Phil6_7

I use this one and I find it very good. It has space at the rear for cables and is a good fit. https://m.thomann.de/gb/thon_case_fuer_line6_pod_hd500.htm

The information is incorrect from line 6, centre pin is 2.5mm. https://line6.com/support/topic/12606-any-alternative-power-supply-for-hd500/page

I use this and it's worked great for me so far. http://www.nuxefx.com/show-9-243-1.html Got it for about £25. I know this isn't much help but I don't have a hum problem and use the 4 cable method with no noise gate.

Just your strat? You're lucky! I'm on uke, banjo, Spanish and electric this week.

I tried to buy a replacement as I hate the way the official one falls apart so easily. It may be the same one linked above, I can't remember. But be warned mine came with an adaptor to go from 2.1 to 2.5mm and also reversed the polarity of the psu so it was correct for the pod. Not what I had in mind as this adapted can also unattach itself easily. It also wasn't the full spec current wise. It does work though.

No problem, I can see your point. I got by with a keyboard amp and relied purely on pod tones for years so it's definitely possible. But now, on the rare occasion I can let go with some nice loud distortion I definitely prefer the tone of the blackstar to the app sims of the pod. However most of the time it ends up being a massive compromise tone wise. You know those classic moments when it says heavy distortion -pp underscore. This is where Im still struggling to try and get good sounding tones for every situation. I'm sure it will come as I get more familiar with my setup but definitely a bit of on the fly tweaking needed for me still anyway. I'm UK based by the way. One thing to note, I would advise against a studio 20 if you consider going smaller with a blackstar. It doesn't have the voicing switch on the clean channel so it breaks up too early and gives much less headroom on cleans.

Hi, short answer - just my opinion but I would keep the blackstar. I speak with good experience though! I have exactly the same setup as you and regularly play in pits. I have a show this week and using the blackstar as opposed to a monitor is invaluable to me - I've used both. I find being able reach over and adjust channel volume, drive and master on the fly very useful. There just isn't the time to spend properly soundchecking and setting levels on the pod for every song you need with the band. You can try your best at home during practice but it can easily go out the window when you get to band call. Playing with musicians you've never met and music you've never played before can drastically change the sound you need. As you know, versatility is key to this type of work. People who haven't done this type of work will simply not understand as its very different to playing in a regular band. I need multiple patches but also need to reach over and tweak a few knobs quickly. Even bending down to do this quickly on the floor unit is a problem in a tight pit. If you get a pa speaker it will be very hard for you to adjust its master on the fly as the volume will be behind the speaker. I used to use a bean pod with a multi channel keyboard amp, that wasn't too bad as I had easy access to the knobs next to me and could use a second channel on the amp for acoustic. In my new setup I use the pod 500x aux in for my acoustic. The benefit of this over my old setup is I can use the volume pedal and tuner on both acoustic and electric. It has been challenging for me to change to this new setup. I use a 6 cable method! I dislike this and would prefer a simpler setup but I can't think of a better solution for pit work. At least I only have to setup once a week. The trade-off for a complex setup is simple switching between patches and instruments. I use a standard 4 cable method using Fx loops, then one lead for my acoustic and one for my nux pms2. This little box takes a midi program change that is transmitted when you change patch on the pod and turns it into a OD channel change for the blackstar. This means I can change all settings with a single foot tap. Eg acoustic guitar has a patch on the pod that cancels my electric guitars input and switches to clean on the blackstar. By using the 4 cable method I can bypass the blackstar pre-amp and it doesn't sound too bad for monitoring purposes. I normally DI it for FOH and just use the blackstar so I can hear it. If I need distortion next it is one click away, it cancels my acoustic input and switches to OD on the amp. Having volume control under your foot is useful to me. All this is very handy when you only have 2 bars rest to change instruments. I use an amp stand to tilt the blackstar speaker up towards me. So that's my long answer, hope you find it helpful.

I can also confirm its incorrect in that document and infact 2.5mm. I also bought a psu in error because of that.

Just an update the psu came. The pod requires 9v 3a negative centre polarity with 2.5mm Jack. The one I ordered came as a positive centre polarity 9v 2.5a 2.1mm jack with an included adapter that reverses polarity and converts to 2.5mm, I'm sending it back.

Hi, I know this is an old thread but I would like to say thanks for the posts above. I thought I would post my experience as it may help others and there is little documentation on the product. I've just bought a NUX PMS2 amp channel switcher. http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/NUX-PMS-2-Switcher-MIDI-Remote-Control-6-Devices-Aluminum-alloy-housing-/291250713058?hash=item43cfe531e2:g:gaMAAOSwGvhUIkaz I've used the seller before and it arrived fairly quickly from china - 2 weeks. £26 delivered. I think its a fair price for the product, I couldn't see myself spending the huge amounts on the other brands I'd found. I use a Blackstar Club 40 with the 4CM. I have an acoustic guitar plugged into the aux, and electric into the guitar input. I have to play in a confined area so losing the blackstar footswitch is also useful. I wanted a way of switching my amps distortion on and off using the HD500x. So if I swap to acoustic it is now a one button switch that turns off my distortion channel and switches to the Aux input. I found the manual of the NUX pretty hard going as is often the case with poor translation. I found the problem that the OP had here was the NUX doesnt accept CC#, only Program changes. This is an issue as you cant use one of the pods fooswitches to toggle a CC# back and forth with distortion on/off. I had been using the pod in 1-8 mode and had hoped I could use the NUX as described in the post above mine but this is not possible without losing two footswitches on the pod and having no LED indication of distortion channel on/off. Instead my workaround is to use the pod in ABCD mode and use the program changes sent when changing patches to swap my drive channel. This does give me LED feedback of drive/clean now and I get a quicker patch change (without having to press the bank buttons) but lose the extra 5-8 footswitches. I can cope with that. My major issue at first was I didn't understand how to program the unit to receive the right midi message. I found the way it works is to have lots of presets stored inside the unit that remember the state of each of the channel switchers, you then use a midi learn feature to save that preset. So you light up the six channels as you desire, I am only using channel 1, on for distortion, off for clean. So I turn all 6 buttons off for my clean preset, press "save" then send the unit the program change number from the pod, it learns that program change number and saves the states of the six switches. I then turn on channel 1 so it is the only one lit, press "save" and send it my next program change number for the distorted patch on the HD500x. I used "Latched -" mode for the Blackstar. I have also just purchased this (below) as a backup PSU as I dislike the stock one (bad design - it has come apart many times already), it hasn't arrived yet but the comments suggests it is the right ampage and polarity. https://www.amazon.co.uk/product-reviews/B00GC4DX8E/ref=dp_db_cm_cr_acr_txt?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=1 Hope I explained it well enough and someone finds this helpful.

I have a cheap windows 10 tablet that I find usable but I wouldn't say it's a perfect as the edit program isn't designed for a small touchscreen. http://line6.com/support/topic/17668-pod-hd-500x-edit-and-windows-10-tablet/

Can I suggest a cheap windows tablet? I bought one from Tesco (UK) in the sale and I can confirm pod edit works on it. I posted some details on here of how to get it working. http://www.tesco.com/direct/windows-connect-9-tablet-intel-z3735g-1gb-ram-16gb-black/535-0533.prd#