Hi_Im_Matt

"humming" and "feedback" are bad words to describe that sound. Both of those words refer to rather specific sounds, none of which yours is. Yours just sounds like a poorly built signal chain with some odd effects messing things up - perhaps a reverb or delay. As /u/DunedinDragon said, I'd just start turning off effects one by one. Also check your amp for effects, reverb, etc. If you're using a pre-built effect that came with your device, then don't. Build a new one from scratch to understand better how the effects relate to each other (The prebuilts tend to be pretty awful anyhow). In other words, it doesn't sound like anything *wrong*, it just sounds bad.

Forgot to add - I highly recommend downloading the manual and studying ahead of time. There's a LOT of human interface controls on these, and they aren't all visually obvious. For instance, knobs could also be buttons, things that just look like labels are also buttons ... you really do want to make sure you at least know where all the things to press are :)

A few things that weren't noted: - The expression pedal has a toe switch, so you can do things like switch it from volume to wah. Make sure this works. - Make sure that all of the in's and out's work. You may never use the digital out or the xlr's, but you probably *will* end up using all of the 1/4's at some point, so bring plenty of cables. - Be absolutely positive the USB connection works. Have them connect it to their computer and watch the settings open in the software. Being able to edit on the computer is a *major* feature of these things, and the USB connections are apparently prone to crapping out so be doublesure this is good.

So, I'd appreciate a bit of help from this large community. All I'm asking is that someone add a screamer to a patch, turn up the gain on it all the way, turn your amp up a smidgen and then post back whether they hear a sub-octave being added or not. If you have your equipment setup and turned on it should take all of 30 seconds. Thanks!!

Further update, having replaced the input jack on the transmitter, I went to a gig, set everything up ... and promptly removed the G50. In my case, the cable was bad in addition to the jack, and in hindsight, I'm guessing it was the cable much more so than the jack (because I never had a problem with the cable falling out, despite the jack being cracked). Upon further investigation online and by tearing mine apart, it's evident that these cables just aren't as durable as other cables guitarists are used to. Mine had maybe 3 strands of grounding shielding left, and even the cloth internal sheathing was completely worn in one spot. I would suggest effectively troubleshooting it yourself before taking it in. Plug it into a transmitter, and generate a signal until the audio light comes on (all I had to do to get a signal was to touch the tip of the 1/4'). Then careful wiggle various pieces of the cable - near the 1/4, near the TA, the TA assembly itself (to test the connection to the input jack). That will help narrow down if it's the cable, and where in the cable. Mine was broken near the TA connector, but after tearing it down and inspecting I realized building a new connection to that connector just wasn't happening, so I bought a new cable on Amazon for 15 dollars, free shipping on prime :) At some point I may take all my photos together and build a tutorial, but for now I would say that the cables are absolutely the weakest link, and check yours out carefully. I'm willing to bet all those "drops" and "interference" I've had over the months was actually my cable dying. Once my new one comes and I confirm it works, I'll buy a second, keep it in its original packaging and throw it in the gig bag. I guess the trick is to approach the cables as a consumable, and to not buy anything with a TA4 connection again.

I would try before buying. The latency is surely acceptable coming out of the pedalboard if its acceptable going in, but if you go wireless both in and out you'll be doubling the latency. I would worry abit about potential interference between the two as well (recent RF spectrum changes seem to have more and more devices competing for bandwidth) and would also be interested in the electrical characteristics coming out of the board versus coming out of a guitar. But if you give it a try and it works you should let everyone know !

If anyone else wouldn't mind trying to reproduce this, I would appreciate it. I don't mind the sound and actually plan on keeping it, but it was quite unexpected. It's not a particularly loud suboctave - not like you would hear on an octave fuzz - but it's definitely present on my system. Thanks !

Once you get into it a bit more, you'll find that you can assign that gas pedal to either a wah or a volume (actually, you can assign it to a few effect paramters as well). You can then place the gas pedal and any other effect anywhere you want in the chain.

Hello Russ, Sorry for the delays, I've been woodshedding. You brought up a technical aspect I hadn't thought of - that adjusting the mixer volume affects any post-mixer effects, and that it can even affect the AMP drive. I hadn't come across that, because rather early on I gave up on multiple patches (EXACTLY for the volume reason) and now use it exclusively in "pedalboard" mode like an M13. It seems like meambobbo is helping you, can't wait to read his tips. I imagine that volume disparity is the number one frustration of users, and I a bit disheartened that it hasn't been addressed. I've been buggering with the volume levels of my one (1 ! ) patch all nice as I try new pedals and gain structures. Good luck !

Hi all, Please confirm I'm not going crazy. I added a screamer and set the gain to maximum, and when I play it I quite distinctly hear a sub-octave being added. I have a second screamer in the chain set to lower gain, and I hear it - but lower - in that one as well. There are no octave pedals in my chain. I do have my amp turned up a bit, and I also have a Vetta comp at 73%. I'm playing into the front of the amp, and I only hear the sub being added with the screamer(s), not with anything else. Can anyone else reproduce this ? Is this intentional, and it's just how screamers add drive ? Or is this a glitch or some unintended consequence ? I've never played with a real tube screamer, so I honestly don't know how they're supposed to perform. Thanks, -Matt. Edit: I forgot to mention that this is a POD HD 500 (Not an 'X') runnign the current latest firmware.

Plenty of those...just replaced the front and back of my Nexus.

FR/FR speakers is really kind of a fancy way of saying "speakers that don't change the sound that's going into them that much". Reference monitors should match that description, but there's a good chance the PA doesn't, so tweaking on reference monitors doesn't necessarily equte to what you'll here in the venue. If you're that concerned about the sound, I would suggest buying a very small, inexpensive solid state amp and micing it. It's only slightly less convenient than going direct, but you'll have that much more control over the sound. Even then though, what comes out of the PA will NOT be what comes out of the amp. It may be very close, but it won't be identical. Even if you physically transported all of the equipment between one room and the next, it won't sound the same, because the room affects the overall sound as well. And, if you can believe this- that room *empty* will sound different than that room full of people. Which leads me to my next point... does the music, band, style, venue, PA and audience merit optimizing it for the PA ? If you can get a sound you like well enough at home, are you really uncomfortable taking that sound out ? If you're playing soft acoustic music on a high end guitar in an acoustically engineered room with a great PA and a great sound person, than I would fret it. If you're playing loud rock in the same room I would fret it less - the sound guy or gal will help compensate for the room. If you're playing in a crowded bar, it probably wouldn't matter either way ... just my 2 cents. I play both through amps and direct, and I use the same patches for all. Noone's ever said boo to me, and we draw crowds and big cheers, but we're playing fairly raucous rock and roll where honestly, as long as the tone is in the pocket it doesn't have to be perfect.

Glad to hear that - I was worried it was too much, but as a brand new purchaser I figured you were full of FUD (Fear, Uncertaintly and Doubt) and could use some of the bigger picture. You will probably end up very happy with your POD. You will most certainly end up spending lots of time playing with it ;)

LoL, I actually just did some googling,and found your post from last year with the URL, heck of a coincidence. I'm buying one right now ! http://www.fullcompass.com/product/405558.html <-- This URL is active and correct as of 2014 7/22. Costs 15 bucks plus shipping. I paid the 18 bucks to get it here by Friday, I'd love to have my G50 back in tip-top shape for this weekend's gigs.

I've been gigging my POD for sometime now. At one point I did build individual patches for each song, but I would never build *multiple*patches for each song. I would simply setup a rythm sound - using multiple pedals mapped to one footswitch, and then do the same for lead. Set them all to use the same footswitch, so that stepping on "lead" turns off "rythm" and vice-versa. If I needed additional voicing I would simply add "optional" pedals to that patch. I no longer do any of this now though. It was simply too high maintenance, and frankly very, very OCD.

I've been gigging mine off and on for a while now, and exclusively for about the last year or so. Honestly, if I bring out pedals it's for something that isn't yet represented in the POD (like my POG2) or somethign that's just too unique (like a certain Wah I have), or it's just because I want the eye candy. Same for amps. I played a show direct once (amp damaged in transit) and it sounded GREAT. My amps now are just for the feel of having one onstage ( I have one that's pretty eye candy) and to help with monitoring. I'm perfectly comfortable going direct with it though. This POD HD 500 finally made me start telling people that there is no longer an argument between digital or analogue, only a preference.

"I also think that the part of the brain where memorization of songs happens is a different area from where footswitch assignment goes" Totally ! I often woodshed without even being plugged in, so my pedalboad foot doesn't get any muscle memory at all :) Things were definitely simpler back in the day. Take a stack of Marshalls, turn the head all the way up, voila, you had your distortion plain and simple. But if you wanted a great clean, you got yourself a Twin. If you wanted .... well, you know the deal. The technology offers great capability but at the cost of complexity, just like everything else these days.

Welcome aboard ! Everyone's supplying good technical tips. I think the most important one is to Google away. There's a lot of good education out there. I'll throw in a couple tips of my own less technical ones: - Create baseline patches, level your pedals, get the gain saturation how you like it, and save that patch as a base or template, than copy from there. I pretty much HAVE to do this because I find it very difficult to get unity gain through a chain. - If you play live, build chains through your performance amp, at performance volume. Be prepared to tweak them during rehearsals. - Backup your patches to the computer every once in a while if you build anything elaborate - When you add a pedal, be prepared to tweak it. I don't like the defaults one bit. - If it has a "mix" setting, play with it. Varying the effected versus direct mix can be all the difference betwen an overdone sound, and perfectly suited subtle sound. - A/B against your favorite pedals and you should be able to replicate most of them in short order. - Play with pedal orders, and with before/after amp. -Personally I'm quite happy playing it into the front of my amp, others aren't. It your amp, your ears. I tried the four cable method that you'll eventually hit upon ( and will likely also try ) and it didn't do anything for me. - Copy your fave patches over into new ones, throw the POD direct into your console, and tweak the patches until you like them again. Voila, you now have an emergency direct option should your amp ever take a dive. - If you gig with two guitars, check out the various input options for input 1 versus input 2, and also consider cloning the patchs and tweaking them. -I haven't found a use for plugging a microphone into the POD yet. Good luck, congrats ! - Google. There's a lot of good education out there,

I don't have the new X series, and I know nothing of the Variax. I have one of the older (dare I say "classic"?) POD HD 500's (which are apparently the same beast, with less memory) and my single largest complaint is volume disparity. Its been quite some time since I played with the built-in patches; I do, however, frequently play with my own patches adding and removing pedals, and my single largest frustration there is the great difficulty in obtaining unity volume throughout the patch. Even changing an amp model on an existing patch can greatly vary it's volume. But let me back up a bit. You'll find many gripes about the volume disparity online, and many different approaches. But before you jump to any conclusions quit yet, let me share some of my perspective with you.I say this as guy who has been playing this POD HD 500 for years in all manners, both on and off stage, and who also has a ridiculously, unnecessarily large collection of pedals ranging from old DOD and Boss to hand-crafted boutique pedals (the type where the fellow came to my house to debug my board): -The POD HD is IMO a really good system, a great value and to me a valued asset. It is technology, and like all technology, it is not perfect. The key is to understanding it's strengths and benefits, and understanding how to mitigate its weaknesses. I am pretty happy with my HD now, but it took me a while to come to terms with it. -Built-in patches - just say NO. I have multiple digital systems, multiple keyboards and a full on synthesizer and without exception every single built in patch I've heard has completely displeased me and usually leaves me making disparaging remarks about teenagers attempting to "shred' on crappy equipment yet full volume in the middle of a crowded guitar shop. Their sole purpose in my opinion is to demonstrate the extremes so that someone demoing the system in a store can quickly hear all the crazy sounds they are able to get out of it. I honestly believe they intentionally build them to appeal to aforementioned "shredder kids". Chances are, hopefully - you're going to play with the demo patches enough to learn how the system works, and then quickly move on to making your own patches and developing your own sound. If you'e a 12 year old "shredder kid" my apologies, but please keep your in-store volume lower. -Now, even when making your own patch, there's going to be challenges getting unity (or close to it ) when making changes to the patches. This is a primordial source of frustration for me personally. I start building a patch, get a nice clean going, add a gain pedal and it's like 20 db's louder ! What !? First of all- STAY CALM - this is easy to deal with if you follow a basic methodology of building yourself a template or "base patch" first, then copying it to the other banks. - Remember too that there's actual volume, and there's perceived volume. Psychoacoustics are real, so doing things like measuring with a decibal meter doesn't help as much as using your ear carefully - assuming your ear is judicial enough. Even a sublte EQ adjustment can change the perceived volume, particularly when working with a full band. -Also, this is a multi-input, multi-output system. Different settings like the "line/amp" swich, the various settings for the 2 inputs will all make a difference in sound. Yes, there are loads and loads of settings and tweaks. At first blush it's overwhelming, but relax, take your time, and it will all start making sense. This is a community Support forum: It's a great place to ask quick questions for quick answers, but a bad place to get a deep understanding and education. With some googling, you'll find several blogs that provide deep insight into the various settings, best practices (like the "4 Cable Method"), etc. - I remember it took me quite a while to get used to this thing. When I started using it, there wasn't quite the amount of online resources that there are now, and I had to do a lot of experimentation myself. At first, honestly, I hated it. The pedals all sounded like crap, the volume disparity was an impossibility (and is still a large source of frustration, frankly). But with time I tweaked and got it sounding better. I started using it at rehearsals, tweaked some more. Eventually I built up enough confidence in it to use it on a gig, but then went back to my pedals. Then I'd try the digital again, back to pedals. Eventually I decided I *really* wanted this POD thing to work for me, so I took out a couple of my pedal boards, and wired up probably a (expensive) collection of pedals including some classics. I put them on an A/B switch with the Line 6, and tweaked and tweaked until the two were indiscernable, and that's when it hit me: - Defaults suck. All defaults suck, on every digital music device I own. My Boss unit ? the defaults suck.They suck less than the Line 6 ones, but they still suck. The defaults on my synthesizer ? Suck. I had proven to myself that I can make my Line 6 sound like a collection of pedals with some tweaking, proof to me that: -The POD will sound as good as you make it. Your ear, your experience, your preference -> your sound. There's no "sound awesome" button on it, but the potential is absolutely there waiting to be realized. The interwebs are full of examples of amazing sounding guitar played through an HD 500. Plenty of folks gig with it, plenty of folks record with it (guilty of both) and I'm guessing the majority of folks who disparage it haven't taken the time to realize it's potential. I'm sitting here telling you I gig this thing on a regular basis. Now, full disclosure: I do still occasionally take a few analog pedals out with me. Some have a magical element I can't reproduce, some aren't represented in the POD (like my POG2), and some just sound waaaay too unique on their own, and it's just easier to bring them when I want that sound, than try to reproduce it (like a certain fassel based wah I have that's just crazy phonetic sounding). But I increasingly evangelize digital to my player buddies for a variety of reasons: - Analogue pedals can be notoriously unreliable in a working live scenario. Each pedal has 1 power connection and two 1/4 connections, and two 1/4 cables just waiting to go bad. Oh, and all those pots ? I can't tell you how much time I've spent over the years cleaning pots, cleaning cable connections, repairing cables. My POD hd has all of the unreliable connections of a SINGLE pedal, but offers me the sound of my entire pedalboard. Ever accidentally knock your pedal with your foot and have it crackle ? or cutout ? It happens all the time, way more often than you would suspect. ESPECIALLY during outdoor gigs ( at least to me) - Setup time. Even with a good pedal board, stuff gets bumped,knobs get moved, a cable gets disconnected. Pedals need to be leveled, gains set to their desired places, etc. If you *don't* have a pedal board, now you're talking about individually plugging in a bunch or pedals. -Saving your sound. Speaks for itself. Dial in during rehearsals, and replay on demand. This is priceless to me. Obviously is pricesless to a lot of folks as the entire mixer console market more rapidly moves to digital. -Playing direct. I got to a gig once andmy amp had been damaged in transit. No worries, I changed a few quick settings, threw an XLR into the POD HD, and gigged away. Great benefit IMO. I had zero notice from anyone -not even the band (whom all had me clearly in their mon feeds) - literally noone knew or cared that I didn't have an amp. It was so nice, no muss, no fuss, and sounded great. I actually went ampless for a few months after that and basked in the glory of Less Crap To Haul. So yeah, the default patches may have volume issues. When you start building your own patches, you're going to have volume issues too - you'll learn easily enough how to work around those though. I wouldn't jump to conclusions just yet, or get buyers remorse though. It's a great piece of kit that you'll probably eventually love. It DOES have its warts like any gear, and you will find legitimate frustrations, but I wouldn't let the default patches be one. I would start playing with it, google, read, learn, and figure out how to make it yours. Don't play default patches, OWN THAT BOARD !

Here's how I deal with it.... then this one gets copied around and tweaked.

Absolutely ! It's one less thing to have to memorize/learn/deal with ! Simplify, simplify, simplify is my mantra now. In fact, it's one of the main reasons I'm currently using my digital board- to simplify ! My analogue pedals all come in different shapes, sizes and colors all of which make it very easy and intuitive when playing live. I found those magnetic labels to be really cool ! Unfortunately however if I use multiple patches the assignments may very well change in between. Like others what I do is simply try to keep my assignments in the same basic order. It's rare that I use more than a single patch these days, but when I did, I would always try to keep it consistent. For instance, if I'm building very complex patches, with different multiple pedals assigned to a rythm tone, different multiple pedals assigned to lead tones, and those would both change between songs, I would make sure that each patch had rythm on the first button, lead on the second button, individual pedals elswhere as example. So if I were playing a song where the rythm required compression, slight chorus and subtle gain, I would map all of those to one pedal. Then, say the lead required reverb, heavier gain, delay and flange, I would map all of those to the "lead" pedal. Then say if the bridge used the rythm sound, but just added one or two effects, I would map those to a third button. It worked out reasonably well, because I knew for every song I would just go in order. But making individual patches for individual songs is a LOT of maintenance ! And if the setlist should change on the fly ... well, when I decided I couldn't keep up with all that, and that I could do fine with just a few different patches that had different effects in each patch, I would make sure that it was something like "mod 1, mod2, gain, gain, gain, comp" on each one. That way, whichever patch I'm on, the very first pedal is a flanger, or a phaser, or a filter, the third one is slight gain, the fourth one slightly heavier gain, etc. Again, I can just go in order. That's really the only way I can think of dealing with a potentially large number of combinations (or permutations, since you can change the order?) Particularly for those of us who can't read that tiny screen from standing distance.

Hi Larry, You know, it's funny. I had just written up a response on how mine has lasted years and years so you must just be the victim of QA randomness or some other factor. But then I went to look for my receipt and when I couldn't find it, decided to see if I could google up some pictures of me using it at gigs. The first one I can find was in the fall of 2012, which would be about 21 months ago. So while mine isn't that much older than yours, let me say this ... mine is still chugging along fine despite suffering many, many drops to the stage, drops to concrete, getting tossed around and generally beaten up. I've had one problem with that being the plastic barrel connector stripped out ages ago. For the longest time, it had absolutely no impact. Then a few gigs ago I started suffering what I initially thought were radio interference problems or dropouts, but recently realized it was that the cable was no longer holding itself firmly in. Mind you, I pack my gear quickly. We stop playing, give some thank you's, spend a few moments with any audience members than I'm doing my best to get out of there as quickly as possible, so I literally just toss it into my guitar bag (with the cable connected). I was quite pleasantly surprised that I was able to get away with that all this time, and even played a few more gigs with it that way, just reminding myself to push it up firmly between sets. And frankly, I could probably shove a match stick in it, or a piece of folded paper, and keep on using it as-is. Other than that one issue - which was the result of my dropping it (or more accurate, it leaping to its imminent doom)- it's quite honestly been a workhorse for me, I've been firmly evangelizing Line 6 wireless to anyone seeking wireless. A bandmate bought a wireless rig without consulting first - I won't name the brand, but he started having *serious* issues with it on gig 2. As Boomer suggested, I would get yours checked out. Even if they charge a small diagnostics fee it's considerably cheaper than buying new ones. Best of luck whichever you do !

Hi, I came here seeking the same info. I have the exact same problem - the plastic barrel broke a couple years ago. Since the cable terminator housing itself uses a friction fit, I was able to get away with it, but lately it's been coming quite loose to the point where I don't trust it during performances anymore. At my last gig, I had to switch to a cable mid-song. Fortunately when you play live enough you get used to constant little things going wrong and if you're good, you can do things like switch cables or even completely switching guitars during a song without too much bother or notice ;) I'm really impressed with this wireless rig, and even duly impressed that I got something like a year service out of it even WHILE it was broken !! My higher priority question though, really, is for those who *have* taken it to a service center, how much do they charge ? I have a pretty busy gig schedule through the rest of summer, I'd love to have my trusty wireless with me but don't feel like taking the time to go to a service center to be told a silly price. It seems like a generic enough piece that I almost wonder if I could buy one online and replace it myself (like many working musicians I'm pretty adept at DIY on my gear). Gotta say btw, a bandmate recently bought a different brand wireless rig (he didn't consult me first) and has had nothing but constant problems with it. These Line 6 wireless rigs really are the no-brainer decision in my book. Thanks y'all, -Matt.

Hi everyone, First time post here. I suspect I have a related but different problem, I'm posting this not so much with expectations of an answer but rather more to "register" my issue. I play in kind of a "live" mode, using exactly one patch all night and just switching effects on and off within the same patch. I don't have any problems at all with the switching, but I would *swear* that occasionally my POD HD 500 "loses" level settings. I'm certainly quite aware that playing through different amps with differing volumes, different band arrangements (am I closer to the drums ? is my amp further than usual ? is my monitor hotter ? eq'd differently? ) etc will all have impacts on the psychoacoustics, but I'm talking really big changes. For instance, at a recent gig, after setting up and function checking everything, my gains were all suddenly *way* louder than my cleans. I mean WAY louder, and the compressor which I normally use as a lead boost was suddenly much louder as well. I had to readjust the levels on all three before playing, and then tweak them all night. This, after taking pains to level all three of them months ago with a db meter, then tweaking those levels while playing live to get a really consistent volume with just enough of a boost (via the comp pedal) to cut through on the leads, and having consistently played those settings for months in many different venues. Also, about a month ago my expression pedal "lost" its calibration. That was the first time its ever done that, and I've been playing this board for probably close to 5 years now. At this gig last weekend, same thing - lost calibration, but fortunately I had an actual wah with me and was able to use that. It seems as if I have a ghost in the machine, and I'm really curious how it could be. These days I play live almost exclusively, and I'm a little gun shy. When I setup and realized my board was off, it was a bit of an edgy moment for me, and I have to admit that I was not playing comfortably for the entire first set. I was constantly riding my volume knob trying to compensate for the large volume changes.I have not done any updates to the POD system in quite a while,and it performed reliably for years. Could this be a matter of some sort of storage media flaking out with age, or EPROM getting old ? I have vascilated for years between my digital and my anologue equipment, perhaps it's time to go back to my lovely (but high maintenance) analogue pedals for a bit ? Or am I crazy, and it really is simply the psychoacoustics of playing many different halls in different physical arragements ? Or perhaps one of my bandmates is toying with me ? Any advice you can offer would be great. The board is currently showing firmware v2.02 if that helps. Thanks, -Matt.