croSSed Posted February 25, 2021 Share Posted February 25, 2021 I've been kind of "putting up" with an issue with my HD500, but now I'd like a solution. I often play live with my POD direct in through one of the SLR outputs. When I'm in a situation that calls for this it sounds awful. I will take time at home setting up a patch using my 2-12 Celestion speaker cab, and the tone is nice. It has a nice naturally compressed sound, and a little of the mid-highs rolled off. Sounds warm and creamy. As soon as I plug it in direct all that warmth - that sounds analog - goes away and the device sounds harsh, nasty, and digital in a BAD way. There's this high-mid RASP that's introduced to the sound that is completely unacceptable. In the POD I've tried different speaker cab types, mics, and mic placements, and nothing works. It's REALLY awful when I'm using in-ears through a personal mixing monitor system. My "tone" completely kills any creative, inventive vibe because I'm HATING my tone. Is there any solution to this? EDIT: One other question - Is it possible to run more than 8 effects in the chain in the HD500X? Say I have a couple of effects not controller assigned, e.g., EQ and noise gate. Those take up two in the signal chain, but they aren't assigned. Is it possible to run those two FX, plus 8 others that are assigned? If it is possible I haven't found a way to do it. Thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pianoguyy Posted February 25, 2021 Share Posted February 25, 2021 1 hour ago, croSSed said: Is it possible to run more than 8 effects in the chain 8 fx and 2 amps that is the limit (there's also a DSP limit, so it is possible that you could be cut off at 7x2) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pianoguyy Posted February 25, 2021 Share Posted February 25, 2021 Without getting too involved with the various options of the device - I can tell you one thing right off the bat.... You will never like the sound going direct when you design your patches with a guitar amp. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
croSSed Posted February 25, 2021 Author Share Posted February 25, 2021 3 hours ago, pianoguyy said: Without getting too involved with the various options of the device - I can tell you one thing right off the bat.... You will never like the sound going direct when you design your patches with a guitar amp. I don't design my patches that go direct with a guitar amp. Sorry that I didn't make that clear. I have, in an effort to try and make the direct sound less raspy, tried to get a good sound from it while listening through my studio reference headphones. As I said, doing this there is a brittleness to the tone that I've been unable to get rid of. On the other hand, I have built patches for the purpose of going through a guitar cab. Those sound REALLY bad when listening through the device's headphone jack. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spaceatl Posted February 25, 2021 Share Posted February 25, 2021 HD doesn't directly support the dual output mode you would need to run direct and a guitar amp monitor at the same time. Yes, it is a bit misleading that there are XLR outs. However, all of the outputs will track to whatever output mode you have selected...If you use a guitar amp with the HD tweaked for direct to PA (Studio Direct), the amp will sound dark....If you tweak the tone to the amp using one of the AMP modes, then you PA feed will make your ears bleed. Your simplest option is to use an FRFR monitor with HD. Then you are flat like the PA and your tone will be consistent....If you really must use a conventional amp for a monitor with the HD, you really have to setup a dual tone for that purpose and that tends to run the unit out of DSP. It's a headache to make the HD do that and always a compromise. While it may not have enough FX for your needs, the POD GO supports a true dual output mode. I still have my HD, but have mostly moved to the GO now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
croSSed Posted February 25, 2021 Author Share Posted February 25, 2021 7 hours ago, spaceatl said: HD doesn't directly support the dual output mode you would need to run direct and a guitar amp monitor at the same time. Yes, it is a bit misleading that there are XLR outs. However, all of the outputs will track to whatever output mode you have selected...If you use a guitar amp with the HD tweaked for direct to PA (Studio Direct), the amp will sound dark....If you tweak the tone to the amp using one of the AMP modes, then you PA feed will make your ears bleed. Your simplest option is to use an FRFR monitor with HD. Then you are flat like the PA and your tone will be consistent....If you really must use a conventional amp for a monitor with the HD, you really have to setup a dual tone for that purpose and that tends to run the unit out of DSP. It's a headache to make the HD do that and always a compromise. While it may not have enough FX for your needs, the POD GO supports a true dual output mode. I still have my HD, but have mostly moved to the GO now. OH... I had no idea there was an internal setting for output mode! That's probably why this sounds like crap. I located the settings for this by watching a short vid on the subject. I'll report back on how well this works. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
croSSed Posted February 26, 2021 Author Share Posted February 26, 2021 That was it! I had no idea. Thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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