Line 6 POD HD500
Line 6’s latest floorboard brings the company’s best emulation technologies together in one box. Mike Hillier steps on it.
Price: £409.00
Manufacturer: Line 6
Website: http://www.line6.com
POD HD500
Manufacturer Line 6
Price £409
Contact Line 6 01327 302700
Web www.line6.com
Line 6 has carved out a niche for itself with powerful guitar amp and effects modelling hardware. While Native Instruments and IK Multimedia have focused on software, relying on hardware only to connect the guitar to the computer running the software, Line 6 has realised that many guitarists simply aren’t comfortable taking laptops on tour. While software might in the end offer the widest choice, dedicated hardware remains appealing thanks to its ease of use and, crucially in a live environment, greater reliability.
The new POD HD range comes in three sizes to suit a variety of needs and budgets. All three models have 16 HD amp models for guitar processing and even the smallest HD300 model has over 80 effects models, with enough DSP to run four models simultaneously. The HD400 raises this to over 90 effects models, while the flagship HD500 (which we’ve been sent) has over 100 effects models and additional DSP to handle up to eight effects simultaneously.
In addition to the 1/4-inch guitar input, stereo balanced XLR outputs, stereo unbalanced 1/4-inch outputs, 1/4-inch headphone jack and 1/8-inch CD/mp3 audio I/O, which are common across all three models, the HD500 also has a 1/4-inch aux input, XLR mic input, Variax digital input (for use with Line 6’s Variax guitars), L6 Link (for use with the DT50 series amplifiers), S/PDIF output and stereo FX loop I/O. The addition of an effects loop lets you incorporate all of your existing analogue stompboxes and effects with your HD500 to create a pedalboard of epic proportions.
Sign of the times
The I/O connections are all found on the rear of the HD500, with the top panel housing 12 stomp switches, a modulation pedal, seven dedicated knobs, five rotary encoders, four soft switches, a direction pad and a monochrome LCD screen. Partially hidden by the modulation pedal are a further three switches, used for controlling I/O levels and the XLR ground lift.
Not owning a Variax guitar or DT50 amplifier, we plugged our Strat into the HD500’s guitar input and connected the output directly into a line input on our console. In standard operation mode the two leftmost footswitches scroll through preset banks. Each bank has four presets, which can be loaded by stomping on one of the four bottom-row footswitches, labelled A–D. In this mode you can switch between 64 presets (16 banks of four), but by using the smaller rotary dials and soft switches it is possible to switch between eight different Set Lists, each containing 64 presets, in 16 banks of four.
Working through the presets will give you a feel for the sounds that are possible with the HD500, but to get a better impression we dialled in some clean amp tones to get an idea of how the amps sound on their own. The POD HD500 has some of the best amp tones we’ve heard in an emulator, from bell-like clean tones to warm, bluesy overdrives, but it was the high-gain sounds in particular that surprised us. The Class A-30TB model in the HD500 came very close to the sound of our own AC-30 – it’s not perfect, but it’s close enough that we can’t imagine anyone spotting the difference. However, the British Copper 30TB in AmpliTube 3 remains our favourite AC-30 emulation.
For high-gain rock sounds the Marshall emulations sound as close to the real things as anything we’ve come across to date, but it was the Bomber Uber amp emulation, based on the Bognor Uberschall amp, which had us going back time and again. This particular amplifier sound has long been a gem in the Line 6 crown, but the definition in the latest incarnation of the sound is superb.
Pet sounds
Once we’d had enough of playing about with the presets and clean amp tones, we switched to an unused Set List – of the eight Set Lists, only four come pre-loaded with presets, leaving four more for user patches.
Dialling in your own patches from the hardware is simple enough, but it can take a little time to dial through all the various options using the direction pad, soft keys and four rotary encoders. To aid you in setting up your own parameters, Line 6 has included editor software, which enables you to configure patches on your Mac or PC, connecting to the HD500 over USB.
This is a much faster process but isn’t quite as easy, since you don’t get to hear your configuration in real time as you configure it. So a combination of the two methods is probably going to be the most useful, whereby patches are started on your PC and then fine-tuned on the HD500 hardware itself.
Unlike effects settings, which are dialled in by going through the menu system and using the rotary controllers, amp settings have dedicated knobs covering Drive, Bass, Mid, Treble, Presence, Volume and a further Master output volume knob. These knobs will always control the same parameter whatever you’ve currently got onscreen, which means you always have control over your overall amp tone at hand. However, because switching from one preset to another can change your amp settings, it isn’t always obvious simply by looking at the knob positions what position the actual setting is in.
What’s more, when you change a setting it will jump from its preset position to the position of the knob. This could have been avoided by using endless rotary encoders instead of knobs. Only the Master output volume needs to be an actual knob.
Chairman of the boards
The HD500 is an excellent floorboard amp sim. The effects – taken from the M-Class stompbox modellers – are superb, the HD-class amps are some of the best we’ve heard, and you still have the option of including your own existing FX pedals, not just before the floorboard but in the signal chain, by using the FX loop, which can be placed anywhere in the chain.
What’s more, the HD500 comes with a great looper tool, which means that with this new box, guitarists should have all they could possibly need to get their guitar sounding huge onstage, right at their feet.
Verdict
WHY BUY
Quality emulations
Comprehensive I/O options
Solid build
WALK ON BY
LEDs don’t change colour to show the current effect type (as on M-Class processors)
Creating new patches can take some time
The POD HD500 is the best POD unit we’ve tested to date, with excellent emulations of a huge number of amps and effects.
★★★★★★★★
Score: 8
This review first appeared in Music Tech Magazine issue 96
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