alienux

This may not be related, but make sure you are stepping on the switch all of the way. In my experience,the switches on the HD500X with change the patch at the point that they click but are not yet all the way down, most of the time. There is a little play in the switch past the point that it actually clicks, and I've tried to make it a habit to press the switch firmly all the way down when changing patches and/or turning effects on and off. My Sanpera pedal for my VYPYR VIP II amp has the exact same kind of footswitches that the HD500X has, and the same thing happens with that pedal. I have to make sure I press them all of the way down when switching or else sometimes it doesn't change. In other words, be a lead foot when changing patches, but not so much that you could break anything :P

Yeah, the POD at higher volumes does really well. That's one reason I had to switch to a POD for gigging at church. My Peavey Vypyr amp, which sounds great, was just too overpowering for everyone on stage when I had it up loud enough to get a good sound when miking it. So I had to mic a very low level volume with the amp, which made it sound wimpy and thin, not because of the amp, but because of having to keep the stage volume so low. With the POD it's not an issue at all anymore. I use a monitor pointed backward toward me and put the volume wherever I want, and the sound guys have my full tone signal going into the PA and can adjust the volume from there without weakening my tone. I've had many compliments on my tone since switching, just because of the volume options alone.

Yep, that's still the way it is for me. Support says they're working on it, and some people have said that they can edit now, but I've never been able to and still can't. Only delete.

Yeah, he's an amazing player, and Extreme's latest album, Saudades de Rock is also very, very good. Nuno's solo stuff is some of my favorite music, especially Schizophonic and the 1st Mourning Widows album. Does anyone at least have a good suggestion for an amp/cab/mic combo as a good starting point for the tones in the songs I linked to?

Glad that helped and glad that it was an easy fix.

Yes, the other settings will make a difference. When you plug into an amp like that, you'll want to go into the System Settings menu and find the setting that allows you to switch from "Studio Direct" to "Combo Front." You'll also want to set the toggle switch for the 1/4" outputs to "amp" instead of "line." For more info, read the manuals. They will help you find all of the info like this that you need.

I have always been a big Extreme fan, and still keep up with Nuno's solo releases (which are all filled with amazing guitar throughout). When "Waiting for the Punchline" first came out, I liked it, but being younger and less appreciative of variety, I was disappointed in the guitar tone on the album because the distortion wasn't as saturated and heavy as previous albums. Now that I'm older and I've gone back to listen to that album again, the tone(s) Nuno uses on this album are some of my all-time favorite guitar tones. I'm still fairly new to the PODs (I previously used Vypyr's for modelling, which I still have and still love), so I'm still learning how to get specific tones with the PDHD500X with a specific end goal in mind. I'd like to get a fairly accurate tone for the one in Cynical (I especially love how it sounds starting at 00:37): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CxhAptpgcrI And also Shadow Boxing (the volume is down at the beginning but is turned up around 00:23): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K02jh11Vqb8 Any suggestions on where to start for these?

I thought that was Chuck Norris who did that ;)

Charlie_Watt, in my case I'm sure it's the adapter, although I've had the problem with several adapters and several different sets of 1/8" headphones. I'm sure the POD is fine because it's the 1/8" end that I have to adjust usually, but once it's set, it's not a problem anymore so I don't worry much about it.

I've found on my HD500X that if I use an adapter for my headphones, I have to jiggle it just right or pull it out and back in just right to get it to work in stereo. I never have that problem with a normal 1/4" cable, just when I use a 1/4" adapter for a 1/8" headphone cord.

How is it broken? Does it just not work or did it physically break off?

1. C, but once in awhile also B. 2. B 3. D, but more for different types of sets. I have one for playing at church, which has clean/crunch/distortion/lead on most banks, and then other setlists for different types of songs. So other setlists are geared toward different genres, like one setlist for 70s rock, one for 80s rock, one for metal, etc.

I just checked my patches and I still only have the option to delete them. None of the edit functions are available for my HD500X patch uploads, which has been the case for several months.

Without knowing more or seeing your settings, it sounds to me like you have FS 5-8 set to footswitch mode rather than ABCD Preset mode. You can change that in the system settings, which is described in more detail in the manual.

I think you should do what the error message says and contact Line 6 Support.

It is easy to get caught up in tweaking, (I have done that with both my HD500X and my Peavey Vypyr VIP 2), but even with a traditional amp, tone chasing can always nag at you. Like you said, sometimes you just need to be OK with where you are and get playing :P

Since the POD has amp and cabinet emulators, when you plug directly into another amp, you're feeding the amp a signal that has amp emulation. There are a couple of things to do when going direct into an amp. First, you should disable the amp in the effects chain of the POD. This will allow you to put the POD's effects that you choose into the signal chain and send them into your amp without the amp/cab emulation. If you are using the 1/4" out from the POD into the amp, try setting the 1/4" switch (near the expression pedal) to "amp" rather than line if you haven't already done that. And to answer your question about PAs, yes, these are great at playing through PAs. If you do that, keep the amp and cab emulations on and make sure in global settings that you are using "studio direct" as your output mode. This is how I use mine live, along with a powered monitor on stage, and it works and sounds really great. If you don't have a long distance to run cables from your POD, the 1/4" outs are fine, but if you need to run cabling a long way, you'll need the XLR cables.

You can check input types on screen 3 of the system settings on the POD. The manuals here discuss how to do that: http://line6.com/support/manuals/podhd500

Is this POD new or used? If used, it could be that the original owner modified the input types to something that doesn't match or something like that. If it's new, you should be able to hear the default presets, so as cruisinon2 said, you might want to try a factory reset. Otherwise, I'd call Line 6 support.

In regards in learning speed, I'll add one more thing that hasn't been mentioned yet. One of (if not the) biggest killers of speed is tension. The whole entire reason for practicing very slowly to begin with is to train your fingers to have muscle memory of the part you are playing with no tension. On the other hand, if you just practice it slowly, you never really learn how to properly make the very smallest movements that are needed to play fast. So it's a combination of playing slowly and speeding up gradually without adding any tension, while still practicing fast once you've got the muscle memory to keep from having big swinging movements of the pick that tend to happen when practicing slowly (because those big sweeping motions cause slow downs, too). Combining those two things (along with getting the right thickness of pick) were the biggest help to me.

My only issue when I first started using the Jazz IIIs was playing rhythm. It felt a little odd, but it only took a few days to adjust and now it feels as natural as anything I've ever used.

I love my Jazz III picks (which are also Dunlop, but 1.38mm), but I'm always interested in trying new picks (which is apparent by all of the picks I have laying around that I will never use, including some "official" Vai picks I just bought to try out a few weeks ago :P) Thanks for the recommendation. I'll give them a try.

If you haven't already, try using the small Jazz III picks. They can really go a long way to helping you learn to grip the pick at the right depth so that the pick isn't going too deep into the string. Also, very nice tone on the recording!

I was going to suggest checking the gain levels, too. Too much gain can cause noise like that, and I would say to also make sure the presence isn't too high. Too much presence makes a sizzly sound that can be noisy depending on other settings in the patch.

That usually comes from having too much gain/drive. It could be related to too much treble or too much presence as well, or a combination of all three, but I'd start by lowering the gain level. Most pro's don't use nearly as much gain as we think they do, and when we try to dial in a good heavy sound, it's easy to start with way too much distortion.