Is it posible to assign a POD500x patch to a variax guitar selector position

[amstrat99]

Hi, I've been a longtime fan of Line 6 and I'm currently using the POD500x with a variax guitar. I wanted to know if it's possible to assign a specific HD500x patch (like Plexi) to position 1 of the 5 position selector on the variax guitar?

 

This would be so much more convenient  for changing between a acoustic sound and plexi patch during songs. When singing it's annoying having to look down at the pedal to stomp buttons with my foot, I could change the selector on the guitar so much easier. Anyone done this before? Thanks :D   

[silverhead]

No, but you can do the reverse. You can assign a Variax model and pickup switch position within a Pod HD500X patch. But you would still have to create two different HD500X presets and use your foot to switch.

[Rewolf48]

This is an interesting idea, not for everybody of course, but the HD is informed by the JTV whenever the switch is moved - I doubt that it is the switch being moved directly, but more likely to be the JTV publishing its version of Patch Change after the event.  

 

And there is no reason why the HD couldn't interpret this event as a Patch Change instruction other than a firmware enhancement that would allow the required mapping to take place.

 

Even more interesting might be the HD still publishing the JTV Patch Change message (that is already there) - so the JTV becomes a remote for HD Patch Changes which acts as a Master for JTV Patch changes, so in this mode JTV Custom 1 P1 to P5 relates to HD A1 to B1 (5 != 4, I know it doesn't match), but A1 an acoustic patch maps the JTV to Acoustic 5, A2 with a Twin to JTV Spank 3 and A3 with a Marshall puts the JTV in Lester 1.

 

Then you just need wireless VDI, and with the existing Volume and Tone Expression controllers you have close to full control over the whole system from a JTV!

 

Might be worth an Ideascale idea?

[amstrat99]

Thanks for your responses!

 

I know that I was able to accomplish switching patches using the selector switch on my old variax guitar with a POD XT, I can't remember how I did it but remember it was also pretty glitchy where sometimes it worked sometimes not.

 

Yes I've been wanting to get educated using midi with the POD500x also. Sounds like as Rewolf48 suggested anything short of a firmware update would require using midi to accomplish this. Any suggested reading material to get an education on this? I was looking at buying a midi adapter for my laptop and using it with Ableton software I already have.

 

What is this "Ideascale idea" you were referring to?

[Digital_Igloo]

You could create two parallel paths and assign the tone or volume knob on Variax to blend between the two. It's not quite preset switching, but it's seamless.

[Rewolf48]

I was suggesting that an Idea was created - but it would require more than two interested people.

 

Where a band is playing along with sequence of some sort (additional sounds, videos, lighting) then whatever is running the master sequence for the show can output MIDI Program Change to the HD, which will send Model Change to the JTV.  This functionality is not needed.

 

Where the player is not stuck in place with a Microphone in front of them then it isn't needed (at least for HD500 users) because they can just look down.  Even if they do have a microphone in front of them they don't need  it if they have an easy to hit trigger in front of them rather than worrying about hitting on small switch in a bank of 10.

 

As well as using the volume or tone knobs as DI suggested an Expression pedal does the job just as well.

 

 

One thing you could try is MIDI linking the HD to itself, and then programming the lower switches so that they all go to the same place.

 

So assuming you only have two sounds - an acoustic and an electric, each using a different variax model then on the acoustic patch you program all the lower switches to do a program change to the electric patch, and on the electric patch you program all the switches to do a program change to the acoustic patch.

 

No need to look down as long as you can roughly find the HD, just press whatever your foot hits to toggle between the sounds.

 

The advanced guide gives details about how to assign MIDI events to the switches, and what message to send to change patch

[amstrat99]

Thanks for everyone's response! I'll investigate your suggestions further and report back if I can get this working!

[DJorD]

toggle switch lock is useless, really, can't even see it on pod hd editor, what is it for anyway? it is supposed to be used for some assigning function but there it is, totally useless ad

[DJorD]

 to Silver head, show me a way to use toggle switch lock on pod hd 500x with variax standard

[silverhead]

41 minutes ago, DJorD said:

 to Silver head, show me a way to use toggle switch lock on pod hd 500x with variax standard

I don’t know what you mean by ‘toggle switch lock’. You say it is useless (implying it exists) but I don’t understand what you mean. You can ‘lock’ the Variax knobs but you can’t lock the pickup selector switch, if that’s what you mean.