pfsmith0

That's a good idea, duncann. Wish I thought of that...

I believe a MIDI pedal will do this. It's not as simple as just adding a switch somewhere.

Also, the factory presets are great learning tools to see the various signal chains and how they work.

This is one of those products where reading the user manual, or at least the quick start guide, is really helpful. Also, Pressing and holding the View button also takes you to a page that lets you select the output mode. You want to select Combo when going into the front panel of your twin reverb.

+1 to hurghanico on the theory. I was gonna say the same thing.

Here's my take on this: Nothing sounds as good as a pure analog lineup and the HD500 gets you only 85% there. Will the audience hear the difference? No. Neither will most guitar players out there. But analog may make you FEEL you're sounding better, so you'll play better cuz you've got that analog mojo on your side. This is psychological but is a real effect. Yet, with experience and confidence this subsides over time. You aquire the digital mojo. Also, when I play with guys using analog boards they keep fussing with cables, power supplies, hum, etc. I don't have to mess with any of that. Plus, I can carry my gear with one arm/shoulder. Plus, I can play on small stages. With analog gear it is easier to dial in tones since all the knobs are right there. With the HD500 you have to enter menus, select a page, etc. A little more time consuming and a little more thought required. But it's MUCH more flexible and you can get sounds impossible with an analog board.. Can the analog guys put a delay AFTER the cab? The HD500 opens up a much wider pallet of tones. The hunt for better gear and "the tone" is half the fun of analog GAS, but I don't have time/$$ for that anymore. I've learned to use what I have. I save my GAS for instruments (which have a much more fundamental/profound affect on tone), not FX.

When you turn the cabs off you also turn the mics off. Perhaps it's the mics that are causing your issue?

I know some people do this but I don't understand why. Since the Send/Receive loop uses up an FX Block, just assign that block to a gain stage and eliminate the signal degradation incurred by two data converter stages (DAC and ADC). Or maybe the HD400 does the FX Loop differently and you're forced to do this.

Hmmm, I've never noticed a dead zone in mine. "Dead zone" means no control even though there's still travel in the pedal?

The HD500 allows you to have signal chain sections with a single path sharing common FX blocks and sections with two parallel paths, each containing different FX blocks. If you put the FXs in the single path section and the amp in only one of the parallel paths you should be good. Pan the non-amp path to L and the amp-path to R to have them come out separate L/R outputs. Pianoguy is correct. The two signals you see on the XLR connectors are the same two signals you see on the 1/4: connectors, although the 1/4 outputs have a larger signal level. A side benefit to this approach is that you can also have different FX for the two paths. Like EQ'ing the amp output to make it sound good locally to you, for example.

Not only that, but they kept the hum when they ported the older models over in the paks you can buy. And there's no DEP to remove them! The Acoustic, Cougars, Jazz Rivets and Black Panel Petes don't hum but the rest do. Very disappointed.

SNR can be a somewhat arbitrary so we have to be careful. It's signal to noise ratio, right? The noise floor is easy. Don't hook up anything and measure the level coming out. Signal is something else. What signal level do I use. I an make the input be a number of different levels and get whatever SNR I want. For a digital system the best SNR usually occurs when the signal gets close to 0dBFS (i.e., fullscale). Is that appropriate here? For the HD500 that means a signal much larger than typical guitar levels. Does anyone know if there's a "standard" signal level for SNR measurement in the guitar market? Next time I take my HD500 into the lab (to measure more amp tone control responses) I'll measure SNR as well.

The mic input has a lot more gain the the aux/gujiar inputs. This is why the mic input has more noise.

Um, I didn't hear anything strange. Some fret noise perhaps. Maybe I need to use headphones....

In HD500 Edit software with the default patch engaged, click the Controllers Tab and remember the wah values you see for footswitch min/max (toe-heel) settings. Then call up your patch, click over the the Controllers tab, and set the footswitch to the same values you saw in the default patch.

Select Guitar Input for signal path A. Select Mic Input for signal path B. Keep the two signal paths separate throughout the whole signal chain. You can put Guitar FX in path A and Voice FX in path B, turning them on/off as you wish. Youcan then use the mixer to pan the two paths L/R if you want them to come out different connectors. Does that sound like what you want? Two independent signal paths?

I use SPDIF and love it. I believe it gives you the cleanest signal since the signal only goes thru one conversion process.

The Studio EQ can get you 2 freqs per instance of the FX. The Mid-Focus EQ can get you 2 freqs per instance of the FX. The Parametric EQ can get you 1 freq per instance of the FX. The 4 Band Shift EQ can get you 3 programmable Freqs, but watch out for Hi Freq as the left/right channels are not the same. For details see this.

Another option may be to use a real external volume pedal, although you'll lose the FX control for that. The Ernie Ball pedals are notoriously robust and can take a beating. The key to making an external FX work is that the resistance needs to go from 0 to 10k ohms. And it needs to be more accurate than normal pedals or you won't be able to go all the way from 0 to 100%.

Hi garbanzo, you can find plots of the Global EQ responses here.

I've owned and tried products from both companies and you can be happy with either. However, the whole idea of how the signal chain is approached is different. I could never get into the Boss way of doing things. It never "clicked" with me. The Boss unit has a lot more flexibility (e.g., adjusting the profile of the wah pedal) but this also makes it MUCH more complicated. I'm a tweaker by nature but the Boss unit was just too much for me. I felt like I had to re-learn it each time I got it out. I chose the Line6 because I could make music easier with it. All that being said, they will both give great tones and, with enough work, you could be happy with either one.

It's gotta be the guitars picking up something, right? When you turn down the guitar volume control it goes away. When you engage the noise gate it goes away. This all tells me it's coming from your guitars. Are all your guitars single coil? Try turning off the lights and the computer (if any). Plug the HD500X into a different outlet, Set it up in a different room. Things like that.

I doubt they did much "remastering" for the old models converted to the HD500 format. For instance, several of the new models have 60 cycles included, which is accurate to the original amp I suppose, but there's no DEP to remove it. In fact, there's no DEP at all for these. If these were "remodeled" I believe it would have been quite easy to add this feature. 60 cycles is certainly retro, but certainly not musical. Take it away, please.

+1 silverhead. Yes, your cable is acting as an antenna.

If you've only used it a few times then it might be solder flux burning off. Regardless, I'd keep using it until it dies and THEN take it in for repair, but it may be cheaper to buy a used one somewhere.