Which Dream Rig?

[sandman69]

I have a JTV59 and a Pod HD500 which I love tremendously.  I play in my church's worship team and I always get compliments on my tone and my sounds.  I love being able to play an acoustic or a Paul or Tele at a flip of a switch or push of a button.  Especially, with the ability to change tunings on the fly depending on the person singing without having to worry about playing it in a different position.

 

Anyway, I was recently asked to play out at another place and was going to use an amp there.  I ended up plugging directly into their PA as well.  However, I am wanting to setup a "jam" room at my new house where I will have an amp of some sort and eventually a PA.  

I have been eyeing the DT25 since they announced it and love the idea of getting the best of both worlds with real tube saturation and the possibilities with that.   However, now they have the L2T and other StageSource stuff out there which is equally as interesting.   So now I am torn between the two.  Eventually, would probably try to get both, but can't afford that for the time being.   I play mostly electric tones, but occasionally I do mess with the acoustic settings on my JTV.    

Does the DT25 do a decent enough job with the Acoustic sounds?  Also, if I get a regular PA I could always have the times I go acoustic go directly to the PA and then for electric go to the DT25?  I like having the idea of a real tube amp at my feet that can be married to the POD.

 

I know there are other threads on this and have been reading tons of them, but wanted to ask directly with my situation.   

 

Also, our church has started bringing in some Amps as well and micing them, if I had the DT25 there may be times where I would do that as well instead of plugging directly in if the situation merited that.  If it would make my tones sounds more... "organic" as opposed to DI into the board.

 

I am looking at a few used DT25s that are around me, haven't found any used L2Ts as of yet since they are relatively new.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. 

[Matt_Brown]

Rad did a great patch for acoustic tone from a DT25 that you can get in custometone. L6 link is great and the tones I can great are just amazing. DT all the way...

[Palico]

The DT doesn't have the best acoustic tones but that is to be expected. As Matt pointed out there are some good ones to be had with some work. The DT DI is actually very good. I use on stage all the time and it sounds great via a PA.  Mic'ed it up before too, works great that way too.

 

Plus for the DT. It sounds and feels like a real amp. Tone for electrics is killer. Real amp behind you sounds different and is typically more natural unless you started out guitar in the digital FRFR world.

Cons, not as good for acoustic tones.  L6 link doesn't work if you wanted to later move to Helix. Might be subject to change but the way it is today.

 

Plus for the Stagesource ( I don't own one to be clear, but my observation on FRFR in general). Great acoustic tones. Good tones from the PODHD itself as well. Maybe not quite as good as the DT IMO but still good. Upgrade ability to Helix as it already built in for it.

Cons, not quite as good as DT IMO. Monitoring, unless you using the FRFR as your amp and then micin'g that maybe.

[sandman69]

Great thanks for the info guys! It reassures my thoughts after reading tons of threads on here. I love my pod but I am always DI'd into the amp and wanted to have an easy means to jam with my buddies outside of church. That will be mostly rock, classic to some heavy. Not as worried about the acoustic capabilities there. But if I can find an acceptable tone with that for a little extra capability that will be great.

 

Not to mention the fact that it looks like a real amp and won't get any weird looks. Lol

 

So helix didn't work with the DT25? That is a bummer but really a major concern as I don't see that being an option for me anytime soon. Maybe they will make it work at some point.

Another thing I like about the DT25 from my reading is I can use it for my reverb which would offload some DSP from my HD500.

I had toyed with upgrading to the 500x but I don't think they added too much DSP to it. I guess being the same price it is justified. But being able to offload the reverb would probably give me a little extra DSP on the rare occasions I mess with a dual amp tone.

[Matt_Brown]

It's not that Helix doesn't work it just won't change the topography on the DT over L6. Admittedly fairly key though if mid-song you want to go from mega gain to fender clean..

 

One thing I forgot to say about acoustics is that you can send acoustic tones from the FX send to the pa as well as to the DT to get a full range sound. I even made a patch to do this so look for Acoustic DT in Customtone.

[sandman69]

Yeah I was looking at that as well.  That would be a good option when I would want acoustic.  I am imagining when I will use the DT25 will be more rock stuff with the electric, but could always mess with the send going to PA if I ever want to use the acoustic.   I will search for that preset when I get the amp to see how it works.  Have to do some reading up on that pathing setup options.

 

Well I ordered the DT25 and should be here on Tuesday.   Been wanting this setup ever since they announced it.  Can't wait to check it out.  Looks to be in great shape and good price from what I could tell.

 

May look at the L2T or straight PA at that point, since I will want a PA of some sort when I start setting things up in the new basement.  Trying to set something up to help get the kids into playing more.  

 

Strange they don't have the Helix able to change the topography on the amp via the L6, you would think that would be easy to do with that much horsepower in the Helix.  Though, like i said that will not be in my future at least anytime soon. 

[sandman69]

The DT25 showed up today.  It arrived 4 days earlier than expected and before a weekend as well.  Haven't really messed with it yet, just a quick connection to check things out.  Man it is in mint condition and I can't get over how loud that bugger is.  Can't wait to get my dream rig setup for full time use.  Also, didn't realize it had a Direct Out for connection to PAs which may allow me to use it church at times, though I am not sure if that would be beneficial or better just going straight into the PA with the HD500.   Looks like a very very well made amp.  It is very solid.

 

All the possibilities are endless and can't wait to start setting up some presets to take full advantage of everything.  Is there any time where you wouldn't use the amp in preamp mode into the DT25?  So excited to get to work on this.   

[Matt_Brown]

Just up to you. Some people prefer the sound of full models over pre's. Just use your ears and enjoy!

 

Remember that you can assign various perimeters such as drive on your amp to the tone knob on your guitar.

 

Have fun...

[sandman69]

Some people prefer the full models in the HD with the DT25?  I wouldn't think that would be a good combination.  However, I will definitely out both setups.

 

Wow, I had no idea about assigning parameters on the guitar to control things on the amp.   Having the tone knob controlling the drive would be a very cool setup.     Thanks for that tip, can't wait to diving into this

[ColonelForbin]

The DT25 showed up today.  It arrived 4 days earlier than expected and before a weekend as well.  

 

Gotta love that!! Sweet, great amp - still love mine - which does quite well with Helix, it's just not exactly the same as it works with HD500.

 

One quick note - get an AES/EBu (line6 link) digital cable (looks exactly like an XLR cable. but uses 110ohm digital cable) for connecting your HD500 to the DT25.

[ColonelForbin]

Also, didn't realize it had a Direct Out for connection to PA

The direct out works great! Also - the direct out mic model is set within the DT25 and has nothing to do with the mic model set in the HD500 patch. If you want to change the DT25 XLR out mic model, use DtEdit:

 

http://rome2.github.io/dtedit/

 

You start with a MIDI connection between your computer and the DT25 - which is also how you would update the firmware if needed:

 

http://line6.com/support/page/kb/_/amplifiers/dt50dt25/dt25dt50-firmware-installation-instructions-r120

 

This allows you to customize the onboard 'stand alone' preamp models that are loaded into the 8 slots (A I,II,III,IV and B I, II, III, IV). You can also switch up the onboard reverb per channel - which is also independent from any reverb in your HD500 patch. (It defaults to I think the '63 spring). You can also customize the power amp settings, including the topology (I,II,III,IV) - not to be confused with the I-IV shown on the face of the amp, which do different things depending on how it's wired up.

 

- If you are using it in standalone mode, those I-IV switches toggle between the onboard 'voicings' which are pairings of preamp model, cab model, and power amp settings. With the default 4 amp models (Same for A and B) they also happen to be the matching topology. IE, voicing I is topo I. HOWEVER, since you can reconfigure the standalone to be whatever you want - including the topo, this depends on how you MIDI configure it.

 

- if you are using L6 Link to the HD500, toggling those switches then instead does actually toggle the topology, and keeps the preamp/cab choice as defined by the HD500 patch. (unless you toggle to channel B, which then uses the onboard DT preamp/cab models)

 

I also use my DT25 with a stompbox pedalboard, so I spent a bunch of time using DtEdit to explore the standalone options - very cool amp overall.

 

Quick note on using JTV acoustic modells with the DT25: The best thing to do is track down that patch mentioned earlier - by Radatats. Or using DtEdit disable the amp and cab model on two of the slots on the DT, such as A-I and B-I. By doing this, when using L6Link from HD to DT, if you didn't and chose no amp model in your HD500 patch, it would default to the onboard / standalone amp model loaded in the DT. When you disable the amp/cab model in the DT, and chose no amp model in the HD500, you then are processing the JTV acoustic signal with no preamp - it sounds way better this way! Essentially a direct tap to the Bogner tube amp / power amp portion.

 

With Radatats patch, it does all of that bypassing within the HD programming so no need to use MIDI on the amp. 

 

This, for reference, is also how to use Helix with DT25 - bypass all the DT amp and cab models, send the Helix direct to the Bogner power amp, which actually sounds quite amazing! So you got a good amp there, and it will serve you well in more than one use, for sure!