ColonelForbin

I just got on board the M13 train last night; got a sweet deal on an M13 with some killer extras from a guy on Craigslist last night. I am using the JTV59>HD500>DT25, so the M13 is going into the HD500 Fx loop, and it's being configured as a "post" amp fx processor - lots of reverbs, mods, tremelos, delays, etc. LOVE it!~ The extras were a large Gator pedalboard with a soft case, an Ernie Ball expression pedal - and a G50 wireless unit! Not sure which Gator board/case this is on - the case part is just a zippered soft cover. The pedalboard shown in the photos lifts out and has the carry handle on the back of it. Pretty heavy though! Guy did a sweet job wiring it all up so the power is hidden underneath. The Gator looks alot like this one - the GPT-PRO. The reviews saying it's heavy are quite correct - the plywood pedalboard portion is maybe 15lbs by itself, so with the M13 and everything on it's pretty beefy! Might look at downsizing it to a lighter, smaller metal frame pedalboard, bump the G50 transmitter into the space that's free on the Tarcase HD500 board, and let my buddy borrow the Gator for his mess of analog pedals; he really needs a pedalboard that big for all his gear! For now it's all tucked under and secured nicely underneath, so no rush to tear it apart until I have a better option in hand. I do have a Pedaltrain 2 (with the super-sized flight case) and it's well designed - and it comes with brackets to mount a Voodoo Lab power supply under it, with the cutouts for the power in and out, which is pretty nice. I might look into shifting the M13 over on to the Pedaltrain if it will fit properly, and maybe move my analog pedals on to the bigger board. I dunno, will have to spend some time with pedal layout, see how it all fits. As it is now, the analog pedals are pretty cramped on the Pedaltrain 2 board (photo here); it's 24" x 12.5" ; the M13 would be tight on it from top to bottom size - the M13 is something like 15.5" x 12" (upside down) M13 on Gator pedalboard M13 on Gator pedalboard M13 Gator case next to HD500 Tarcase HD500 + M13 on pedalboards

I stayed up *way* too late playing guitar last night! I ended up grabbing that M13 rig from the Craigslist guy. Got a nice price on the M13, an Ernie Ball expression pedal, a G50 wireless unit, and a Gator pedalboard with a soft case. He did a stellar job running all the wires and securing them under the board. It's the soft case version, but that's fine, my analog pedalboard flight case is a monster, and it's a bit extra heavy. The quick review: Putting an M13 in the HD500 effects loop is STELLLLLLAAAARRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Oh yeah, I had not taken the time to fully appreciate what the M13 system offers. Four FX on at any time, in any combination - no effects are locked into any position. And the "on deck" function is AWESOME!!! It's way more like having a bunch of stomp boxes, rather than the "program it out" vibe of the HD500. Controlled chaos! I am loving the Particle Verb with other verbs and delays, it's such a DSP hog of an effect, I often had trouble fitting it into the patches I was making on the HD500. The color coding that changes when the type of effect switches is brilliant. You have so many pedals at your disposal, it's unreal. And since I am using the M13 in the effects loop of the HD500, it frees up a ton of DSP to max out the pre side of effects before the amp. I was just auditioning different scenes, stuff like "all reverb" or "all delay", which is exactly what I was looking to do. I am able to stack comps, autowahs, drives and stuff like that on the HD500 side of things, and configure the HD500 footswitches to control the pre stuff, and run all the post effects with the M13 - I placed the FX loop block last in the HD500 signal chain. I gotta say too, I am loving the wireless thing! The G50 is insanely easy to use, and runs dead silent, I got no interference from the computer or cell phone, it was awesome. The guy had even repaired the special cable that runs to the battery pack unit, his brother is handy with that kind of thing, and so now the cable has a sweet 90 degree turned jack - I had read the cable that comes with the G50 has some issues, so that was an extra sweet bonus. The pedalboard is massive, I might downscale that, but for now it's so well set up, I am just leaving it. I was trying to arrange the three pedalboards into some kind of "stage friendly" combination, and it's totally ridiculous, I'd be taking up half the stage floor space of any normal bar gig stage. I gotta get a heady carpet to use with it all, and play barefoot, lol ;) Anyway, the tone quest continues, and the M13 is a killer addition. I am beyond psyched to go home and crank it up tonight after work!!! M13 pedalboard pic 1 M13 pedalboard pic 2 M13 and HD500 pedalboards side by side M13 and HD500 guitars and DT25

I just recently discovered yet another cool feature the dream rig offers - split inputs! Run the JTV with a VDI cable to the HD500. Set up a patch with no FX blocks in front of the amp model portion. Make a dual amp model chain (for use with the DT, go with the "pre" amp models) - note : the amp model in amp path A will determine the DT25 power amp settings. Define input 1 / amp model A = "variax" Define input 2 / amp model B = "variax mags" (or reverse those, whichever you prefer) This will give you the JTV variax mags on one amp model and the variax models on the other amp model. You can create some pretty interesting tones doing this - I stumbled into a very whacky sound when I had a 12 string acoustic model on one path and the mags on the other! You could also do virtual capo tunings on the variax side, up or down 12 steps to get that octave + original signal tone. Way cool. I was also messing with doing things like then sending the mags side out the fx loop into some analog pedals, got some cool tones that way as well.

Yeah, this expression pedal thing was making me crazy too! I was using an outboard EXP pedal with the HD500, and assigning each pedal to the amp volume of the two amp models. Set amp A to "volume", set it as EXP1, set the min 0, max 100, save. Set amp B to "volume", set it as EXP2, set the min 0, max 100, save. Scroll back to amp A, and now it has defaulted back to "drive" - however the pedal actually performs as a volume adjustment. Made me friggin crazy thinking I was doing something wrong!!

Anyone using an M13 with the HD500; especially in the HD500 effects loop with a DT25 "l6linked" rig? I looked at Craigslist today, and someone is selling their M13 rig - with an expression pedal, a Gator pedalboard with soft case, and a L6 G50 wireless unit! Gonna check it out after work tonight.. :) Did a quick read of the M13 manual, and another bonus, is that the M13 doesn't treat the FX loop as an effects block - and it's positionable in any slot, which is crucial. The Eleven Rack, for example has limited options on where the FX loop can be placed. The M13 can actually save the FX loop settings with patch, so that can shift around on patch by patch basis - very nice..

Yeah, I did a bunch of playing time this weekend! Funny how things that make sense shift around with cables, power and amps involved. I did discover some interesting things, regarding splitting the variax and variax mags. I am going to mess about with putting a rack unit into the effects loop, put that post amp model. I liked hearing the split between the modeled guitars and the humbuckers, but I was doing it backwards - VDI to HD500, then split, and send the mags out the effects loop into the analog gear. Am thinking run the 1/4" out of the JTV into the analog pedals along input 1=guitar/amp A, run the vdi into hd500, define input 2 as variax mags, into amp model B. Then in the post section, run the HD500 effects loop out into the Eleven Rack, into the first batch of "post" FX, then send the ElevenRack fx loop into analog pedals, end with the noise gate, fx return back to the ElevenRack, and hit the final post FX (delay, reverb). I was mucking about with running pedals in the DT25 effects loop, but will try it this way, see what happens! Should have time after work tomorrow..

Yeah, I kinda overdid it.. :) Overall it's the kind of rig that is easy to scale; the core of the whole thing still remains the HD500. If I only had that and the JTV, I could still do alot of what I am trying to achieve without all the extra stuff! I realized last night when I put the pedalboard into the hard case how much weight it adds to the "hauling" factor. Like mowing the lawn, it's a workout! Eyeballing the Voodoo Lab Ground Control to control the Eleven Rack - which would make the stage footprint of all my pedalboards ridiculous!!

I am going to revisit this idea when I get some time, hopefully next couple days. I have been experimenting with using analog stomp boxes both in the HD500 effects loop, and in the DT25 effects loop. I just came up with a new idea today, where I put the Eleven Rack into the DT25 effects loop, and use it with no amp modeling on the 11R, just "post" effects, like chorus, delay and reverb - and don't use any of the HD500 delays and verbs. I had pretty good success with the dual amp model routing, in particular when I made amp A the JTV variax model, and made it acoustic models, with amp B the variax mags - and split them up front into two paths. The mags path I sent out the HD500 effects loop into a stompbox pedalboard; the effects in the DT25 effects loop were things like chorus, noise gate, clean boost. Using any of the 12 string variax models with the mags on the other channel creates a very cool effect; I want to mess around a bit more with octave up and down on the variax; having the ability to split and process independently both the variax and the variax mags at the same time is a very cool thing I would essentially then have an effects loop inside an effects loop, running the 11R in the DT25, and running the "post" stompbox pedals in the 11R effects loop, pre delays and reverbs. This will allow me to position the bulk of the HD500 DSP in "pre" effects on the variax side of the amp model chain. Like pitch, phaser, drive, comp, whatever - all "pre" stuff though. ~"One in a while you get shown the light, In the strangest of places if you look at it right!"~

Got me thinking about effects loops, and my previous thread discussing "pedal sequence" - I have yet another idea I've just mentally stumbled across! It's a thing that happens lately; I spend a bunch of time actually with the gear, let my ears work on what works and what doesn't; then on my commute to and from work, I listen to anything I've recorded, and think about ideas. I usually sort our the actual problems and come up with solutions during these thinking sessions. And since I spend about 3-1/2 hours a day driving since we moved to the western burbs, I spend a fair amount of that time pondering my rig, song ideas, sound effects, how to link gear together, and all that jazz. Not sure why this didn't occur to me sooner.. I bought ProTools 11 at the start of the year, and it came with an Eleven Rack. I mucked about with the 11R for a while, then boxed it up and got distracted by jamming with the guys and working on making the JTV+HD500+DT25 rig sound good at various volumes. Then I got *really* distracted trying to make analog pedals play nice with that whole ensemble. Was doing things like putting compressor pedals into the DT25 effects loop to see what would happen! Anyway, next time I set up the rig, am going to try this idea: put the Eleven Rack in the DT25 effects loop - no amp modeling from the 11R, just set it as all the "post" effects - delays, chorus, reverb, compression/boost, noise gate, etc. I've been putting those "post" FX in the post section of the HD500 signal, and putting other gear into the DT25 effects loop. Since the Eleven Rack also has an effects loop, I could put the 11R into the DT25 effects loop, and put outboard pedals into the 11R effects loop, and get them positioned in the appropriate position relative to the delay and reverb. This will also free up the FX / FS slots on the HD500 to do "pre" effects for the variax side of things. I was already summing the dual channels to a single mono before hitting the delays and verbs anyway; this will let me do things like tap tempo phaser, and some of the pitch shifting effects, some of the more usable drives, comps, etc. Plus it's gear I *already* own, so I don't have to spend any $$ to figure out what works and what doesn't! I was maxing out DSP rather quickly using two "pre" amp models, to the point where I couldn't work much of a patch together for the non-analog signal path. I ended up with two amp models, two verbs, one delay, two volume pedals, one fx loop, and at that point DSP was mostly maxed out - was able to squeeze one more effect in, but not all effects were available. For me, the heart and soul of *why* I keep jumping through Frankenstein's Hoops on this rig, and why I stick with the HD500, is the amp switching ability. Even if I was ONLY using the amp models on the HD500 to control the DT25, it would be worth it - which is getting close to where I am at with this "Expanded" rig idea. Bumping the "post" effects into an outboard unit like the Eleven Rack (also got my eye on the G Major 2) definitely frees up some of the more "fun" and tasty HD500 effects, like the autowahs, the pitch shifting, some of the drives and comps, phasers, flangers, etc. Pretty much anything that would work in the "pre" amp model slot. There is an autowah that makes vowel sounds, that one is pretty cool, and sounds decent - alot of stuff I never messed with, for the sake of choosing the traditional comp/drive/delay/verb stuff. Will report back when I have time to try this latest idea out! I guess I will need to save up some $$ toward the Voodoo Lab Ground Control and the Mission Engineering expression pedal to go with it.. :)

Finally got to spend some time with my guitars over this long weekend! Spent the bulk of my time trying out different versions of the ideas I've been carrying on about here, in terms of dual inputs/ split signal paths using a JTV, and also sorting how to fit that many pedals on on 2' long pedaltrain. Bought a George L's patch cable kit, once the last of the pedals arrive, I will have to sort out exactly where these pedals need to go! Here's what it looks like (in a few variations) as of now: pedalboard pic1 pedalboard pic2 pedalboard pic3 HD500 in Tarcase I stumbled upon an interesting use of the technology, and recorded some rambling, distracted audio samples. These are un-processed mono XLR out from the DT25, converted to stereo, and saved down to .mp3: JTV-HD500-analog-pedals-DT25_Audio Tests The signal path went something like this: JTV59 > vdi > hd500 > input 1 = variax, input 2 = variax mags -input1 (variax) set mostly to acoustic JTV models. -input2 (mags) on amp 'B', FX send to/from analog pedalboard. -at various points moving pedals around, for a time had a few different pedals in the DT25 effects loop to varying degrees of success. It seems the noise gate definitely wants to be in the amp's fx loop, rather than after the first run of analog pedals. Liking the Keeley 'Bootlegger' drive pedal, still sorting how to set it to play best with amp models set with some grit. It's a tube-screamer-esque tone. Though it's germanium, not sure if it's giving me any weirdness from that. Noise gate definitely works hard when I crank that thing too much! Used in this sloppy blues clip. Ended up messing about with the drive pedal and autowah together, some snappy stuff. Still a sloppy mess! I'll say it so no one else has to: I need to spend more time *practicing* my guitar playing, a little less time messing about with sounds and such. Dialing in the rig is time consuming, and my chops are a mess (what chops?) lol. :) Anyway, post-mixer, ran those two merged signals into a delay, particle verb and hall verb. Toggled on/off with FS 5,6,7. Love the particle verb. Makes it sound like there is a rain stick in the mix with my guitar! Takes a lot of DSP though.. Discovered some random interesting things, like using any of the 12 string acoustic guitar models with the mag side also up. Creates a very groovy effect. Some of that in this clip. Almost sounds like steel drums! Wacky weirdness, definitely carnival vibed. I will need to experiment some more with using alternate virtual capo settings, like octave up or down. Also found using stuff like the reso sitar or banjo with the mags up on the side channel also makes for some interesting sounds. This clip is just loop for the first 2:00 or so, I start noodling around 2:10, and some of that sitar (or banjo?) +mags happens around 3:45 to end of track. Very loose noodling, was spending more time spinning dials and moving pedals and cables around! A side note to that, assigning the two EXP pedals to control amp volumes was making me *crazy*. It doesn't register that choice visually after you leave that amp page, like as in, to go set the other amp to use the other EXP pedal. It always defaults back to "drive" in the visual screen, though it does keep the actual function of the setting - until you change up the amp model. I ended up just using two volume pedals, one for each amp path, and only used the analog wah pedal. Which was a pleasant surprise, the thing is loaded with cool sounds - the auto wahs and filters were all quite good, so that was a nice treat. Got a little funky at a few different spots in this 'down on the corner' clip, and this 'scarlet begonia' intro chords clip Using the two EXP pedals as volumes for each amp allowed me to create variations of both on or one on / other off. Made some loopers using 'acoustic' models for rhy part loop, then switched up to the mags for noodling and sound fx muddling around with. I also confunded myself briefly with the Decimator noise gate in the FX loop of the amp - since it tracks the direct input from the guitar, it caused issues with the looper. ( I used the 1/4" out from the JTV for noise gate guitar in, and then ran the actual noise gate effect on the DT25 effects loop) I would start the loop, and all was well, until I stopped playing, then it almost totally killed the looper volume until I backed the noise gate way off. I think I will need to do something like have it track the 1/4" out from the HD500 or something different when I use the looper. But for "live" use, I won't be using the looper anyway, but it confused me there for a few takes! Anyway, that's what I got for now. Still no clue if using the buffer pedal was a good or bad or even need item, and if so, not certain whether it should be placed before or after the wah, etc. At one point I had one of the Keeley 4-knob comps in the DT25 effects loop, with the chorus pedal, the clean boost, and the noise gate. I also tried moving the clean boost and compressor back into the main signal chain, tried them in various positions around the primary distortion pedal. Not sure the extra Keeley will stay in the rig; it does some strange things depending on what is going through it, and definitely creates a fair amount of hiss / noise when I juice it. Will have to revisit the pedal sequence and such, sort out which pedals want to be where. The clean boost has two modes, one is a standard modern 'clean boost', the other side of the circuit is a germanium treble booster type thing; which definitely had issues depending on where it was placed. I ended up shifting the front few pedals around alot, and settled on something like this: HD500 effects send > Keeley comp1 > Wahoo > buffer > distortion > *clean boost > phaser > HD500 effects return. DT25 effects send > Keeley comp2 > chorus > *clean boost > noise gate > DT25 effects return. * I moved the "clean boost" around a lot. (Keeley Time Machine). I also tried it before the distortion to make it saturate more. Will need to spend some time figuring out where this thing sounds the best; it actually did quite well in the DT25 effects loop; but it favored the modern boost side, vs the germanium circuit.

I did a little testing of this last night, but nothing conclusive, other than, using a buffer pedal up front definitely made a difference when using the mags on the JTV, but not sure what it did to the variax models. With the 1/4" through the buffer vs without, there was a noticeable decrease in tonal quality without it; using multiple analog pedals, at least 6 or 7 actual FX, plus the buffer and a noise gate. I may try a variation where I split the variax models and the mags, see what happens when I feel the front of the analog signal chain with the FX send. I did notice some odd volume issues when I had a chorus pedal and phaser in the HD500 FX loop; I may have to go back to my original idea of running the chorus in the DT25 FX loop - not sure until I test all this stuff at volume (was just running the two 1/4" outs from the HD500 into my soundcard and monitoring with some M-audio speakers in studio/direct.) Regarding the comb filtering conversation; in terms of the two signals being identical, what happens when the two signals are being processed differently? The two source "dry" feeds are identical, but they are being processed in two different signal paths; wasn't sure if that would still cause the comb effects in a detrimental way? My original idea was to just run the VDi to the HD, then send the 1/4" analog signal out through the fx send. I will try to do some recording tests with some staccato playing to see where the .wav peaks align in the three variations of splitting the signal: 1.) VDI and 1/4" outs from the JTV 2.) VDI to HD500, input1=variax, input2=mags, send input 2 out on amp path B through HD fx loop to analog pedals. 3.) VDI to HD500, use same input for amp A and B, however, send path B out via FX loop to analog pedals.

Yeah, I had that thought too; wasn't sure this idea of using both the 1/4" and VDI outputs would work as a result of that possible signal delay. My original idea was use the VDI into the HD500 then split the signal into two amp models, and place the FX loop into the signal path which I want to run through the analog pedals. I think it may warrant some kind of recording test to the computer, see how everything looks! I guess there are tricks I could use to delay the VDI signal, but at a certain point it becomes just an exercise in nonsense! lol, I am good at that :) Thankfully, it's looking like I will *finally* have some time over this extended weekend to mess about with these various ideas. Another version of this idea I had was use the VDI, then split the variax models and the mags into the two signal paths, and run the mags through the analog pedals.

Yeah, same here! I have been using only bank mode for a while, since I got the thing - four years. I was doing exactly the same thing, accidentally changing patches when I was using the tap tempo. I think you can still change the bank when in Fs1-8 mode, by using the bank up/down on the left, and that should allow patch selection with fs5-8 - not certain on that, will need to test it out. That's a solid idea about what to program fs8 as, since it's the one that gets hit by accident the most. I may even leave it un-assigned, since it looks like I would only have fs assignments for 7 things anyway..

Plexi normal and bright are the two amp models I use more than any others. A couple of other things worth looking at, are you assigning the inputs as two different sources? This can make a difference. Check out these links for some good ideas: http://foobazaar.com/podhd/ http://foobazaar.com/podhd/toneGuide/ http://foobazaar.com/podhd/toneGuide/quickGuide#inputSettings http://foobazaar.com/podhd/toneGuide/setup#input

I have always programmed my HD500 footswitch assignements from left to right to mirror the sequence created in the signal chain, which functions left to right. More recently I started building an analog pedalboard to accompany the HD500, and it's been so long since I used regular stomp pedals, that I forgot they all are wired to plug in from right to left! Just wondering, how do you all approach your FS assignments? I typically did something like this: FS5 comp FS6 drive FS7 reverb FS8 delay Then I realized I had the reverb and delay backwards, duh - and then I started working with the FS1-8 setup, and that opened a whole can of worms, in terms of what goes where. In building the analog board I haven't locked down the sequence yet, but I was thinking about it in terms of relating to the HD500, especially the expression pedals, which are to the right of the HD500, so was doing something similar, but then started thinking about putting the wah on my analog pedalboard to the left side of the board, so when it's next to the HD500, all the expression and wah pedals are grouped into one location. That got me thinking about programming my HD500 FS assignments in reverse, from right to left, to start with wah, then work from there to the left.. Thoughts?

Very interesting! I guess I will test this out - so it's possible the 1/4" outs vary based on whether the modeling is activated or not. No sense spending $$ on things like a buffer if I don't need it! I suppose it's never a bad thing to have around, I also use a regular old strat with the rig. In this particular example I was looking at sending the 1/4" through the buffer and into the pedalboard while the VDI is sent to the HD500 - which is then joined by the 1/4" from the pedalboard going to the guitar in on the HD500.. I might end up with a tonal mess when I actually get to plug everything in this weekend. Will let ya know what happens!

I'd like to know that as well! I am still working towards a couple of the L3's; I've got two L2t's and they work quite well for floor monitors, and they definitely crank as a stereo pair for the HD500. In terms of power, the L2t/m are 800w each, and the L3t/m are 1400w each. The L3sub is 1200w.

Does anyone know if the 1/4" outputs from the JTV have a buffer? I am setting up a semi-complex use of the JTV+HD500+DT25, using both outputs from the JTV, and running the 1/4" into an analog pedalboard before it hits the HD500. I haven't tested this yet, but I was reading up and checking various YouTube vids about placing a dedicated buffer pedal at the front of the signal chain, to compensate for the tonal loss of using several true-bypass pedals. Some very interesting info about this kind of stuff, and a few of the audio tests reveal a very clearly pronounced treble and tone loss. I guess it comes down to basic math, the 15' cable from guitar to pedal, all the patch cables, and the cable run from end of pedal chain to the amp can easily be 50' or more. The side note I did see, is that using a buffer pedal up front isn't needed if the guitar output is buffered, as is the case with guitars that use batteries. I wasn't sure if the JTV was such a beast, or if the battery is used for the variax portion only - it doesn't strike me as an "Active" guitar per se, but this is all relatively new knowledge for me, so I wasn't sure how to look at it! Here is a buffer pedal that I stumbled across, and got me researching all this stuff: JHS Little Black Buffer http://youtu.be/sexnpn-3Dp0

http://youtu.be/sexnpn-3Dp0

Anyone using pedals by JHS? Just what I needed, more gear to obsess over and spend copious amounts of $$ on! Lol, G.A.S., it's an epidemic of musical proportions. :) Anyhow, just saw this blurb on Sweetwater, they now carry JHS pedals: JHS Pedals (on Sweetwater) JHS Pedals website "Each JHS pedal is hand built and tested by the JHS team in Kansas City, Missouri." They have an analog (bucker brigade) delay pedal with tap tempo, with expression pedal input! Wayyy cool.. JHS "Panther Cub" delay They also have a slew of mini sized cases with some very cool and useful stuff, like A/B, splitter, buffer ,etc. The buffer pedal in particular looks interesting - didn't realize that "true bypass" can actually cause some problems if you connect several pedals.. More research for me to do! Little Black Buffer "For those of us who are a little “pedal happy†there can be some downfall to our tone. When running a pedal board with more than one or two effects, something called “capacitance†happens. This is where the “Little Black Buffer†steps in providing the perfect input impedance to your rig and giving you the final result of clear, natural tone that sounds like you're plugged straight into your amp no matter how many pedals you use." Buffered Splitter "Need to split your signal? Don’t want to settled for a passive device that will kill your tone and cause signal loss? This is what you need! This little box of magic takes your input signal and splits it into two always-on outputs that are buffered so you don’t loose clarity or tone in any way." Little Black Amp Box "If your amp has a “send/return†effects loop simply connect the input to your SEND and the output to your RETURN. You can use the LBAB to saturate your preamp section and get some cranked tube tone at bedroom levels!" Mute Switch "Simple, solid and very useful. Have you ever needed a simple mute switch with no frills? Just hit the footswitch and anything plugged into the input is made 100% silent. Has a dual color LED that shines green when signal is hot and red when the mute is on." Mini A/B "A good solid A/B box can be a guitarist's best friend. We make ours from a Hammond 1.5"x3.6†metal enclosure with high quality jacks and switch. We also include a dual color (red/green) LED to let you know by sight if your using A or B. This is very practical in a live situation. Here are the best uses for our handmade Mini A/B." Mini Tap Tempo "A small 1.5"x3.6†foot print make this a go to tap tempo controller for all you needs. This comes standard with three outputs and one has a polarity toggle to allow for use of normally open and normally closed tap driven pedals." Stutter Switch "This super small little 2†box allows you to momentarily mute your signal. For years guitarist have done this by using their pickup selector on their Les Paul or even installing momentary “Kill Switch†buttons into their guitars, but now all you need to do is slap this guy on your board. No power needed as it is a totally passive device. Just tap away, and as your foot touches the switch, your signal is muted. Think of this as your own manual tremolo!"

Looks like Boss recently put out another COSM amp modeling board. I've steered clear of the Boss gear for quite a while, the ME50 got sold when I bought the X3L back in the day. Just wondering how their newest offering sounds, anyone compared this with either the HD500 or the AMPLiFi floorboard? The design looks about the same as the other GT gear, with the exception of, the GT-100 has dual LED screens. Oddly, (as of yet) Boss / Roland does not have an in-house editor for tone creation that can run on a computer - The software editor wasn't developed by Boss, but a third party. And it's priced up a touch, Sweetwater selling them for $550. It does seem to offer some interesting dual tone / dual amp function that is assigned based on frequency, like a crossover. "A/B Channel Divide. With it, you assign different amps and effects to each channel and divvy up the signal by dynamics and frequency. Each channel drives its own effects and amp settings. Assign creamy, liquid lead tones to the mid-to-high pitches, for instance, and gritty, cutting tones to your lower notes." The GT-100 only offers a single 1/4" and an 1/8" in, no digital inputs and no XLR inputs. It looks like it has a mono effects loop.

Yeah, I am going through some (probably) needless brain damage assembling an overly complex take on how to use the HD500+JTV59+DT25+analog pedalboard. In a nutshell (because I am crazy for doing this!) I am using both the VDI and the 1/4" out from the JTV59. I send the VDI to the HD500, and run that on amp path A; and I split the two inputs to two isolated amp chains in the HD500 patch. The JTV 1/4" goes into the analog pedals, in a sequence something like this: (I am still waiting on two pedals to arrive from Keeley, so I still haven't been able to test out this full rig idea) And I fully agree about noise gate happening before the delay and reverb. From what I understand about the Decimator II G-string, even though you place it first in the signal chain, the actual noise gate effect doesn't occur until the DEC IN and DEC OUT are connected, which in my case, is in the HD500 FX loop, as the last item before the HD500 Fx loop return, which then feeds into the delays and reverb, post noise-gate. I have to mess around with whether I want to keep the FX loop in only the amp path B, or if I want to place it after the two amp model signals are merged. I am thinking I will try it both ways, and see what works / sounds best. Originally I was going to have alot more stuff in the FX loop,and now it's just chorus and phaser and noise gate, so that might make sense to merge the signals before I run it through those FX; we'll see. I may also push the phaser back to "pre" portion of the pedalboard path, and run it after the drive pedals, after the 2nd comp, before the clean boost. We'll see how it all works, and what sounds best! I want to use the tap tempo feature on it, and the ramp function, to get that leslie speaker sound, so I don't know if that would sound better across the whole signal, or just on the analog side of the path. [HD500 guitar in / amp model path B] 1. Decimator II G-string noise gate (tracking only, does not noise gate this signal) 2. Keeley 4-knob compressor #1 3. Sonuus Wahoo 4. Keeley Neutrino (envelope filter) 5. Keeley White Sands (overdrive) 6. Keeley Bootlegger (overdrive) 7. Keeley 4-knob compressor #2 8. Keeley Time Machine (clean boost / treble boost)>> 9.-->> to HD500 guitar in 10. HD500 amp model B 11. HD500 fx loop send-->> 12. Keeley phaser 13. Keeley Seafoam (chorus) 14. Decimator DEC IN > DEC OUT -->> (this is where the actual noise gate effect is applied) 15. -->>to HD500 fx loop return At this point, I merge the two HD500 amp model paths to a single mono mix and send them into post FX: 1. HD500 fx loop send-->> 2. Keeley phaser 3. Keeley Seafoam (chorus) 4. Decimator DEC IN > DEC OUT -->> (this is where the actual noise gate effect is applied) 5. -->>to HD500 fx loop return 6. HD500 Volume pedal 7. HD500 delay 8. HD500 reverb #1 9. HD500 reverb #2 10. L6Link to DT25. Stepping back to the VDI path, I run this on amp path A, because that's the cleanest direct path to the tuner. I then run the VDI input on it's own parallel signal path, with some basic FX blocks like this: HD500 VDI input / amp model path A: 1. HD500 wah 2. HD500 comp 3. HD500 screamer 4. HD500 amp model A>> (merges with amp model path B > to FX loop then to delays and reverbs)

Sort of - not sure; the ISP just has one knob. Not sure how the NS-2 functions, in terms of the four jacks. With the ISP II g-string, you run it first in the chain, but it is not doing a noise gate function at that stage, it's just sampling / listening to your guitar. The actual noise gate function occurs in the FX loop - the ISP needs to be almost last in the FX loop - before the reverbs and delays however. Here is where it pairs what it's hearing from your guitar, and isolating the difference between noise up front and induced noise down the line. I don't think it will actually work up front as a noise gate, which may be a difference in how the Boss functions. From looking at the Boss NS-2 manual, it looks like they have you plug the guitar into the NS-2 guitar in, and then connect your effects / stomp boxes into the NS-2 send/return loop, and then run the output from the NS-2 into your delay pedals and such. According to the ISP Decimator II G-String manual: "The Decimator II G String has 4 ¼ inch jacks. Connect the guitar directly to the Guitar IN. Connect the Guitar OUT to the input of the amplifier. Connect the DEC IN to the loop send and DEC OUT to the loop return. For best performance place all gain pedals in front of the amplifier and DEC IN. You can put Delay and Reverb effects pedals after the Decimator II G String and before the loop return to avoid cutting off reverb and delay tails." Mine just arrived today! But it's looking like I won't have time to connect it up with the rig until (hopefully) this weekend. Will let ya know how well it plays with a bunch of analog pedals - in this case the "amp" is my HD500 L6Linked to a DT25, so the Decimator will actually be the last thing in the FX loop before the fx loop return going to the HD500.

Snagged that Tarcase from the craigslist guy after work yesterday! Really nice, definitely somewhat oversized; but I like that the back part of the floorboard portion of the case protects the back side of the HD500, especially protecting the cables coming out of it from being kicked or stepped on. Fits the HD500 like a glove, really well constructed. I hope the guy who was making these is still around! Well worth the $$. The guy who sold it to me took really good care of it, and the carpet held up extremely well. Here's a couple links to some photos I took; my cat took to it straight away, I will have to keep this thing away from the cats before they turn it into a scratching post! I just need to velcro or mount the Mission expression pedal in the side slot. Still assembling the Pedaltrain board and waiting on two more Keeley pedals that are on order, but since they are newer pedals, I think they are still building them! Looking forward to being able to record some sound samples once it's all rigged up together. As a side note, the Pedaltrain pedalboard comes with mounting brackets to attach a Voodoo Lab power supply to the underside of the board. It fits perfectly, and the power plugs line up perfectly with the existing holes in the back of the Pedaltrain. I found a sweet video on YouTube, this guy lays it out and walks through the process, of mounting the brackets on to the Voodoo Lab, and then drilling holes into the metal frame of the Pedaltrain board, and what not. Pictures worth a thousand words, so I wonder how many words it takes to sum up a video? :) Cheers! https://www.dropbox.com/s/1klhihul984fxy8/20140519_193045.jpg https://www.dropbox.com/s/re7l18kigmyxjtt/20140519_193128.jpg https://www.dropbox.com/s/pftup42j7rh3c2m/20140519_193102.jpg https://www.dropbox.com/s/mrczshve3u3czyb/20140519_203018.jpg https://www.dropbox.com/s/wavpac0zm61r5nk/20140519_203026.jpg https://www.dropbox.com/s/8nvorj5azryty8c/20140519_203039.jpg https://www.dropbox.com/s/97jlejs34e3dg94/20140519_203105.jpg Here is the how-to video for mounting the Voodoo Lab power supply under the Pedaltrain: