(Not only am I not going to take the manual to the gig, but I’m not going to spend hours burning the midnight oil studying it like a law student preparing for the bar.) In what I believe to be the true test of a company’s ability to think like a guitar player and design a unit that performs well during a heat-of-the-moment, middle-of-a-song tweak, I refused to look at the POD HD500 manual. And if that’s not enough, there’s a 48-second looper and pitch/intelligent harmonizer effects on board as well.

30+ distortions, EQs and compressors 35+ analog and digital delays, echoes, wahs, and reverbs (from surfy springs, to studio plates, to cutting-edge digital rooms) 45+ swirly phasers, filters and other mods including opto and bias modulating tremolos, choruses, and rotary speakers. POD HD500 contains a full compliment: over 100 pro-grade effects found in their acclaimed M-Series pedals. Line 6 may have been forced to skimp on the effects. Thick Layers of Luscious IcingĮver the skeptic, I thought perhaps with all the focus placed on building the new modeling technology, and selecting, restoring and modeling a new collection of vintage amplifiers. Every amp’s front-end will react differently to the same pedal, and the new Line 6 HD models responded like they should. This very real feel and response was also found when I began to add overdrive and distortion effects to the front end of the signal chain. Most remarkable to me was the natural from-end compression and power amp “sag” that happens when you crank a tube amp and dig in with your playing. Switching from pick to fingers, even using the most overdriven, maxed-out high gain tones, elicited the tactile reaction I hoped for. Subtle differences in pick angle and force were plainly evident. The HD amp models responded as I expected to the varying dynamics of my playing. There is a very authentic, overall tube warmth that has been oh-so-close but not quite there in earlier generations. Gimme The Cakeĭo the models actually sound and feel like the real amps? Do they behave as uniquely as the classics they aspire to be? When I back off my guitar volume, will the amp model clean up and maintain the similar tonal characteristics of the original tube amp? The answer is a very emphatic, yes.Įach and every last one of the 16 HD amp models created with this new generation of modeling technology sounds and feels like the real deal to me. So when I was approached for my take on the new POD HD500, and I was told that “all-new” Line 6 HD modeling technology “represents a giant leap forward for amp modeling” and delivers “previously unachievable realism,” I plugged in with some skepticism.

But when I’ve tried taking those sounds to the stage, they have sometimes fallen a bit short. It is by far, the easiest and fastest method of recording guitars. Over the past decade, I have always used some variation of POD for recording.

Pod hd500x