cruisinon2

The Internet: Helping the unhinged share their mental illness with the world since 1996! 😂

A Parker Fly is not a Variax...you're barking up the wrong company's tree.

If all you want is a more functional looper, and you've already resigned yourself to buying another pedal, you can get what you need for a hell of a lot less than the cost of the Headrush...

Don't hold tour breath...all the guys still using the 500X wish that Helix models were backwards compatible, too... but I'm guessing (hoping? lol) that the next generation Variax will be a similar jump. It's been, what, ~7 yrs since the JTV's first appeared, or close to it? For a tech- driven product, that's ancient. I'm hoping that the lack of any significant updates for the current Variax stuff over the last couple of years means they've got something else in the oven...preferably addressing some of the JTV's deficiencies. I'd be overjoyed if they figured out something that didn't rely on piezos, but that's probably a bit of a pipe dream.

Unless you're in love with those monitors, I'd return them and get something else with more useful ins and outs. From what I can see, you've got nothing but RCA ins, and then an 1/8" daisy chain connection from the R to L monitor. Get a decent pair of powered monitors with discrete 1/4" and/or XLR inputs, and use those outputs from the POD. You shouldn't be stuck using the headphone out to feed monitors.

Theres nothing wrong with using the stock cabs...I use a number of them myself. But I'm not sure where you got the idea that IR's have "their own sets of controls". An IR is a fixed entity...a cab model, with mic model and placement baked in, while the Helix cabs require fussing with choosing a mic, mic distance, early reflections parameters, etc. The IR block itself has just high and low cuts, and a level adjustment. If anything, IRs are less work to use...which I suspect is part of their appeal. There's really nothing to tweak...you either like it, or you don't. If not, drop in another until you find one you do like. And if you're using an EQ block for your high/low cuts, there's even less to do.

If you're gigging/ rehearsing/ etc, the rest of your crap has to go somewhere...may as well all be in the same place.

Whether or not it actually matters is anybody's guess... but from a practical perspective, if Helix isn't on, then there's nothing for HX edit to connect with. It'll just be spinning it's wheels trying to find a device to talk to.

Don't waste your time with factory patches or Customtone...volume issues are the least of it. You're more likely to win lotto on the same day you get struck by lightning, than you are to find a useful patch created by someone else...the list of variables is of Biblical length, and not even worth discussing.

Agreed... Page one of the manual should say: "This Is Not A Guitar Amp, And It Won't Behave Like One" in big red letters.

Well no... those frequencies are not "made up", per se. Close mic-ed "real life" cabs have some unpleasant high end fizz too, but the speakers are VERY directional. Stick your head right next to the grill and you'll hear it, but standing a few feet away and WAY off-axis from the speakers, much of that fizz never reaches your ears....for better or worse though, the modeling process captures it all. And since FRFR PA speakers are designed to give much wider high end dispersal, you're gonna hear that fizz, and that's why high cuts are basically a necessity. As nice as it would be to dial in a modeler as if it were a "real" amp, they're really a different animal. Takes some getting used to at the beginning.

I think that was one of the POD updates...there was a whole setlist called "Variax", if I recall.

A dead physical button is a hardware problem... probably not much you can do aside from getting it serviced.

You can charge more money that way. This is why government literature used to refer to a nut...as in the thing that screws onto a bolt...as a "hexaform, rotatable surface compression unit". (Swear to God...this actually required an executive order to undo back in the 90's). 😂

If Yamaha acquires the company that makes the Fleshlight, we'll know the end is near...ðŸ˜

Amen. The retro thing baffled me when it started, and still does...though it's hardly confined to the music industry. Lots of companies have successfully monetized the word "tradition". This is Harley Davidson's bread and butter, but I digress. My absolute favorite is the "relic-ed" instrument market. 1. Build a perfectly good new guitar. 2. Hit it with a bicycle chain, belt sander, or drag behind a pickup truck for 0.6 miles to impart "character". 3. Charge an extra grand for it. A close second is the LP model allegedly constructed with specs culled from a "3D scan" of an instrument that was owned by Les Paul himself... so that every blemish, dent, and scratch is yours to cherish. Price tag? $10K. (But hey, why stop there? Let's get Chanel to create a fragrance so that the guitar case will smell just like old Les'...😂) Comedy gold, all of it...George Carlin wasn't this funny.

Well if I start seeing requests for REALLY weird "features" on Ideascale...I'll know who's responsible...😉😂

Now THAT'S an idea...at least it eliminates some of the variables, except whatever speakers/ headphones/ monitors are involved on each end... which of course is a big part of the equation. But eliminating the player and the guitar as variables will get you closer, by default. Something like this, I might actually gamble a few bucks on....that is if I had any left after spending Fractal money. 😉

It's not even a question of a patch being "good" or "bad". The videos invariably sound great...and they should, otherwise nobody would purchase the damn things. In the hands of the guy making the patch, with the rest of his gear, and for his needs/ preferences/abilities/ technique/ etc, I'm sure they're perfectly functional. And they are...we have audio/video clips as evidence. But that doesn't mean that its gonna sound the same on my end... and it NEVER does. And sometimes it's so far removed, that I laugh out loud. I wouldn't expect any of my go-to patches that I think are great to fare any better in someone else's hands either...for the exact same reasons. The concept is great on paper. Seems like it would work.... just doesn't.

I wish this were the case, but it just isn't. I've made countless attempts...and not a single one was ever "immediately useful"... and the overwhelming majority were in fact, "immediately awful". And not just the Customtone ones uploaded by Joe Average. Mostly out of curiosity, I bought some 3 Sigma IR's that came with a handful of patches, allegedly crafted specifically for the accompanying IR's...all dreadful. The IR's themselves I like, and use a lot. But the patches... comically terrible, and as is par for the course, sounded NOTHING like the video that purported to use them. It's not a surprise...there too many variables to expect continuity from one guy to the next. Anything patch that arrives and is instantly stellar without a single tweak is dumb luck... still waiting for my lucky one.

And laughing all the way to the bank...there's a reason companies advertise: It has successfully separated people from their money since the first Neanderthal sold a spear to his buddy Gunga in the cave down the road. The demo videos that accompany these mystical portals to tonal nirvana are the music world's equivalent of cosmetics commercials, where they profess that the $12 eyeliner they're hawking will render one indistinguishable from the supermodel with the fake eyelashes and $1K worth of crap on her face...or the $10/ month gym membership that will give you six-pack abs and 2% body fat. Every once in a while I like to grab a bunch of free ones from Customtone, just to remind myself how profoundly useless it is to try and use someone else's patches.

Dont feel bad. About once a month or so, I'll fire up the rig, all set to play... no sound. Invariably, after poking at various settings (with assorted profanity as a soundtrack😉), I'll discover that I didn't plug in the damn guitar. ðŸ˜

Just to clarify, are you referring to engaging the Variax models, or toggling FX on the POD? If you mean turning Variax models on, are you able to get the modeling to engage at all, under any circumstances... such as using the battery with the 1/4" cable instead of the VDI?

Just play till the the sound guy cuts you off and you hear the juke box crank up...😉

All the higher impedance really does for you, is allow you to drive them louder before they start to clip. I use AKG K701's at the moment, which are 55 ohms. I have no issues. I can turn them up uncomfortably loud with no clipping. Headroom is nice...going deaf, not so much.