billlorentzen

I have always hated the little tap dance when going from clean or mild rhythm patches to louder soloing patches, especially since I sing a lot. I set up most of my patches so I can control them with the pedal, and it is really liberating on gigs. Not only can I avoid looking down when singing, but I can rapidly rip out an ad lib lead line at any time with just a crank of the ankle. I put a few of the patches up on Customtone. Unfortunately the web interface for editing descriptions doesn't work at all, so I haven't been able to label them - for instance they still say they are for humbucker, but they are not. I use a custom super strat like an with EMG SA single coils for the four patches I put up. As of now you can find the 4 patches on page 559. They are called: ALL PURPOSE /13 This is my go to for anything with a clean rhythm and distorted lead. I usually use the middle pickup, but works with any. Bridge Clean-Loud This is for the bridge pup. It tames the nasty brittleness you get on clean sounds, and let's me go from a nice clear rhythm to a louder, slightly gritty lead Bridge Clean-Solo Same as above, but goes into a distorted lead instead Slo Rok Rthm-Led Distorted rhythm into a full boogie lead sound I have some more I can upload if there is interest. Also if anyone has tips on editing the info, I would welcome it.

Many years ago I converted a small synthesizer case into a pedal board case. I had a local company replace the fixed hinges with removable ones and voila a perfect case. Recycling, right?

Gain is sometimes incorrectly used the same as output volume in audio terminology. There is really no such thing as a high gain pickup - that would just be a high output pickup. Gain is added output introduced by a circuit, for example a gain pedal, which increases output from a guitar. Perhaps you could describe what you are asking about so we can understand the exact problem.

Has anyone tried installing EMGs? I have a few concerns: 1. Do they fit? 2. Does the volume level balance with the modeled sounds? EMGs are louder than regular pickups. 3. Pot values are different on EMGs from most regular mags.

My unit is about the same age and is occasionally doing the same thing! I'll have to clean my switch.

By the way when Mike Saldano first set up his shop in Hollywood we were talking one day and he suggested I bring my Mesa boogie Mark IV head down to his shop so we could compare it to his amp. We were both surprised to hear that the tones were extremely similar. In other words any sound I could get on the mark IV he could also get on his amp and vice versa.

You could just hit the original patch button to turn off the wah; everything reverts to original setting.

The pedal compressors work best before amps or over drives, the LA2A sounds great after the amp. I sometimes use both a pedal comp up front and an la2a after the amp. There is an engineer trick of having a series of compressors with low compression settings to subtly squeeze the signal. Also some studio compressors are actually two in-series compressors in one box. I would put modulations, delays and verbs after the amp, and in that order, although that's not a hard rule as to mods. As to settings for all these things, that can be tricky because the settings in percents on the effects is not very intuitive and there are no meters. I suggest playing something in the Looper and then experimenting with your patches as the loop plays back.

I use it to go from low-volume clean or dirty rhythm sounds to high-volume lead sounds. I usually set up parallel feeds to the amp - one has a tube screamer, the other a compressor or nothing. In these patches I also use the pedal to adjust amp, compression, reverb and delay settings as well. I like the speed of going from a rhythm sound to a lead sound without looking down and also being able to grab in-between tones, semi distorted or semi loud. You know how you'll be playing and you want to throw a lead line in between vocals or whatever? With this you just slam the pedal down and bam your whole tone changes. No looking down, no hopping from one button to the other. It's extremely liberating.

I think one of the biggest challenges (and benefits) with the unit is that there are so many choices. If you own one or two amps and a handful of effects, you tweak until you like what you hear and then there's not much left to do. After 3 years of constant professional use and a lot of tweaking (I'm kinda nerdy about my tone), I keep discovering new amps and effects that I like. When I started out, I picked some amps and effects I knew or which sounded good to me with just a little experimentation, and built up my collection of useful sounds, across my various guitars. Certain amps didn't ring my bell right away, so I ignored them. I put together my gigging banks of sounds using no more than 4 amps. But over time I have really dug into about half of the amps and have discovered useful tones with each of them. It is a very versatile collection, and can almost be overwhelming if you don't put the time into R and D of your sounds. PS, I know I'm not the first to say that the stock patches suck pretty bad and do little to showcase the real quality of the sounds the amps can create. Unfortunately this prejudices against some of the real standouts.

My experience with Yamaha equipment has been very favorable, and I have used a LOT of it. When they bought Steinberg (Cubase), there was very little noticeable change - only some new hardware options and the nice Motif piano added to the sound bank for free. Actually I expected more synergy than I have seen. In any case, I consider them an ethical company, and am not worried at all about their purchase of Line 6.

Try out the Yamaha DXRs too. I think you will dig them.

I used to have one when they first came out, and I could never get a great sound with it. The emulation has the same thin, weak sound. There are other pedals that get a real warm thick sound, more like an actual wah wah. I think the Mutron did sound good on some instruments - I seem to recall bass and clav were ok. It was a long time ago...

I agree, the auto wah is seriously lacking. The mutron does not and never did cut it for guitar. I would suggest inserting a pedal into the effects loop if it's a vital part of your arsenal.

Dumble Boogie 4 or 5

I can't speak to the cabinet you mention, but I can tell you my experience with the Yamaha DXR 10", which is a fairly similar modern design with 1100 watts and 131 dB SPL (by the way, SPL is much more pertainant in the comparison between tube and solid state, however, I doubt you can find that data on the Peavey). In the context of playing with a drummer nearby, I have had no problem with achieving adequate volume, and I doubt any modern powered loudspeaker would not be able to do the same. Check out the DXR too. It has performed flawlessly for me.

Oh, I've done plenty of exploring! I've used the HD for a few years now. I just like what I like, I guess. Although I play all kinds of music in my gigs, I go for my own sounds and don't really try to copy anyone's sound. I mostly use single coils, so some amps sound better with them. On the other hand I use mainly the deluxe with my 335.

If the amp sounds like crap, it's not going to magically sound good with the HD. I'd go with high quality pa speakers. I'm using Yamaha DXR 10" and they sound fantastic.

Yeah, I figured that. Too bad there is no Mk 4 or 5 amongst the amps they sampled. It was the best sounding distortion I ever heard. I never used any distortion pedals with my Mk 4 and got an absolutely killer sound with it. By themselves, none of the amps in the HD are as sweet, for me, as the sound I got from my Boogies. However, with the addition of a tube screamer, the divided by 13 gives me really nice lead sounds.

I'm surprised that some players can't get sounds they like from the HD rigs. I have a theory as to why that might be. When you own just one amp you spend a lot of time tweaking it and your effects to get a handful of great sounds from it. But when you have all the amps and effects available in the pod HD you may not spend enough time on each individual amp to get the most from it. I would suggest picking one amp you like at a time and really working at perfecting patches.

I get wonderful sustain with the blue comp into tube screamer into the divided by 13 followed by the LA2A comp. Thats my favorite lead sound in the HD.

I've had several Boogie rigs myself in the past, and you can't find a better amp, IMHO. Nowadays I'm perfectly happy with the HD for everything I do. Oddly, I really don't care for the Rectifier sim. I can't get it to sound at all like my old Mk 4 or any other of the older Boogies. Have fun with yours!

Yamaha is a very smart and high integrity company, from my experience. Their products are at least as good as line 6. They make excellent musical instruments, from saxophones to guitars to pianos, quality mixers, and pa gear. Yammy bought Steinberg, the makers of Cubase a few years back, and they have only added value to the product line. I've used Cubase for 25 years, so I have experienced their whole run. I couldn't be happier that yamaha bought line 6.

This topic has been done to death, but, just for old time's sake: you may not have seen the article a few years back in Electronic Musician where the writer got a bunch of pro LA recording engineers to listen and spot the modeled amps from the real thing in a blind test. These were all computer based amp modelers from several years back. They could not tell the difference - a statistical tie. I, however, as both a guitarist and an engineer could pick out the models about 95% of time. In the real amps there was a low end cloudy rumble that the model programmers had obviously cleaned up (by the way, that's one of the things that made me like modelers even with the original Pod). My point is, I'm a pro and I use what gets the job done and makes me happy. The uniformity of sound from a modeler through the PA is actually a good thing. The old days of the super bright amp sound hitting the guitarists legs and deafening the people in the front row was not a good thing!