Indianrock2020

I have the POD HD500x and use an Alto powered speaker at home. Direct to PA elsewhere.

Guitar Center in Covina, CA has a used one I'm going to inquire about $599 US

I see the Workbench HD software available on the Line 6 site, apparently free: Workbench HD Version 2.12 Released 2/18/15 Works with: James Tyler Variax POD HD Pro POD HD Pro X POD HD500 POD HD500X Variax USB Interface Adds support for Variax Standard OS: Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 10 ( 20.50 MB ) GET DOWNLOAD

Now a slightly different angle: what does the combination of jtv59 and HD500x bring to the table. pedals/switches on the POD reducing knob fiddling on the guitar. Connection type/cable from pod to guitar -- does one take battery life out of the equation? What can you do with the two custom knob positions on the JTV?

I'm curious why I see JTV59's new anywhere from $900 to over $1500 ? I may buy used anyway but assuming there are different options on tuners, pickups etc that account for the new price differences.

I could play a friend's Les Paul if you're saying that is the type of neck the 59 would have might feel significantly different than my Warmoth strat neck or Carvin AE185 neck.

I'm becoming more convinced. With 2 electric and 1 acoustic guitar in our church band, we have to work at separating parts so we don't have a big wall of low mid-range sound ( band also has digital piano, keys, acoustic drums, bass guitar and vocalists ). So sometimes I'll use a capo to get away from what the acoustic guitar is doing, sometimes I use it to avoid a key I don't like. The variax definitely opens up possibilities there. I already have the 500x POD and love it. Sounding like I'm going to have make this purchase without handling one. I may start with Reverb.com and Ebay, looking for a clean used model.

Awesome responses. If this forum was populated with kids I wouldn't be getting this kind of feedback. My wife is a tight wad so to keep things pleasant I suspect the carvin ae185 may have to go. Honestly I'm thinking it's mainly the 6 and 12 string acoustic tones I'd use on a variax. Don't do alternate tunings. What could you do with a variax when the song is in Eb?

I need to play one first which means seeing if the local Guitar Center carries them. I'm leaning towards the 59 since I've never owned anything like a Les Paul. Tell me I'm crazy but I want one in black.

Great write-up. Early on I read the recommendation to set input 1 to guitar and input 2 to variax ( not using a variax ) to avoid noise or ? Forgot the reason now but that's how my 500x is set up. On the JTV, I've been considering a JTV 59, but probably would need to sell a guitar as part of the process to keep the Mrs. happy. They seem impressive.

Great thoughts, thanks. The strat's neck is now a Warmoth variable radius and I do like it. I think the frets are medium jumbo stainless. Guess I'll have to see if Guitar Center or anywhere else close has one I can try. Somebody mentioned palm-muting could be different than what you're used to. How are the tuners that come with it. If not stable on tuning or not locking tuners, I'd probably upgrade them.

I've been considering selling my 74 Strat and getting a Variax. The ability to play clean electric tones up through heavy overdrive, plus an "authentic" electric 12 string would be fantastic. I noticed a black JTV 59 James Tyler on Reverb.com for about $700. My other guitar is a Carvin AE185 hybrid so I can already cover a lot of ground. The strat has a new neck/frets/locking tuners and 3 of the Gold Lace Sensor pickups and covers a lot of ground through my POD HD500x. ( I did keep the original strat neck and pickups ) Playing almost exclusively contemporary praise music in church, direct to mixer.

Glad to hear. Maybe it's only when you run things like monkey or license manager that it gets into the registration. My friend will definitely have to run those and get the latest updates etc using his Mac Mini.

Here's his question translated "Hi I have two amplifiers and let me know how to send such podhd500x the loop of an amplifier, and the other amplifier can use it for soloing, etc. without mixing sounds. Thank you"

This is only a big deal if you create dual amp patches AND Don't use the same cab/mic for both.

My friend has a Mac Mini and I'm not sure he's going to be able to use it with hdedit on his new pod if I try to help him with patches using my laptop is it going to create registration / licensing issues?

Yes they do use a click track. Sometimes they'll decide on a BPM beats per minute at rehearsal, than vary from that on Sunday, but I protest enough to keep that to a minimum. The problem with tap tempo is when you go from song to song immediately and you have a part that starts the next song. Of course punching in the next patch takes a few seconds too. It would be tempting to tell the leader, either give us a few seconds between songs, or expect the guitar to sound the same throughout.

I've been using MeAmBobbo's cab/mic combination recommenations to avoid phasing but some aren't mentioned such as a few dhewer has on customTone. Such as combining the 2x2 Silver Bell/67Condenser with the 1x12 Gibtone FCoil/121Ribbon. I haven't listened to that patch yet but if there are phasing differences, MeAmBobbo uses effects to even out the differences. My preference would just be to use the combinations MeAmBobbo has already verified. http://line6.com/customtone/profile/dhewer http://foobazaar.com/podhd/toneGuide/cabsMics#dualCab-faves CabsDelayTimes_V3.xlsx

There are four model pacs compatible with the 500x: HD Metal, HD Vintage, HD Bass and HD Fully Loaded ( all 3 ).. Big bottom is in the HD Metal Pack. I own both the metal and vintage packs. http://store.line6.com/software/model-packs.html?compatible_product=11 HD Metal Pack Model Name -- Modeled After PV Panama -- Peavey® 5150® (Block logo) Mahadeva -- Bogner® Shiva Brit 2204 -- Remastered Marshall® JCM800 (Model 2204) Line 6 Insane -- Line 6 Original Line 6 Big Bottom -- Line 6 Original Line 6 Variac'ed Plexi -- Line 6 Original Line 6 Purge -- Line 6 Original Line 6 Aggro -- Line 6 Original Line 6 Smash -- Line 6 Original Line 6 Octone -- Line 6 Original -- HD Vintage Pack -- Model Name -- Modeled After Jazz Rivet -- Roland® JC-120 Small Tweed -- Fender® Champ® (Tweed) Mandarin 80 -- Orange® OR80 A30 Fawn Nrm -- VOX® AC30 (Fawn Normal Ch.) A30 Fawn Brt -- VOX® AC30 (Fawn Bright Ch.) Line 6 Acoustic -- Line 6 Original Black Panel Pete -- Pete Anderson Custom Roland® JC-120 2x12 CAB -- Fender® Champ® 1x8 CAB --

I took a look at the first patch in HDEdit but haven't tried to listen yet. This was the Come Alive patch. These comments just show how I've been doing things differently and is in no way a criticism or suggestion that my approach is better. I'm usually using a Fender strat with lower output Gold lace sensor pickups. Differences noticed in the Come Alive patch: Noise gate threshold not at default 50% Bass boost on tube drive Hall mix much higher than my 15% Delay: I don't use tap tempo, preferring to create a patch for each song with tempo hard-coded. Normally very low feedback. Amp parameters -- I've been setting bass very low, based on suggestions on this forum -- the goal being to have a tone thats cuts through in a band mix. Cab parameters I use are similar except my low cut is more like 9 o'clock My normal effects order is: noise gate, compressor, overdrive of some kind, parametric which may be activated by same switch as the overdrive, amp ( lately all dual amp/dual cab ), delay, reverb, volume pedal.

I'll check them out and pass on to a friend who just got his 500x. I have the vintage and metal packs but if yours don't require that it will be useful to him. Lately I've been doing main dual amp/dual cab patches. I put a couple up today for that friend. Nothing polished but it shows the basic template I follow. http://line6.com/customtone/profile/Indianrock2020

Thanks all. I don't think I'm having major issues with patches and tone, but always trying to improve, thus the question. Most of the time I can crank things up fairly well at home ( kids are grown ) so I think as long as I point the speaker away from me, I'll probably do that rather than buy another pair of headphones. Tweaking while playing an mp3 of one of our songs might also be better than just listening to the guitar alone. We're on IEM at church, no amps or powered speakers at all. And I don't use wireless anywhere. The front of house system has six speakers suspended from a high ceiling but you really can't hear that well at all from stage, even with ear buds out. It's a little dicey walking out in the room with a long cable during rehearsal as the worship leader and sound guy could take it the wrong way. Sometimes I'll ask people how it sounded but basically that is out of my hands. I do know that in a band mix I want to have more mids/treble that I would like at home. We're also working on arrangements so that with two electric and one acoustic guitar we are getting some separation. I also reserve a little gain in my volume pedal to put into play after rehearsal. Not ideal but the other sound guys are just on autopilot much of the time. Our biggest hurdle is getting the drums under control so we aren't putting out a big muddy, low midrange wad of sound. Making slow progress on that. A friend just bought a 500x with no model packs so I threw two patches together for him this morning. Not polished yet but they follow my basic pattern. I've been doing all dual amp/dual cab patches lately but not 100% sure how much that is getting me. One is called Plexi100Normal and the other patch is called VoxAndSolo100Crunch http://line6.com/customtone/profile/Indianrock2020

Yes and I could certainly do it occasionally just to get an idea of how far off my home-editing may be. Of course I won't have 300 people there singing at that time. For a while I aimed the power speaker away from me towards a wall, but it seemed either muffled or "bassy." And lately I've been turning bass way down on most patches. But since you usually want something with more mids and highs in a band mix anyway, that might not be a bad way to do it ( speaker aimed away at wall )

The powered speaker is only used at home. At church it's POD direct to mixer/PA I always thought using the full range speaker would be closer to a PA, as far as editing patches, but yes in a bedroom I can't crank it and the room size is so different. I donated my headphones to the church sound team, but could get another pair ( Sennheiser HD 280 Pro Headphones Frequency response 8 - 25,000 Hz ) I'm dubious about having the powered speaker close to me and pointed at me in terms of hearing little things that the crowd listening to the PA wouldn't notice. Editing at church woud be a pain since I'd need to get to rehearsal an hour early and take my laptop ( I don't use the POD onboard controls much ) Alto Professional TS112A 12-Inch Active 2-Way PA Loudspeaker

Adjusting patches over the PA isn't practical so at home I've been using my powered speaker but given the acoustics at home wondering if headphones would be better?