Dig it! Bought a new toy!

VoidTerraFirma

Live to wine
Yeesh, look at this thing! As soon as I complete the 9 week training course, I should be ready to plug it in and make guitar noises.

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Better you than me. I'm sure it sounds fantastic, but I get overwhelmed by more than 3 knobs :grin:
 
Hi! Yes, I saw this thread. No, I have nothing to add to it beyond wishing the OP many years of enjoyment with their new purchase.

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Happy New Swiss Army Pedal Day! I'm sure you'll be able to get some great tones out of that, it just might take a little fiddling. If you get stuck, I'm sure @OGG would be willing to give you some pointers.
 
Happy New Swiss Army Pedal Day! I'm sure you'll be able to get some great tones out of that, it just might take a little fiddling. If you get stuck, I'm sure @OGG would be willing to give you some pointers.
I might point him to the nearest dumpster...

You dragged me in gawddammit.

Ok, the thing has some truly amazing sounds, is immensely capable, and under light duty use, may even last beyond a year.

There's a guy on youtube that does a "guitar heroes" stage show wherein he brilliantly nails the playing AND tone of dozens of legendary axe slingers from Knopfler to EVH and everywhere in between. He brings about 15 guitars to each show, and ONE FX unit... an HD 500. The only other thing on the floor is an extra expression pedal. No rack gear, no amps... straight from the POD to the mixer. It is proof of concept that is undeniable and hugely impressive.

The ergonomic layout sucks. If your shoe size is 9 or above, YOU WILL click the looper switch A LOT by accident just using the onboard expression pedal. That's ok though, because the switches are so shitty, and the way they are attached with three tiny plastic clip ends to an unsupported, long, narrow and very flexible secondary circuit board, means that the switch won't work for very long anyway before either the switch itself just breaks, or the clips holding it to the board snap rendering the switch dead.

The LEDs that illuminate each switch... three months before the first one goes away.

Whatever you do, DO NOT drip sweat on the unit! You know, you're playing a kickass gig, the hot lights baking down on you... yeah man! This is Rock n Fuckin' Roll! Yeah, just don't. Trust me. Not only will the switches (yes, again with the switches) IMMEDIATELY begin to rust before your eyes, but they'll likely crap out mid performance due to their having no grommet to keep the moisture off of the inner board. By the time you finish your set, the damage will be done. You'll wipe it down only to find your pretty chrome switches are all rustier than the hull of the Titanic. Then there is the very well documented and ridiculously high failure rate of the expression pedal itself.

The onboard menu is the most frustrating and convoluted POS in the history of FX units. Not only is it USELESS on stage (because you won't be able to read it), but you'll never figure it out anyway.

The graphic patch editor for PC and Mac is the ONLY way to go when it comes to building patches. However, it hasn't had a single update since the HD line was launched 7 (?) Years ago. It is very dated, and pretty much every time you go to use it, the ridiculous Line 6 Monkey software will force you to update something that either has no discernable effect, or wipes out all of your patches.

The unit will also take control automatically of the sound drivers on your computer when you plug in the USB and will make itself the default sound device. It does NOT warn you, it just does it. Now suddenly, any sound generated by the computer (say you want to jam along to an mp3) gets sent through the HD and into YOUR AMP. At the very least, this will scare the shit out of you, but, as in my first experience, can let the magic smoke escape from your amp by driving the input WAY too hard. So, each time you plug it in, you MUST remember to reset your default audio device.

Volume: this is where this unit fails so epically, that you have to wonder what on earth they were thinking. The front panel has two volume controls. One standard, one master. Neither really matter, because each one is overridden by the individual patch.

Within each patch, you have an enormous number of signal routing options and volume stages. Effects such as distortion and dynamic pedals (compressor, gate etc) have a major impact on signal volume. Increase the gain, volume goes up, increase the comp level, volume goes up. Now, you have amp simulators... yay. Each amp sim has its own volume... or two (master). As with the individual fx, the amp you choose will effect output volume. Each tweak you make to that amp sim will effect output volume.

At comfortable bedroom listening levels, or in headphones, these volume inconsistencies between patches can be imperceptible. Oh boy! Get to rehearsal, or a gig, and at stage volume you suddenly find that your patch volumes range from barely a faint whisper, to blowing the roof off of the venue. At this point, you're really screwed, because there's no quick or easy way to manage this. The unit purposefully lacks a global volume option (which many users have asked for, and can EASILY be added via firmware update just as the global EQ was added that nobody asked for), but Line 6 flat refuse.

You're likely to find yourself bending over all night to adjust the volume knobs during songs.

So, other than these few minor issues I mentioned, it's a great unit!
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It looks like Voidterrfirma has different switches than OGG's model. Maybe they improved that part of it.
Huh. I never bothered to look that close before. Definitely different switches. No telling if their reliability is any better. I see that in changing the switches, they eliminated the LED indicators on them. Seems like a step backwards.

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