dbagchee

Studio direct won't affect your Path A tone. The tone adjustment studio direct only applies to the cab and mic simulations so if those are off (or in your case not used at all for path A) it won't make a difference.

Does anyone here tune down their Variax to your "default" tuning and then use the tuning features to provide your alternates? I'm in Drop D 1/2 step down 90% of the time so I'm planning on setting up the Variax (JTV 89 on the way) for that tuning to use the real pickups with and then setting up standard tuning and any other variations with the alternate tuning function. Any issues with string tension and the piezo pickups? I usually use 10s but not sure what the Variax ships with (or if tuning down would require me to go to 11s). I've always kept my Variax 300 in standard tuning and setup the alts for my "standard". I guess I could try it on my 300 but I never did since it doesn't have regular pickups and didn't want to mess with the setup too much.

Great responses. I'm glad to know I'm not the only one that feels a little disconnected anytime playing direct into the PA. Even when I've played larger venues where I had my amp mic'd and was really only hearing myself in the monitors, it always felt better to be able to walk back to my amp and hear it in the real space.

Cool idea and should be doable although I think you'll have to build it. I'm pretty sure the expression pedal works on voltage resistance (like with a guitar tone pot) so you'd probably have to wire the switch to some kind of resistor that hits the two expression pedal points (or at least off/full resistance). A cool feature you could include would be a sweep knob that controls the percentage point that it toggles between. I always wished I was better with electronics so I could build stuff like this.

I don't have it in front of me, but I think the v-tron effect has a sensitivity parameter that works pretty well for Man in the Box. Set it right and you can accentuate the vowel sounds with how hard you pick.

If you're running out to mono the panning won't do much but you will get slightly different levels if panned center vs panned hard left/right. The nice thing is you can leave your patch setup for total separation and have it "mono ready" by just using the left 1/4" output. Note that the XLR outs don't sum to mono if you were ever to use those.

You don't need to use both outputs to use dual path, but I assumed you were testing the separation of the two (since you probably wouldn't want the modeled amp/cab coming out the 2x12). If you are just using the left out then it should be summing the mixer block outputs to mono. Check the setting the MartinDorr mentioned. Also try reversing the patch (put model in path a, loop in path b) and see if you only hear the modeled amp.

Where are you running the left and right outs from the Pod? Assuming your Left output is going to your amp return..where is the right output going?

You can move the FX Loop into Path A like this: Then it won't affect Path B.

I believe he mic'd the L2T in the video to simulate hearing it in the room with the band. In this case he is using it as a monitor only. I believe that he's running it in studio direct output mode but you may want to comment on his youtube video directly, he seems pretty responsive to questions on his different videos. For your purpose I would think you would leave the L2T in FRFR mode so that you know what it will sound like through the mains.

You are on the right track - and I believe you should be able to do what you want (send path A to your 2x12 and path B to the 2LT). Path A and B in the mixer are both in stereo, so you have a lot of flexibility with what sounds actually get to which output. If you did not pan them hard left/right then you would get both chains to both outputs.

This should be doable. The mixer can adjust the output of the right and left output but you'll want to make sure you pan path1 hard left and path 2 hard right to ensure separation. You'll also have to be careful not to place any mono summing fx after the mixer. If you use the 2LT in FRFR mode you'll need to include the cab model on path 2 but turn the cab model off on path 1, otherwise it may not sound great through the Blackstar. Out of curiousity what is the goal of this setup? To get a stereo rig? Running acoustics into the 2LT? It seems that you could greatly simplify by using one or the other.

Yep confirmed! Learn something new everyday!

So you're saying combo front will change the sound of a phaser effect? That seems counter intuitive - I'll have to test it out. I always thought the output modes were strictly for the cab/mic modeling but I generally only use the power amp modes and studio direct. I know for sure they don't affect the tone in the power amp modes.

Output modes only apply to amp modeling so if your acoustic side of the chain is not using an amp model (which I'm assuming you won't) you can leave it in combo front mode and it won't sound different on the acoustic side.

Definitely take it back and exchange in for the 500HDX - it's the same price (actually they should've sold you the HD500 for $400).

I believe the Tech 21 pedals (and probably the wampler) have the cab modeling in their output so you can run it in the loop and use fx from the Pod before and after it.

Well I just "hacked" the URL since they just have the product name is the URL and it happened to work. Changing the URL to another letter (like HD500Z) returns an error page. Pages can usually be hidden from the search in various ways, which makes sense for this since it's not out yet and the page would be pretty much useless at this point.

Musician's Friend appears to have a placeholder page up already: http://www.musiciansfriend.com/amplifiers-effects/line-6-pod-hd500x-guitar-multi-effects-processor We'll see what the final specs and features are, but I'm convinced that a HD500X is coming soon. Yes, the photo is definitely a rendering of the product - but that is very common when a product is still in the manufacturing process. I've noticed some manufacturers never replace their renderings: http://tascam.com/content/images/universal/product_detail/773/medium/im2x_image.jpg http://www.behringer.com/assets/UT100_P0117_Right_View.jpg Time will tell!

I believe you can also add a mono summing effect before the delay (like the noise gate or eq) and not have to modify the input settings.

Ha ha should we start a betting pool? The pictures showing up on more than one retailer site would be a pretty elaborate hoax if it is one. If this is the real deal, I wouldn't upgrade just for the processor (I don't use dual amps) but hopefully they will keep the software backwards compatible so that any new models/improvements carry over.

There seems to be enough info that this is probably legit. Based on some of the supposed specs looks like it's primarily a DSP increase which means software updates may still be applicable to existing hardware (just may not be able to run it as hard).

No there isn't a way to do this other than running two amps with different settings.