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Pod HD500X Distortion problems


Dufrense
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Hello,

 

Long post below :)

 

I have been using the 500x for a couple of months now. Love it!

 

However I have a problem when using distortion. Bear with me as I am not the best at explaining these things :)

 

I discovered that I have big problems creating "clean" distorted sounds. What I mean with clean is that the distortion itself is quite high, but the tone is clean and enjoyable.

 

My problem is that whenever I use distortion effect at a bit of volume I get "underlying" distrubances to the tone.This makes the tone seem off and slightly out of key/unenjoyable.It´s like the signal cuts out ramdomly. Odd thing it doesn´t occur all over the fretboard, it seems to be prone to certain frequences. High pitch tones are way cleaner than low pitch tones. Problem also intencifies with string bending.

 

Usually I use my Les Paul with Alnico 2 PRO pickups.Yesterday I decided to take action to solve this annoying tone artifact.

 

First off all, usually I play through headphones as I practice late at night when wife/kids are sleeping. I tested another pair of headphones than usual, problem still persisted totally unchanged. So I connected the rig to my Bugera amp to see if this was a headphone only issue. Same problem occured through amp, however slightly harder to detect as I could not play at a very high volume, but it was clearly there. 

 

So naturally I suspected that the problem is within the guitar. Opened up the back to inspect all soldering points. No problem there. then I hightened the strings (quite alot) to 100% eliminate even the slightest fretbuzzing. No effect at all. Inspected the nut and discovered that some strings were a little to tight in the slots. Pulled out my nutfiles and widened them a bit. No effect.

 

Now I am like "what da h**l is this"?  Ok so then I did what I should have done from the start... plugged my strat into the rig to see if the same problem occured on another guitar. And yes it did. Same frets and frequencies even. As the strat is even brighter toned it was intencified even more. Stupid me could have saved a qouple of hours of headache just by trying another guitar :)

 

So now I started to inspect the pod.I discovered that touching the metal bar sitting below the four upmost left knobs almost eliminated all ground hum. Playing the strings while holding the bar did have no effect however.

 

Ok. So the only thing I can think of now is the tone setup itself. My setup for distortion usually looks like this:

 

1. Noice gate

2. Compressor (red och blue)

3. Distortion (usually screamer och classic)

4. Amp (marshall J800 or Fender Twin)

5. Slight delay

6. Reverb

 

Above could very well be totally wrong or need tweaking and thats the reason for posting this long post in this forum. You guys and gals on here problably knows so much more about how to setup perfect tones the I do.

 

Should I use an equalizer maybe? I am totally lost :)

 

Thanks for reading and heres hoping for some creative replys! :)

 

//Duf 

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I'm not sure why you'd need a compressor in front of a distortion effect as a distorted tone is already compressed. Try eliminating one effect at a time and see if this clears it up. 

I'd also try just distorting the amp without a pedal in front and see if you experience the same problem

 

Cheers.

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The HD really benefits from the EQs too - low pass and high pass IMO are needed to chop out the high highs and low lows.

 

Lows ~ 60-80 MHz is mud

 

and High 6k + can be where fizz and other high gain unpleasant items can be hiding.

 

I will toss a comp in a high gain chain too to kill the dynamics a bit when chugging rhythms benefit from it.

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Also, the Les Paul output is fairly high so select Input 1 = guitar and Input 2 = Variax to keep from overdriving the input too much. The default is Input 2 = same which doubles the input level. You won't need that with a Les Paul.

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Hello guys,

 

Spent the weekend trying to remedy this, I have concluded that there is something with the grounding in my house. It works as inteded of course but its seems "dirty". I concluded this by trying three different guitars, all having the same issues. I find it totally impossible that the wiring inside all three guitars would be errendous.

 

Here is the thing:

 

I turned off the noice supressor in the pod. So the gutars could "hum" freely. When I touch the strings, some of the hum goes away, but not completly. There is a big chunk of hum still present, and I think this hum is amplified when playing distored tones, and strings resonance interacting with eachother. The hum also seems to make the guitar sound muddier than it should, its "taking up room" in the frequecy space. Who knows, but that is my laymen conclution.

 

Ok so now I need to fix this. Any tips? I cant rewire my whole house :)

 

Thanks!

 

//Duf

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