Line 6 pod hd

I have had a femder princeton 112 plus for about 12 years now.. In recent discussion with a friend who is a professional musician, i questioned which to replace, the above amp or my zoom g2 multieffects pedal. I brought it down to jam and played the pedal through hos mega boogie roadster and the pedal sounded very solid.

So, i went home and began searching for an affordable tube amp that wouldnt cost me more than 600/800 or cheaper.. Amidst my search, the same friend called and said he was thinking about my next step, and felt buying the line 6 pod hd 500 would probably solve all my problems while providing a device to record through and many other benefits. I repeated many times- " but my amp sounds horrific, wouldnt the line 6 sound somewhat worse as well? He insisted it would not, and the processor would cure all.

What are your thoughts? My friend has been touring the world for a couple years now and has my absolute respect when it comes to anything guitar/music, but figured id seek a second opinion(hopefully a ninth or tenth opinion as well)... Here is a link to the line 6 processor as well, although i hope posting it does not lead to ill conceived advisement haha.
http://www.musiciansfriend.com/amplifiers-effects/line-6-pod-hd500x-guitar-multi-effects-processor


Thanks in advance for any input!!

It's a bit difficult to say because it all depends on what type of sound you're going for. Your friend might be right in saying you should get the line 6 board. It does provide a lot of variety in amp sounds and effects. That being said it's probably not going to turn your Princeton into something it's not. It'll def help out if the tones are bad from the amp but at the end of the day a bad sounding amp is going to sound bad no matter what. I suppose if it's a case of you liking the clean sound of your amp and you can sculpt the overdriven tones w the line 6 it'd work. You could take your amp to guitar center and try out the line 6 w your own gear and see if it's to your liking. I'm sure they'd be happy to help you out.

Thanks henrik, well stated.. You have a point, i think what is messing me up is how horrid the zoom g2 sounds through the fender compared to the mesa boogie roadster.. Then again that coincides with what you said, comparing a fender princeton 112 to mesa roadster is like comparing justin bieber to iron maiden. Ones smaller, less complex/talented, and overall mediocre in comparison.

My solution may just be to roll with the processor and if it sounds bad ill just upgrade amp ASAP. Isnt like the line 6 will go to waste!

Took your advice and played it through the amp... Sounded amazing!!! Ended up buying the podhd500x.. Must say tho, this is not for beginners. I mean the presets are ok, but if you want to master the processor, be ready to study tubes, amps and premps, cabs, how they fit together, master volumes, etc etc etc.. In actuality i just gave you a small intro, just refer to the basic manual that comes with the processor THEN look at the 140(i think) page advanced manual..

But with that said i am in no way complaining, i find it fascinating. I started by taking specific presets and breaking them down, this was helpful. To the advanced tone guys definitely buy it and thank me later. The looper os a ton of fun, precisipn of the wah and volume pedals is awesome, and the fact you can set tempo with delay and modulatipns, AND apply them along with other effects to the expression pedal is sick.. I am still in the stage of tryong to force making tones with my favorite amps(like the mesa boogie, which even with 0 percent drive sounds like more of a propagandhi distortion than a tommy emmanuel clean. Only thing i will caution against is dont buy it thinking you are gonna dive in AND play a ton at first.. It may have slowed down my pace going through lessons on GT to a crawl

Sounds like you are having fun!! I have something similar - Zoom G5. Loopers are definitely a lot of fun and a great practice tool. Something like this gives you an whole other dimension in which you can be creative!

Enjoy!

I have the Line6 hd500 for quite some time. But I have no amp and use it just at home for practicing / recording with my headphones. You can get very good sounds but definately must invest some time in tweaking in order to get good results. The factory presets are all crap. I also find that the results depends very much on the gear used. If you download some tones from customtone you will need to adjust them to your taste and guitar used. I ended up to build the desired tones myself using the Line6 edit software.

I will admit, i can go both ways on the presets... On one hand i can call them crAppy, impractical, etc... On the other, they are back down to earth and useful if you just do a little modding, like tone, gains, amp mics, etc. not really seeing huge difference between the 500 and 500x presently.

What benefits do you get using the software? Just quicker modding? I used it initially, then didnt like how it slowed me down(when syncing) when i was in tinker mode.

Then again today i set up a double amp tone with the tweed and super o, all kinds of preamp eq, distortion, reverb... Took about 30 minutes. Then? I hit the knob to go to next setting without saving. Calmly shut down all electronics, put prs in case, grabbed my washburn acoustic that i use for "outside/by the water" playing, and sat outside playing like a happy luddite, far away from the stresses of digital noisemaking.

I just like editing better with the software, since I have the HD500 under the table and I don't like to crawl under the table every time I tweek. And the sofware it is more visual.

As far as I know soundwise there is no difference between the HD500 and HD500x it has just a better CPU. Some people have the problem to run out of DSP Power with the HD500 when using lots of effects. I personally quite never run into that problem, 'cause I don't like overloaded tones anyway. I like to keep it simple.

I had the HD500 since it came out and I know that it can sound very well. I read a lot of complains on the net, but I think people expect to plugIn the guitar and it sounds great. This isn't the case with the POD. You have to tweak a lot, really a lot - but It then it can sound really good.

Never looked for a another device since it fits my needs. Latley I feel attrackted to the eleven rack. Maybe some day I'll get the change to test it out ;-)

I keep seeing the Eleven Rack popping up. I know Anders here uses it for his song lessons. It seems expensive, but it comes with Pro Tools as well.

Having just bought a new guitar, I need to get this thing out of my head :-).

The eleven rack seems to get very good reviews and you can get a MIDI pedal board setup to use it in a live environment too.

Anybody here use it?

Originally Posted by: maggiorI keep seeing the Eleven Rack popping up. I know Anders here uses it for his song lessons. It seems expensive, but it comes with Pro Tools as well.

Having just bought a new guitar, I need to get this thing out of my head :-).

The eleven rack seems to get very good reviews and you can get a MIDI pedal board setup to use it in a live environment too.

Anybody here use it?

Yeah I have to get it out of my head too. I'm fine with my POD HD500 right now, but I defintley want to try it out someday. Oh and now you can get it without ProTools for much cheaper. And also the software now is available as standalone version.

Go podhd..then you can be like me, buy a jtv guitar, and drive yourself even MORE crazy modding your tones haha..

Serious note, it is pretty sweet, and in actuality brought me back down to reality.. After a couple days of being a perfectionist, i began to simplify and stay more basic, as ot was cutting into my time actually playing!

I liked the editing software, but too often i would get deep into editing, then press the wrong button or turn wrong knob on pedal, and would delete ll the mods i just made.. So decided to stick with doing everything on the processor. Who knows maybe ill try again now that im modding on the variax software!