Thinking about swapping my entire rig for a POD HD500

[goodhonk]

line6 stuff is only as good as the warranty, ime.

[CrystalLake]

Any opinions on: GT-100 GT-10 X3 Live RP1000 Etc etc

 

 

I used an X3 Live for about 2 years and loved it. I felt though I was tweaking it more than actually playing. Overall it's a solid unit, and the used market on them is great for a buyer.

[ChuckNorris1982]

Cheers fellas, useful opinions in here.

 

I may in fact buy a multi effects board and a valve combo too, then I can use the multi for quiet practice and recording, and run it 4CM with the amp in case I decided to go to any jam nights or whatever. For that purpose, I'd probably be more interested in the Boss stuff as they can switch channels on an amp as part of preset changes.

 

We'll see though, the key thing is the bedroom playing and recording functions really. I reckon I need o go and demo an HD500 and a GT100.

[goodhonk]

how long has the band been broken up? don't do something you'll regret in a month.

[ChuckNorris1982]

We thought we were breaking up yesterday but confirmed today.

 

Might seem rash, but there won't be any band for a long time, if ever. I'm not very well connected with any sort of scene anymore, so don't know anyone else to play withy anyway. This was our biggest problem in finding drummers each time one quit. It's also not easy for me to join a band with people I don't know, as I don't drive and so can't move my gear around. With no practice room and no drummer, our band is gone and won't be coming back as a live act any time soon. We're thinking about continuing to collaborate by email as a recording project instead.

[martha_KH]

 

Try out one of the newer zoom units (G3, G5) and see if you like their modeling.

 

 

This is something to look at too. I was surprisingly impressed with the Zoom models.

[ChuckNorris1982]

I'll be honest with you, my mate bought a G3 and I thought it was {censored}ing horrible when I tried it. I didn't spend a great deal of time with it, but it just sounded really poor IMO.

[martha_KH]

I'll be honest with you, my mate bought a G3 and I thought it was {censored}ing horrible when I tried it. I didn't spend a great deal of time with it, but it just sounded really poor IMO.

 

The sound quality of it is extremely better than the M series pedal I had IMO

I cant really speak for the Line 6 amp models though.

[ChuckNorris1982]

I thought the delays and verbs were really weak on it. Amp modelling sounded ok.

[lefort_1]

This is not the opinion you asked for, but if you are getting into home recording and ditching the live rig, then:

a) your mixing/mastering speakers will be extremely important
b) barely decent ones will cost 3x what the laney would sell for.
c) you will have to solve the home SPL issue...you cannot (ok, "should not") master with headpoons.
d) you really do not understand the cost yet. really. seriously. you need to do some serious reading.
May I respectfully suggest a heavy dose of TapeOp or some other good/reliable source of info. You'll have to edit out the "for the big boyz" content,
but you can get a handle on the necessities if a discerning reading eye is used. Again, you can ignore their bias to Protools and other oversexxed setups, but they do have good content on nearfields, sound treatments and other things you'll need in your home setup.

[ChuckNorris1982]

I think you

[dZjupp]

i did this about 3 or 4 years ago, traded my entire rig off for a quieter setup, multi efx thingy, also needed some money as i had just moved to another state.

did i regret it?

you bet i did

i've spent the last 4 painful years trying to acquire everything that was on my old board. still not even close.

as someone who has always played at home or out live or in a studio with guitar-pedals-tube amp, i just couldn't do the multiefx amp sim thing, even at home.

there's just something to me about the magical jizziness of it all.

if it were me again, or if i were you, i'd keep everything and do the Tech 21 route. i've played some of their stuff and i seem to like it better than the whole POD/HD/GT stuff thats out there. that way you can at least have your board going into one of the Tech 21 pedals, which sound very good.

[Zozobra]

It really sucks that its come to this for you guys and it was a pleasure sharing a room and rig with you

One thing no one has thought about is the possibility of a low powered tube amp and a dummy load so you can run it into an interface with speaker emulation. Perhaps you'd get more mileage out of a valve preamp in that case to simply things. A few guys over on amps ran into the same circumstance and they ditched everything other then their preamps. NinjaRaf has a mako pre which he does just this with and it sounds killer. I'd struggle to get a better tone amping something up!

 

So... I have most of the bits to build any preamp that your heart desires. I have a small toroidal PT that can power up to 3 eccxx tubes although you will need to use one for an output buffer. It wont have PI/PA grind to the tone but thats not so much your bag anyway. If you're interested we can hack something together out of the spares I have at pretty much zero cost to try out. Interested?

[vinnies]

i tried a few multis and decided on the HD500. the thing's nice, but i don't use the amp sims much. they sound great on headphones and with a power amp, tho. instead of using the sims, i run it into the front AND loop of my boogie DC-5, just because i love my boogie dirt so much.

 

- you really have to make sure you get some of the options right to get a great sound. for instance, your clean sound will never be completely clean unless you choose "guitar" for input 1 and "variax" for input 2. for some reason running guitar on inputs 1 and 2 results in a slightly dirty clean. there's plenty of {censored} on the web and line6 has a bunch of answers to anything on their site forums.

 

- effects-wise, there's a TON of {censored} on there. only place i'm unhappy effects-wise is the chorus choices. there's only 2 and they're not all that great. tons of filters, delay options, you can run another expression pedal, run dual paths (although DSP runs out pretty quick if you do), etc. lots of options on this thing...

 

- 4CM method doesn't play well with my boogie for some reason. i lose the ability to use my boogie footswitch to shut off the EQ and change channels. not specific to the HD500, i've had this problem with other stuff as well. FYI.

 

- i can't run 'true' stereo with my setup, so i lose the ping pong and pan delays. i'm running my boogie loop from one output of the HD500, and running the other output into a power amp powering an extension cab. dunno why i'm not getting true stereo, just another FYI.

[Strat87]

 

headpoons.

 

 

This made me lol

[Kassanova]

Doom metal?
Peavey Revalver or Zoom G5.

[caeman]

Alternative Option to Selling Everything: Radial JDX

 

http://www.radialeng.com/r2011/jdx.php

 

Just put it between your amp head and speakers, run the balanced out to a small mixer board and voila. You keep your amp sound.

[tvrf21]

What about the Line 6 DT25? Versatile and loud enough with valve goodness. I've heard good things about them and have been tempted myself. I think they're about

[shawnd2007]

That other forum down the street has a sub-forum (here: http://www.thegearpage.net/board/forumdisplay.php?f=53 ) that excels at exactly this sort of question. Might be worth reposting over there.

[sleewell]

dont sell everything, used gear market is too weak right now so the hit would not be worth it.

save up and just buy the hd5000 or get a gsp1101 to use in your amps power section.

[Adacto]

Don't think it's been mentioned yet, but why not consider the Eleven Rack from Avid? I've used Eleven (software version) for a few months and quite like the results I get from it. Certainly for recording it's worth a try.. you get Pro Tools software and a pretty good interface straight out of the box.

J

[mlabbee]

Also check out those Yamaha amps - THR5 and THR10. They seem to get good reviews and act as both an amp and a recording interface. Priced a bit less than the Pod HD500.

 

I recently sold my HD500 and went back to a tube amp (Mesa TA-15) because I'm playing with a band again. The HD500 was fun and sounded pretty good, but I found myself getting lost in the options. Too many amps to to try with too many cabinets and mic combinations, too many routing options. I spent more time tweaking and exploring (not necessarily a bad thing) and not much time playing. That and I found it very challenging to get the levels right across all of the effects and amp models - I would invariably start hearing unintended distortion when I'd add one more pedal to the signal flow that would take forever to dial out. Someone wrote an entire supplemental manual dedicated to sorting out the signal to keep it from clipping in unintended spots in the signal path . . .

 

Bottom line - it's an incredibly powerful unit, but it takes time to really master its capabilities. If you are a tweaker and enjoy experimenting with lots of options and signal routing paths, I can't think of anything other than the Axe FX that gives you that much capability. But with that capability comes complexity . . .

 

I haven't completely written them off - if my current band experience continues in teh same vein, I may actually get one again, to use solely as an effects unit. I have to switch sounds quite a bit for different songs and within songs and I could see how using the HD500 just for effects could eliminate a lot of tap dancing . . . and the effects are all more than adequate for live playing - maybe not quite the match for their analog counterparts, but 99% of the way there. I've now A/Bed the Line 6 effects against 6 or 7 of the "real things" and they sound pretty much identical in a live mix (you can hear differences in a quiet studio really studying the sound).

[vinnies]

Someone wrote an entire supplemental manual dedicated to sorting out the signal to keep it from clipping in unintended spots in the signal path . . . Bottom line - it's an incredibly powerful unit, but it takes time to really master its capabilities. If you are a tweaker and enjoy experimenting with lots of options and signal routing paths, I can't think of anything other than the Axe FX that gives you that much capability. But with that capability comes complexity . . . I haven't completely written them off - if my current band experience continues in teh same vein, I may actually get one again, to use solely as an effects unit. I have to switch sounds quite a bit for different songs and within songs and I could see how using the HD500 just for effects could eliminate a lot of tap dancing . . . and the effects are all more than adequate for live playing - maybe not quite the match for their analog counterparts, but 99% of the way there. I've now A/Bed the Line 6 effects against 6 or 7 of the "real things" and they sound pretty much identical in a live mix (you can hear differences in a quiet studio really studying the sound).

 

 

this - i found that just adding a wah to the signal path degrades the sound, so i've taken to having all effects assigned to an on/off switch. it's basically like using a looper to kick in some pedals, but it keeps the sound clearer. PS - the wahs are awesome on this thing...

[Max Factor]

don't sell the good stuff!

 

if you're getting into recording, a lot of recording interfaces have some sort of guitar modelling software thrown in for free.

just use that for your super-quiet noodling and crank up the old amp once in a while to remind yourself of awesomeness.

[ChuckNorris1982]

Oh yeah, I already have Amplitube 2. I just don't have an interface right now. I'd be most likely to take a clean signal from the multi fx and record via Amplitube so I can mess around with the tones after the recording, and it sounds great. But I find it super uninspiring to play through an interface and software when it's for writing and practicing purposes, I'd rather have pedals to turn things on and off and knobs to twist etc for editing.