cruisinon2

The biggest initial hurdle with modelers, especially when you're running through any FRFR speaker solution, is to realize that you're not playing an amp. The old rules don't apply. Settings that you'd use on a typical guitar amp likely won't get you the sound you're looking for with any modeler. EQing a pair of small studio monitors or headphones can be a challenge in the beginning. I have that very same pair of monitors, and I'm quite happy with the tone I get. But if it's late at night and I switch to headphones, I have to EQ things differently. Some of it is environmental... my little "studio" isn't exactly ideal. It's a fully carpeted room with a big fluffy couch in the corner. It's the room where treble goes to die. So what works with the monitors sounds like an ice pick through headphones. I keep a different EQ block at the end of the chain that I can toggle on/off depending on how I'm listening. Bottom line is, there are growing pains with this kind of gear, and it typically takes a great deal of experimentation until you hit on what works for you. And whatever settings you end up with don't have to "make sense". The end result is all that matters... just keep turning knobs until it sounds good.

Not entirely sure what you're trying to do...you could set up a completely empty patch on the 500, no amp model or Fx, just a completely empty chain. That'll let you hear the raw guitar signal, but what would you do with that?

If you're talking about the toe switch on the expression pedal to engage the wah, I'm afraid not. It is what it is.

Just go to Amazon...those things are a dime a dozen.

No experience witch the Firehawk... can you connect to Workbench through it, as with the POD? If nothing else it'll save you from having to swap cables all the time...

Well if it sounds OK while you're editing, but returns to crappy when you go back to the VDI cable, perhaps the problem is that cable? What are you running through? POD, Helix?

Be my guest...I stole it from the advertising blurb of Toontracks' amp sim software, lol. ;)

You're entitled to dislike the cab sims, but that is entirely your opinion, and is in no way objective "fact". There are plenty who like them just fine and achieve good results with them. Furthermore, the fact that there exists other gear and/or software solutions to provide cab sims, does not change the fact that the POD was designed to be a self-contained and fully functional unit...and it is, amp/ cab/mic sims all in one box. Merely because you don't personally care for one of those elements, does not in any way change the purpose for which the device was designed...hence my "primary purpose" response. One does not "need" anything else to make it work. I owned a Saturn once. HATED the thing with the fire of a thousand suns, but I'd be an imbecile if I tried to argue that it was really designed to be an airplane, and just happened to be a dismal failure at it. The original question was odd, period... but even if it wasn't, throwing other options at the guy wouldn't have answered his question anyway. He wanted to know if the POD does cab sims. It does. End of story. The "good" vs "sh*tty" cab sim argument is another discussion altogether.

We could argue all day about whether the POD's cab sims suck or not. However, that won't change the fact that the entire purpose of a modeler is to produce an emulation of a recorded guitar tone, which is the combination of 3 elements: an amp, a cabinet, and a microphone. These things are specifically designed so that you need nothing but the POD and a guitar to produce an "album ready" tone. Can it be used other ways? Yes, of course it can...and that's all well and good. Use it however you see fit. But the question that was asked was whether or not the unit's primary function was even a possibility... like it was some sort of novel idea to use the cab sims. That seemed a little strange to me.

Well, not to put too fine a point on it, but that is the primary purpose for which the unit (not to mention all other current modelers) was designed....

Every time you switch to a different means of monitoring the sound, your tone will change. Different box, different sound...a small pair of studio monitors will have a different response curve than a larger PA speaker, FRFR designations notwithstanding. As stated above, high and low cuts are a good place to start, but you can always expect to do some tweaking....sometimes a lot....between different monitoring methods. It's just the nature of the beast.

It's ridiculous, is what it is. "We're charging you top dollar for this state-of-the-art FRFR guitar speaker solution...roughly 2-3x the amount of money you'd spend on a nice guitar cabinet, and included this handy "un-FRFR" button for those of you who can't be bothered to figure out how to use a modeler properly. Thanks for the money!" I shoulda gone into advertising...;)

They have those? ;)

Does this happen when switching patches on the POD?If so, check the POD patch...it might be set to select a different JTV model. If not, cross your fingers and try re-flashing the JTV firmware.

Because piezo outputs vary slightly from one to the next. It's the nature of the beast...not much to be done about it. Adjust the volumes in Workbench, that's what it's there for. The "plink" is either there or it's not. You got a good one this time. Consider it a win...

I will never understand why there's this expectation for products to be maintained/updated forever. It's not the world we live in anymore. At the pace that technology currently evolves, a product that's 7 years old is ancient...and in a disposable economy, the fact that ANYTHING is still selling, essentially unchanged 7 years later, is borderline miraculous.

Correct, you have to download tones to audition them. But here's the rub... What you will find after slogging through Customtone for a while is that the VAST majority of what you download will sound absolutely nothing like it's description. The reason is simple. EVERYTHING that went into creating the patch you're hearing...the guitar, pickups, playing technique, the amp, studio monitors, headphones, PA speakers, or whatever he was using to hear himself, are ALL different from whatever you've got....everything but the POD itself. And sadly, that is not enough of a common denominator, with the chosen monitoring method making the most difference. Plus, as you've already seen, much of what's there is artist/song specific. This requires the built-in assumption that whomever created the patch actually knows what they're doing, and has good enough ears to tone-match in the first place. Not a safe assumption more often than not, imho. And even when the skill exists, there's still all the variables listed above. In short, you can't expect much consistency from one player to the next with a given patch. Download a few and you'll see. You'll get the sound you're after a whole lot faster if you just start building patches from scratch, figuring out what does and doesn't work for you.

That thing is a 1/8" plug...the POD's headphone in is 1/4". You'll need another adapter to go with it.

Oh goody, another one of these. Let's make this a sticky thread. POD is old now. Two things happen to old stuff. In Phase 1, it gets ignored for a while, updates cease, etc...but it's still on the shelves as long as the units continue to sell. Then there's Phase 2: one day, one of the bean counters realizes that they're not selling very many anymore. Then it's discontinued. We're still in Phase 1...

Regardless of where you choose to position your head whilst tweaking your sound, the tone changes as you move around relative to the speaker. I've never climbed inside the grill of a cabinet to tweak the sound, and never met anyone else who did either. Seems to me that if you tweak all the harshness out up close, it's gonna sound dead and muffled a few feet away, but that's really neither here nor there...you like what you like, and it really has nothing to do with the question at hand anyway. The question is "why is there fizz?" There's fizz because they're modeling a close-mic'ed cabinet. Any additional EQ or post-processing is up to you...it's not "included". They're modeling a raw mic signal. Baking in additional EQ would be counterproductive. Not only would it make the 57 or the 421 (or whatever mic) not sound authentic, but they'd be trying to guess at what someone else will find pleasing to the ear. It's a losing battle. They've given us as blank a slate as there is...like it or not, that blank slate has the same high end sizzle that every guitar speaker in the world possesses up close. It's work to get rid of, and I wish I didn't have to do it too. Point is, I'm not sure there's any other way for them to do it. The "amp in the room"thing that so many lust after would require modeling a dizzying number of mic positions and distances in an 180 degree arc from the cabinet. In front, above, left, right...it would be a logistical nightmare, take forever to create each one, and Helix would end up costing Fractal money....

Why? It's very simple. Fire up your favorite tube amp, then stick your ear directly in front of the speaker cone, hit a few chords and tell me what you hear. It will be shrill and unpleasant, with way too much treble...which is NOT what you hear from the same amp and settings under normal playing conditions, sitting or standing up 6-8 feet away, and WAY off-axis. But that "head in front of the speaker" sound is exactly what a mic hears, and in turn is exactly what's being modeled. Hence the need for a high cut filter with FRFR speakers. Is it a perfect, indistinguishable replacement for your favorite amp? Is it as plug-and-play "simple" to set up as that amp? No on both counts. But the end result is damn close when handled properly. It's consistent, convenient, never has to be re-tubed, won't rupture aging discs, and is infinitely more versatile than any one tube amp on earth. And it's as far as the tech had progressed thus far. It is what it is.

And we all know what they say about assumptions...;)

Strap in lads! I'd love to say that things are about to get scientific...but they won't. They're gonna get emotional and anecdotal. ;)

This makes as little sense as anything I've witnessed in my 43 years of roaming the earth. If you're breaking strings constantly, then either there's some physical issue with the guitar that's causing them to snap, such as improperly cut nut slots which can cause strings to bind and break. Or you simply beat the daylights out of them. Try a heavier gauge... Don't care what you're playing through. No method of amplification yet devised causes strings to break, any more than having a red car makes you drive too fast.

I told them I was a millionaire...lol ;)