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New Amp(s) and Effects

Vaughn McMillan

Vaughn McMillan

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I just picked this up at the Post Office at lunch. To those who don't recognize what it is, it's a box that makes my electric guitars sound like they're being played through an amplifier and various effects pedals. I bought it on eBay last week as an upgrade to the POD XT Live unit I've been using. The technology inside XT Live is 7 or 8 years old, whereas the tech in this HD500 is only a year or two old. They now sell the HD500x, which has more digital signal processing capabilities, but this one is several nice steps up from what I've been using.

POD%20HD500%20-%20800.jpg


Within this simple box are something like 22 popular vintage and modern amplifiers, about the same number of speaker/cabinet combos, 120 or so different effects, a 48 second looper, and a tuner. And it can store 512 different combinations of everything as separate, recallable configurations (or 'patches'). My challenge for the week will be recreating the patches I've saved on my older unit and getting things to sound right on the new one before our gig Friday night. This should be fun. :D
 
Ryan Mooney said:
So how does the programming for that work? Do you just download their tones (found them on the http://line6.com website..) or can you easily program your own or mod the pre-existing ones?
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Yes to all of the above. You can download tones others have come up with, tweak them at will, or create your own from scratch. And although you can edit all the settings on the unit itself, it's much easier and faster to plug it into a computer and do all the tweaking via the free editing software that Line 6 has made available.

For me, the first challenge is going to be re-creating the tones I like on my older POD and programming them into the new one. This evening after work I'll get to find out how easy or hard that's going to be. Actually, for about 80% of what we play, I use just one amp model - a Fender Deluxe Reverb - with pretty basic effects. The other 20% are patches that I use for parts of specific songs, and those will likely be a bit trickier to re-create.

Ted Calver said:
Does it always flash 12:00 in the little window like all my electronic things??
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No, this one just goes to 11. :D
 
Jim Burr said:
If I can ever fix my G string...that would be cool!
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I'll give you the same advice I gave to my friend Teresa who was having problems with her bass guitar...

Teresa%20Text%20600.png


And BTW, I was able to solve the problem. I discovered that her G string had slipped off the nut. :D True story.

Get your mind out of the gutter!
 
Vaughn would a box like this allow you to program all the sounds and effects for a song like Pink Floyds ...Money? Just trying to get a grasp that one can relate to. How would they have done all those effects back in the 70's ? All recorded in a studio? From actual devices ? Always been a wonder to me.

sent from s4
 
Rob, it could likely be programmed to make all the guitar sounds, but not things like the cash register bell and coins jangling. Back in those days they recorded the actual sound. I'm not sure if they had electronic sequencers that could then play the sound effects repeatedly, or if they physically cut and pasted lengths of magnetic tape. Nowadays, they can record the sound and play it back repeatedly with a sampler keyboard. The technological changes between then and now is mind-boggling. My little $100 (used) 8-track digital recorder has more capability than the 4-track magnetic tape recorder the Beatles used to record Abbey Road.

Spent a few hours last night playing with the new box. It's got quite a learning curve. This thing is a prime example of McMillan's Law of Electronic Devices, which states: "Anything with more than three knobs has more bad settings than good settings." There are some really cool patches set up at the factory to demonstrate the capabilities, although few (if any) of them are really usable for any songs I'm playing. (Although I'll probably use a few of the special effects sounds it can get.) Last night was the initial learning event. I'll know better tonight if I'll be able to have it set up well enough to use at the gig Friday night, or if it'll have to wait until the gig on the following Friday. It'll be better to use the old pedal board for a little longer than try to use the new one in public before I have everything dialed in. ;)
 
Rob Keeble said:
Vaughn would a box like this allow you to program all the sounds and effects for a song like Pink Floyds ...Money? Just trying to get a grasp that one can relate to. How would they have done all those effects back in the 70's ? All recorded in a studio? From actual devices ? Always been a wonder to me.

sent from s4
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One of the most distinctive elements of "Money" is the rhythmic sequence of sound effects that begins the track and is heard throughout the first several bars. This was created by splicing together recordings Waters had made of clinking coins, a ringing cash register, tearing paper, a clicking counting machine and other items to construct a seven-beat effects loop.[SUP][2][/SUP][SUP][10][/SUP] It was later adapted to four tracks in order to create a "walk around the room" effect in the quadraphonic mix of Dark Side of the Moon.[SUP][2][/SUP]
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I think, at that time, splicing was actually a physical activity, cutting and taping the tape together.
 
Thanks for that Brent boy do i feel old when we talk of Crts , splicing magnetic tape etc. Lol it feels like yesterday how fast things have moved on.

Money is one of my all time favorite songs.

To me Pink Floyd = any one of the great classical composers.
They composed music with a message not canned goods for sale.
They have stood the test of time.

So Vaughn having heard your soundbite of you playing do you plan on setting up the sounds somehow to have a go at money?
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=JkhX5W7JoWI



sent from s4
 
Rob Keeble said:
...So Vaughn having heard your soundbite of you playing do you plan on setting up the sounds somehow to have a go at money?...
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Nah, I checked that whole thing off my bucket list over 30 years ago. ;) Some of my goals right after high school were to make a living playing my guitar, to be in a successful band with adoring fans, to play for thousands of people, and to hear my songs in regular rotation on the radio. I did all that, and realized it was a tough way to make a living. To really do it right, you have to do it full time, and I simply can't afford to do that anymore. My current setup where we gig once a week or so and rehearse once every few months is just about right. :) (Actually, I wish we'd rehearse more often and learn more new songs.) Playing in front of people is a lot of fun for me, and getting paid a few bucks to do it makes it even better. I'm making a bit of extra money to spend on toys, but not staying so busy with the music stuff that I can't work a real job to pay the bills. :thumb:
 
Wait...were you asking about making money with the playing, or learning to play "Money"? :D I don't see our current band learning the song, since there's not really an acoustic guitar part. It also has some pretty prominent keyboard parts.
 
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