HD500X Sounds "Off"

[SuprSpy79]

Hey Guys,

 

I just got a HD500X upgrading from a pod XT live. I spent 2 hours trying to recreate my basic tone with the AC-15 and I just sounds wrong. I get they are new models so they wont be identical, but it sounds so much more "nasal" and doesn't have that nice break up where I can play clean and that strum hard and have a real nice distortion. I am hoping my unit is off but I am doubting it. Anyone with any experience switching units? I honestly just want to stick with the XT at this point. It sounds so much punchier and more amp like, where I feel the 500 sounds more cheap distortion pedal right now (I know its not the case but thats how it feels.

 

Any advice is appreciated before I try and swap it out.

[SuprSpy79]

Thanks I have it set to studio direct and i set input 1 to guitar and input 2 to variax. Also wondering if its the headphone output, def a ground loop hum but not sure that would give the brittle sound im getting.

[J_V_RO]

I honestly just want to stick with the XT at this point. It sounds so much punchier and more amp like, where I feel the 500 sounds more cheap distortion pedal right now (I know its not the case but thats how it feels.

 

Any advice is appreciated before I try and swap it out.

 

Well I was a happy user of the POD XT LIVE, but now I'm twice happier with my pod hd 500x, believe me, I takes some time. It has to do with experimentation, create patches, do a live show, cry, try again and so on... It took me almost a year to understand that beast!! 

Maybe this can help you... it's a little list of things that I noticed immediately when I switched to the HD500x: 

1) WAH: The wah is very different, in the POD HD try to reduce the MIX to 40-50% to get "almost" the same sound of the XT, also, the full position should be at 75% maximum (the default 100% sounds bad to me)

2) FX LOOP: The XT live cannot handle connections like the four cable method. Now I am using this method and believe me it sounds so much better than the XT (You can search in the forums how to use this method)

3) Compressor: in the XT the compressors have a little impact on the tone (to my ears), now I use them a lot, for example to push some amps a little more. 

4) Boost: The XT had no option to make a boost for solos, you needed to sacrifice something in the stompbox section, now you have 8 blocks to place whatever you want.

5) Output mode: After you find the best output mode to your ears, try to stay with it and do not change it often, I made that mistake a lot. 

 

Don't give up, Check this site also when you have some free time: http://foobazaar.com/podhd/toneGuide/ it's not a light read but it has helped us a lot. 

[SuprSpy79]

Thanks guys, well for example if i put the drive on the ac30 model to 80% it sounds like a distortion pedal pluggrd directly into a pa. im going to play with the church 500 today just to make sure its not my unit, then if its fine, ill really buckle down and try and get it setup properly. it so hard when you have been using a sound you love for so long lol.

[cruisinon2]

Thanks guys, well for example if i put the drive on the ac30 model to 80% it sounds like a distortion pedal pluggrd directly into a pa. im going to play with the church 500 today just to make sure its not my unit, then if its fine, ill really buckle down and try and get it setup properly. it so hard when you have been using a sound you love for so long lol.

Don't get stuck on the idea that you have to "force" the AC30 to bend to your will,

just because that's what you're used to. Diffrent box, different models. You may find it infinitely easier to get the sound you're after from another model. There are a couple dozen in there...try a few others and see if you can get the tone you're looking for that way. Even if the "real world" counterpart is an amp you'd never think of using, try it anyway. There are so many combinations, it will likely take weeks of experimentation before you're comfortable with your tone. It's like that for the overwhelming majority of users. Just takes a while...

[SuprSpy79]

thanks that guide was amazing. From what I am reading it sounds like I am clipping cuz i have the master knob low and all my other volumes are maxed. I am going to go play around with it in a bit and post my findings.

[BBD_123]

thanks that guide was amazing. From what I am reading it sounds like I am clipping cuz i have the master knob low and all my other volumes are maxed. I am going to go play around with it in a bit and post my findings.

 

Without the tone guide I would never have begun to understand the HD well enough to get it to do what I want. You might want to look closely at the section on clipping. Watch out for Channel Volume (CH VOL). For most amp models, it should work best between 45% and 50%. Too high and you get digital clipping creeping in.

 

At the end of the section, MAB writes (emphasis added):

 

v. "Digital Clipping" (Crossover Distortion) on "Full" Amp Models

 

Line 6 modeled the crossover distortion produced by the power section of some class AB tube amps when pushed. This is a particularly-nasty sound that resembles digital clipping. This was notorious with the Blackface Twin and Deluxe models, but it also applies to the Vox amps.

 

The simplest way to get rid of this is to reduce the Drive on the amp (or turning down the "gain" on a Studio EQ before the amp or change the input settings or pad switch - anything to attenuate the signal hitting the amp's power section). You can also clean them up by using the deep-editing parameters (DEP's). Set Bias/Bias X closer to 100%, and/or turn down Master DEP. Another idea is to find the frequencies that are really pushing the amp into that nasty distortion, and dial them back before the amp using EQ effects, or even using the EQ knobs on the amp itself. For instance, if tones with a lot of presence really bring out a lot of crossover distortion, dial the presence back on or before the amp. To make up for lost presence, use an EQ effect after the amp to dial it back in.

 

[BBD_123]

What MAB says is consistent with what you say, hurghanico. Note that MAB does not state that the power amp crossover distortion *is* "digital clipping" (which he puts in scare quotes to emphasise the point) only that it is 'a particularly nasty sound that resembles digital clipping'. 

 

My problems in the past occurred when CH VOL was too high and the next effect in the chain after the amp clipped - exactly as you describe.

[BBD_123]

 

so IMO it is all relative, and depends on case by case basis

 

Yes, of course. I was perhaps guilty of over-simplifying and I certainly agree that not all effects clip if Ch Vol is above ~50% and that you do sometimes need to crank it up to get a decent output level for direct USB recording.

 

It's probably by chance that the loudest clean patch I can get balances well with high gain tones from models with CH Vol set at 45 - 50%. Since the volume of the clean patch is effectively the limit, this is my default setting for high-gain tones, so I tend to recommend it as a 'good' value to start experimenting. Perhaps I should have explained this earlier but then the comments run on for yards and people don't read them :)

[skybone]

I also converted from a PODxt Live to a POD HD500x.

 

I copied some patches over (manually), and they sounded good from the off, but still needed a modicum of tweaking to sound great. Some patches sounded pretty poor, and needed a lot of tweaks to sound great, but mostly very subtle and very minor tweaks were required.

 

IMO, the key to setting up the patches, is to approach the unit like you would a new amp. You can set it up like your old amp, but it will sound a bit different, so you need to spend some time tweaking it to get it to sound great. Using the Editor software helps (though most agree that it could be improved - even though it probably won't be at this stage).