sidroe

If I want to keep the integrity of my sound when having to trust a sound guy who is unfamiliar with what I want, I always get my tone happening thru my mixer and just give the house a stereo feed from my mixer. Then it's just a matter of a little tweaking for the house on his end. If it is avenue that I have played several times and I know the sound guy and he knows what I like I just take the HD500. Bottom line is you can save a lot of headache with your own mixer.

Eric Clapton has used a Marshall head to push his leslie cabinet forever. I've used leslies for many years on guitar using Fender amps. Back in the day, a little 40 watt leslie could not compete with Marshall stacks for stage volume. You had to resort to micing which became the norm but for a long time a lot of guitar players simply hooked the speaker to hot guitar tube amp and pumped that volume in to the rotating drums. I even had a guy one time that was using stereo leslies, one on each side of the stage. He had cut out a square in the plate and mounted a 100 watt EV solid state amplifier. All he had to do was run the extension cab lines to the other side of the stage. Just saying where there's a will, there's a way.

The main thing to remember is are you using the guitar cab to SHAPE the sound onstage. If you are relying on the POD directly in the PA then you should set up a monitor type situation with full range speakers. No guitar cab is capable of reproducing an accurate picture of what the POD sounds like. Because of that you will be constantly tweaking and what you end up with patch wise sounds NOTHING in the PA like it should. Personally, most gigs I do have a fairly good to world class PA. I plug the XLRs in to the snake for the house and they give me enough back thru the monitors for me to be comfortable. NO MUSS! NO FUSS! Takes me all of 15 minutes to setup and sound check and less time than that to pack up. The longest time I spend is waiting to get paid! HEE-HEE! For my personal rig to monitor thru I set 2 powered floor monitors at my feet. One on each side of the mic stand, like a studio monitor setup, next to the vox monitor. If you still want to have that old school on stage sound just set them up behind where you would normally put 2 guitar amps. The most important thing to remember is you are going to hear the POD cab simulation with a miced sound. It is not going to sound like a dry guitar amp.

I have seen on the Customtone page some bass amps for the HD500 that used the Hiway or Hiwatt model for the amp. I did not download the patch so I can't tell you what cab was used. Might be worth looking in to.

WOW! I don't feel so alone anymore! HEE-HEE

Maybe a re-working of Pod Farm! LOL! Pod Farm in a standalone pedal board!

As far as the "ice picking". I have tried every amp sim plugin and used PODs and Boss Gts. There is not one that I have used that did not sound better with an EQ either the last in the FX chain or plugged in to an insert in the board. The highs in the HDs are very pronounced. Even more than the earlier PODs. I just choose to put an EQ the last in my presets. You can then massage the highs to your taste.

I have not used an amp in over 5 years. I use the HD500 straight in to the FOH. They give me enough of my guitar back thru the monitors for me to feel comfortable. I have played football stadiums and little 75 seat clubs with this setup and I am VERY pleased. At the same time, if you are a diehard gotta have an amp behind me guy you will NOT ever be happy! It takes a while to get adjusted to playing in this fashion. If you keep it up and continue to tweak you will eventually get to a place where you are completely happy and at ease. Another thing. Get used to the harsh looks on the other guys faces in the band as they are lugging their 100 pound stacks to the truck when it only took you 5 minutes to pack up and put your guitar in the case. LOL!

I wouldn't say that the cab emulation is causing the fizziness but I, too, use Torpedo Wall of Sound and the difference in quality far exceeds anything I get with the onboard cabs in HD500. The affordability of Torpedo is another factor for picking up the Torpedo Wall of Sound plugin.

Thumbs up on the Mission Engineering. It's pricey for just a pot surrounded by a pedal but works nice. The only thing I don't like is the travel on the pedal feels more like a wah than a volume pedal. I got so used to my Sho-Bud, Ernie Ball, and Goodrich pedals that nothing really feels the same for volume. But the Mission has worked flawlessly since I got it. I bought it used at Guitar Center for a really good deal.

I use my PODs in many different ways but using REAL amps I have found that the AUTHENTIC sound of an amp IS an amp! I have a bank set up for just FX and NO amp sims. It's used as a glorified stompbox pedal board. I take the stereo 1/4 outs from the POD in to 2 Fender/Rivera Concerts miced in to the PA. It seems overkill to me to me to try slamming a Marshall Plexi sound thru a REAL Fender Deluxe or Mesa half stack. When all is said and done the directs off of the POD thru the PA sounds infinitely better than playing thru a sim thru a tube amp that is sucking all the tone out of the sim! And then you stick a mic on a rig that sounds bad and put it thru the PA! You can play around with it and get it sounding useable but I it never really makes you happy. My opinion means nothing as long as you can find what works for you. What works for me is POD direct in the board in stereo. Then depending on the venue I have a pair of powered monitors that run off of the 1/4 outs in stereo for monitoring guitar. The main thing to me is getting the XLRs in to the PA and then figuring out that you already have good tone off of the POD. Realize that you are only using the amp/speaker configuration to monitor whats going out the PA. I have worked probably 85 to 90 per cent of my gigs in the last 6 to 7 years with a POD direct in the board and just enough volume back thru the stage monitors to play comfortably. The main hurdle I had to jump was I don't need to carry around any amps to get good workable tones. Let the PA do the work.

Go to the Search box at the top of the forum page and type in 4 cable. A whole string of discussions come up about the multi cable method.

WOW! Those things look exactly like my Roland MA-8 pair! I mean exactly! I don't know if they still make the Rolands but I have used them since they first came out. Don't expect a wall of sound out of them but just messing around in your room should be fine. The bass and treble knobs come in handy to tweak that top end tweeter. Although, the bass is a little flabby if cranked too much. I don't know how you feel about used gear but you should be able find the MA-8s pretty cheap or at least in the same range. Check around.

BTW, I use the low impedance outs, left and right, from the HD straight in to the Roland Studio Captures. When you plug the HD USB in to the computer the HD becomes your soundcard. You will have to plug the outputs from the HD in to the monitor speaker system to hear sound. If set for ASIO, this could cause driver conflicts. ASIO only allows one interface at a time. This could cause clicks and pops and worse, crashes of your software. Like I said, I will keep an eye on this thread and try to help as much as possible.

I understand you don't mean that the unit is crap. I simply meant in the post we need the details you just gave us so we can suggest how to get the sound you want. What you are wanting as far as the amp being integrated in to your sound is the 4 cable hookup. There is an extensive post about that setup in this forum. Just scroll down and you should be able to see it. There was a discussion about that hookup a few days ago. I have not used an amp live or in the studio for years, although, I did use an old Boss GT5 with a similar 4 cable setup for a short time before I retired the amps. I either use the HD or software sims like Overloud's TH2, Guitar Rig, Amplitube, etc.. As far as the monitor speaker set up, you will really have to tweak out what you want sound wise because the monitors don't sound or respond anything like your "real" amp. The sound is worlds apart when using the HD by itself. I would suggest what I do. You have blank banks where there are no presets. I set up one bank for recording with the USB so all the presets in that bank are tweaked out for the best sound possible straight in to the board or computer. I set up the second blank bank with presets for plugging in to the amp either direct or 4 cable hookup. Whichever works best for that. That way if I am recording direct I use the bank of direct presets. If I am performing live and using the Peavey, I use the bank of sounds tweaked for that. I hope this helps. Good luck and I will be watching this thread closely to see how you're coming along. I'm sure some other folks will chime in with more suggestions.

I don't know about the other guys and gals in here but I would need a more defined explanation than sounds like crap! LOL! There are many levels of crap. I would think we need a more descriptive reason such as, too thin, too bassy, too fizzy, etc. What exactly is the problem with the tone? Personally, I find that putting an EQ at the tail end of the FX chain will help you tame the tone a little better. All of the digital amp sims, even the computer software ones, seem a little more ear friendly with an EQ at the tail end to help get rid of the fizziness and pump a little more mids. I always have an EQ last in my chain in the HD500. Though, usually I am not using the 5 cable setup. I use the low impedance outs direct in to the computer interface and tweak everything in the HD until I have what I want. I must say also that I play more traditional, rock, jazz, blues, and country. I don't do metal much so my setup works for me. I can't say as far as shredding metal licks because I don't play metal. Give us a detailed statement as to the problem and I know someone here can help.

BTW, I know my avatar says only 7 posts. I have used PODs since the 2.0 version. I just now got around to actually joining the forum. I don't know every little nook and cranny of these products but I am by no means a beginner. I will try to help as best I can.

The pedal on the HD boards can be assigned to control most any feature of an effect. In the edit program you would assign it from the controller window.

Thanks,Uber! I feel much better.

My concern is I have the first model HD500. Are any more new sims just going to be exclusively HD500X? May be time to do a trade! Including the heavy duty volume pedal, I wonder how much more cash I would have to cough up. LOL

BTW, Scotty is right. The main reason I still use the 2.0 is for the Fender amp models. They seem to sound better to me for some reason.

I wouldn't particularly buy a POD 2.0 just for that one amp. I happen to be a very happy owner of one, though. Since the HD500 purchase, it has seen little duty. I will pull it out sometimes just for nostalgia. LOL!

I don't know if it will wreck your warranty but you can trim a little thickness off of the rubber stop under the pedal. This rubber stop will wear over time and make it easier to push the toe switch down. The fix I just gave you will save you the time to wear it down or soften it. I could never get mine to activate without just stomping HARD on it. I trimmed a little off and now I barely have to touch it. Be forewarned, though. Trimming means it may wear or soften quicker than just using the crap out of it. Either way, it would have to be replaced in the long run.

I believe if you check the amp list for the POD 2.0, there is a Jazz Chorus sim in there.