mdmayfield

Hi all, Lately I'm noticing my HD500 is starting up with preset 1A. I don't recall it always doing that; I seem to remember that it used to start up with whichever patch was last selected. (Technically, the patch plus the temporary edit buffer, since I recall it remembering unsaved edits across power cycles, too.) Is there a setting I might have switched accidentally somewhere? Or am I remembering wrong? Thanks, Matt

On YouTube, there's a video from Anderton's Music where you can get a look at the Variax Standard's bridge and back - it reveals what I know will be my favorite features of the Vax Standard, before even seeing one in person: 1) Regular non-offset, closed bridge saddles so they'll be easy to replace with Graph Tech Ghosts; and 2) A neck pocket with regular "rectangularly" spaced screws for easy neck replacement without re-drilling... assuming it's a standard size pocket. My reason for wanting Graph Tech saddles isn't so much a tonal difference - on my Variax 300, I barely noticed any difference from the L.R.Baggs, at least, after adjusting gain to match. Rather, I just hate, hate, hate breaking strings. In 15+ years playing guitars with String Saver saddles, one string has broken at the bridge saddle, ever.... while on my JTV-69 with metal saddles two different strings have already broken at the saddle (a high E, and a D) in the past 6 months. I wish Line 6 would go to Graph Tech for all their piezos, not just on the 89F.

Sounds to me like multiple layered tracks of guitar. Although I'm unfamiliar with this style of music, it sounds like the same harmonizing technique as used by Boston or Queen. To simulate this in the HD500 live with one guitarist, the key is to put the harmony *after* the amp model (though probably before any reverbs or delays). That way, it'll sound like two separate guitar tracks, instead of like two notes played by one guitar. Note that you must play only one note at a time for this to work. Any double-stops or chords will cause the Smart Harmony to glitch out, which can be interesting, but it's too unpredictable for most styles. The exact key and shift settings will be based on music theory and the composition of the song. I'd suggest first trying just one Smart Harmony in the key of the song with a shift of + or - a 3rd, depending on whether you're physically playing the lower or higher of the two harmonized tracks.

TL;DR of some tips: - Look up "fletcher munson curves" for important/helpful info about volume and tone. - It's rare to nail it the 1st several gigs; roll with it best you can, and tweak after each show. - The better you can simulate gig conditions at rehearsal (esp. volume) the better off you'll be. - dB meters help a lot, but beware of tones that measure as louder or softer than they sound to human ears. - During sound check or rehearsal, try using the built-in looper so you hear from the audience perspective. - When possible, edit *in context* of the full band; sometimes what sounds good by itself doesn't work.

In case it helps, the Global EQ will be optional, so you can just leave it off and ignore it, while still enjoying whatever other benefits there may be to the update: http://line6.com/support/topic/11715-global-eq-preset-onoff/

Have you (or the guitarists who are asking about this) considered using phone apps that will do metronomes, drum beats, and/or backing tracks? You can always plug one of those 1/8" - 1/8" cables from the phone headphone jack into the CD/MP3 In on the HD500.

I purchased a QSC K8 about 5 years ago and absolutely love it. It's about 1/4th the weight and size of the Roland KC-500 I used to use, but at least as powerful if not more. It's been powerful enough to use as the only sound source for my guitar + keys (not even going into the PA) on small to medium gigs. For large venues I also go into the PA. It lacks the extremely low bass (below about 65 Hz) but for my style, I don't need it (low E is 82 Hz after all) and in the context of a band, too much bass in the 6-string guitar just muddies the overall sound.

I've had a JTV flash fail in the middle of the process, and was able to recover. While I don't know for a fact that they have some kind of "stub" loader in ROM or in a non-erased part of the flash memory, based on that experience, I'm inclined to suspect that they probably do.

If you're interested in exactly what the parameters on a compressor do, here's a video explanation that might be useful:

I believe the software in the Pod sends a signal over the L6 Link cable to tell the DT amp which topology etc. to use when you change amp models - so if I'm understanding correctly, I don't think there would need to be an update to the amp's software separately from the Pod's. I believe they just need to have the Pod software send the appropriate instructions to the DT when you choose one of the new amp models.

That's brilliant! And if you didn't want to mod the switch itself, you could make a little adapter thingy with a 1/4" female TS jack that goes right to a 1/4" TS plug, with the 10K resistor between the tip and sleeve signal wires.... or use a keyboard sustain pedal (non-latching) to make a foot-based kill switch! Whoa.....

I heard they were going to invent some kind of Internet-enabled POD that could play music, called the "I-Pod" or something... Or was it some computer company that was going to do that? I'm a little behind the times. (I kid)

Please don't try this - at best nothing will happen, and at worst you'll damage something. The VDI connector is the same shape as an Ethernet jack, and since an Ethernet cord is just wires, it'll work to use an Ethernet cable to plug a Variax into a Pod. But the actual signal IS NOT Ethernet - instead, DC power, MIDI-like control signals, and AES-like digital audio is being sent along those wires. An Ethernet device will expect entirely different signals to be sent on each of the eight wires in the connector, and certainly will not expect power to be sent along it!

The JTV uses piezo pickups embedded in the bridge saddles for modeling. They sense the strings from under or even *behind* your palm if you're palm muting, so it's not 100% exactly spot-on perfectly the same. The hardware and software people obviously put a lot of hard work into it, though, because for the modest palm muting I do (along the lines of classic rock; no metal), I don't notice any difference. It's a big improvement over the original Variax, which had a pronounced "ping" type sound when palm muting (I have owned Variax 500s and 300s). The JTV now sounds fine for my styles. However, if you play metal styles / genres that use extensive palm muting, you should test it out before the return period is up. Best case, it'll be fine; worst case, there'll be something in the sound you won't be able to put up with. Most likely case, you'll need to slightly change your technique (move palm to right over the bridge saddles) and end up with a compromise you're happy with.

In my experience and opinion, starting with "which EQ should I use" is the wrong way around to approach the situation. Choice of EQ matters very little; choice of EQ *settings* matters a lot, and there is no predetermined correct setting for any given purpose; you have to use your ears. If I may recommend a process: 1) Play the sound with no EQ 2) Decide if it needs EQ, and if so, what in the sound needs to be corrected --> Is the sound muddy? Too bright? Not enough, or too much, bass? "Boxy" like a cheap boombox? 3) Determine what "shape" of EQ would correct the issue 4) Pick an EQ that can be adjusted into the shape you need Most EQs can be used for similar purposes, and a 3dB boost at 2kHz with a given "Q" setting using one EQ is going to sound very similar, and sometimes identical, to a 3dB boost at 2kHz with the same "Q" setting on another EQ. To get the overall concept of EQ, take a look at these videos: I hope that helps. Thanks, Matt

Mark, Yeah, they're OK but they're brighter in one way and darker in another.... I was able to get a little closer to the old Strat sound with a high shelf EQ at 4-5Hz boosting by around 4 dB, before the amp / amp model. Good luck! Matt

Hi everybody, Thanks for the feedback. Mark (Hey_Joe), I think I did try those out at one point, but honestly I never played around too much with the old Variax Workbench (besides some custom tunings, and a Tele model with P-90s) because the models closely matched my taste, so it never really seemed necessary... :-/ Either way, I tried a new approach using a spectrum analyzer and ended up with these (attached). However, after trying them in a more musical context, I think they're actually further away than the first version. Something in the pickups of the new Strat model is quite different in personality from the old ones. There's a kind of "presence peak" on the old one around 3-4kHz which the new one lacks, and there's considerably less bass (120Hz or so and below) on the new one. On the other hand, the new one has more lower mids like 1-2kHz, and more extended highs (5k and above). The trouble is that there's only so much you can do in Workbench that's obvious, beyond trial and error. While it's theoretically possible that some combination of pickups, bodies, pots, etc. would get closer to the old Strat model than anything I've tried here, it's probably going to be something off-the-wall that I haven't tried... And I've tried quite a few off-the-wall things. If there was a "resonant peak" frequency + amplitude setting per pickup (labeled in Hz and dB of course, while I'm daydreaming), I think it would be possible to pretty much nail it. As it is, I think I'm going to just go back to the factory 2.1 models and re-do my HD500 settings to accommodate. It's rare that I change guitar models within a patch, and now that you can move the 5-way without the physical model knob position "taking over," it seems like the new paradigm is to imagine changing guitars through the HD500 patch model force, then using the pickup switch and knobs on that guitar. It's been fun though! Thanks, Matt v19SpankForv21RevB.bnk.zip

Thanks for the feedback everyone. After playing out with them and using some other amp models, I think there's some room for improvement. I'll be revisiting these over the next couple weeks, and have been going through a few more iterations. Stay tuned...

Hi all, After a ton of tweaking, I am excited to share some Workbench HD models for JTV version 2.0/2.1 that sound as close as I could get to the 1.9 and earlier Strat models. The process was: 1) Plug in older firmware JTV 2) Record some riffs with a clean amp sound on the HD500's looper (leaving spaces of silence) 3) Swap to newer-firmware JTV 4) Record the same riffs on the looper into the silent spots 5) Listen without playing to compare (to be more objective) 6) Hit Undo 7) Tweak in Workbench 8) Repeat 4-7 until your ears fall off 9) Repeat 1-8 for all five switch positions There were a lot of interesting tricks I learned while making these: changing string volumes, altering gain per pickup, choosing an unlikely pickup and/or body, changing potentiometer values, and "stacking" identical pickups in series to alter the tone. Some of those are techniques I saw in patches created by the folks on VGuitarForums (especially blueman), but the attached models themselves I made from scratch. (If you don't see the attachment, remember to log in to the L6 forums.) Hope it's useful - thanks, Matt v19SpankForv21.bnk.zip

Wow... based on the "all analog" marketing, it looks like these special "personality cards" might be as simple as wiring paths and nothing else. Like each pickup's output goes to a specific place that connects to the card, then the 5-way switch connects to different places that connect to the card... Then, depending on the paths on the card, the switch positions do different things.

All EQs let you boost and/or cut certain aspects of the frequency range (lows, through mids, to highs). The specific options you get is what changes per EQ model, but often, you can do what you need with any of them. The end goal of "cutting through" live is usually achieved through boosting somewhere in the mids to high-mids (say, somewhere around 1kHz to 8kHz depending on the situation) relative to the lows/highs. That could be done in any number of ways with various EQ models - for example, you could cut the lows and highs, then increase the overall volume level, to achieve a similar result. If you're interested in diving in to the intricacies of EQ methods and approaches, you might enjoy these videos: Thanks, Matt

I believe that these problems are the result of mechanical crosstalk or resonance, resulting in the physical vibrations of one string being picked up through a different string's pickup. On my own transplants, I've seen this happen when two saddles were allowed to physically touch each other. It can also happen through other physical paths. Those results are consistent with the idea that it's a physical hardware issue, where one string is being picked up by another piezo saddle. Unless new evidence comes up, such as the problem going away after a reflash or version change, I'm convinced that software/firmware has nothing to do with this.

I was surprised by that too, that the Strat is brighter than the Tele. It's in the ballpark of the magnetic pickups in the JTV-69, which is considerably brighter than most Strats I've owned. The later JTV firmware seems to be more geared toward that thin funky 80s clean Strat sound.

Look at how the built-in models are done. For the LP, for instance, there are 3 models: Lester-1: Model with the bridge pickup turned on, saved to the "treble" switch position on the "Lester" bank Lester-3: Model with both pickups turned on, saved to the middle switch position Lester-5: Model with the neck pickup turned on, saved to the "rhythm" switch position So you need to make a separate setting for each pickup combination, and save each of those to your desired switch position in a given bank. Edit: maybe I misunderstood. In Workbench HD you can save a copy of the model you're currently working on into a different switch/bank slot. Look in the Help menu in the Workbench program - it shows how to do this.

It's probably a communication error with the Variax caused by a break in the VDI connection. I've seen this boot loop before due to that; you can experiment to see if that's the issue by disconnecting ONLY the Variax when it's in the reboot loop and seeing if it boots up normally. If that *is* the issue, then if you're handy with electronics you'll want to check the whole signal patch with the Variax VDI: - VDI port on the HD500 - VDI cable, including plugs on both ends - VDI output on the Variax - Plastic wire connectors *inside* the Variax Otherwise, try a different VDI cable and if that doesn't improve matters, swap out the Variax and then the HD500 - use the process of elimination one variable at a time - and then take the faulty item in for repair. I hope that helps, Matt