billlorentzen

Yes, it's the baseball bat neck that most put me off. Can you get 24 frets on a 69? I would also have to thicken up the pick guard (mine is 1/4" of birds eye maple) and recess the neck pocket to get it a little lower - I started out on arch tops and guitars with floating pick guards and developed a technique where I rest the first joint of my pinky on the pick guard. Let's see... Oh yeah my custom strat is also scalloped on the top 10 frets, and I would prolly want to install EMG SAs with the mid boost pot, too. And I like some chambers in the body, although I could live without them I guess. I could live without the Floyd, too. The problem for me with virtually any strat is that I had mine built custom for me with a bunch of specific adjustments for my style and sound, by a buddy of mine who is a world class luthier, and I have a lollipop of a time playing a regular strat, plus most of them feel kind of dead to me - mine sings. I'm hoping the new standard is a little more modern and I can start with it and mod it to what I want.

Hey David-Payton, I'm also a pro, gigging several times a week as usually either a single or duo with my pod HD. I'm glad to hear the Firehalk is working for you. My 500hd is still going strong, although I have had to maintain it a bit. One thing I need is the dual paths, because of the way I design my patches to use the exp pedal to go from rhythm to lead tones, without having to push buttons. Does the Firehalk have dual paths? I'm curious how you like the JTV for single gigs. I have almost bought one several times, but never liked the feel of the 69. Do you use the acoustics much? That would be the main selling point for me, as I get lots of great tones out of my custom built super strat with emgs.

When I read the title of your post I was curious about how you got a nice dust pedal sound with the twin, but I see you actually used the deluxe. That makes more sense. Nice tones and playing. Have you spent much time with the divided by 13? I think it does the fender thing even better than fenders.

My experience, with single coil pickups: the Deluxe makes a nice medium hot lead tone with the tube screamer in front and if you like, the LA2A comp after for extra sustain. The twin has an unpleasant frequency curve to me and the bassman is too flubby in the bottom, although that can be nice for old school low distortion rhythm work. BUT, for my money, the divided by 13 does the Deluxe kind of tone much better and smoother. It also does a really nice soft breakup for rhythm work or semi distorted lead. It's not as easy to adjust, with two gain knobs, but once i got it dialed, I preferred it way over the deluxe. Keep in mind that the speaker is one of the most important factors in the difference between the Marshall sound and the Fender sound. I don't like the sound of any of the Vox amps for distortion (but ok for clean jazz). Too harsh and grainy for my style.

These are interesting. The /13 is questionable at flat knobs. It is definitely the quirkiest to set up, but I find it similar to,the deluxe once it's dialed how I like it. I think the mic tests may be more useful. Curious to see how they compare with manufacturer specs.

Well, I've dated a Victoria's Secret model and frankly, those wings ruin everything. Thanks for the data.

I know I can back everything up, but I'd like to get the new patches and still keep my own in the user setlists.

But in the old days, we bought one amp and made it sound as good as we could by tweaking knobs and adding pedals to it.

Is there supposed to be a change in latency with the new update?

Welcome to the group. Lots of good advice above. Once you dial in good sounds, you should be pretty happy with the HD. No offense, but I have to ask you why you let your manager tell you what equipment to use?

Advice on wahs: depending on the amp you choose and the type of tone you dial in, certain wahs sound better, at least to me. It's worth the time to audition them rather than just using the same one on each patch.

I'm surprised to hear that folks don't like the HD wahs. I kind of do like them and don't mind the sweep. It just takes getting used to.

Frankly I was surprised at the inclusion of an acoustic amp. Everything you need for an acoustic is already available in other effects. What they could try is some modeling to get rid of piezo ping. I would think they'd have that down from the variax.

Couldn't agree more. I've had the same thing happen on gigs. Good to know about the volume controls for the looper!

You can't account for taste. Back in the '80s I ditched my old MXR Dist+ and Dynacomp for a Dbx 160x rack compressor and real Mesa Boogie Mk 3 distortion and I was in heaven after those crap pedals. Then one day I put the pedals up on eBay and got over $100 each for them, from guys who were really excited to get vintage units. I was about to throw them away! Then I bought a HD and there's the old Dynacomp among the compressors. Admittedly, it's not as bad as the dist+, but still, there are dozens of better compressors out there from which to choose.

Boy I hope it's not a baseball bat.

I'm a 500 owner. I'm really curious about the new models, especially the vintage ones like the champ. If you guys have time to put up,some samples, I'd appreciate it and I'm sure I'm not alone. Hey L6, how about some vids?

Very nice vid. As an engineer I appreciate your use of studio EQ techniques. Personally, I haven't had to use EQs much. I prefer cab and mic selection plus tone controls on amp and pedals, but part of that is from disliking the % approach L6 lazied out with. You can place the looper at the front of the patch and play a short loop, then tweak settings with hands free. Just watch out not to let it play too long or ear fatigue starts to reduce your discrimination.

Great tip! I use expression on every patch, and like the OP, I often set up my patches to go from cleaner to louder and dirtier for leads also.

The LA2A tube comp is a staple studio piece and has typically been used when you don't want to hear obvious compression, as for vocals. Pedal compressors usually have a much more aggressive sound, to my ears. I used a Dyna Comp back in the day, but when I went to rack fx in the '80s, I switched to a Dbx 160x, which is much more transparent, and has the nice over easy, soft knee compression, like the tube comp in the pod hd. I generally prefer transparent, over-easy compression. I suggest placing it after the mixer section, and before any other fx.

When I push down hard to engage the wah wah, it occasionally kills my output. I use the MP3/mini plug to play backing tracks on some gigs, and several times, over the past couple years, kicking in the wah has shut down the track, midsong. It's so disconcerting when this happens, I can't recall if the guitar also died - I probably quit playing right then anyway. I also can't remember how I get it going again, but I think probably just kicking it again or changing patches. Any ideas what might cause this and how to fix it?

While my first reaction to the topic was, I admit, derision, it could be a legitimate question as to which EQ bands to boost or cut. The problem is I don't think anyone could answer you with much certainty. Maple is generally agreed to be brighter, so try boosting above 1-2K.

Using the mini plug input and matching your rhythm and lead tones to records is a very good idea. I do a lot of gigs as a single and use the input for playing backing tracks from an iPad. Honestly it's a piece of cake to set your levels this way. I keep my master at about 1 o'clock and the iPad at max.

I set up most of my patches to have both a rhythm and lead sound on each patch. I use an EXP1 control pedal to rock between them (reserving the onboard pedal for wah). Most of the time I use just one amp. I set up two paths - one for the rhythm clean or light distortion sound, and the other with a distortion pedal added. The two paths have to be summed by the mixer, which means you have to move the amp to after the mixer. I use the pedal to change a lot of parameters, from comp settings to amp settings to reverb amounts, so each is exactly how I like them. This approach allows me to avoid dancing around on the buttons (I'm a singer and hate looking down every time I want to solo or add a lead line), and it gives a nice range of in between tones through the pedal sweep. But even if I'm not singing, this approach works way better for me, allowing me to throw in louder lines instantly with the pedal instead of buttons. I would hate going back to buttons for each sound. I also run a volume pedal before going into the pod. I probably would prefer one after the pod, but the one I had on the shelf was a guitar level Boss thing and doesn't work on line level signals. If anyone is interested in more details of how I set this all up, or to try some of my patches, post a reply and I can elaborate. I will mention, I've put a lot of work into perfecting this approach - I make a good portion of my living gigging, so it pays for me to put the work into getting these patches just right for me.

Another option is an Atomic Reactor. I have a 2/12 that sounds pretty good and is quite loud. Personally, I stopped using it when I upgraded from the Tonelab to the pod HD, as I found the tubeyness unnecessary, but they are certainly a viable product.