stevevnicks

 

 

Helix does have tons more headroom, which makes it much easier to build patches without worrying about clipping. It's fairly easy to clip the HD.

 

 

Totally agree with that, I have found with the HD500 sometimes less is more .. Once you really spend some indepth time in the amp sim's and there settings like doubble tapping the enter button while on an amp sim you can dial things in and save the settings that suit your taste and or amplifier equipment.

when ifirst got the HD500 i went from impressed to not 100% sure then once i really started to get my head wrapped around the unit i then relised i didn't need an real AC30 or the rest of the guitar amps i had bought, i guess it was part of my learning curve from what i wanted to all i really need.

For me the HD500 does everthing i could ever want or need, infact to much, due to my lack of talent with the guitar it's self i could never max out what could really be done using the HD500, although it does not put me off trying lol ... i have improved although im not a dedicated player (yet) im purly in it for the fun.

As far as i see it Line 6 still need a floor unit in the price range of £350 as well as the Helix.

I think line 6 would be cutting there own throat if they done away with a floor unit in the £350 price range, because they already have a massive user base in that price of hardware they supply.

so they know people a willing to spend that amount for a quality built unit.

Not everyone has £1100 plus they can simply throw into there hobby/pass time, this is where the £350 is the sweet spot for Line 6 and an acceptable/affordable price range for the masses.

Thats good news it's still under warranty as you reall y need to have your unit looked at asap, any smell of burning coming from your HD500X is not normal and should not be happening. they can get warm after being used for a while but never that hot it smells of burning.

At a guess it's probs a faulty resistor getting hotter than it really should but take that with a pinch of salt.

If its under warranty just send it back, if not the make sure you have the unit unplugged and just remove the back of the HD500 and have a visual inspection

i own an HD500 which i purchased secondhand, i had to repair one of the foot switch which was a simple fix

I just re-stretched the small spring inside the foot switch, as it had become compressed over it time of use, been fine since, was a bit fiddly although i found the HD500 to be fairly user serviceable.

Anyway my point being if its out of warranty its a 20 second job just to remove 8 screws in the rubber feet and have a visual inspection.

if its full of dust, use a soft bristled paint brush lightly brush any dust out. if its not then look for any visable burn marks on the circut board in which case it will need to looked at by a professional engineer.

To be fair, i thought the HD500 version sounds grate and im impressed not only with duncann's talent but what the old HD500 can do, when put in the hands of someone who know's what they are doing.

I myself am still learning just to play a guitar, i have owened my HD500 for Probs 1 year which i purchased secondhand, in which time i have gone through many different types of guitar amps from Peavey,hughes and kettner, Orange, Vox AC30 and a few others.

Now i have got my head wrapped around my HD500 i dont own any guitar amp's ... and this is a personal choice, i like the sound of the amp sim's built into the HD500 running through 2 active spearkers, its sounds way better than running the HD500 through any of the real amps i owend. but thats a personal choice.

The helix just sounds, i dont know how to put it other than more .... ummm more professional, higher quality, like it has bags more head room in what it's doing, where as the HD500 kind of sounds it at it limits.

One day i will get a Helix but untill then i will just carry on dreaming i will be able to play the guitar :)

:o Well thats it ... now putting my guitar in the trash can ... That sounded amazing !!

AC30 is probs my favorite atm, just downloaded pianoguyy's tone from his link, see what fun can be had from that one :) thanks pianoguyy ..

hello steelmaster,

I only have the HD500 (i bought it secondhand back in april of this year), which is basicly the same as the 500x but a little less powerful and not as nice foot switches, anyway I am with you on that, the POD range are really good for what they can do and i personaly think they do it well.

the longer I have owned my HD500 the more I enjoy using it.

I would really love to own the Helix but what with being on the verge of christmas and the ever rise in the cost of living these days, i guess i will be sticking with my HD500 for a long time to come.

I have finaly got out of the learner stage of messing around with every effect and settings/knob twisting (ohh err) and skipping through them not really fully understanding what i was doing.

now i find a sound i like tweek it to what i think is good and stick with it, im still far from a good guitar player although i have improved 10 fold and finaly started to understand my HD500.

i guess though the HD500 is only as good as the user who sets it up along with how good they are with the guitar.

you can have the best effects in the world and guitar, but if you dont understand how to set it up correctly and have zero guitar skill your still going to make the equipment sound sh!t lol ...

Oneday i will get the helix though really nice bit of kit, just out of the poor mans price range atm.

I'm loving the basic ac30 within the pod500X, it's actually my main sound. Is the one in the pack really outrunning the other one already present?

yea i like the AC30 thats in the HD500 it's a grate sim, i sold my real AC30, it just ended up being an expensive ornament. to loud even on low vol for home use, well in a small flat it was :/

 saying that i sold all my amps now because i have more or less sussed out how to use and get good sounds out of my HD500, so it's ideal and all i need at the moment that is, although i would like to upgrade to the helix oneday.

  well i did keep one of my amps, that being the little Orange Crush 35RT, little analogue with some great features like Orange Cab Sim built into the head phone socket and an FX Loop Plus good Quality Digital Reverb, the amp in general has a grate orange sound even for being an analogue amp, what's not to like about it for the money! thats is why i kept it.

The AC30 Amp built in to the HD500\X sounds near as the real thing that i owned, and i have had a lot more use/fun out of the HD500 AC30 Sim than the Real AC30 i did own.

Being talentless and a newbie to guitars and effects, when I decided to buy a guitar and start trying to learn .. about all I have learned so far is ..

fook I'm a sucker for a good review and must live in doo daa land while I read them, before I knew it I was throwing hundreds of pounds into guitars, amps and effects ...

then it kind of dawned on me why bother at my level?

a shoe box with elastic bands should be plenty good enuff for my ability.. if it is possible to play that bad it actually sounds good then I might be talented after all ?

 I mean if I was a skilled player I could justify owning an £650 or more guitar etc, I have sold off all my amps, but kept my orange RT 35watt, HD500 and 2 guitars.

I have a much better understanding of what I need at my level ......

 But I know I wont be able to stop myself from buying the Helix lol ...

ah ok i see

i just think it probs better to explain why and where the sound, sounds better rather than giving an % because there is nothing to gauge it to

for example if you where measuring the performance of something then i can understand but when it comes to sound i cant get my head wrapped around better 15% sound quality because there is no figures to measure it against to get an fair comparison ..

for me it either sounds better or worse ...

it sound to me you dont need to upgrade as the HD is more than you need already.

just out of interest how did you come to 15% better in sound ? at 15% i would be suprised anyone could tell the difference ?

it will be more than just sound/moddelling thats upgraded i would of thought the helix will have a whole host of things the HD500X is not able to do.

or simple answer is dont stand on it or get yourself so excited you tap dance the crap out of the USB cable ....

im guessing this is more of a problem for our american cousins as they are more excitable than us stiff upper lip brits lol (sorry just joke'n)

im mean if ever a white man didnt have rhythm while dancing the english are the kings, well in our defence we do have morris dancing.

good old windows much more user friendly .. heeh sorry

That dont sound to good, maybe the Flash ROM has failed or become corrupt ? which will mean sending the pod hd in for repair.

how can this happen ?

well it's just one of those things it should last years without any issues but sometime some electrical chips in any electrical device may have a hidden fault when it was made, that makes the part fail before its exepected time or amount of read/writes, luckly this is rare for the amount of electrical chips that are made but it can/does happen.

just for an example.

i had a computer work fine one day and motherboard bios chip fail the next day for no reason other than a faulty Bios chip, although i have owened and built hundreds of PC's it's the only time i can recall a bios fail for me over the past 20 years.

what makes me laff is how, now all of a sudden the USB port connector is supposed to be weak ?? sorry thats just rubbish in my books.

my HD500 is best part of 5 years old and the USB connector has not broken due to being a weak made part ?

i'll go as far to say its down to how you look after or even handle your product there is only 2 ways i can see that would break the USB port on the HD500 and thats by forcing the cable in while wiggling around, but why would i do that ?or by catching the usb cable and ripping it out at an angle.

other than that, the port is a standard design part, used in thousands of products also if this was a true fact there would be piles of HD500's along with thousands of other products with this defect concerning the USB port that the OP stated .. i call BullSh!t ..

too heavey handed is the only reason i can find that would break the USB port on the HD500 as well as it would on any device.

but after saying that maybe people used a cheap cable that was not a good fit so if the cable was pulled at an angle, say when the device is move,  this could snap the the center part of the hd500's USB port same as it would any other device.

try using fresh mints before breathing on usb port, see if that stops the crumble effect ?

handy read that helps me understand things a bit better :)

im no expert although, i would say to get the full effect of the Helix at its best i would Use an FRFR based setup same goes for the HD500/X ...

i would look at the new Yamaha Speakers like the DXR12's or DSR's.

the DSR range (taken from yamahas website)

High Performance Digital Signal Processor and 24-bit Discrete AD and DA Converters

All signals are precisely processed by a 48-bit internal processing (76-bit accumulator) high performance processor for optimum sound quality. The DSR Series employs high precision discrete AD and DA converters with superior S/N ratio and dynamic range. The analog signal is transmitted on dual channels, converted to digital and summed inside the processor. By using this algorithm, approximately 3dB of improvement in S/N ratio was realized.

should play nice with the Helix and HD500/X

http://www.yamahaproaudio.com/global/en/products/speakers/dsr_series/features.jsp

i have never really understood the mic'd cab sims that come with the HD500 or any device that supports this cab sim type stuff come to mention it, i just cant understand or get my head wrapped around how it can work ? because the sound is still coming out of what ever type of speaker/s the user is using and different types of speakers which i thought the coil inside the speaker is to do with the voicing of the speaker or am i totaly wrong .. its quite confusing for me at least and im not really convinced but thats probs due tothe lack of understanding how it works lol

it would be nice to have an hardware upgradable device to extend the life span of a device, for example RAM expansion slot (its not like most people dont know how to plug something in theses days) the cream on the cake would be an upgradable audio DSP/APU that was say in a cartridge type form for easy fitting.

but i doubt we would ever see such a device not matter how much sence it makes for the end user.

or even a modular design device so hardware parts can replaced easily for either an upgrade or to replace a worn part say the foot pedal or an upgrade that way line 6 would be able to sell another line of hardware in the form of an upgrade.

by building an base unit that can take various hardware and software uprades they could release an affordable standard base unit that can be upgraded with a whole new line of hardware from line 6 upgrades to a higher spec at a later time.

now that would be a dream and im guessing it would cost more to produce that type of system tto start with but boi that would be a sweet device.

i have kind of made my mind up with helix, being just a beginer, i have been going through the stage of buying different amps, effects and guitars, i have decided for my needs i dont really need any of my amps, the HD500 is more than good enough for what i need although i will be upgrading to the Helix.

so i am going to sell the 5 guitar Amps i own and the HD500 to help fund the Helix when it's here in England.

It is nice to have an a bunch of real guitar Amps to play around with, although i dont really need one let alone five lol im starting to see the HD500 or the soon to be released Helix will do just fine.

hmmm or to do with the ear the Helix ?

i was just wondering how line 6 came to the name Helix ? any idea's anyone

it will be good to hear the first users feed back once its released.