grdGo33

Wow quite surprising how long an unbalanced cable were you running? I'd have expected marginally less noise and maybe the tiniest amount of volume... But if you're not running like 30+ feet long cables, I'd have expected the difference to be barely noticeable, especially if all you're running is like 5 of 10 feet of cable...!

Ok figured it out while typing this and testing for like an hour, but it was quite frustrating, so in case it helps someone... If you want to add/edit multiple min/max values to a footswitch. Manual states: So to create: 1) hold a knob 2) press learn 3) press the footswitch (here, values reset to 0-10, annoying but normal) 4) you can alter different parameters to set min/max, but you still need to specify the footswitch for every setting, which is annoying, but necessary... 5) press view to exit, no save required or any other switch/learn required to save here you should see something like "Multiple(2)" for your pedal assignment if you switch views, and if you press the switch it should change between the values 6) save 'normally' so your saves are saved if you switch patches To edit, same thing as above, but skip the steps #2 and #3: 1) hold a knob 2) change the different values you need to change (you don't need to press learn or footswitch before!) 3) press view to exit, no save required or any other switch/learn required to save here you should see something like "Multiple(2)" for your pedal assignment if you switch views, and if you press the switch it should change between the values 4) save 'normally' so your saves are saved if you switch patches This could have been clearer in the manual...

Nice! Great choice I've heard great things about the Katana 100 mk2, it's a fantastic amp on its own! :) It even has an FX loop, so make sure you try to the 4 cable method of the Pod Go's manual, that way you'll get the most of the setup. Not that it's really necessary as you have plenty of choices (too many!) in the Go's amp, but who knows maybe you could use some of the Katana's amps or effects in combination with the Go's, so get a 'free' distortion, boost, or extra effects? Anyway, worth a try. :) Which headphones do you have? Maybe the crispness you hear is 'fake', as I was saying with the V eq settings, some headphones also have excessive treble which might sound 'crisp' or 'detailed' or whatever, but it's just 'more' treble... Anyway, bit hard to explain. But also, buck for buck, you need to spend a LOT on speakers to equal a good pair of headphones; especially in how resolving and how 'crispness' and responsiveness; in the room, there's all kinds of echo, so even with music, a pair of say $300 headphones can sound more resolving and clearer than a pair of $5000 speakers in a room... Headphones just naturally have a cleaner/crisper/more resolving sound, just the nature of headphones vs speakers, so it might be unrealistic to chase headphone sound in speakers! Also lastly, sound coming out of speakers is quite directional, and every speaker will sound different depending if you're higher, lower, on the side, etc., So if you want to get the most of your speaker amp, instead of having it on the floor, try elevating it by putting it on some furniture or something so that it's at head level and points at your head, that will make a big difference! Maybe just tilting upwards can help. Have fun!

Haha you're welcome, my son!

Haha I had a bit of the same experience when just trying out the presets, but check out this guy, the presets are actually not that bad... Can really be a guitar & player issue! For killer tones, it depends on your taste & music, but I love the tone from these guys, they sell some patches and even have a free one, the AC30 below, so you could download it and tweak/learn from it...

Main Out. With "Pre CAB/IR", your amp out bypasses your cab and any effect after it, so it's definitely not what you want. Weird if you said it sound pretty damn good... I'm very surprised! So compared to your headphones, the FRFR sounds "pretty damn good"? I'm sad to say that I couldn't find any measurements of the FRFR-108 (ex; frequency response, waterfall graph, etc.). The 'contour' button just boosts the bass & treble, this is typically a trick for 'cheap' sound systems to sound better, because it boosting bass and treble will make people think it sounds better, even if it does not, the old 'v' EQ trick... (short term sounds better, longer you realize it's just bumped highs & lows and it's no good...). So maybe you could tune your settings so that they sound better on the FRFR, but to me, that's a compromise, as pretty much the Go gives you '99%' sound quality, and then it goes through the FRFR, maybe maybe lowers it to 80% or whatever it is, depending on how good/bad they really are... But then the issue becomes that if you ever upgrade the FRFR, all of your patches will likely sound like lollipop, because they've been specifically tweaked for the FRFR... So all this tweaking for FRFR was for nothing, and now you've get patches you've got to un-tweak your FRFR fixes... So I'd say, try to invest in a decent pair of speakers! Be it they're studio monitors or just regular stereo speakers, that you'll likely notice right away a big improvement and you won't have to deal with anything FRFR related... Otherwise, to really know how great/bad the FR sounds, compare this clip with headphones or speakers, vs FRFR. This is genuine tone from the Go, and the guy goes through all the presets. So at least it eliminates the player + guitar. Me trying out the presets sounds NOWHERE as good as this guy... So you'll at least get a better idea of how it should sound, vs how it does sound on FRFR... Quite curious to know how it'll sound let me know! :) (btw, what speakers or headphones can you compare with?)

I replied in your other thread headphone vs FRFR I think it was. But yeah, I'm 95% sure that the poor sound quality is just coming from the speaker. It is a budget speaker, and from every recording I've heard of it, you're describing its innate sound. So yeah, the Pod Go is 200% better than the Spider Amp, but your FRFR 108 is killing all of your tone. Try plugging to your sound stereo if you have one (ex; Go headphone out), and you'll likely notice a dramatic sound improvement if your stereo has decent sound.

Well that's your problem, you don't want to set it to "Pre cab/IR", if you do, you bypass the cab emulation as well as any effects after the cab. You want to set it to "main out" if you're going to use Go's "amp out" to the "FX return" of your Marshall. And as mentioned, yeah go 4 cable method is best method!

That's not a bad looking axe!!! nice score for 300...!

No offense to the Headrush 108, but have you every tried playing music with it? (regular music, ex; playing classical music, rock, etc.) My guess, it's not really designed to play at home at low volumes, it's more a design to blast sound out, so you will not get great sound quality from it... Hear it here for instance, at around 3m: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4OyItH10hoU I mean it doesn't sound good from where I'm sitting. Compare to just a Boss Katana https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oNBAE0tCm_A But of course, it's ~$200, so you can't expect 'end game' quality sound... You have other sound samples here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BgKPP5BG2p4 So I'm 95% sure it's a case I think where you're hearing the limitations of the speaker (driver + tweeter). Do you have a regular stereo at home? Try plugging Go's headphone out to it, and compare. I'm using stereo speakers + cheap T-Amp (what I had laying around), and it sounds incomparable vs a L6 Spider Amp... But yeah, $200 amp vs speakers costing maybe ~$1000 a pair... The Go deserve quality speakers, in stereo if possible, so unless you play music out of the FRFR 108 and it sounds 'phenomenal', I think you're just hearing to sound of the 108. Unless it sounds much worse than any of the above video... But from what I heard from the clips, they do seem to have that sort of distinctive boxy/muddy sound; not much depth/clarity... This guy at 4m https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ioFesfEOTR0 describes it as "it sounds like the headrush has a cold", nasal... Anyway, don't expect too much from the FRFR!

112V https://oldtimemusic.com/yamaha-pacifica-112v/ Still great for beginners/amateurs, for what, 1/3rd cost of a Strat, great buy! My US Strat gets barely any use in comparison... The hum issue isn't that bad, and I couldn't find anyone else commenting on it anywhere, so might be an issue with mine. Or... They're all the same, but it's largely a non-issue so nobody noticed... Had it for years, and I just noticed a couple days ago, and had I not directly compared, probably would have never noticed it hummed more than the others. My favorite PU config is definitely HSS, strat tones neck + humbucker bridge, best of both worlds. I was thinking for a short while of upgrading to maybe something like an Ibanez AZ or Vola, but you're talking more than 5x the cost of the Pac... Vola was interesting, especially since they now have distributors for US & Canada, but buying online isn't incredible when you can't try before hand...

Well since it turned out to be mainly one guitar, I think that particular guitar is the culprit. Found this: It was a bit misleading because with lots of gain, compressor, distortion, etc., every guitar will hum at one point, so when configuring new patches I noticed the hum with different guitars, but when comparing directly guitars with the same settings, then it became evident that one hummed much more than others, almost as much as a single coil... Which is quite weird... I don't think I'll bother with a power conditioner as the Go's noise gate fixes the issue, also I think my power is already fairly clean. Thanks for your help vox! :) Still weird that if I touch a guitar tuner, the hum stops though... LOL

It's not the same type of hum though... For instance, take here https://youtu.be/JAllMFGdQTI?t=996 this is like a magnetic hum from the pickups themselves, but if you notice, it doesn't go away when he touches the strings. Mine does though! Large hum, I touch the strings, bridge or tuners, and ploof, no more hum, gone! But yeah I tested different guitars with the same amp & settings, and it does appear that the hum does vary by guitar. For some reason, the Yamaha Pacifica's humbucker is by far the most noisy, and the only one which I now think has an issue with... With the same OD + Amp with drive all the way up, all the other humbuckers do their job and stop the hum, but not this one... I don't get it... :\

But if it's just really that every pickup will inherently pick up some noise, and high gain amplifies that noise a lot, then yeah power conditioner would do absolutely nothing... But it is weird that it goes away if you touch the strings though. It really does seem like there's some sort of grounding issue between the guitar and the Go. I can even touch just one of the guitar tuners and poof, the noise almost completely disappear! On my Yamaha Pac, every of 5 pickup positions do it, even the humbucker and position 2 and 4 (which should be hum canceling), but the hum sounds different as you go through PUs options...

Ibanez HSH or HH, Fender SSS, PRS SE HH, etc., What is weird is that if there was a ground loop, I would hear it from other systems (audio speakers, etc.), but it's really just from the Go, with high gain amps, so it doesn't look like it's a ground loop. Also, I don't get it from my L6 Spider amp, which to my knowledge doesn't have a noise gate, but maybe... Hmmm... Ha! The Spider amp does have a 'hidden' defeatable noise gate, and if I turn it off manually, I'm getting similar noise... So yeah maybe it is 'normal' behavior...! Would using a power conditioner with the go + amp reduce or fix this issue?

I'm getting some bit of weird noise with high gain amps, where it's humming if I'm not touching any metal part of the guitar, but goes away as soon as I touch the strings or bridge. I'm using headphone out to stereo amp & speakers, and just a guitar in cable... Getting the same with multiple guitars, and what's strange is that it does it even with humbuckers. It's almost like if there was a ground loop... Sure, noise gate does help, but it doesn't feel quite normal that I'm getting that much 'electrical' noise for no apparent reason... Any idea what could be causing it and is anyone getting the same thing?

What was the wiring issue?

Who cares about real-world rig?! If you're dreaming that you're in your harem in your floating castle, surrounded by beautiful women, riches, delicious food, etc., would you rather wake up frustrated that castles do not fly and that therefore you should not have a floating harem castle, or stay a little longer and enjoy the marvels of your dream world? Yeah, you're not limited with the real world constrains of an unpractical guitar rig. Instead, you're given previously impossible options & settings, it's a wonderful thing, appreciate it! So sure, you want to put your distortion after your cab, or your amp after your speaker cab, go ahead! The world is yours! If you want to use it it's there, if not, don't use it! It's 100% up to you! Not being able to do all those things when it's technically possible would have been a HUGE shame and limitation!

Nice I was also looking for something like that thanks!

More than good enough if that's only what you'll use... It is less than 1/2 price... Basically, with Go, you have 4 'free' slots where you can put any effect. You always have an EQ, Volume/Wah pedal, amp and cab. Plus 4 whatever. So with your above, the Amp, wah and EQ are 'free / always on'. You'd have 1 chorus, 1 phase, 1 delay, and you'd have 1 slot free for a Go distortion pedal, compressor, a reverb, looper, etc. https://youtu.be/sjRP5gtnZCA?t=1647 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6f4slSLGlo

Yeah definitely! There's just soo many options lol My main issues is that for some reason (well obvious reasons), the settings which some love and sound great with others guitars, often just sounding bad for me... And I mean I have a few, guitars Ibanez RG/RGA/ART (HH, HSH, actives), Yamaha Pac 112v (HSS), Parker (HH with piezo), Fender, etc., and honestly, already the way the Go's amps react to every guitar and how much really they make the different patches sound so different, is pretty crazy... So when you add not only different amps, but also different distortion pedals, ouch... Like I posted in another vid teh etypitch (sp?! can never remember his name) where the guy goes through almost all the presets, and they pretty much all sound great, I'm getting almost the opposite; where I don't "get" what the patch should do, and it sounds maybe not bad, but not inspiring and somewhat bland and not that usable for me... The Go is really a great tool, but boy, it does require quite a bit of skill to be used proficiently. Not that it's complicated to use, but it has so many options, overwhelming... I think I would need to go back to the the amp thread, focus on only 2-3 amps, get to know them very well, then maybe add some distortions, really get a good feel to what they do, how they interact with the different amps. Maybe download more patches and see how they work...

Your amp has got an FX loop, nice! The most optimal method to connect would be the 4 cable method, page 7 of the manual. It allows you to use your amp's distortion via the Go's effect loop, really cool! If you don't want to complicate things though, you can just plug your guitar to Go's guitar in and Go's Main out to your amp's FX loop return. Make sure your main out is set to instrument level in the Go's global settings. (manual page 32) And btw how is the sound Go via headphones? Oh and no go for directly in the cabinet. The Go doesn't have an amplifier, so the sound needs to be amplified somehow! I'm using a regular stereo amplifier via hifi speakers, also works great!

How are they totally different? I mean sure, I get that a valve amp's distortion characteristics will be different from a solid state pedal, as the valve will introduce more natural harmornics and it will react differently to dynamics. Hmm... Damn... But yeah thinking how different OD/distortion types will combine is pretty damn hard to visualize... I guess when the amp saturates the sound with distortion, the pedal becomes less apparent, but the cleaner the tone, the more the pedal might sound through. But again... Can't you just basically get the same (or very similar) pedal+amp clean'ish tone via another amp who's distortion characteristic is similar to the result of the pedal+amp?

Yeah that's why my question was rather multifold: 1) Are you really getting a 'special' tone that you cannot reproduce with one of the ~100 amps when you're using a distortion pedal plus amp? I mean yeah I'm fairly aware that if you're using a JCM800 + distortion pedal, you likely won't be able to make it sound the same without the pedal. But what about one of the other amp models? 2) Should we re-think how we 'see' distortion as pedal plus amp? I mean in the old days, you had a limited number of amps, and you didn't have the direct control of it like you do with the Helix/Go. So if you were SRV, you basically had a choice of maybe a few dozen amps (I'm guessing), and you basically also had no choice but to use a boost or distortion pedal to get a certain tone. But this is 2020, and we all have 100+ amps available at the switch of a button, not to mention amps that weren't available to SRV at the time. So can't you basically ditch the distortion pedal and get a nearly identical sound from just another amp model? I mean at the root, distortion & overdrive are both clipping the signal. And clipping a clipped signal is just another type of distortion. But how many 'types' of distinctive distortion is there? In Go, there's 100+ amps, so in theory, 100+ types of distortions. Each can be tweaked... Is there not one distortion pattern that will match JCM8000 + Boss SD1 or JCM8000 + TS?

I'm just wondering, given all the amp models, is stacking a pedal's distortion plus amp distortion that much different than what you could get using just a different amp with more gain, some tweaking of the sag, EQ, master volume, bias, etc.? Shouldn't you be able to just using snapshots or low/high settings, to basically get nearly the same result as distortion pedal plus amp? Ex1; If you're using distortion pedal as a boost. Well here, using snapshot or low/high settings, you could easily increase the input volume to act like a boost, even adjust tone if you want, similar to what you'd get in a screamer or whatever... Ex2; using distortion pedal as to stack the pedal's distortion and the amp's. Well here, couldn't you simply use a different amp with more gain or just an amp who's distortion characteristics would match the other pedal + amp stacked distortion characteristics? TLDR: so basically, shouldn't you just be able to get a nearly identical distortion by just tweaking amp & other settings, or is there something inherently drastically different to stacking distortions?