talonmm

Any thoughts and advise on this matter would be appreciated, thanks! I realize we all have different circumstances, goals and needs for our equipment. I am not sure what I should do. I have a pod hd500x with the hd model packs and find the sound at home to be amazing! I currently drive two marshall stacks through the hd500x (one stack on the left, one on the right). I use solid state marshall heads to keep plenty of head room and am very happy with the sounds I get). I have an older hd500 unit (not the x) that I take to band practice and I will never lug cabinets to a gig or band practice. The hd500 goes into the pa system or a clean amp. The hd500 never sounds as good as the home rig but I have no desire to change the set up for practice and when we occasionally gig, a sound-man can make the whole set up sound fine. I am not a professional musician and will never be one, just a hobbyist. I dread the learning curve of a helix or the time spent dealing with firmware issues, comparability challenges and those sort of things. If I buy the helix it will stay at home, so it will not have the chance to upgrade my band practice sound or gigs. However, if the Helix is a substantial upgrade in sound quality that could sway me and I'm not worried about the cost of the unit. I really like the tones I have and don't feel I am missing anything. Any advise or thoughts?

Lately, I've seen some strange things when I modify my patches using a pc and the edit program. It seems that some of the changes I make will take affect on the pod hd 500 and them somehow the effects will change. The most common culprit is that the volume of the changed patch changes radically (usually becomes much lower). It seems as I near the completion of the patch, I find myself having to power off the pod unit and power it back on and sometimes remove the usb cable from the pc to make sure the final patch in the pod is exactly the correct sound and volume. I am careful not to change the volume pedal switch when modifying patches and I continuously make sure any changes I make in the edit program is sent to the pod unit, yet sometimes there are instances where the sound volume and characteristics are not what they are supposed to be. Has anyone else seen this problem? I have the latest firmware. Is my unit starting to go? Once the unit is no longer hooked up the the pc, everything seems stable and I never make modifications on the unit itself. thanks

I belive I ha I believe i had received an email from line 6 with the event and location , so it pays to register with them.

Just wanted to thank Line 6, Victor, and Guitar Center for holding a demonstration last evening on how to build tones from line 6 products. The hour long event at my local guitar center on Long Island, NY was very informative and Victor really knows his stuff! I learned a lot! It seems Line 6 is holding these free events from time to time and they include different topics such as how to build tones, and other topics will cover specific introductions and demonstrations on their products. I highly recommend others check out these demonstrations! Thanks again Line 6, it was great to see someone as knowledgeable and passionate about the products as Victor.

thanks for the great advise and terrific tips!

I'm embarrassed to share that although I have owned a POD HD500 and HD500x and loved them for quite some time, I'm only now starting to take advantage of all the amazing things you can do with these tools. For example, I used to load all my tones on User 1 and pretty much use this set exclusively. Now I need use a Variax guitar on some songs, so I placed a few new tones, specificly made for a Variax guitar and different tunnings built into the custom tones, into "User 2" and renamed the set to "Variax.". Next, I'm thinking of changing "User 3" to specific tones for other specific songs my band plays. I believe this will help me find songs much faster when I'm playing with my band. So now I'm thinking, it would be great if other pod hd users shared their ideas and methods in organizing their Set lists. thanks!

thanks everyone! I appreciate all the replies! I thought I saw a switch under the toe and had tried to activate it without success in the past. That would have lead to my next question on how to engage it because it did not seem to work. So now I also know what I have to do to get the switch to activate. Thanks again everyone!

I need to apologize in advance. This is probably a very stupid question, but any help would be appreciated. Having not been a big fan of wah wah pedals and volume pedals I never did much with the podhd500x attached pedal. Now I want to set it up and leave it most of the time in the "off position". Looking at the edit software and the manual, I see there is a special assignment and I can default the pedal to remain off. Yet, from an operating standpoint, when playing, I can't figure out how to turn the switch on, or for that matter even where the switch is located. I can assign the normal foot switch controls to the expression pedal but that seems like a waste of resources to me. Can someone please explain in simple terms out to engage the expression pedal on/off switch? Thanks!

Thanks for the reply. Unless I am doing something wrong, and that's quite possible since I am a very basic user of ipads... finding tones on the cloud for Amplifi is problematic at best. I can't sort my searches by most stars, I can't sort my searches by most downloaded, and worse of all, it seems I can't initiate a search at all unless I put some text into the search. So if I want to find, say a vintage fender sound, I can put in "Fender", or "vintage 50s" but if someone names the greatest tone ever, "Joe's Tone" I won't find it. So that being said, if someone told me to check out "Joe's Tone" and I found it to be awful, did I really lose anything but 15-30 seconds of wasted time? Unless I am missing something, the search function is basically useless and I thought that by having some members share their favorites, perhaps that would lead to me discovering some great tones that otherwise would be overlooked by me because of the poor search system line 6 has created. And some feedback and guidance would probably help others here too.

That Orange guitar sounds killer. One of my favorite tones and in fact find myself using it all the time!

I am going through my many downloads and taking notes and rating them. I will post some more great tones I have found at line 6's cloud in a few days. I can't believe that there are ampli users on this board and no one except cungar1001 can share their experiences with the tones they have found online. Please, if you can offer some advise and guidence it would be most apprecaited. thanks

Honestly, I had not used my Amplfi at all for over a year. I had basically given up and thought it was useless. Then I just got the FBV shortboard MKII and was amazed how well the products worked together. So now I am searching the Amplifi site for the best tones, and just like the amp, there's a lot of challenges to work out such as the poor search capabilites and rating system. So would the amplfi users here, kindly recomend the best of the best tones? I have a lot of organizing to do now that I can easily access 100 tones so I will be organizing and sharing what I feel are the best of the best in the coming weeks. So please let me know what best of the best and special tones are out there on the line 6 site and I will do the same. To start off, here are some I find quite good: 1) Satch Concert Tones (best) Compressed 2) Thick - killer delay and thick, distorted tone 3) Iron Maiden somehwre back in time (for those of us old enough to remember the amazing Galien Krugger 250 ML, this is the sound!!!) 4) Red House - very nice for the blues 5) 58 Bass Man Tweed Stormy Monday - classic amp sound Please let me know other great tones, Thanks!

I tried all the suggestions here and none of them work. I noticed line6 placed a video in this forum, and they show the heavy metal amps. I felt in their example that the PV 5150 amp sounded les distorted than the real life amp. I was able to get a sound that is increadible with the line 6 PV 5150, but to do so, I added a distortion fx in my set up. My finished tone sounds much better than any early Van halen tone I was able to download and modify so I am very pleased. I'm just not sure why the line 6 model does not sound more like the amp I heard recently at a giutar store. Thanks again to everyone that helped - I'm glad line 6 came out with these amps and look forward to playing with the other amps and perfecting new tones.

Thanks everyone for your help and all the suggestions. I realized that I had chosen the amp with the pre-amp designation. I changed to the regular amp and the sound still lacked enough drive. In fact, it sounds the same. Putting a distortion device early in the chain seemed to help a lot. Bottom line - the new sound is a much better Van Halen - 1st album sound than I originally had, and the new tone with the PV amp is very "clear" but the PV amp is not making the sound without help from a distortion pedal. I will check on the volume pedal but I believe there are no volume pedals in my setup. The PV amp alone, with the gain turned up 100% and even slightly less than 100% produces a "rolling-stones" type or "blues" type overdrive - a great sound but far from a Van halen or heavy metal sound. I am using gibson burstbuckers. I will try to record something in a day or 2. Last thing: can someone please clarify what "I would also check that you do not have the input pad engaged as that will make a difference too." means? Is that the two inputs in the upper left part of the screen, that say Input 1 and 2? Thanks everyone! Michael Borkan Talon Mailing & Marketing 561 Acorn Street, Suite R Deer Park, NY 11729 email: mb@talon-mailing.com Ph: 631-667-5500 x11 Fax: 631-667-0576 www.talon-mailing.com

Oh, I see, I will check it out this evening and see if it makes a diference. Thanks! If Palico does not think it will help and I am maxed out, any othe sugestions to add more distortion?

So sounds like if I bring my pod500x to work, I can get the license program to recognize the packs and then get the edit program to see them too?

are they under the amps section? Are they called by the same names?

all guitar knobs are set on 10. no vol. pedal. I am not sure if I used the pre model. I thought I only saw one PV model. Are there two models?

Yes, I did. When I go to the "help" menu selection and "about...POD...." it shows the three model packs with the red line through them. This makes sense, since the software has not idea I purchased the packs. Again, the License program does not know I purchased them either since it wants to search for a hd500x connected to the system. thanks

Thanks for the quick replies. Sorry I was not clearer, although I use it daily, I am a novice when it comes to the HD500x. When going to the amp section and choosing the PV amp, you see knobs and settings such as "Drive", "Bass", "Treble", etc. I turned up "Drive" as far as it goes. I also played with the "CH VOL" and "E.R." knobs but they did not seem to increase the distortion I did refer in my original post to the "drive" knob on the outside of the unit - I just wanted to explain that I keep that fairly low. When the first poster mentioned "Did you check the Master in the DEP parameters" I believe I played with those settings too and they did not seem to add extra drive. I have no idea with the third and final section does in the amp section. That section shows "DT" and has three settings: Class, Topology, and mode. Playing with those settings seemed to not affect the sound. I also played with various cabinets and mics. They seemed to change the sound dramatically, however, they did not produce additional distortion. The first poster also wrote "I thought it did have excellent note definition.". Yes!, I noticed that too, and felt that was the main reason why it sounded superior to my original early Van Halen tone I had made a while back. Any thoughts if I need to set up the amp differently to produce more distortion?

While keeping my equipment at home, I set up and use an extra copy of the HD500X Edit program at work. The reason I do this is that sometimes I have free time, and it's easier to see and download other tones from line6. An office version also gives me an opportunity to view and play with the settings and see how some of the others members put configurations together (and it's a lot more comfortable sitting at a desk then standing with a guitar on the shoulder, leaning over and dealing with the computer attached to the actual HD500x unit). I purchased the 3 new packs, however, the software at the office does not recognize the model packs. That makes sense since it has no idea I purchased them. When I run the license program at the office, it too does not know I purchased the software. Short of bringing the pc home or bringing the hd500x to the office so they can talk to each other, is there a way I can get the office Edit program to know I have the three packs? Any help would be appreciated.

I'm a little disappointed with the PV Panama Amp Head I couldn't wait to get the packs and especially the Peavey Van Halen head. Although I never tried the Peavey version, the EVH 5150 amp is an amazing amp (although I can't understand why at that price tag, there is no reverb). I purchased the packs and played with the PV Panama offering. Using one head and then two heads in stereo I came to the same problem: With the drive all the way up I can't get enough distortion to sound like the real amp. I was disappointed at first, since I was forced to bring in and use one of the hd500x existing distortion pedals in my setup. However, when I compared my new finished PV sound to my older, existing Van Halen settings I realized that the new model sounded clearer and closer to the old Van Halen sound I'm after. I'd still like to know if anyone had the same challenge and figured out the best way to get the line 6 PV Panama to produce more distortion, just like the real amp does. Yes, I realize every guitar and room is different - I am using a couple of different guitars, all with high-end pickups and no matter what I use, there is not enough distortion without the help of an fx. Also, I do keep my drive on the unit relatively low so that I can play acoustic-sounding selections easily and would hate to change that by turning up the drive knob on the physical unit. Thanks for any assistance and guidance!

Being 48 years old, and having a demanding career (non musical) and two kids, it's not easy to find time to deal witht many amplifi issues and mysteries. I really wish there was a manual, as I seem to waste a lot of time with issues. When I hook up music with blue tooth, the amp sounds great so I don't believe my speakers are blown. However, most of the bass sound on the distortion tones I create have a "big muff pi" like-fuzziness to them. The sound fuzziness improves when I reduce the bass on the amp and also in my editing, however, when doing that creates an unnaceptable, very treble-sounding sound. I notice the low "E" and "A" strings often sound way to fuzzy on almost all of my distortion tones. My line 6 HD500 produces beautiful sounds across the whole guitar range. Anyone have any ideas or solutions to this? Thanks!

Tony - I wish I could swap out the amps and help you, but the hd500 hookup to my amp is set up in a way that is hard to move and unwire (I don't ever plan on jamming with this equipment out of the home). Again, both of my systems I described earlier sound fantastic. I'm no expert, but I'm guessing the only way the amplifi would sound bad is if you used some of the aux inputs other than the standard 1/4" guitar-in jack, or played so loudly as to cause unwanted distorition or sound-stress on the speaker at very high volumes. Although I have not had time or desire to test the other inputs of the amplifi, (with the exception of the blue tooth function) I can tell you the 150 is a very loud amp and should be able to handle your line6 product easily. Good luck!

I think I can provide insight. I just purchased the amplifi 150 and I own a pod hd500 (not the x). I purchased the amplifi so I could easily take the amp with me, and my kids could use it with an ipad or ipod on the back yard deck and have a great sound system. I did not purchase the amp to use with my hd500. I get a great clean sound out of the amplifi and I get a great clean sound out of the amp I use the hd500 with. By getting a clean sound on both amps I can plug in an acoustic guitar on either set up and easily switch to a solid body and control the distrotion and effects by using the editing features of both systems. Because the hd500 sounds amaizing through my clean amp, I can't imagine why it would not sound great thru the amplifi. By the way, when I got the amplifi I thought it sounded awful! After playing with it for a couple of hours I finally settled on 4 edited tones I edited and will leave on the amp. They sound great!