phil_m

The answer to all your questions regarding the looper is no. You can't do any of those things. The looper isn't really comparable to a dedicated looping pedal like the Boss RC-20 or Digitech JamMan. It's a relatively simple single track looper that lets you record a phrase up to 48-seconds long and do overdubs. That loop can't be saved on the POD at all. You can't load backing tracks or other loops back onto the POD.

Yep, 100% separate... It's pretty easy with a dual tone on the HD500 (or 500X). This is something you could do from the time the JTV and HD500 were first released. Sean Halley talks about it in this video.

You can do this already, you know... You can run the magnetics into one tone and the modeled acoustic into another in one patch. You can't run two modeled guitars at once on the Variax, though.

Have you selected mic as the input for the tone you're trying to use? As far as the preamp, it's in with the effects. In HD Edit, it's in the same category as the EQs - it's called Vintage Pre.

So it seems to me that you have two options. The first would be to exchange this for another unit. The other would be to try to install the firmware update. There isn't a major difference from 2.01 to 2.04. 2.04 really dealt mainly with a bug that was causing some units to power cycle. Honestly, I'd be inclined to exchange it, but if you have a USB to MIDI adapter, doing the update isn't a big deal. It takes like 10 minutes.

Well, there's needs, and then there's my guitar stuff... I have quite a bit more than I "need"... :) I guess the thing is that when I play out with my band, I'm still used to using a more traditional pedalboard and amp setup. It's not I could replicate that with the HD500 and the DT25. I could. It's just that I'm so comfortable with what I've been using, I don't feel a great need to change. The M13 is still my main effects unit. I love it, and it's easy to adjust on the fly. As far as amps, I've found I really don't need more than one amp sound for a show typically. I can do everything I need to with OD and fuzz in front of a clean amp. The JTV69 is my main gigging guitar, though. That being said, I do play in different groups, and sometimes I do just use the Dream Rig in its entirety. It's especially helpful when I know I won't have much room on stage or when I don't feel like carrying a lot of stuff with me.

Actually, I don't know why... :P Seriously, I often switch between my Princeton Reverb and my DT25, and the DT25 holds its own pretty well. I also switch between my JTV-69 and "real" guitars quite a bit. I don't ever feel that I'm missing anything when I go to my JTV rig, to be honest with you. For rehearsals anymore, I've been going all Dream Rig for a while now, and I haven't missed my "real rig" singe doing it. Maybe you need to ditch the Power Engine and get a DT25... B)

I think why the issue gets muddled is because there are P90s on the Casino which is in the 2 and 4 positions in the Semi banks. As others have said, the 335 definitely has humbuckers.

You could do it pretty easily with either. The 500X would probably be the better choice simply because you'll get a little extra DSP processing power which may come in handy for doing a dual signal chain like you're describing. But the simple answer is yes, it's something easily doable.

There's no reason that I know of that you can't have both versions of Edit installed on your computer at once. I don't know why you're having installation problems, though. That could be a Mac thing, and that's not something I know enough about to comment.

The files aren't compatible between the two devices. You'll just just have to re-create each scene from the M13 as best as possible. Of course, you only have three effects slots in the M9 compared to 4 in the M13, so you may not be able to do everything with the M9 that you were doing with the M13.

On the jack for the foot controller on your POD, does it say "FBV"? If your 2.0 is an older version, it may not be compatible with the MKII Express.

Well, I'd have to mess around with it, but I actually would start in the delays and try to get one that had a decent self-oscillation going. Perhaps that going into something like the Particle Verb. Adding a flanger or phaser might help. I think the self-oscillation is going to be the most important part, though.

I don't know... I've not seen that brand before. Personally, I would stick to someone like M-Audio or Roland just to be on the safe side.

I don't have an HD500X, but I do currently have an M13 and an HD500, and they both have similar marks. I had an M5 and an M9, and they had similar marks, too. It's just a byproduct of the stamped steel manufacturing process.

Well, there is no bypass, per se. If you're using the HD500X for effects only, as long as you have all the effects turned off, that's your bypass signal. It will still be affected by the HD500X's master volume. I'd say you'd want to set the master volume so that it is equal to the signal you'd get if you plugged your guitar straight into the amp. If you have the amp/line switch set to amp, you should be able to keep the POD's master volume at 100%. If you want a quick way to bypass everything, you could set up an empty preset. That might be a nice way to go from an effect-heavy preset to a quick bypass tone.

That looks like one of the inexpensive, generic USB to MIDI adapters in that video. Unfortunately, those types of adapters have a very spotty track record as far as people having success with them in getting the update to go through. The big problem with them seems to be that they use the default Windows drivers, and those drivers simply don't have very tight specs when it comes to things like data transfer rates. This is why Line 6 recommends a higher quality adapter like the M-Audio Uno. It's more expensive, yes, but the success rate with those is near 100%.

I can hear a difference, too, but even when you're switching the magnetics, I kind of find the jump from one sound to another like that kind of annoying. It's not something I would ever really do even with a traditional electric guitar. I guess I'd say that no technology is perfect. There's limitations with any piece of equipment. This particular issue is probably something that most people wouldn't notice very much simply because changing pickups during the time a chord or note is ringing out is relatively rare.

It shouldn't be too hard to push in, but it takes more than just a light touch. I don't really know what to compare it to. It should click, but it's a bit softer feeling than a typical DPST switch that you'd find on an effects pedal.

I was actually testing this out last night on my JTV, and while there is a very slight drop, it's nothing that very noticeable to me. I suppose if you are switching pickups or models during a sustaining chord, it will be noticeable. If you have any delay in the tone you're playing, though, it will help to make it a lot less noticeable. I've been playing out with my JTV for the last year and a half and it's honestly not been anything I've ever thought of.

Simply put, the master volume is the volume control for the power section, and the channel volume is the volume control for the preamp section. I don't think you should try to over-think it too much. It probably is possible to set the master high enough where you get some actual power amp distortion, but I've not ever had my DT-25 loud enough to get to that point. I think these power sections are designed so they have quite a bit of headroom. Even in in triode mode, I don't know that I've really gotten true power amp distortion. I can tell that it's more compressed in that mode with the master volume higher, though.

The obvious answer is to not play Smoke on the Water... :ph34r:

Personally, I never got MIDI OX to work. I'd try using Bome's Send SX: http://www.bome.com/products/sendsx/downloads Download and install the 1.22 version. The other thing is that you really only need one MIDI cable to do the update. One going from the out of the adapter to the in of the M13. What USB to MIDI adapter are you using?

1. You need to update the firmware. 2.04 is the current and latest version of the firmware. It will add a bunch of new effects, including Particle Verb, and it gives you 36 more scenes. The update instructions can be found here: http://line6.com/support/page/kb/_/effects/m5-m9-m13/m13-firmware-update-instructions-r364 2. I don't know, but the color quality of LEDs can vary pretty significantly from batch to batch, especially the lower cost LEDs used in electronics like these. I wouldn't worry about it too much.

It seems to me that on presets where you have the tone control locked, you just need to commit to not changing models on the Variax itself, or use your workaround in Workbench.