Im thinking about getting a pod hd500x. I know they have been discussed here before which Ive read but Im Just wondering what the current gereral view is on them?
Ideally Id love to have pedals and a real amp but Im just a bedroom guy and its not really feasible. There seems to be a lot of available patches for the hd500x and a lot of them Ive heard sound great.
Im currently using the old UX1 and Pod farm 1, it's okay - not great. Will the hd500x be a lot better?

I can get one new here for about £360 which is a big chunk of my 'I want a telecaster' money but Im thinking that it makes more sense to have a decent sound before buying more guitars.

Well, I think there's too much stuff just for a bedroom guitarist. I haven't tested HD500 but what I read from their website, there's tons of stuff to adjust. At this point of my playing "career" I just like the easiness of pluging in my guitar and playing straight away. Of course there's lots of effects to use and an expression pedal. Also loads of different audio outputs. But then again it's quite pricey. And holy s***, that thing is huge



If I were you I would get a newer audio interface (Focusrite, Presonus etc.) and plugins. Either from Toontrack's Ezmix2 or Guitar Rig 5. I own both and there's not much hassle to deal with. Just fire them up and plug your guitar and play Also you would probably spend 150euro at max so you could save plenty of money and still get good sounds. Oh and IMO

My personal recommendation would be the Avid 11 Rack (without Pro Tools).

I picked mine up for $350 - and although I was on the fence about whether or not to get the pod 500 I'm glad I got the 11 rack instead.



In my opinion it can handle the higher gain settings better than the pod.

The downside is no included foot controller which is one of the things you liked about the pod.

Just my two cents.

This post has been edited by Chris S.: May 20 2015, 11:37 AM

valid points. It probably does have more stuff than I need. I dont mind the size and I like the idea of the foot switches.
Ive tried the demo of EZ mix, actually after reading that you use it but I could not get anything like the quality of tone you get from it. I also have th2 but there was a lack of decent patches ( that I could find ) I only ever managed to get one tone which I liked ( one of Todd's actually).
Would these packages be dependant on a decent PC? mine is a few years old now and not a hugely great spec.



Yeah, I was looking at that. Its quite expensive over here. I only saw one for £400 used on ebay. Im not a massive high gain guy but they do sound good. would that need a fairly decent spec PC?

This post has been edited by bleez: May 20 2015, 12:06 PM

One of my good friends had a pod HD500x. If you want my honest opinion, for my personal taste sound a little synthetic and lacking soul. But of course, this is me and my madness because I'm always looking to find the perfect tone full of life and very warm

I'm agree with WeePee and I also think that maybe a newer interface and plugins are a good alternative.

Actually, I made the same step in December. After couple of conflicts between my old interface Line6 UX2 and Poulin plugins (and other annoying problems) I decided that it's time to buy a real audio interface and save a lot of time and nerves. So, I bought Presonus FireStudio Project. It wasn't very cheap but it was worth every penny (2 months I ate only crackers to buy this )
As plugins I use Guitar Rig 5 and Poulin and I'm very, very, very satisfied about results

As I am at the same point right now I spend some time at a large music store nearby. Not me - but an experienced guitar player - played both Guitar Rig 5 and Boss GT100 for me and there was a hugh difference in quality of sounds. Although I had a great preference for Guitar Rig 5 , I will most likely purchase a GT100.

This post has been edited by Tom51: May 20 2015, 12:27 PM

As far as the PC spec goes - not really.

I have a generic laptop that's designed for personal use - not so much recording but I don't have any latency issues when running my 11 Rack into my DAW.

The POD isn't a bad choice either - it's going to come down to which sounds better and which has better features in your eyes.

Well said Any PC would work as the 11 Rack does all the processing inside of the unit. WHere TH2 or AMPLITUDE does all the processing inside the PC. The 11 rack goes from VOX clean to Mesa Crazy and I still love mine For the money, I just could not find a better value/tone proposition in a hardware unit (used of course) and believe me I looked high and low.

That explains a lot tbh. I really need to get a unit that does it own processing. I suppose the HD500x is the same as the 11r in that respect - processing in the unit.

I noticed Thomann has the 11r without pro tools for about £70 more than the Pod. That's not too bad, a bit more expensive but not as bad as I initially thought. They seem to be a lot cheaper in the states and also loads more second hand ones kicking around.
Ive heard some really nice tones from both units..... decisions

This post has been edited by bleez: May 21 2015, 06:08 PM

Pop on youtube and maybe watch some more vids from folks you trust using both units. In the end, it comes down to one thing. Is the tone your looking for in the box or not. As long as the answer is yes, the sticker on the box is almost beside the point. I"ve tried a LOT of boxes and so far the 11 is the only one I've kept.

can anyone tell me how the average Pod HD connection works?
I thought it was just 'guitar > pod > PC' but Ive been watching a load of tone demo vids and one video mentioned that his chain was 'guitar > pod > Focusrite 2i4 > PC.
do you need an interface between the pod and the PC?

I found this from the pilot's handbook

http://l6c.scdn.line6.net/data/l/0a06434dc...-%20English.pdf

LOL! The manual! Stupidly, I didnt even think about looking for that!
thanks dude

so it seems like its fine with the pod straight into the pc, that's cool. I wonder why that guy had his pod into a Focusrite. Maybe you get better quality recording or something.

You can use the USB record method just fine However, if you have preamps in your external interface that you want to use to "color" the signal, then sure you can run it through your interface However, I honestly doubt it's worth the effort.

Ah, I see. That might be why he had it hooked up then. Thanks dude.