skybone

I use similar settings on the JCM800, IMO, it gets quite close to the "power amp drive" sound, rather than the scratchy/spikey preamp drive "high gain" sound. And yes, I have run a JCM800 and a couple of other valve amps at full tilt in the past, and yes, IMO, the HD gets very close.

You could also try and roll back the gain on your amp sim, & raise the channel volume. Some will disagree with this, but I use the same principle on my dirty amp patches as I do on my valve amp, gain in the middle, volume on full. This gives a creamier power amp drive to the sound, than the "scratchy" preamp drive. Just give it a try and see if you like it. Experiment. I'm sure there will be some others along in a moment to tell me I'm wrong, but if you approach the POD as you would a new amp, the point is to experiment with your sounds, and the HD is a superb platform to experiment with. If you don't like a sound, wipe it and start again.

I think the channel volume on the Amp is something like 50-55%. When I dig in, it starts to sound growly, cleans up a bit when I ease back, both through an amp and through headphones for home practicing & recording. I plug the HD into the Power Amp input, bypassing the amp's front end preamp. IIRC, the level's were set there because it cut down on background noise a bit. I'm using both pickups on a twin pickup bass wired without RWRP (hum-bucking).

Have you registered your HD with Line6 yet? Have a look at the promo, and see if you qualify for it. If you do, happy days.

Apologies, but I haven't had my HD plugged in to the PC for a while. Main setting: Thresh: 50% Level: 30% FX Type: Dyn or Thresh: 50% Level: 25% FX Type: Dyn They work for me anyway.

I use the Tube Comp on all my bass patches, I find it "bolsters" the sound quite nicely, but you do have to play about with it. Can't remember my settings from memory however. Rather than taking a patch that someone else has created, IMO, you need to approach the HD as you would a new amp, and dial it in to what sounds good to you, and then work from there.

If you're just wanting effects, have you considered the M5/M9/M13?

The "long winded" process is when you have a backup of a Bundle, but only want to restore 1 or 2 patches. It is certainly easy enough to restore a full backup or an individually saved patch. In Line6 Edit you could open the Bundle and select individual patches, and copy them over, as the "Live" window was on the right, and the left window was the Archive. With HD Edit, you have to open the Bundle, then open the patch so it shows up on the unit, then go into the unit and store it to one of the "free" memory slots, close HD Edit and power off the unit.

It's not as good as it could be, but it's what we have, and I doubt it'll be updated. Which is a shame IMO. Bizarrely, I think that the old PODxt/x3 "Line6 Edit" is a better Editor than HD Editor. You could easily copy individual patches from other sources (backups etc) instead of having to go through a long-winded and a convoluted process, or restoring all the patches. Anyone know of an easy way to do this in HD Editor?

I mainly use my HD500x for Bass, and IMO, it sounds great (though I mainly use it for the amp & cab sims, as well as effects). The effects sound really good, but I don't know whether you can control the delay with the expression pedal, sorry. Before I got the HD, I used a Zoom B3 and then a PODxt Live. The B3's effects were good, but you use 3 at a time. If you used an amp sim, you could only use 2 effects, add a compressor or limiter, you were down to 1 effect. I then got the PODxt Live, with the intention of adding effects, but although the amp & cab sims were good, I was disappointed with the effects. I started doing a lot of research into Multi FX units, and looked at the GT-10B as well as the HD and a few others. I kept coming back to the HD, as I thought it had the best feature set for what I needed, so I bought one. Haven't looked back since.

Not forgetting the Fender Bassman, and although not a specific bass amp, the HiWatt DR100 model sounds quite good with a bass.

You can plug the POD into any PA, and it'll work fine, for both guitar & bass.

I agree with cruisinon, there are more serious issues going on in the world. I appreciate that buying a POD HD is a big decision, and a fair chunk of money, but compare it to what you would spend on a guitar or an amp. I would ask how you are listening to the video clips and how you are listening to the "reference material". Be scientific about it. Make sure you listen to the video & audio clips with the same equipment that you're using to listen to the reference material. If you're listening to the video's on laptop speakers, then the sound isn't going to be as high quality if you listen to the reference material on a dedicated audio system. Before I bought my HD500x, I too did a fair amount of research into the available units, though I admit to being very skeptical about video & audio clips demonstrating equipment, was it captured using top quality audio equipment, or just the mic of the video camera? My search kept bringing me back to the HD500x, so I bought one. I am very happy that I did. If you are so undecided that you are losing sleep over the issue, then I would suggest that you visit your local music retailer(s) and try the HD out there.

Did you buy the unit new or second hand / pre-owned? Are the patches you're using and experiencing the excessive noise new patches, one of the old user patches or preset patches? Have you tried the preset patches to see if there is excessive noise from them as well? Have you used & owned other multi FX units previously? Where they used in the same conditions that you are using the HD500x in? If you bought the unit pre-owned, and using one of the previous owner's patches, they may have had it setup for their environment, not yours. It may be worthwhile re-flashing your HD500x and doing a "Factory Reset", and then start building your own patches (either from scratch, from the presets, or download some). If you experience the excessive extraneous noise after the reset, then it may be time to delve deeper.

Pretty sure it will. I've owned a bean xt for years (it has the old Line6 logo), and that was always my "go to" at home, but it's now been (bean?) "retired" in favour of a HD500x. The HD's used not just at home too.

It is possible to fine tune your patches without having it plugged into a computer, you can build patches from scratch just using the user interface. You can use the HD500x as a multi effect, you can also use it for amp modeling. It's up to you. Check out the "4 Cable Method".

I came from a PODxt (bean and Live) to the HD500x, and have found it to be a great improvement over the older versions. IMO, you need to approach how you set up your patches in the same way as you would set up a sound on a new amp. It is trial and error tweaking, and does take a bit of time to figure out, but I've found the 500x to be a doddle to set up and get great sounds from very quickly. Are you using the noise gate and/or compression in the patches? Maybe look at these as you may be picking up background noise as "digital fuzz".

The additional model packs are appended onto the end of your model list, it's just a case of having to scroll through all the amp models to find the ones you want. It's even easier with HD500x Edit. Just select the amp model menu, and you should see them all there. If you really want to reinstall the packs, then Install the latest firmware from Line6 Monkey, when it asks whether you want to keep or discard your patches, select "No" (but make sure you back everything up before you do this!), you should end up with a "fresh" HD, and then run Licence Manager & re-install the Model Packs. However, this is a bit of a pain if you already have patches you've built up that you really like.

Fair enough. I think it sounds better with closed back headphones than open back/buds/etc, and I don't dial out any low end, but that's obviously just me.

There should be no problem running an active through the XT Pro, as there is an "Input Level" switch next to the Input. There are 2 settings, "Normal" for passive guitars/basses & "Pad" for active guitars/basses.

Pretty much any closed back, studio grade headphones would do the job really well. I use an old pair of Sennheiser HD's (can't remember which model), you could look at Beyerdynamics, AKG, Shure, etc. but unless you were using them for serious studio work, a mid-priced pair would easily suffice, and save you some money as well.

A very handy tip, must remember that one! :D Thanks for sharing. :)

I for one hope that they do continue it for as long as they can, the HD500x is a great piece of kit. I think that the HD Pro may well be discontinued at some point soon though. When it does come time for Line6 to pull the plug, then I hope that they replace it with something similar. The Helix is an amazing piece of equipment, but well out of the price range of a lot of people. The HD500x is a seriously well appointed piece of equipment, as well as being relatively affordable. I'm sure that Amplifi & Firehawk have their fans, but the rear panel connectors on the floor boards aren't as well equipped as that on the HD500x.

If there are no Line6 Authorised repairers near you, why not have a chat with your local PC repairer/technician. Surely they can repair, or at least assess what's wrong with your USB port.

Agree about the EQ's. Have you tried adding a second amp as well as the Park? I always thought that Yngwie used Plexi's.