Thursday, February 22, 2007

The Vetta Crash XONE


Well, with our first live show back coming up on Sunday, XONE is just rolling along. So it probably seems strange, that I would decide now, to load the latest Vetta Operating System ver2.5 to my Vetta HD amplifier. What a blunder! My timing couldn't have been worse...

With our first XONE CD already duplicated and our second CD in the mixdown process right now, the Vetta won't be recording again until April. With that in mind, I took my perfectly setup Vetta HD (ver2.11) and upgraded it to the latest software OS (ver2.50). The newest OS has some great features in it. First of all, it adds a Presence control that I have really needed since we first tuned down to DGCFAD in 2005. I lost some Presence with that move, and the new Presence control alleviates the dampening of my overall sound that resulted. Secondly, the newest OS features the Dumble Overdrive Special model, the single best amp model I have ever heard in the Vetta. I really want to use that model for some of my clean tones, but it isn't available in OS ver2.11. So I took the plunge and upgraded. Big mistake!

Last night at rehearsal, I had to deal to deal with some major OS issues. First, the newest OS ver2.50 has a small problem with it. It has what the folks over at the ION Vetta Forum refer to as the "Delay Bug". Patches with the Delay engaged end up with a 100% mix setting when the patch is switched to, totally destroying the usefulness of the patch in a live environment. There is a workaround. You have to edit the delay mix by one click and then back and SAVE for your original setting for the effect to track correctly. Then you have to make sure that the Foot Control doesn't have either expression pedal on the FBV set to Delay Mix. If it is, then you have to change that to another variable. What a pain, eh!?! Well, let's face it, we didn't buy the Vetta cause we wanted anything simple!

Anyway, as we neared the end of the set I went to fix a patch for the Delay Bug, and the Vetta totally froze and went blank. I had a $2000 paperweight on my hands. Well, it was 11pm, so we called it a night, and I knew I had my Flextone III+ as a backup, complete with patches for every one of our songs, so I wasn't totally screwed for the show. As well, I always bring my laptop to rehearsal and its sole job in life is taking care of my Line 6 gear. I attempted to reload the Ver2.5 OS, but again it froze. So I reloaded the older ver2.11 OS and the Vetta came back to life immediately. I then reloaded all my custom patches for our songs and the Vetta was ready again to play the upcoming show. I even spent an hour just playing the Vetta with my tried and true patches. I'm sure I'll figure out what the problem is with ver2.50, but in the meantime, the Vetta OS ver2.11 is still the best tone I've ever had!!!

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