chuskey

I believe he meant 100%

What I do is leave the master volume on the HD500 wide open. I then create my patches at whatever volume, and as close to the same speaker type, I'll be using onstage. That way I know pretty much what I'm going to get. Then if you find that you're having to play at a lower volume at a gig and it sounds a little thin you can use the EQ on the PA to compensate. That way you aren't going back and adjusting all your patches. I pretty much only play going direct to the house these days and use a stage monitor or in ear monitors. This method of creating patches works really well for me. Also if you use the same PA or setup a lot you can start to figure out how it reacts. I have a PA that I own and use and it tends to produce a little more bottom end, so I create the patches that way. I have another set of patches I use if I play at church because I'm familiar with how the room reacts.

Tones can sound different at different volumes. It's called the Fletcher Munson Curve: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fletcher%E2%80%93Munson_curves If there was a noticeable difference in volume the patch could have sounded thin as you wouldn't hear as much bottom end. So it may not have been your ears messing with you! I remember they added a loudness feature to the Vetta, firmware 2.0 I believe, that compensated for this when you were playing at lower volumes. Feature wise the Vetta was way ahead of its time. That was a sweet amp, but way heavier than my HD500 :)

I noticed the same thing when I recorded dry samples and used the same POD Farm preset on both for comparison. I had to dial back the treble on the 2.0 software. To me though the new models sound way better and are way more dynamic. The old models sound dull in comparison. It didn't really take much to adjusts my HD500 patches to account for the increase in high end.

I played around with this and the perfect solution for me was to buy an EHX Superego and put it in the FX loop of the HD500. Not the cheapest solution but the pedal is capable of some really cool sounds that, for me, justified adding it.

I'm sure he'd let me. One thing to mention is that it's never not powered on, just the rebooting. I just remembered one other thing I forgot about, and maybe this will be telling. When it was rebooting I noticed the green light on the power supply would be blinking. I don't know if that was just because the unit was rebooting and temporarily wasn't drawing power or not. I wish I could remember if it was blinking the whole time, or just when it was actually just rebooting. I was in a bit of a panic when this started happening and still trying to finish rehearsal. So I didn't have a chance to really pay attention to that. When I was reflashing it I didn't think to check this.

I forgot to mention it, but when I got back from borrowing the other HD I powered mine up using his power supply. It booted up perfectly normal at that point. I then used my power supply on his, and switched them around a few times, but everything worked fine. I wish I would have tried it again with my power supply before his just to see. If there's a problem with the power supply it's not happening all the time. Is there any other way to test for this? I'd be more than happy to only have to replace the power supply!

I had an issue with my HD500 this weekend and wanted to get some opinions. I was rehearsing for a gig this weekend and all of a sudden my HD500 starting rebooting. It would reboot, then come up to the preset screen and stay on anywhere from 10-20 seconds to maybe a minute at the most before rebooting again. At this point I had to leave the house and got back about 20 min later. I plugged the HD500 back up holding the left arrow button to do a global reset. It would boot up to the Line 6 logo screen then automatically reboot. It never got past the Line 6 logo. So then I booted into safe mode and reflashed the firmware. When I rebooted it again I got the same thing, it wouldn't get past the Line 6 logo. I'm in a bit of a panic at this point because I have a show the next day and need my HD500! Luckily a friend of mine also has one and let me borrow his. I go to get it and I'm back in maybe an hour and a half. I decided to boot up my HD500 again just to see if there's any change. Low and behold it boots up like nothing is wrong. I ended up using the HD500 I borrowed just in case, but I haven't been able to reproduce the problem with mine. I'm glad it's working now, but I'm nervous about it acting up at a gig. The only other time I've had an issue with my unit was about a month ago right before a gig it reboot on it's own. But it came right back up and no further problems until this weekend, I've got it sitting on my desk at work today and I'm going to try leaving it on all day periodically changing patches just to see if it acts up again. Has anyone else had this happen intermittently like this? I don't want to have to replace it, but I have to know I can count on it. If it's relevant I bought it new at the end of 2010. Thanks!

Sorry about that. Here's a direct link: http://line6.com/customtone/tone/225606/ I'm not sure what's up with Customtone. The only way I could find my own patch was by going to the my tones link. I couldn't find it searching for it. If you open it the reason that the signal is split is because I'm using the effects loop to send the dry signal to a EHX Superego. If you end up using this patch just do away with that part of it. That part of the chain has nothing to do with the tone :)

Thanks! I just uploaded the patch to custom tone it's named Dr Z Overdrive. I'm using the Dr Z model with the Blackface 2x12 cab and the ribbon mic. The master volume is cranked and the drive is on about 8ish I think. For the first half of the clip I have a boost comp on and the second half I add a tube screamer with it. I don't think I adjusted the DEPs much if any at all. Other than to crank up the master volume.

Haven't gotten the chance to play around too much with the new firmware, but so far I really like it! I thought I'd post a quick clip I made last night: https://soundcloud.com/chuskey/variax-2-0-firmware-tone-test I thought the Strat sounded so good it made me dust off some SRV licks and play some blues :) I was running the Strat neck pickup into a HD500 straight into an audio interface. I was using the Dr. Z model with no external processing. Overall impression of the update was that the models were way more dynamic and lively. I even noticed that on the acoustics. I know they had already gotten the HD upgrade in a previous firmware, and it could be my imagination, but even they seemed to have a much wider dynamic range than before. I'm digging it, especially for a free update!

I used to use mostly the jumbo model, but lately I've been gravitating towards the dreadnought. I think they both have their uses. Sometimes I'll play chords with one and lead lines with the other. To me the key is how the patch is setup on the HD500. Without the right amount of compression and EQ they're all going to sound kinda flat. I've gotten really good results with the JTV/HD500. To the point I sold my Variax 700 acoustic guitar because I no longer needed it. I played at church yesterday and there were 3 other acoustic guitars on the stage. There was one song where they needed some lead acoustic work and electric in the latter half of the song. Through the pa I felt that the Line 6 equipment had the bast acoustic sound up there. Not saying the other guitars sounded bad at all, just thbh e Variax had something extra. Several people, including some of the other acoustic guys on stage were very interested in how I was getting that sound from an electric guitar. Being able to go from full acoustic rig to full electric rig with the touch of a button is awesome. Not to mention it's changing the selected guitar and change the tuning. Brilliant! attached one of the acoustic patches that I've done. I did tweek the eq some yesterday because the room was bright and not getting a lot of low end. So if it sounds a little dark you may have to adjust it. Here's a video I did in my studio a few weeks ago. This a chilled out little acoustic looping improve. My signal is going VDI cable from the JTV to the 500 . The stereo outputs are run to the stereo inputs of a Digitech Jamman. From there the audio gets fed into Ableton Live that was just used to capture audio in this case. Honestly playing acoustic on the JTV is almost as fun as playing electric :)

One thing you may want to try is to edit the models you use with workbench. You can always go in and adjust the levels on a per patch/per pickup basis. I use the custom bank to have a mix of strat and les paul sounds and this works great to even out the overall volume. You will certainly see volume differences with "real" guitars that have single coils vs humbuckers. I used to build patches specifically for my strat and les paul for this reason. Now I just use the JTV :) Love technology!

Same here. I haven't carried another guitar, electric or acoustic, to a gig or band rehearsal since I got my JTV 59. Not to mention recording sessions. It's not perfect, nothing is, but it works great in a ton of situations and there's not another one instrument that is nearly as versatile. It's perfectly reasonable to assume that the JTV won't work for everyone out there, but to say that it's not gig worthy just isn't accurate. Oh how I wish this guitar had been around 10 years ago when I was playing 4 nights a week in a band that capoed nearly every song. The reality of gigging then was I carried way too many guitars, way too many pedals, and amps and cabs that weighed way too much. The reality of gigging now is my JTV 59 gig bag on one shoulder and my HD500 bag on the other! One trip and done :)

That would be sweet! I'd love to check out the DT some time. I think the Vetta I had is for sale over at Musician's Supply in High Point for $500 with the floorborad. The guy I sold it to has it up there on consignment. It was in perfect working order when I sold it to him and he barely used it. I briefly considered buying it back, but just don't have a need for it. It's running firmware 2.5 and I purchased some aftermarket cab sims from Armin: http://www.soundside.de/shop/VettaToolkit2.5.htm. For what it is it's a killer amp. Probably not going to be on par with the HD + DT stuff, but still a great piece of kit.

I'm about the same these days, mostly play in the studio at home. I do sit in at church every once in a while and play. I picked up a used Vetta I years back for cheap once the II's came out. It was great because the firmware was a free upgrade. That's probably the coolest piece of Line 6 gear I've played. Feature wise it was way ahead of it's time. I wish they would have kept going with it, but I realize it just didn't sell well. It was too expensive brand new. I kind of hated to sell it, but it was so dang heavy compared to the XT Live and going straight into the house :) I'm really happy with 2/3 of the dream rig. I'd love to hear a DT amp, but given the fact that almost everywhere I play I'm just running direct I can't justify the money. I think I've outlived my touring rock band fantasy :)

That's cool! I just saw your avatar on another post and saw the Clemmons for the location. I lived in Lewisville for long time and we just moved to Midway, right outside of Winston. I've been a long time Line 6 addict dating back to the AxSys 212. I've lost count of the number of Line 6 products I've owned over the years, but I don't think there's any product family I've skipped. Except the Spider series ;) Do you play out anywhere in the area?

While not technically a post about the JTV, this post exists because I bought a JTV :) I'm selling my acoustic 700 if anyone is in the market for one. I'm located in NC. Here's a link to the ad: http://winstonsalem.craigslist.org/msg/3794680159.html Thanks

I have a Variax 700 acoustic for sale. I've recently purchased a JTV, and while it's not quite as good for acoustic instruments as the 700 acoustic, I find that I'm not playing the acoustic as much. Here's a link to the ad: http://winstonsalem.craigslist.org/msg/3794680159.html Thanks