RadTone Harmonic Converger

Piece of cake!! I have the effects loop model so it just goes in the chain. Make sure its in the right place tho.

I use it thru a Yamaha PA head and two large Carvin speakers,,thats it, and it works great. Oh yeah,,,I have it plugged into a Boss GT-8

This thing would survive probably just about anything. Built like other stuff should be. I don't see what could possably go wrong with it, but maybe inside it could smoke. Probably if you hooked it up wrong.

Great response time....I only needed to know exactly how to patch it in to my system and where in the effects chain it should be, which is very important, otherwise you have no effect from the unit. Could be why some people say it doesn't do anything for the sound. It doesn't, if you don't have it in the right spot!!!! But WOW when you do, you'll know it!!!!

I've been playing music for years, but guitar for only a couple so I'm no great tone monster. But this thing nails what would probably take me years and booko bucks to aquire, so I'm a happy camper. makes me a better player already as I'm more inspired when you hear the sounds that your,,,playing and they sound right.

Nothing to using this, just plug it into your gt-x box and make sure you put it after all od/dist effects, as well as the preamp, and you have yourself an awesome tool.

I'm currently running a yamaha rg-x through a keyboard amp, and it's the best my guitar has ever sounded. The Harmonic Converger is no hype, it's the real deal. The sound clips really do not do it justice, you have to hear it for yourself. It gives my gt-8 a whole new life.

Built as tough as nails, I just got it but i'm not one bit worried about it breaking.

Hadley is a great guy, very polite to do business with, and he made and shipped my HC to me right away, no drawn out waits. I'd reccomend him to anyone.

This little box is well worth the money you pay for it, if you have a modeler and don't like that digital hiss your getting out of it, this is just what the doctor ordered. I was going to buy a tube amp to run my gt-8 through but i've decided that i'm going to buy a PA instead, just because the tonal possibilties a modeler run through a HC is more than enough for anyone. Give it a try.

Uhhh. Just plug it in and go! It really is that simple...

This is where the magic happens. This unit seems to make digital modelers come to life with more realistic tones. I play exclusively through a PA. Since this direct connect sound solution, the Harmonic Converger really shows its weight. The tone becomes more "alive" and less "brittle".

It allows you to reconstruct your patches and have the flexibility/sweet spot which seems A LOT bigger than before integrating the unit.

I am not too crazy about the connections (which are dependant on RCA) but it appears to be sturdy and capable of lengevity.

I had the honor of communicating with the inventor during MANY emails and MANY phone calls. He has always been a good listener and very receptive of my feedback. What more could you ask?!

I don't think I can do without it. I am completely dependent on this unit now.

I have 3 position model (normal, bold, and bypass). I use normal most of the time, but trust me bold is very very usable as well. It has rca connectors in and out (two for each - stereo unit). Couldn't be much easier

Quite simply it makes my Boss GT-8 sound insanely good. In fact, it's sick how well it works. I say this because once you've used it you won't go back.

Small but built like a small lead brick.

Radley is very responsive from my dealings.

Clean to Van Halen and everything there in between.

Plug it in, set the switch to Normal, and play your guitar.

Distinctions between related models of amps became greater. Vox AC30TB and Matchless DC30 models showed a new level of detail and variation from one another. The Fender models all managed to still sound Fender, but with satisfying flavors befitting their ancestral roots. You get the idea?

Amp models that were driving me nuts before now sounded great. I?m a long-time lover of the Mesa Mark IIC+, but had abandoned the model because of certain bad habits when the gain was cranked. The HC cured those habits and that model came to life in a new way that just floors me every time I dial it in.

Pickup positions on my guitar (see below) that I hadn?t used in a long time suddenly became useful again. And I could really dial in the tone I wanted. I could get really anal and play and take notes and play some more. The note-taking feature in Line6 Edit proved to be most helpful. I ended up changing all my patches dramatically and put my tone in a new dimension.

How does it change the sound? Man, I wish I could describe it. You really do have to hear it. The MP3s didn?t impress me a bit. Owning one impresses me a whole bunch. Let me try to sum this up. The HC somehow manages to kill the digital fizz inherent in these modelers while also adding a very tubular brightness to the tone. The midrange and bottom are tighter and more focused. All I can liken it to is trying out different amps. You try this one, it sounds just okay. That one sounds flat. That one over there sounds like it has a blanket over it. And then you plug into this one and instantly get happy and try to figure out how to buy one without selling off a child or having to move into the doghouse out back. That?s the best I can do.

This box is very small but quite heavy. It feels like a solid block of silver. Along one side is a row of four very high quality RCA pins. The opposite side holds a single 3-position switch that feels very heavy duty. A casual bump won?t move that switch (Bypass, Normal, and Bold are the settings ? Normal is the one for most of us, though Bold is kinda cool ? Bypass will take away any residual pain from spending $250 by reminding you of your life before the HC). There are no moving parts (other than the swich, of course) and nothing else to plug in. It?s totally passive ? no batteries or phantom power needed. I doubt if anything non-nuclear could hurt it.

Radley is incredible - responsive, knowledgeable, and honest. It doesn't get any better.

I play Christian praise & worship in a very dynamic worship band. Our church has a killer sound system and a great worship leader who knows good tone when he hears it. He already has a Harmonic Converger for permanent use in the church - after hearing mine. It was a quick decision...

I've been playing for almost 35 years and done tons of gigging, touring, and recording all over the country. I own too much stuff to list - I can offer more details about my gear privately as it relates to my testing of the Harmonic Converger. I will also offer the full review as a PDF to interested parties. This format does not accomodate all I wrote.

Suffice to say, if it was lost or stolen, I'd call Radley before I reported it to my insurance company to get another one built and shipped.

Out of the modeler into the HC, out of the HC into your amplification. I had one of the first 1/4" models made, most of them were made with RCA connections from what I understand. The box is a bit bigger from the RCA model since it has to accomodate the 1/4" plugs but it is smaller in size compared to a typical Boss pedal. The HC requires at least a 50K ohm input so you do need a DI/transformer of some sort if you plan on going right into your computer soundcard, I use my Mackie Onyx 1220 which has instrument 1 meg OHM inputs.

What can I say, the moment I tried it out with my PodXT, I was pleased. It tamed the dreaded fizz and brought life back into the sound, nice and tight. I recently purchased an Atomic 112 amp and I use the HC in between the modeler and the amp. I tried the Atomic without the HC and it sounded good, with the HC, it sounds fantastic! I just purchased a Vox Tonelab and the HC does wonders for that modeler also, especially the high frequency fizz that I experienced with it.

The HC is very sturdy, it is built like a rock. I'd hate to get hit in the head with it!

The owner of Radtones is very, very pleasant. I enjoy speaking with him and he is very determined to satisfy your needs.

I play mostly 80's higher gain rock. Without the HC, the dreaded fizz and separation of the frequencies just makes the playing experience unpleasant, it is one of those devices that you leave on all the time and like Donnie Brasco says, "fuhget about it". I am a tone freak and I only use modeling devices, this product was worth every penny because it takes the modeler to a new realm, actually, it makes the modeler sound like it should in the first place.

There's nothing to it. You simply insert in in between your modelling device and mixer (if recording direct) or amp (if playing live). It's a passive device so it requires no power to use.

Since these devices are custom made, some are a bit differently than others. Mine has a custom 6 position switch (see below as to why). The first setting is a bypass and the other 5 are "on". The higher the number, the more extreme the effects of the Converger are applied.

The HC itself is about the size of a walkman and is solidly built (metal). It has two 1/4" inputs and two 1/4" outputs. This allows you to use it as a stereo device or as 2 seperate mono devices.

This thing definatley changes the sound of a modelling device for the better. It cuts down on the amount of 'fizz' and also tightens up the sound. It's this tightening that makes the sound much more realistic. The higher the setting, the more the de-fizzing it does. I usually use a very mild setting and get great results. A little goes a long way IMO.

Note I have only used this for direct recording with my PODxt.

I'm gonna give this a solid 9 (and not a 10) for it's sound only because I heard the newer ones have been refined.

Mine has been built to last. If it did break however, it cannot be fixed due to the epoxy cream-filling that is used in it's construction.

Solid 10 without doubt.

The man who makes these (Hadley) is a very nice and honest guy. When constructing mine, he had a slight problem with the outcome. He could have taken a chance and sold me this 'lemon' if he wanted to and I would have been non the wiser. Instead, he phoned me and offered to refund my money or he'd make me a better one (6 position switch at no extra cost) just for the extra wait. Now that's service!

He even offers a money-back guarentee! What more can you ask for?

No other device on the market today can do what this thing does. If you use a guitar modelling device and are sick of the fizzy, unfocused sound they give you, get one these magic boxes!

Keep in mine ,however, that this device is not gonna perform miracles if you don't know how to get a good tone to begin with. This thing is the icing....not the cake.

My HC has one single six-position rotary switch. With one position being 'off' while the other five are different levels of convergence.

Perhaps there could have been a foot controllable on/off switch, but I tend to just leave it at one of the 'on'-positions.

The box has two RCA in and two out. The switch controls both channels at once.

I'm just using this unit just after my PodXT.

Guitar > PodXT > Harmonic Converger > {mixing desk, soundcard, whatever}

It makes me happy with the sound from the pod.

I'll try to sidestep the whole 'fizz' issue, but I felt the sound form the pod had some high pitched noise with the high gain models and they easily sounded a little thin. While it's possible to turn down the presence and treble (or use the post-eq) this usually left me with a blanket-over-the-amp sound.

The HC has made it a lot easier for my to find the tones I want.
As previously stated, I have mostly just left it at one position and started tuning from there.

I havn't had any problems with it yet, and don't expect to.
The unit feels very sturdy, and Hadley said the box is filled with black epoxy too, so this thing could probably be used to hammer in nails.

It survived being sent all the way to Norway. Anything surviving that many postal-workers is rock solid.

The whole unit is also passive, so there are not many things I feel can go wrong with it.

Hadley was nice enough to send a unit to Norway. While there were some slight problems with the payment (I would have prefered to pay to a an account with a swift/bic-adress...) he did, in fact send it to Europe, which he said he didn't really like to do. This is understandable, considereing the chance for things going missing is rather large...

This HC is supposed to be irrepairable.

I'm just a hobby guitarist, and haven't been playing for that many years. Musically I'm somewhere in the grunge era, and I'm quite partial to the gritty guitar sound of that period.

I'm playing though a podXT directly to PA. The reason for going to PA and not via a regular cabinet is that I want the same tone as I have at home (where using a cab is not an option). If felt something missing in my tone, and this unit fixed it :)

That is my favorite feature here; it just works. Removes the highfrequency noise without putting a blanket over the sound. I feel I can push the presence to get a more... urgent and energetic sound, without being anoying.

As stated earlier, I might have wanted a foot-switch, but later realized this isn't necessary, since all my tones are created with the HC on. (Hadley probably wouldn't be to happy that I'm just using one of the modes, since there are five different modes in here, but I'm lazy)

I'm not aware of any similar units.

If stolen/broken/lost I'd try to get a new one as soon as possible!

Hello. I'm Kenny Lee A.K.A. GORILLA and I believe I have Hadley's very first Harmonic Converger box made for the public.

How easy is it to get a good sound out of it?
Just plug in your guitar, it's really that simple!

How about Editing patches?
Well there's NO patches. Mine has a three way switch {Off/ Boldtone/ and Harmonic Converger}

How is the manual for it (if there is one)?
Hadley wrote the signal flow and mini-manual out for me on a paper that came with my unit.

Do you know the firmware revision number? Has your unit been upgraded?
Like I said earlier, I believe my box was his first made for the public. I'm 100% happy with it and I'm sure his later boxes are just as if not even better made!

What setup (i.e. what guitars and amps) are you using this with?
I use the (Rad Box) with my Pod XT Pro, Gibson Flying V's & my BC Rich Bich.

Is it noisy? On what settings? No. It helps to eliminate the dreaded 'fizz' from the high gain amps of the Line 6 Pod XT Pro.

Are the effects weak or do they always sound great? Lets put it this way. If my (Rad Box) was to break tonight.........I'd sale my Pod XT Pro tomorrow!

Can you get the sound of your favorite artists? Who are they? Yes. I really do not have a favorite artist. I make Pod XT Pro patches in my spare time. And I can honestly say...I can come 98% close to anyones tone!

Are certain effects (distortion, chorus, ...) very good? Very bad? I use the Harmonic Converger setting all the time. The Bold tone is good. But for Metal I really do not find a use for that setting. The Harmonic Converger setting is where it's at!

Can you depend on it? HELL yes!!! Just plug and play. No batteries or wall warts to worry about.

Would you use it on a gig without a backup? Yep. I'd just do like I do in my studio. I hide it in back of my rack. Guys ask...."Why doesn't my Pod sound like yours?" And if I do not know them personally, I say...."maybe you just need to tweak yours more" ...he...he...he....

If you've dealt with the company, how helpful/friendly were they? When I first read Hadleys post. I didn't even know what he looked like. I think I might of even made a smart a$s comment about his (Rad Box). : )
But, I asked him to call me and he did, and from that call on. I knew he was 1000% a down to Earth guy, who had something I wanted to get a hold of!

Ever get an upgrade, or try and get it repaired? Nope. Doesn't need one. And it sits behind my rack {Air cooled} so it's pretty much out of harms way.

What style of music do you play? Is this a good match? I play Death Metal. It's great for the 'fizzies' the Pod XT Pro's high gain amps put out.

How long have you been playing? What other gear do you own? 20 years. Marshalls, Krank Rev. Series 1 head. Pro Tools system, tube mic pre.

If it were stolen or lost, would you buy it again or get something else? I'd buy it again. Hell, I'd like to get another one as a spare (You never know!)

what do you love about it? It's simple...easy to use...and does what Hadley said it would do!

What do you hate? It's my secret weapon! I hate telling people about it!!! I will tell them if they straight out ask me. But, if they don't....I don't say nothing.

What is your favorite feature? NO BATTERIES OR WALL WARTS!!

Did you compare it to other products? No.

Which ones? ---

Why did you choose this one? Only one I know of.

Anything you wish it had? No.

Does it help you make music, or does it get in the way? Well, like I mentioned earlier. If I did not have this box.....I wouldn't have a Pod XT Pro!

Anything else you'd like to share? It's a great lil' box. Whenever I plug into my Pod XT Pro, you can bet your a$s my (Rad Box) is directly behind the Pod!
Here's a few samples all using Hadleys box

url=http://metallabs.com/THE_LABS/LOG_tone.mp3:Lamb Of God tone. Pod XT Pro leftside[/url]

url=http://metallabs.com/COB.mp3:Children Of Bodom tone. Pod XT Pro rightside[/url]

url=http://www.metallabs.com/HoLyWaRs.mp3:Megadeth tone. Pod XT Pro rightside[/url]

and one more
url=http://metallabs.com/backup/ShuggahMoFo.mp3:Meshuggah tone.Pod XT Pro rightside[/url]

My unit has a three position mini toggle switch: Effect off, Bold, Harmonic Converger.

Effect off - self explanitory
Bold - I think of this as partial effect
Harmonic Converger - I think of this as full effect

It's a box with two ins, two outs, and a mini toggle switch.

The Harmonic Converger is designed to improve the sound of modelers. I use it with a POD XT. Here is the setup I use it with:
Guitar >> Xotic RC Boost >> Xotic AC Boost >> Voodo Lab Sparkle Drive >> Keely modded BD-2 >> Barber Tone Press >> Pod XT >> Line 6 MM-4 >> Roland Giga Delay >> Harmonic Converger >> amp or console.

If I remember correctly Hadley suggests using the unit right after the modeler but I just slapped it on the end of the pedalboard. I'm redoing the board so I'll put it where it should go then.

As a side note, I use the MM-4 and Giga Delay so that mod and delay effects are global. This applies more to live playing than to sessions.

Here's what the unit does. It makes the modeler sound more real and takes care of what is known as fizz. I'll try to explain. Have you ever plugged into an overdrive or distortion unit and then gone straight into the console? Sounds wrong huh. To my ear the Pod XT has an element of that in it's distortion sounds. The Harmonic Converger fixes that! That undesirable element is removed. No added noise nothing .... just removes what bothered me.

It's worked well so far.

Hadley has been good to me. As it turns out I know him from years ago but we don't hang or see each other or even speak. I read about the Harmonic Converger on the Line 6 Pod forum asked about it and poof discovered it was made by someone I know. I do not have any affiliation with RadTone!

I am a professional musician working in Los Angeles. I play all styles except classical. I'm not an "A" player in town, I'm just happy to still have my thumb in the pie (my advice to young guys: practice everyday and get a real job). In the last few years some of the stuff I do is me the composer and the computer. When I got the unit I put it on the pedalboard. The next time I went to do an episode of a sitcom. The composer kept looking at my pedalboard. I'd play, he'd look. I'd play, he'd look. After a while he asked about the sound. He noticed a difference. Also within the last month I sold a Behringer FCB 100. A guy in his twenty's (looked like it to me) saw the pedalboard and asked about it so I played through my monitors. He had a Pod so I played with and without the unit. He noticed the difference and asked where he could get one. Bye the way I didn't list what I paid because I got one of the first units and I don't know if I paid full pop or got a break cause we were aquainted.
I'm trying to think of something negative and the only thing I can come up with is the mini toggle. It's unprotected. If something were to happen to the unit I would be on the phone right away!