clean setting. Visually when I'm in clean mode the light on FS1 is off, when I'm in crunchy mode the light is on. If it's a more complex arrangement you can do the same thing using a single footswitch to toggle between two signal paths with two amps.

The Dry Out is a normal 1/4" unbalanced connection and is a tap off of the input from the guitar in on the POD. Essentially it's the same as having a split cable from the guitar to the POD and to the amp. I guess I understand the rationale as long as your tone doesn't have to change much through the performance, but if the front rows aren't hearing the guitar how are they hearing the vocals?

A lot depends on what the Crown amp is and what the speaker cabinet is. I'm only familiar with older Crown amps which are used to power PA cabinets and the like. If that's what you're talking about they work pretty much the same as a powered speaker cabinet in an FRFR arrangement. So you could probably use either the pre's or the amp models, but if it's a standard PA cabinet (more or less flat response) then you'd want to use the cabinet simulations.

Unplug from the amp and try plugging in headphones and see if you're getting any sound

Have you checked your cable going into the amp? Plug your guitar into that cable direct to the amp and make sure the problem isn't in the amp or the cable.

Nah...just someone that figures no matter how much I spend on equipment it won't make me a better guitar player. Only practice can do that...

This one, Mr Non-Smart Guy... http://line6.com/support/forum/30-pod-farm-pod-studio-toneport/

Gee...I sure am glad I don't have to dork around changing speakers and such. It gives me that much more time to actually play the guitar.... B)

It may simply be you're selected the wrong scale. Did you try the C Major Pentatonic? Without understanding what you're specifically trying to do and against what type of chord progression it's hard to figure out exactly what harmony you're looking for.

Unless something has changed recently, I don't think the edit program is even out yet for the Helix.