Tuning Down with HD 500x

[bayoubill]

I can't get this to work. With the pitch glide I set the mix at 100% and -1.0 down. It goes to Eb but sounds bad and unstable. I recorded a friend at a gig tuning down and he has no problems doing it and I couldn't tell by listening he just used his Pod. He showed me how at the break.  Mix 100% and mix down -1.0. What am I NOT doing right? please help

[gunpointmetal]

You're not getting lucky with it like the people who can get this to work..... I've never had ANY pitch effect inside a MFX that can track polyphonic consistently and accurately. If you want to play one note at a time, its fine, but anything polyphonic and it glitches and warbles at random times. Others will tell you to put in the front of your chain, or that it works fine, etc... which has never been the case for me.

[joel_brown]

Shot in the dark but what firmware level are you at ?

[bayoubill]

Shot in the dark but what firmware level are you at ?

Thanks for the response. I have no idea. 

[RipperShred]

It works for me when I've tuned my guitar A440 standard. I find if it's not tuned up, and not properly intonated, it warbles, but tuned up and setup (in E standard) the pitch glide tunes down / drops amazingly. I also find it doesn't do it as well on guitars that are already downtuned. I've got a guitar that I keep tuned down to D standard, and it's definitely warbly sounding. My standard tuned guitar can tune down to B standard and beyond and still sound really good.

[GlennDeLaune]

I can't get this to work. With the pitch glide I set the mix at 100% and -1.0 down. It goes to Eb but sounds bad and unstable. I recorded a friend at a gig tuning down and he has no problems doing it and I couldn't tell by listening he just used his Pod. He showed me how at the break.  Mix 100% and mix down -1.0. What am I NOT doing right? please help

You've got to put that Pitch Glide at the begining of the FX Chain.

[bayoubill]

It's the 1st and ONLY thing at the beginning of the FX chain. I've tried every combination I can come up with. 

[bayoubill]

I'm playing the SRV, Hendrix, and Guns and Roses songs in Eb. It's not the same but I don't think anyone in the clubs can tell

[joel_brown]

Here's a patch that has the Pitch Glide in it.  See if this helps you.  Right now it's tied to the pedal for tuning down but just change that to always being tuned down.

 

http://www.ChildrenOfTheGraveBand.com/BlackSabbath.hbe

 

Should be able to rename the patch for your HD500X for it to load up.

[pianoguyy]

I'm playing the SRV, Hendrix, and Guns and Roses songs in Eb. It's not the same but I don't think anyone in the clubs can tell

 

Why does tuning live matter? 

Learn the songs the way they need to be learned... like tuning down (with the machine) for Eb songs. That way your Cchord is at the 3rd fret, even though it sounds like a Bchord. 

But when it comes to playing live, just play the 3rd fret Cchord. Do you think it makes a difference if, when playing live, you are at an exact pitch as a record? It only matters that everyone in the band is at the same pitch. 

 

What are you going to do when you need to play some old Van Halen stuff, where he tunes down midway between E and Eb? Do you think anyone will know that the entire band is a quarter tone off? 

 

 

 

It works for me when I've tuned my guitar A440 standard. I find if it's not tuned up, and not properly intonated, it warbles, but tuned up and setup (in E standard) the pitch glide tunes down / drops amazingly. I also find it doesn't do it as well on guitars that are already downtuned. I've got a guitar that I keep tuned down to D standard, and it's definitely warbly sounding. My standard tuned guitar can tune down to B standard and beyond and still sound really good.

 

Ripper, I am not going to deny the experience that you had. I wasn't there, you were. 

But what you said makes no sense. Assuming you have it set to detune, and you do not have one of the many harmony effects engaged, a pitch shouldn't warble. Its not harmonizing anything, its simply tuning the note - any note.

 

Not even notes, notes is a bad word to use. It is changing the hz that you hear. The amount of cycles per second gets changed, its not putting out A into Ab, its putting out 440hz down to 415hz. 

 

So, if you tuned to 432hz for your A. And you were set to detune to a -1 (which most people call a 1/2 step), it would not play the same 415hz that Ab was before. It would make the adjustment based on the lower 8hz, and put out a 407hz (possible 406, since tuning is exponential, not equal). the 407 represents a half step lower than the played pitch. 

 

That is why bending a guitar string doesn't warble either. 

 

 

 

I know this may get technical, but we are all musicians, so we should understand this stuff... 

 

Harmonic overtones. Sub-tones. The unheard frequencies that we can't hear but hate when a machine removes them... 

They are the reason that a needle on a (cheap) guitar tuner will go all over the place when you are trying to tune.  

Ripper, try turning the volume down on your guitar. Could it be possible that your tuner is picking up some of those tones? 

[RipperShred]

It's not an experience I've "had", it's what I "have". perhaps it just tracks better given your above math equation when it's dealing with a standard tuned guitar to A440. Pitch glide as a means to downtune an instruments tracks well when the guitar is tuned to standard, and tends to warble terribly when it's not.

 

Why that doesn't make sense to you doesn't really make sense to me. I and the few other guys I know personally who have this box have observed the same thing. Pitch glide as a makeshift polyphonic tuning device tracks standard E in A440 really well for droptuning a guitar, and warbles horribly / tracks poorly with guitars that aren't. single notes are unaffected by this, but even a basic powerchord will warble if the guitar's not tuned and intonated. Whether it's an algorithmic quirk, a DSP issue, a combination of those two, or something else altogether who knows.

 

So for the purposes of the OP's original question, that/this is my advice; tune and intonate your guitar, preferably to E standard A440 using the POD's internal tuner, or an external one, and it should track really well. using the pitchglide as a polyphonic pitch shifter I've been able to down to B and further and still have it sound good. And as for the EVH song a 1/4 of a step down, well the pitchglide can do that easily enough when it's working right.

 

And yeah, like someone else in this thread said, make sure it's the very 1st fx in the chain, and really the 1st anything in the chain as putting it after any other effect and/or amp will definitely have you warbling and pitch-bouncing all over the place.

[joel_brown]

I've tried the PODHD Pitch Glide tuning down a half step with a guitar that was down a half step plus the E string was tuned to D flat.  Sounded great for me.  This is interesting that some people it doesn't work right and some it does.  I'm just glad mine works.

[gunpointmetal]

I want to hear some these successes using the pitch glide for downtuning recorded. 

[joel_brown]

This is a live recording using the PODHD 1/2 step down tuning.

 

www.ChildrenOfTheGraveBand.com/GID.wav

[GlennDeLaune]

I want to hear some these successes using the pitch glide for downtuning recorded. 

Sure here ya go. This is the best example I have of using the Pitch Glide to downtune to Eb. I don't hear any warbling in this track do you?? I'm tellin' you guys it works. I use it all the time live in concert.

http://www.glenndelaune.com/1MetalChurch.mp3

[Palico]

Been following this discussion as I kind of wondered about this. Thanks for the tracks. Any tracks without the gain?  I hear about some very very slight wooble to it, but maybe that is another effect on purpose.  Whenever I tried it I could get some thing close but it just didn't quite sound natural. Maybe the guitar itself pays into it some too.

[joel_brown]

The track I posted uses both hi-gain and almost no-gain as I switch presets back and forth.  It's not exactly a squeaky clean Fender sound but it's an ENGL Pre with gain on 1%.  That's fairly clean.

[GlennDeLaune]

Been following this discussion as I kind of wondered about this. Thanks for the tracks. Any tracks without the gain?  I hear about some very very slight wooble to it, but maybe that is another effect on purpose.  Whenever I tried it I could get some thing close but it just didn't quite sound natural. Maybe the guitar itself pays into it some too.

OK this is about as little gain as I will ever use to play cover SRV tones.

http://www.glenndelaune.com/MaryHadALittleLambSample.mp3

and here is the patch I used: http://www.glenndelaune.com/GD-SRV-CLEAN-Eb.5xe

 

Now you guys go have fun and play your guitar and practice.

[alex_dehoyosjr]

Wow!  It really does work!  I never even thought about using it to tune the whole guitar down.  I had only used Pitch Glide before as a way to mix an octave up in and wasn't really pleased with the results.  But it really does work for tuning up or down a few steps clean or dirty with the Mix at 100% of course.  I wouldn't hesitate to use it live.

 

Alex

[Palico]

OK this is about as little gain as I will ever use to play cover SRV tones.

http://www.glenndelaune.com/MaryHadALittleLambSample.mp3

and here is the patch I used: http://www.glenndelaune.com/GD-SRV-CLEAN-Eb.5xe

 

Now you guys go have fun and play your guitar and practice.

 Cool thanks that one does sound near perfect. I'll have to down load the tone and see how it does with my setup.

[gunpointmetal]

Those are pretty good..... I can't get it to do that no matter where I put it in the chain. I also almost never play anything that sounds remotely like that.... maybe its all the tritones, 1/4 step bends, and chromatic atonalism that throws it off.

[gunpointmetal]

I've tried, its "okay" for me with single notes on the standard tuned strings, but I'm not covering SRV or Hendrix and I rarely stick to any six strings, let along the top six in my own music. I can hear it warbling through headphones, amp, or even after the fact recorded. I wanted to use it to drop a riff a 1/2 step just for a dramatic effect, but it can't deal with the low E/B strings of my 8s.

[bayoubill]

Thanks for the presets!!!! I till get the worbble and weirdness in both. I have something in my set up that makes the presets unusable. The SRV preset is ok but when I start play Pride and Joy the sound gets out of tune as I do 2 or more strings or play faster. Thanks !!!!

[KoriNoKage]

I might have a simple solution for you. This is simply what worked for me. I was using the pitch glide to play drop c (-2.0) on my guitar that was tuned to drop d. But when I played, I could hear both the dropped notes, and the normal ones. I discovered that it was because I could hear my guitar as well as the amplifier. You might be hearing your actual strings being played. Try using some headphones and see if it sounds fine on those. When playing with your amp loud, you might not be able to hear your own guitar, I haven't had the chance to bring my volume up lately to test it myself.

[AlexKenivel]

I've said it in other threads and I'll say it again. The PG is POLYPHONIC, and works well for SINGLE notes. IME it also does okay when playing a note and its' perfect fifth.

 

I also use 7 and 8 string guitars and have used the pitch glide to detune the sound coming from the low A1 (for example) with little to no problem, so I don't think that standard tuning is absolutely nessicary.

 

What MAY help is clear, loud pickups and fresh (read:not old) strings. For example, my Strat has 500k pots and a noiseless single coil in the neck position that tracks WAY better than the SD Hot Rails in the bridge position, with the pitch effects as well as the polyphonic synth effects

[Cobdog]

My apologies if i sound like a richard, but buy a Variax. 

[KoriNoKage]

I've said it in other threads and I'll say it again. The PG is POLYPHONIC, and works well for SINGLE notes. IME it also does okay when playing a note and its' perfect fifth.

 

I also use 7 and 8 string guitars and have used the pitch glide to detune the sound coming from the low A1 (for example) with little to no problem, so I don't think that standard tuning is absolutely nessicary.

 

What MAY help is clear, loud pickups and fresh (read:not old) strings. For example, my Strat has 500k pots and a noiseless single coil in the neck position that tracks WAY better than the SD Hot Rails in the bridge position, with the pitch effects as well as the polyphonic synth effects

 

My chords sound perfectly fine with the pitch glide.

[AlexKenivel]

Mine usually do too, for the most part

[marthian13]

On 1/5/2015 at 3:52 PM, GlennDeLaune said:

Sure here ya go. This is the best example I have of using the Pitch Glide to downtune to Eb. I don't hear any warbling in this track do you?? I'm tellin' you guys it works. I use it all the time live in concert.

http://www.glenndelaune.com/1MetalChurch.mp3

HI YOU CAN SEND ME THE PARTITURE SONG