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HD500X screwing me around


kenmac1
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My unit keeps reverting back to patch 1A any time I press the FS2 switch. 

A quick summary of how it is set up.  I am using an original series Variax, through the HD500X into a Small 15w Fender valve amp.  So it is a lightweight compact system to lug around, but tonnes of power for club gigs.

An example of the patches I am using.  I have created a basic smooth 12 string acoustic clean patch as 1A, a Clean Tele into Fender Twin is Patch 1B, (Rat Distortion kicks in with FS1, Script Phaser FS2, Chorus FS3 and the typical Wah and Volume alternate on the Exp Pedal).

Patch 1C is a crunch setting, Tele into the Gibson amp, with similar pedals as in Patch 1B, except the tube screamer is used in place of the Rat.

Patch 1D is a Les Paul / Treadplate combo, with only FS2 being used to kick in the Pitch glide set to a 5th above (for 5th harmony soloing), and wah / volume alternating on the Exp pedal.

Since I do not kick in any additional fx on the 12 string patch, this problem occurs when switching fx in and out on the electric patches.  If I am using any of the electric guitar patches and kick in FS2 to operate the Phasers, or Pitch glide, the whole unit reverts back to Patch 1B. which is the Clean Fender patch. So if you imagine a hard rock solo with a driven Mesa sound suddenly drops back to a lower volume clean patch when I try to kick in the Pitch Glide, you can see how frustrating it is. 

 

Additional info which may help.  It makes no difference if I am running Monkey HD or not.  So if I am just using the Pod into the amp with no interface, the problem is still present, which eliminates the program or my Macbook as the cause.

If I use my other Variax (same models) the problem is still present, so it is not the guitar.  I have also tried different leads, the problem still happens.

I have velcroed a wooden block surrounding the Loop switch so it will not accidentally operate, as I have big hoofs and had hit that button without wanting to previously, so I know it is not the loop function being turned on.

After wasting well over a month programming sounds as close to my real valve gear and acoustic gear as I could muster, I do not want to factory reset the whole thing and start over, after all this is meant to be professional stage equipment, it should be reliable.

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I have since resorted to factory reset the unit twice, to no avail.  More than 50 people have looked at this, and obviously none of them had any clue as to why the fault is occurring as nobody replied.  

Line 6 really need to fix these constant gremlins in their gear.  It is no use having stage gear that sounds good, when it wants to, but crashes like an early Windows operating system (make that any Windows OS) for no apparent reason, or simply decides to do stupid things like it has a mind of it's own.   

A side note, if I use Monkey HD, and switch the fx at position FS2 in and out via that, instead of using the actual footswitches, the problem does not occur.  This leads me to believe that the fault is inside the circuitry, possibly the switch itself, or possibly a short of some sort internally.

I need this thing working tonight as my band is playing.  I can see me having to reassemble my old pedal board and go back to using my old reliable stage rig.

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"More than 50 people have looked at this, and obviously none of them had any clue as to why the fault is occurring as nobody replied.  "

 

We are virtually all just users of this stuff like you, so when it comes down to erratic behaviour people can only explain it if they have seen it themselves.  The fact that from hundreds of thousands of HD users this hasn't been reported before indicates that it is one-off fault on your specific unit not a generic problem.

 

As it doesn't occur when using HD Edit I agree with you, it is probably something going wring with the physical switches. The only thing you can try without opening the unit is an Air Duster or Contact Cleaner (both sprays) as you would use on anything electrical with switches behaving badly.  Opening the unit will invalidate the Warranty and if that is still active that is what you need to invoke to get the unit repaired, alternatively if you have only just got it you might be within the Retailers return period and get an immediate replacement.  Backup your patches in Edit first so they can simply be restored on a repaired or replacement unit. As I have no idea where in the world you are I can't be more specific.

 

As for tonight, if you rely on something for gigs you must always have a "Plan B" as something will always go wrong with gear - and that is just as true for your old stage rig with lots of fragile cables between pedals and batteries or fragile power leads....

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lets try something different.  You must have saved all your patches to computer by now so reload them all to a different set list and in different positions.  Then make sure you are in stomp mode using FS1-FS8 and double tapping to change patches.  Now see if the problem remains with FS2.

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"More than 50 people have looked at this, and obviously none of them had any clue as to why the fault is occurring as nobody replied.  "

 

We are virtually all just users of this stuff like you, so when it comes down to erratic behaviour people can only explain it if they have seen it themselves.  The fact that from hundreds of thousands of HD users this hasn't been reported before indicates that it is one-off fault on your specific unit not a generic problem.

 

As it doesn't occur when using HD Edit I agree with you, it is probably something going wring with the physical switches. The only thing you can try without opening the unit is an Air Duster or Contact Cleaner (both sprays) as you would use on anything electrical with switches behaving badly.  Opening the unit will invalidate the Warranty and if that is still active that is what you need to invoke to get the unit repaired, alternatively if you have only just got it you might be within the Retailers return period and get an immediate replacement.  Backup your patches in Edit first so they can simply be restored on a repaired or replacement unit. As I have no idea where in the world you are I can't be more specific.

 

As for tonight, if you rely on something for gigs you must always have a "Plan B" as something will always go wrong with gear - and that is just as true for your old stage rig with lots of fragile cables between pedals and batteries or fragile power leads....

Thanks rewolf,

I do own pedals, which I was using until recently, but I don't usually carry them to gigs.  I can only fit so much gear in my hatch, and always have my bassist and his rig with me, so space is tight.  Besides in this town there has been a bad spate of gear being stolen from cars, gigs and houses in recent months, so the less I can lug around the less likely I am to fall victim.

Like many guitarists, the entire idea of going down the L6 Variax / HD500X path was to eliminate the need to ever use patch leads, multiple power supplies, multiple guitars, and my old fashioned big valve amp rigs again to get through a gig.  Having said that, this unit in the two months since it arrived (Bought in June) from the US (I'm in Oz) has been one freaking problem after another.  Local suppliers were on back order (as usual)  so I decided to buy from the US instead, hence there will be no support in Australia for this unit.  This means it will probably cost me a small fortune to return to the USA to get serviced, and lose several weeks in the process.

There is no way to blast air into these switches, or contact cleaner,  without physically opening it.  They are far too tightly put together for that.

If I can workout how to do ratadats idea, I'll give that a go.  I am old school, usually a guitar, wah and a couple other stompers into a valve amp.  So programming these things does my head in, especially when it has crashed and lost data three times prior to this latest problem, and went into a stage where it would not even fire up past the blue screen once, so needed a factory reset again for that.

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Hey Ken,

 

If you bought it new (even from the US) open a support ticket and plead your case. The L6 guys can be pretty cool about repairs for stuff purchased new 2-3 months ago.

 

FWIW - I reluctantly used some ReOxit on a GNX 4 which was having massive tactile switch issues - like they were dead - worked like a charm. But surgery should be an option of last hope.

 

Worth a shot.

 

Bill

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Got a reply to the support ticket.

Their suggestions eventually worked, but lasted only half a set, and went back to the same problem.

Sent another message to the support guy "Jon", in fact I even opened a second support ticket before I realised I could go back into the original one.  That was late last night my time, so day time over in the USA.  No response to that ticket as yet.  

 

Bill-  Date posted from the USA is June 12, arrived here about a week or so later.  So that makes it about three months old now.

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Having used Digitech/Roland-Boss/Line 6 etc...for many years I know one thing for sure.These newer ones are very sensitive to the voltage they are getting from the power supply.I carry a Fluke voltage tester with me to all my gigs and look at whats coming out of the wall.It is rarely what it is supposed to be.Also all my Line 6 gear (HD500-M13) can act strangely and make noise when near other power supplies cables etc...in some venues with lousy power I still use a tube amp and pedals because they don't have as much sensitivity to voltage fluctuations as the digital modelling stuff does.

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I hope it works out  Ken - Support Tickets work but take a little longer and we had a holiday yesterday. At three months your HD is still a baby.

 

That feeling of anxiety during a set is not good - I feel for ya my man.

 

-B

No mate it is disgusting.  Being forced to play hard rock in a three piece with a single clean guitar sound.  Yeah that sound is awesome for a couple parts of a couple of our songs, but not for an entire set.

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Having used Digitech/Roland-Boss/Line 6 etc...for many years I know one thing for sure.These newer ones are very sensitive to the voltage they are getting from the power supply.I carry a Fluke voltage tester with me to all my gigs and look at whats coming out of the wall.It is rarely what it is supposed to be.Also all my Line 6 gear (HD500-M13) can act strangely and make noise when near other power supplies cables etc...in some venues with lousy power I still use a tube amp and pedals because they don't have as much sensitivity to voltage fluctuations as the digital modelling stuff does.

I run through a portable RCD, surge arrester.  I have had gear (An old Digitech RP1) fry at a gig many years ago, so since then my stage rig is always protected.

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Hey Ken,

 

If you bought it new (even from the US) open a support ticket and plead your case. The L6 guys can be pretty cool about repairs for stuff purchased new 2-3 months ago.

 

FWIW - I reluctantly used some ReOxit on a GNX 4 which was having massive tactile switch issues - like they were dead - worked like a charm. But surgery should be an option of last hope.

 

Worth a shot.

 

Bill

Hey Bill,

Ever heard the old saying "You'd have more luck beating your head against a brick wall"?  That brick wall is looking more like the Great Wall of China.

Support ticket opened...  The response now is, I must pay to send to item back to the USA, and return costs to myself in order to get the problem sorted.  That will cost a couple hundred bucks at least in freight, for a unit which has been faulty since the day I first unpacked it and plugged it in.  

Maybe they can be pretty cool to buyers in the states, but they are playing the card,  "Our warranty conditions state...."  and regardless of the fact the unit is obviously plagued with more problems than the Titanic had when it was going under, it looks like I have hit that proverbial wall,  (Maybe it is that Ice wall from Game of Thrones?)   and nothing will be done now until at least Monday night my time, meaning a whole week of back and forth replies with no solution in sight.  A whole week of not being able to use a brand new unit with a recurring fault they seem unable to tell me how to rectify over the net.

I've asked for them to authorise me to take it to a local service centre, as I know of two in the Perth metro area who are authorised Line 6 repairers, but that seems to have fallen upon deaf ears, although I finally got a message last night my time that the guy will speak to his Service Manager.  I'm not holding my breath.

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Ugh.... not what I had hoped for you Ken.

 

Might be time to a) sell it as is on the -Bay or b) see what a repair would cost.

 

Sorry my man, hopelully the service manager will be able to authorize it. I can understand a subordinate not wanting to take that on his shoulders and decide to pass it higher.

 

Bill

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Same problem here, switches reverting to previous preset. 

It turned out to be a hardware/switch problem.

Also check these threads, if you haven't done so:

 

http://line6.com/support/topic/5968-pod-hd-500x-serious-problem-with-switching-different-presets/

http://line6.com/support/topic/8453-hd500x-patch-changing-on-its-own/

 

 

 

 

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Same problem here, switches reverting to previous preset. 

It turned out to be a hardware/switch problem.

Also check these threads, if you haven't done so:

 

http://line6.com/support/topic/5968-pod-hd-500x-serious-problem-with-switching-different-presets/

http://line6.com/support/topic/8453-hd500x-patch-changing-on-its-own/

thanks mate.  Good to see I am not going f---g crazy for no reason, or at least not alone in this.

I'm uploading phone video of the problem to facebook.com/kenmcmahonsx  for anyone else here who does not follow from our descriptions what is occurring.  

How hard could it possibly be to authorise a local repair agent to service this thing?  Line 6 have licenced repairers over here, I know of two within two hours of my place.  But no, they say I have to pay to post it back to the USA, and then return cost to myself.  If the F--g thing worked properly, how it is supposed to, none of my frustration would be necessary.  To me their actions are akin to saying, we will not cover the repairs, because they know full well it will cost a couple hundred bucks at least in courier / postage costs to send it back.   Disgusting.  If this is USA customer service, no wonder the USA is financially going down the drain.

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...

How hard could it possibly be to authorise a local repair agent to service this thing? Line 6 have licenced repairers over here, I know of two within two hours of my place. But no, they say I have to pay to post it back to the USA, and then return cost to myself. ....

You're right - you are definitely caught up in Line 6's regional warranty structure/policy. However, Line 6 can't authorize this because that's the deal with their regional service centers. It's a two way street. Why not walk into one of your local licensed repairers and ask them to fix it under warranty despite the fact that you bought it in the US? After they say no, you can then be equally upset at them. After all, they are already upset with you for not purchasing from them; that's why they'll say no.

 

btw ... did you pay less because you got it from the US? If so, now it's payback time.

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<delete the quote>

 

The guy is just frustrated with a faulty 2 month+  (expensive) unit and stated above that the units were on back order so he sourced it from the US. Probably didn't even realize the warrenty wouldn't travel past the countries borders.  But that's neither here at this point.

 

Ken,

 

You know if it is just the footswitch that needs repair it might not be a bad idea to take it in for an estimate. At our local shop its $75 to open the case and see what's wrong - then apply the cost towards the repair.

 

-B

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I'm uploading phone video of the problem to facebook.com/kenmcmahonsx  for anyone else here who does not follow from our descriptions what is occurring.  

 

 

Hi Ken, I don't see any video on your FB, maybe it's not publicly shared?

There was one switch that kept hanging (the 2nd preset switch), but in the end they had 6 switches replaced because they didn't click properly when pressing I find it worrying that devices that are still almost new have such bad switches.

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You're right - you are definitely caught up in Line 6's regional warranty structure/policy. However, Line 6 can't authorize this because that's the deal with their regional service centers. It's a two way street. Why not walk into one of your local licensed repairers and ask them to fix it under warranty despite the fact that you bought it in the US? After they say no, you can then be equally upset at them. After all, they are already upset with you for not purchasing from them; that's why they'll say no.

 

btw ... did you pay less because you got it from the US? If so, now it's payback time.

No by the time I paid postage to get it here all I saved was time.  I did not have to wait several weeks for new stock to arrive in Oz.  At the end of the day you always get 20% minimum off a store price, so it would have pretty well been the same with freight taken into account.

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Hi Ken, I don't see any video on your FB, maybe it's not publicly shared?

There was one switch that kept hanging (the 2nd preset switch), but in the end they had 6 switches replaced because they didn't click properly when pressing I find it worrying that devices that are still almost new have such bad switches.

Hopefully it is visible now.  I set everything to public, so it should be up where you can see it.  If not msg me there and I'll forward it to you.  :)

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<delete the quote>

 

The guy is just frustrated with a faulty 2 month+  (expensive) unit and stated above that the units were on back order so he sourced it from the US. Probably didn't even realize the warrenty wouldn't travel past the countries borders.  But that's neither here at this point.

 

Ken,

 

You know if it is just the footswitch that needs repair it might not be a bad idea to take it in for an estimate. At our local shop its $75 to open the case and see what's wrong - then apply the cost towards the repair.

 

-B

 

G'day Bill, now that I uploaded the video to the L6 facebook page they are apparently looking into it.  Why I had to go to those measures in the first place is well beyond me.  Their words in a fb message this morning is that wheels are now turning, and they are communicating with Oz about it.  I'm still not holding my breath, but I'll see how that goes.  Either way it won't be working for this weekend's gigs, so I am now reassembling my old pedal board and playing with my amps to get some sounds sorted that way.

As for the "Guru's" daft response above about saving $$$, why should we pay more in Australia in any case?  The item is made in China (Now that instills a lot of faith in the QC doesn't it?) and China is closer to Oz than it is to the USA.  It could come straight here from China cheaper than it is sent to the USA.  We do generally pay substantially more for gear in Oz than the US does, (in some cases over four times the price, I can give plenty of examples) even though these days a lot of it comes out of Indonesia, (four hours flying time from here), and similar areas.   But in this case after I paid import freight to buy the pedal, and would have got at least 20% bare minimum discount from a local store...  I would have been lucky to save $20 in all seriousness, in fact I probably would have been financially worse off as I'll now explain.  We are not talking about thousands or even hundreds of dollars saved.  With postage it cost me $699 US, (I can upload the receipt to prove that.)  That converts to around $800 AU or so.  They retail here for around $850, less the minimum 20% for cash, yeah I saved heaps, might go buy myself a new car with that...  so I may well have saved money buying it here when that is taken into consideration, but it would have meant waiting several weeks for them to become available in Oz, then another week usually for them to trickle over to this side of the country...

I live in Perth WA, which statistically is the most remote or isolated Westernised city in the world.  Everything musical comes into Oz via either Sydney or Melbourne, and those cities get first dibs on deliveries...  Hence when I was told at least three weeks before new stock arrives in Australia, I know all too well that means a month or more by the time they get to Perth.  So under those circumstances, I ordered it from the USA, did I save dollars? I doubt it.  Did I save time? Absolutely.  Did I get what I expected and was promised?  Well i would not call this value for money by any stretch of the imagination.

 

Peace 

 

Ken

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Hi Ken, 

I hope it works out for you, and L6 now gets in action, and has it repaired under warranty... I'm afraid though that you will have to miss your POD for quite a while.  When my POD broke down, I was in the studio, had just started the recording of a full album.... I was slightly freaking out, with the idea we would loose our booked studio time because of this. Thankfully, the music store where I purchased the POD was understanding urgency of the situation and they provided me with a new POD for the duration of the recordings. 

After that, I returned the borrowed POD, and I had to wait one month before I got my own POD back, playing with my old stomp pedals instead...

This was the second pedal board breakdown for me this year: I used to have a Digitech RP500. It broke down last March, then I bought the POD...

 

At least, the POD breakdown brought one good thing as well: because of the switching problems I had been searching on forums for how to factory reset and stuff, and I discovered that my input mode was wrong: input 1 was "guitar" and input 2 was "same". Apparantly, this input 2 caused interference with the first input, making the signal dirtier and less clear. Changing input 2 to "Variax" was the solution to disable it and to get a clearer sound...

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Hi Ken, 

I hope it works out for you, and L6 now gets in action, and has it repaired under warranty... I'm afraid though that you will have to miss your POD for quite a while.  When my POD broke down, I was in the studio, had just started the recording of a full album.... I was slightly freaking out, with the idea we would loose our booked studio time because of this. Thankfully, the music store where I purchased the POD was understanding urgency of the situation and they provided me with a new POD for the duration of the recordings. 

After that, I returned the borrowed POD, and I had to wait one month before I got my own POD back, playing with my old stomp pedals instead...

This was the second pedal board breakdown for me this year: I used to have a Digitech RP500. It broke down last March, then I bought the POD...

 

At least, the POD breakdown brought one good thing as well: because of the switching problems I had been searching on forums for how to factory reset and stuff, and I discovered that my input mode was wrong: input 1 was "guitar" and input 2 was "same". Apparantly, this input 2 caused interference with the first input, making the signal dirtier and less clear. Changing input 2 to "Variax" was the solution to disable it and to get a clearer sound...

 

Hey Pascal, Mine is set as guitar / variax so I obviously understood that part when I read it in a manual.  

Didn't get any response last night my time, or yesterday US time, but Rome wasn't built in a day, although Nero burnt it down fairly quickly.

To me personally, warranties are something you should never have to invoke, there should never be any reason to use them, products should be built well enough to not fail in a reasonable time frame well exceeding the warranty periods.  

The fact that so many people apparently have similar or identical issues time and again, this fault, the failure to allow the expression pedal to calibrate, getting stuck in the start up blue screen, tuner deciding not to work, not being able to swap between user banks on the unit itself...  (Some I have experienced so far), tells me that there are some obvious inherent characteristic faults in this system, that really should have been worked out during the development and testing phases, prior to unleashing the products on an unsuspecting client base largely comprising of professional or semi professional musicians, who need these things to just work reliably.

If an automotive company released a model with even a small portion of the market experiencing a fault, (even a minor fault) there would without a doubt be a product recall, bring them to your nearest servicing centre, and have the offending or defective parts swapped out, regardless of whether that part was faulty on your own vehicle or not.  Line 6 clearly took some shortcuts, to save dollars producing these units, and nobody can blame any company for trying to cut production costs, but when as in your case Pascal, half of the switches are not up to scratch, the manufacturers need to reassess that situation and act to eliminate that problem immediately, so maybe a product recall is in order.   

This product is viewed largely as the number two guitar fx product on the market behind the Axe Fx system.  If the Axe Fx system could interface with and control the variax, I may well have gone down that path considering I had already experienced a few issues with Line 6 reliability in the past, and the Axe Fx was readily available.  My needs however dictated the need to use a Line 6 product to work with the other Line 6 products.

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g'day Ken, I completely agree with you, products should have a reasonable lifetime. Especially products that are marketed as "The world's most advanced guitar systems." I assume that Line6 considers the problem as not being "widespread" enough to take action, or they are just being ignorant, like many companies these days. They might find the cost of reputation loss is less than the cost of calling them back... 

There are even automotive companies following this strategy: I know of several cases with Citroën cars of which the engine stops working at once, out of the blue, when you're driving at 120km/h on the highway! Not a minor flaw, I would think. But they don't take any action. I guess their margins are already so low, they can't afford it. Unlike most major brands who do take whole batches of cars back even if there is a minor fault, as you say. 

But yeah, Line6 is not a minor / local brand, a proper call-back action would be appropriate....

 

This POD is my first LIne6 product. I bought it because if its versatility, which I didn't find with any of the competitors in the same price range, or even higher. If Digitech had a device with the same flexibility, I would have bought it instead of this one, I think...

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  • 3 weeks later...

Hi Kenmac1, you're definitely not alone, I'm basically experiencing the same issue here ! It's really frustrating because I had an old pod XT live before and I was happy with it, until the switches stopped working, after years of heavy usage, so I decided to buy an HD500X because it seemed like it had such heavy-duty switches. Unfortunately, I was wrong. My HD500X unit also reverses to a particular patch when operating any of the lower row switches. I opened the unit and found out the issue. One of the tactile switches is worn out and loose, so it gets activated when other switches in the same PC board are pressed down, because the vibrations get transmitted and the faulty switch is very loose so it shorts too easily with any vibration. I corrobotated this by gently hitting my POD on the sides and the faulty switch would switch on and off accordingly. I figured that if I turn the unit upside down, the loose switch wouldn't make contact and everything should work normal, and it did, but I can't obviously have the unit turned upside down during a gig ! I'm replacing the tactile switch myself since I'm not covered by guarantee anymore. Try putting your unit upside down and see if you still experience the issue (I know, it's going to be tricky to try out), if you don't, then more likely than not, you have a tactile switch totally worn out. Peace.

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