wildbillmojo

I have a Helix floor and I’m trying to duplicate the sound of my Way Huge Overrated Special pedal. It occurred to me that someone may have already done this or even produced an IR. Any suggestions?

OK, in case anyone is interested I did eventually resolve this issue; I did not have the input impedance of the Helix set to Auto.

I'm a new user to the G10S wireless systems and am still wrapping my ears around them. I'm finding that when my guitar volume is on full then it's pretty good and stands up pretty well against high quality cable, but when I lower my guitar volume below about 8 the whole tonal response starts to fall apart; this is way worse than top end roll off, its really like being under a pillow. Doesn't seem to matter which CableTone setting I'm using either. Anyone else experienced this? I use my volume and tone controls a lot so it's not really usable for me live. It's a pity because I love the Helix and thought that staying within the Line6 ecosystem would be the best idea.

I have an HX Effects and I’m trying to duplicate the sound of my Way Huge Overrated Special pedal. It occurred to me that someone may have already done this or even produced an IR.

Yeah thanks. It’s not mains hum or ground loop noise (I know what those sound like). Happens on all my guitars but not if I DI them straight into the interface. You’re right that it could be some kind of impedance mismatch between Helix and Interface. I’ll see what I can fiddle with. Thanks for your help.

I am experiencing a low frequency ‘beating’ noise or warble (don’t know how else to describe it) that starts when I turn down the guitar volume. Noise gates do help a little but do not fully alleviate the issue. If I turn the guitar full up the problem disappears totally. Happens on Strats and Les Pauls. Doesn’t make any difference what FX are in the chain; as soon as any thing (including an amp) is put there the issue starts. I have played with the unit’s input impedance and on settings other than Auto or 1M it’s a lot better, but then the guitar sounds rubbish. I’m a player who likes to ride the volume control so this is a bit annoying, particularly as the Amp sims work so well otherwise with this approach. Anyone heard of this before?

I've tried FOH and it seems to work well but you do need a good PA with lots of headroom and full range cabs. If the PA is at the edge of its limits then you're probably going to sound rubbish in my experience. Also you'll need good floor monitoring to get the right feel. I must admit though that my favourite configuration is using the 4CM approach using a valve amp. That way get the flexibility of the HD500 FX plus either the amp's preamp OR the amp models. I love the sound of the amp models cranked using a real valve powerstage. One catch, you really need an amp with a Parallel FX loop, a Series loop is just a total pain to get the levels right and sometimes won't work at all. I use a Blackstar Series One which has the Parallel loop plus MIDI switching that I can drive from the HD500 and the sound is awesome with all the amp models. When I use my Laney with a Series loop I just use the HD500 as a pedal board coz I can't get the amp model levels to work right at all. Good luck with your quest for Tone.

One thing that works for me is the turn down the amp gain and use the Tube Compressor after the amp

Hi folks, the "barely audible guitar sound" problem may be a result of the amp's FX loop type. If the amp has a series loop, then there should be no problem at all; try playing with the amp's Master Vol (if it has one) and the HD500's Master Vol. If your amp has a parallel loop then you may have an issue, as you will have signal leakage to earth through the amp volume control's preceding the FX return (even if you're not using 4CM). In this case try using the HD500's Master Vol and see if it helps. FYI I have this issue; I have a Blackstar Series One and a Laney Lionheart, both great amps. The Blackstar has a series loop with the Master Vol after the FX return. It can use either 4CM or just straight into the FX return from the HD500 and it works great. I have a massive range of top tones available to me. The Laney has a parallel loop and no master volume; basically I get the same symptoms as you, and can really only use the HD500 as a pedalboard infront of the amp. You can of course get a tech to mod the amp; apparently on most amps it's not hard if you know what you're doing. Let us know what amp you're using.

Anyone tried an HD500 with a Microsoft Surface Pro?

Obviously without hearing your noise I can't be sure, but I had a problem with digital clock noise from the HD. The clock drives the internal digital electronics (CPU, DSP etc) and you'll hear this as a high pitch 'hum'. It's breakout onto you audio path is caused by a ground loop, and the only way to really fix it is to ensure the POD is using a completely isolated mains supply. You can buy isolators, they don't cost that much.

Hi there HD500 Guru's. I've been using the HD500 with a Blackstar Series One 45 combo with great success using the 4 cable method. Just using the HD500 pre-amps is great but a bit of a waste; the Blackstar's own pre-amp channels (all four of them) sound great in their own right, so I've just decided to try and use the MIDI functions to achieve this. The Blackstar has MIDI connectors to allow a controller to change between pre-amp channels. The theory is that I wire up using the 4 cable method so that I can put the Blackstar pre-amp's in the HD500 FX loop. Then, for a given patch, I map the HD500 pre-amp on/off to a footswitch and also map the FX loop off/on (feeding the Blackstar pre-amps) to the same switch, AND then map a MIDI command to tell the Blackstar to switch in the correct pre-amp channel. All good in theory and seems at first glance to work. Here's where I hit issues. In HD EDIT I select the 'BASE' MIDI channel, command 'Prog Change' and Prog numbers 0..3 to select the appropriate Blackstar channel. Save the patch. Upload the patch to the HD500. Then I find that between them the HD500 and HD EDIT have decided to change the MIDI prog number, usually (but not always) to 1 more than the value I set. I cannot seem to make the Prog number stick. Anyone else seen this? Its driving me mad.

Yeah 'Guru', hence my use of the term fully isolating filter.

I play in a band with two guitars, one HD500 (me) and another conventional. In my experience you will screw up the front of house sound if you insist on playing through the PA when the other guy is not. You have some options: Mic the other guitar player, even if it's a small gig, not for loudness but to spread his tone like yours is (and don't you be using stereo effects btw). Pan each guitar to a different place in the stereo image (e.g. 10 o'clock and 2 o'clock); Get a small amp; the acoustic amp that Mark2711 suggested is a good idea as they have a pretty flat frequency response, but I get great tone out of my Blackstar S1-45 (using 4CM) or a laney Lionheart L20h straight into the front end. I have different patches for each amp as the amps have different characteristics. IMHO the best option is a good small valve amp (maybe the Orange Tiny Terror?). I personally prefer a good amp behind me :)

As a one-time digital electronics engineer who's just bought an HD500 I can tell you what the noise is, it's the internal clock that synchronizes the digital electronics (CPU, DSP, RAM etc) and it's probably breaking through on the Ground (Earth for Europeans) side of the signal path; I'm getting it too on certain set-ups. I used to get the same thing on my 'old fashioned' pedal board from my EHX Cathedral pedal, which was digital. I fixed that by ensuring it had its own isolated power supply. I have noticed for example that it is a LOT worse when the HD500 is wired up to an amp using the 4CM AND the USB is plugged into a computer. If I unplug the computer its gets better but does not completely go away; if I wire directly to the front of the amp then it pretty much disappears except for very high gain amp models. All this suggests that it's an earth loop problem. I'm still experimenting with some solutions, but I can make some suggestions. Firstly try ensuring that the POD and Amp are not plugged into the same mains outlet. Obviously this is not always practical and doesn't always work anyway, as the outlets are often just connected together behind the wall. Next you could try an isolating mains filter for the POD PSU. Some mains boards come with them built in. You don't need to spend $$$hundreds but don't get the cheapest you can find. Note that just a filter (which filters noise) is no good; it has to state that it is fully isolating. The next option is much more of a pain so I'm not going there yet, but its build a fully isolating PSU filter yourself. I've done this but obviously you have to know how. Should cost < $80 depending on where in the world you live. Good luck and let us know. I'll do the same.