cruisinon2

It is really unfortunate that Line6 did not do a better job with the factory presets..

I think this is probably a lot harder than it seems, for whatever reason. Patches that I really like with one particular guitar, sound horrendous with others, and thats only switching one variable. And from my experience with customtone, I don't think there's any way to really tell what a patch is gonna sound like with anything but the rig in front of you. I DLed dozens of things when I first got it, and had no better luck than with the factory presets. Some of them sounded so far removed from what they were supposed to be emulating, that I found myself wondering what could possibly have been going through the head of whomever posted it...I think this unit, more so than any other piece of gear I've owned, is very dependent on the other components in the rig, and whoever is behind the wheel.

If I have a endorsement deal with Line6?

 

The reason: When I gig I have

 

Total Stagesource/Stagescape PA (L2's, L3's, L3S's, M20D)

DT50 (sometimes 2) and HD500

JTV Variax

G50 wireless

 

I'm a keyboard player and use a Yamaha S90xs too, so I got the Yamaha thing going too.

 

I gig out 3-5 times a month with 3 different bands.  Just enough to keep my wife from killing me and so I don't lose too much money from my day job!

 

 I've owned almost every amp they've made starting with the AXSYS.  Gigged with a Vx700/Vetta rig forever.  Owned every POD except the X3.

 

So here's my question: Can I at least get a T-shirt from Line6? Maybe some stickers?  OK, honestly, what level do you need to be at to get artist pricing on equipment? 

 

Maybe beta testing, got knows I play enough.

Don't feel bad...I've got a ton of L6 gear, and they've never heard of me either. :P

Just a word of warning, speaking as a long term live sound engineer, stereo is a troublesome word for small to medium gigs.

 

It sounds great if the listener is in the ideal position between both speakers but for everyone that isn't (including the sound engineer) the sound can be less than desirable.

And 98% of the people in the room won't be in the right spot...on the bright side, most of the clientele down at Billy Bob's Tavern on the Dirt will be pig drunk and processing everything with a Jack Daniel's delay anyway...so it might even out in the end, lol.

But I agree...sometimes less is more. At home stereo is fun to screw around with, but rapidly looses its luster anywhere else.

I've been playing around for the last 10 minutes or so, trying to replicate the popping noise in v2.1 that was so evident in v2.0. I have not been able to do so, using the same 'recipe' that consistently produced it previously. There is still the inevitable lag/delay in the sound while the preset definition is replaced in the Pod's working memory, but the loud pop that used to accompany it is gone.

 

My conclusion: unless and until someone else can successfully reproduce the pops I consider it fixed in JTV firmware v2.1.

That's cool...now I'm one step closer to taking the plunge.

as i told you before, is not important if you are a guitar player who plug the cable...... is a bit more complicated when you have to do the job......

 

or even if you are a guitar player, who plug the cable and go straight to the foh and monitoring from wedge monitor....... the guy at the desk cut completely everything under 250 hz in your sound...... and when you ask him he will tell you "who care"....... are you sure you'll don't care? because is the same field.....

Never mind. You win. I gotta go buy a spectrum analyzer...keyboard player said he heard some substandard resolution lurking somewhere in my rig last night, and I will conquer it if it takes all the calculus in the cosmos. :P

difference in resolution are not subjective....... are real and demonstrable........ if we don't care for live sound is different...... but in a record you can appreciate.... also whe mixed and mastered.......

 

and for a recording situation........ physic of sound frequencies and phase make the difference.......

 

I understand that resolution can be measured...along with just about everything else under the sun. We're obsessed with quantifying practically everything today, as if some universal objective truth on every topic known to man can somehow be determined, and cataloged into the Big Book of Right Answers. Much of the time, this is a pointless exercise, especially when the end result is totally a matter of individual perception...magic numbers therefore rendered meaningless unless you're authoring a textbook.

If I prefer the way the tone with the "worse" resolution sounds, then why on earth would I care what the numbers are in the first place?

you really think that the internal cab has a better resolution than a full custom IR? have you ever tried to do a simple test with a spectrum analyzer, recording the same section with internal cab or IR? because here we are not talking about wihat i feel or what you feel....... is math...... and is difficult that nuumbers are wrong......

"you have to agree that perhaps cabs native into the pod are probably not the best" is an entirely subjective statment.

"better resolution" is an entirely subjective statment....better than what?

I don't need a spectrum analyzer to tell me if I like the way something sounds, nor will my opinion change about how something sounds because I look at a god-damned graph or something flashing across a p-scope. This is not a course in calculus, differential equations, or the physics of sound. All that matters is whether my rig sounds good to me or not.

Tone A is not "better"  than Tone B because a friggin' equation says it is.

And we are talking about feel...that's what 99.97% of every discussion on here is about...what your axe sounds like, and how that makes you and the audience (maybe...) feel. That's what music is...reduce it to cold, hard numbers if that's your thing, but I fail to see where the joy is in that.

 

 

you have to agree that perhaps cabs native into the pod are probably not the best....... is simple to demonstrate....... (i think you know how)

 

No I don't.

unfortunately, even if this were offered it would simply result in another group of tone searchers complaining about a different as yet undiscovered failing that is keeping them from finding the Holy Grail of Tone...  if you can't find a workable tone with this gear, the problem may not be the gear, it may just be the user...

 

That said, there are plenty of ways to use IR's within your DAW for recording and there are ways to do it live but you will have to spend the money to get there...  In the end it really is all about the cost point... to my ears the current bang for the buck is off the charts and anything else we get is pure gravy...

LOL...But how else am I gonna get the exact tone at 2:37 into "Rime of the Ancient Mariner" unless I have 27,153 cabinets to choose from? Maybe the next one will finally get me there...

Personally, I don't want to audition 500 of anything. Limitless options might look good on paper, but at some point it becomes a roadblock. As it is, there's enough stuff in the 500X to keep me busy until at least 2 weeks into my next life...how much more do ya need?

Does anybody really want a model of every amp and cab thats ever been made? Even the ones that suck, like those little novelety amps that they used to build into an empty packs of Marlboro Reds, with the 2 inch speaker and a 9V battery?

All looks good so far. (another Home Run, cruisinon2! Better find the hot dog guy soon. I think he's leaving the stadium.)

Well, there are 3 basic possiblities, right?

A] You couldn't get the update to work.

B] It worked and you think its the best thing since indoor plumbing, and you will scream from the rooftops about the magnanimous generosity of those who have bestowed such a gift upon you.

C] It worked, but you hate it, consider it to be an utter failure, and you will scream from the rooftops about the lack of vision of those responsible.

So far I count 3 A's, 3 B's, 2 C's, and one "I don't care because I bought a Kemper".... :lol: lmao. Almost a completely even split...lol, with equal servings of praise, vitriol, plus one or two things entirely irrelevant to the discussion. More or less exactly what I expected, lol.

But admittedly, it's still early in the game. I'll be waiting for a larger sample size before trying it for myself and rendering a verdict....but no reason to yank the pitcher just yet ;)

And we've opened with three called strikes...lol

Where's the hotdog guy? Something tells me this one's going into extra innings...

l. I don't need to enter into a willy waving competition.

I'm writing that one down...lol

What!?? You expect to see something less than a thoroughly grateful and fully satisfied user community after something they have loudly requested is delivered? That would be shocking!!!

I never upgrade on day one...with anything. Gotta wait for the techies to try it out, pull it apart and see what works and what doesn't. For all we know, the D string will now only spit out the call of the yellow-bellied sapsucker if you're facing north while you play...too many quirks with these things. Right now mine's working, and I'd like to keep it that way.

IR=Impulse Response = a method of computer modelling acoustic spaces that is often applied also to modelling speaker cabinets.

Fair enough...wouldn't it have been easier to just ask for new cab models?...lol

Sounds great...but I'll be hanging back to watch the fur fly on here for a while before I wade in...

I'm stumped.

I have no earthly idea what you're talking about here.

Dogs barking can't fly without umbrella!

....anxiously awaiting a translation myself.

That is because you don't have to know your A$$ from a hole in the ground to reply on a forum. 

 

True, but on this particular topic I've encountered numerous people over the years (in person, the way humans used to interact :P ) who didn't seem to know the answer either...and all of that was LONG before we all became addicted to this cursed fiberoptic time-waster.

 

Anyone that has been around tube amps knows that you can put a smaller impedance load on them without damage

 

I've been around them plenty, and mostly I've been told you can never do that regardless of the type of amp you're using. Intuitively it just seems like a really bad idea. Can't put 10 lbs of $hit in a 5 lb bag. If an amp is expecting a certain resistance, and less resistance is provided, seems like something will eventually give...

 

but that you can kill the Output transformer by running with no speaker load. 

 

This is the one part that most everybody seems to agree on.

 

(open circuit)  Solid state amps it depends on the circuit.  Most will run with a higher impedance load with no problems but I am not sure what Line 6's Digital amps are going to do with a different load than what they were designed for. 

 

And that's why I said, maybe there's no 100% objective answer. Seems that sometimes it's OK, and others not. Hell, I've done it and never fried anything, so it's obviously not an all or nothing proposition...but with the added bonus of never being able to tell when it's OK and when it's not.

 

Which of course leads us to:

 

Bottom line is that you are on your own to try a different impedance speaker.

 

This looks familar...oh yeah, square one!  Still not really knowing if there even IS an answer to this burning conundrum...which is precisely why I don't mismatch anymore. Easier on an aging brain... :D

A further thought.  A lot of people get a better sound by turning the master volume high on the amp and low on the HD500.  It seems to wake the tubes up a bit.  Then I'd suggest trying the three Soldano (PRE) channels that are modelled.  They are all very usable with minimal tweaking and offer a massive palette of sounds between them.  Once you get swinging with them, then work outwards to other models you like and downwards into the effects.

+1...love the Soldano models. Been using them more than anything else...for varying degrees of dirt anyway.

I like the Hiway 100 for cleans, especially with the JTV Strat models.

My sound file was recorded through HD500 but in the store we checked the guitar just plugging into a guitar amp and it produced the same sound...It has been 1 month that the guitar is on the service but they found nothing yet...

Well, depending on where you left it, it's entirely possible that the reason they haven't found anything, is because it's still sitting in it's case, along with 100 other repair jobs that nobody has looked at yet. I've noticed over the years that stuff tends to sit around at some of these places...

I will be keeping my eye on this post. I, too am frustrated that there are really no useable presets on my new HD500X. I remember when I got my Vetta II back in the day, there were a lot of factory presets that were ridiculous and completely unuseable but there were at least a few that I loved and only required a bit of tweaking. I can't find anything like that on the HD500X. I am running this thing through my StageSourceL3ts and cannot get a good sound. Admittedly, I haven't spent much time yet but is it too much to ask to have a couple presets that sound good out of the box? I hope there are more replies to this post that can help me and maddog24 out.

The real problem is that you can read other people's suggestions until you turn blue and start spitting wooden nickles, and still not find a tone you like...just because a patch works for my guitar, amp, and fingers doesn't mean it will sound the same with your set-up. In fact, it's pretty much guaranteed not to...too many variables in play. There are lot's of ways to set things up, and none of them are "right" or "wrong". If it sounds good to you, then it's "right".

There are no magic bullets here, and no instant workaround for the trial and error stage, which admittedly can be frustrating.

That said, since you're going into an FRFR amp, you will probably want to be using full models, as opposed to the pre-amp only ones, and keep your output setting on studio/direct. I believe the various modes that the Stagesource amp has (electric guitar, acoustic, etc, etc) can be configured in each patch on the 500X if you're running L6 Link to the L3T. After that it's just a matter of experimenting until you hit on something that you like. It's not rocket science, but it is time consuming...days to weeks kind of time consuming. Some don't like hearing that, but it's the nature of the beast. You need to mess around with all the deep edit parameters too (SAG, ER, BIAS, BIAS EXCURSION, THUMP, MASTER VOLUME...the one specific to each amp, not the global master volume control for the whole unit). If you only dial in the gain, bass, mids, and treble and call it a day, you're ignoring a ton of stuff that can further shape your sound.

Remember that these are digital solid state amps not tube amps!  I would be careful about changing the speaker impedance too much.  Higher is probably ok - you will lose power output but lower could damage the amplifiers.

See this is what always baffles me...if you wander the interwebs on various forums, you will find basically a 50/50 split between those who claim that it's the tube amps that are more susceptible to impedance mismatches, vs. those who say as you have, that it's the SS amps where it matters most. Likewise, I've seen people claim that it's fine to "push uphill", and supply a higher load to the amp that it asks for (at the expense of power), and I've seen some claim the opposite (which seems counter-intuitive to me, but what do I know?).

I conclude that there are actually very few people who have any idea what they are talking about...and perhaps in this case there really is no completely objective truth on the matter at all. I honestly don't know.

What I do know is that I spent the better part of a decade pushing an 8ohm SS amp into a 16ohm cabinet, sometimes at rather absurd volumes, and suffered neither fried amp, nor speakers. And if there was a power loss, it never bothered me...that rig was plenty loud.

Now, for the sake of simplicity and not popping a rivet trying to figure out what the "truth" is, I just match everything...now I can buy all my strings with the money I used to spend on Excedrine Migraine.

You got it...baby steps.

Forget the presets...they're mostly useless. Same goes for most of the stuff on customtone. The 500x is not a plug and play unit. You will need to spend a considerable amount of time tweaking things to get it to sound the way you want. For use with the DT amps you will usually want to use the pre-amp only models with cab sims. And if you're connected with L6 link, the output settings will be configured automatically by the DT. This is what I've seen thrown around on the forums...I don't have a DT myself, so someone with more experience will chime it I'm sure, but I think I mostly got it right.

But regardless of what amp you're running it through, there tends to be a steep learning curve with this thing. There are many deep edit parameters to play with that will affect your sound, and there's just no way around spending a lot of time with it before you will be comfortable. I wouldn't rush into a live situation with it either (or most other pieces of new gear for that matter)...if you find yourself having a Spinal Tap moment on stage, trying to fiddle with gear that you don't know upside down and backwards tends to makes things worse.

Speaking of stereo, right now I just have the patches with two amps hard panned and stereo delay. Any other good effects to pan in order to take advantage of the stereo?

Ping-pong delay

Ok, this is really helpful. I don't own a variax (YET!), so I don't know what you mean by variax mags?

 

As far as the amp for monitoring purposes, I only need to come out of the HD500x into the effects loop return, no other cables?

 Variax mags = the guitar's magnetic pickups, as opposed to the modeled guitars.

Running into the FX return should suffice for using any amp as a stage monitor.