This review is for the POD HD500, not the 500x. Yes, I know this isn't the current model for Line 6, but they're so close and I just got one of these at a smoking price and felt I needed to really dig deep for this review and tell you the good, the bad, and the ugly.
FEATURES
BUILD QUALITY/CONSTRUCTION
The build quality of this unit is stellar. It's a tank and made for the road or recording. The "shell" that holds its is some sort of metal and feels very solid. The pedals are easily pressed and even the volume/expression pedal seem to just work how they should. Build quality appears excellent.
PATCHES/EFFECTS
This is where you get your money's worth out of this unit. Old school musicians will all tell you that analog is better. In reality, it should be and most of the time it is, but not always. To get incredible totally analog sound, you'll need very expensive equipment in most cases. That pro sound just doesn't happen with a $200 guitar, and a $100 amp. You can get pretty good sound sometimes,...maybe... but that's about it. You would need your analog tube distortion pedal, an analog delay pedal, an analog reverb unit, an analog noise gate (because analog gets real noisy if your rockin' out), an analog phaser, etc. Also, if you're a pro, you need many different types of sounds and this requires many different types of amps and cabinets. If you have a quite a few thousand dollars to blow and you want that sound, you better be paying some roadies to carry all that gear for ya. I'm a gigging guitar player in an 80s rock cover band. I like to change multiple effects at one time and I don't want 20 pedals to have to memorize the location of and figure out mulitple pedal scenarios on the fly while playing live. That's just stupid. For a fraction of the price of all of those other pedals, I've got a very close simulation of their exact sound regardless what the haters want to think. If you don't get good sound out of this unit, it's because you didn't dig deep enough to find it. I promise. I'm now a believer.
I could go through every effect it has right here, but suffice it to say that every sound has been "modeled" after an actual product and gets pretty darn close in most cases. You can build your dream guitar sound by adding your favorite distortion pedal, overdrive pedal, delay, wah, vocoder (voice box), flange, phaser, etc, as there's many different models of each. I know, you've seen this on many products and they've always been lame for the most part. This is product is different than the vast majority. These sounds can be all be put together in the free software or programmed right into the unit itself by hand.
There are even patches on this product for a bass guitar and vocals if you can believe that. Yes, really. Plug a dynamic mic (not a condersor mic) and you'll have not only a vocal presence possibility but also the talk box effect like in Living On A Prayer, Rocky Mountain High, and Do You Feel Like I Do. That's worth a few hunderd bucks by itself. BIG plus.
On the down side, the so-called Smart Harmony isn't that smart to me. Actually it's pretty dumb for the most part compared to other harmonizers. To do what my Digitech Harmonyman 2 would do took clever manipulaton while playing and using my foot in the middle of a solo to change if I wanted a 3rd step down or a 4th step down which is stupid to have to do when the Digitech HM2 does that automatically so I still use the Digitech for that. That was dissappointing, but just a minor disappointment. I can live with it since I still have and use my Digitech HM-2.
The pedalboard can be arranged in so many different ways to accomodate your needs, you could have 8 different effects, each with it's own pedal to turn it on or off. The expression pedal can be used as a volume pedal, and/or a wah pedal, or even changed specific values of a specific effect all on just one patch. Versatility gets an 11 out of 10.
LOOPER
This baby has a looper built-in which can be great for practices, one-man shows, and more effects. This is another effect worth big bucks. Excellent.
RECORDING
Recording options are vast with this product as it has cabinet modeling built in so that you don't have to actually "mic" your amp and have an extremely quite room. You can just plug the Line6 POD HD500 into the computer through your mixing board/audio interface, or through it's USB cable. Since it has XLR outputs, you can use the very quiet balanced cables to the mixer if you have that type of input available. There even a digital coax output that can be used to the computer, or even your home stereo system if you wanted it do that. There are so many ways to record the sounds with this product that you should never get stuck with an issue. The sheer amount of cabinet and amp models to choose from are fantastic and great sounding. You could spend a year trying out all the options with these models. Incredible recording ease, especially for home studios.
LIVE SOUND
The live sound options are quite a bit and the way I use it, I actually don't get as many options because I use my own amp and cabinet. If I were to wire myself straight to the mixing board, I would be able to better take advantage of the cabinet modeling. I turn off the cabinet modeling while playing live because...well...I'm using my own cabinets. I've tried it both ways and I definitely like my own amp and cabinet while playing live. I have a fullness and tone than I can get through a P.A. used mainly for vocals. It's more of a hassle to lug the gear around but worth it when I feel the music more and the feedback from the audience is all positive. I'm getting asked how I get my "sound" every time I play now that I started recently using the Line6 POD HD500. I feel like my sound is studio quality while I'm playing live, as if someone had a very high-end stereo system with expensive, exotic speakers and was playing the post-production studio recording of the guitar part instead of me actually playing it and that's actually coming out of my guitar cabinets somehow. Disclaimer - I'd like to put an asterisk on this sound quality being only the Line6 POD HD500. In the effects loop, I do have the sound routed through an Alesis 31-band EQ and a BBE Sonic Maximizer. The latter puts a extra dimension of transparency on the already crystal clear sound and can really add richness beyond a simple EQ if used correctly. The rest of my live gear sure doesn't hurt the sound quality either - an old Mesa Boogie Simul 295 Amplifier which is just bad to the bone - period, and two 4x12 cabinets. One is a Marshall JCM900 1960A that I bought new 25 years ago and the other is surprisingly my favorite - an Ampeg cabinet with Vintage 30s. These two cabinets together on stage give me an extreme richness I love. Once I found the correct setting to give my equipment the correct tone, the Line 6 sounded better than any other preamp/multieffects unit that I've used in the past, whether tube or solid state. Trust me, that is really saying something.
CONNECTIONS
The inputs and outputs on this Line 6 product are staggering for the price here, as the POD HD500 has an input for a microphone for either singing through or using as a "vocoder" (the talk box effect), plus other inputs for a 2nd guitar, bass, or keyboard. MIDI is present if needed with the standard IN/OUT/THRU. Also, a 1/8" input for your MP3 player or phone to jam along with is very handy and I use it regularly in my practice. There is the SEND output and RECEIVE inputs. Inputs was plural because the RECEIVE portion has stereo inputs - very cool. There's also a digital coax output, stereo balanced (XLR) and unbalanced (1/4" jack) outputs, and headphone outputs. Lastly, if you have other Line 6 products like a combo amp or Variax guitar, there's the Line6 Link connection and a Variax input.
SOFTWARE
The software that works with the product is called POD HD500 EDIT can be easily downloaded from their website and works well with the POD with just a simple USB connection. Line6 Monkey is software that automatically checks for software and firmware updates to keep your unit working at its best. You can program the Line6 by hand and it's recommended to be able to understand how to do that so when you're not near your computer and need to make an emergency adjustment on the fly, you can still manage. The computer software is easier to use and gives a better visual representation of how effects are arranged and dialed-in. There's one thing left out of the software that threw me for a loop until I finally became aware of it's existence. There's a setup menu with the unit that can't be accessed from the computer software. This setup menu makes huge differences in sound on page 4 by adjusting the tone of the output based on what the HD500 is connected to for amplification. Once again, this is a very vital adjustment that's hidden deep in a setup menu I didn't know existed until I dug deep in the tutorials and instrucitons. This shoud be one of the easiest controls to access, yet it's in a very unintuitive menu location and not accessed through the computer software. Doh! This setting I'm talking about adjusts the tone differnently if you tell in you're connected to the input of a combo amp, going straight to an amp (or the preamp bypass on a combo amp or head), or even going directly into the mixing board. If this setting isn't right, the sound really suffers somewhat significantly in some cases. This feature being so hard to find that I didn't know it existed almost caused me to return it as I felt like I was playing through an Atari 2600 gaming system at first. Once this the correct tone is selected in onboard software, you need to also flip the switch on the top of the unit to the correct position - Line or Amp. This turns the cabinet modeling on or off. This is too much for many people to figure out without some discouragement, but once it's figured out, the rewards sound are great.
THE MANUAL
Now, I'll tell you the things that could use improvement and I hope that Line 6 is reading this for future products. The "advanced" manual is anything but advanced. It states so little about each effect that you could tell someone had a headached trying to pack all of this stuff in a manual. The learning curve is very high for inexperienced and non-technical users so you may have to watch many YouTube videos to get what you're looking for. It took me entirely too long to figure out how to get the vocoder to work correctly. Nowhere in the manual did I find that I needed a "dynamic" mic and not a "condenser" mic for this to work correctly. I had to find that in one of the tutorials videos from a third party somewhere. LINE6, don't you think that is vital information? I've found numerous posts online of others that had the same issue as I did with the vocoder setup. Also, the incredible amount of options also make this something that just getting it set up right with either an amp or plugging straight into the boards can be confusing - not with the actual cable connections, but the internal software in the unit needs to be changed in two different places to make it sound like it should. Once again, I didn't understand it all by reading the "advanced" manual, but I found it on one of their videos online mixed in with 50 or so other videos making a vital piece of information not easy to find or even understand at first. I'd like to add that not only have I been a musician since a very young age (2 years old), but I'm also a professional computer tech and have an extreme knowledge and understanding of almost anything electronic. When I don't find electronics and manuals even slightly intuitive, trust me - no one does. I've actually programmed complicated devices and also know the lack of detail that techs seem to convey when putting the instruction booklets together. That being said, after first receiving this product, I almost returned it because of the sound quality. Nothing sounded right and it was all because of the setup options not being clearly stated and explained or even easily found. Over time, I've played around with it, watched many, many videos, downloaded patches, messed with my own patches, and finally now have a somewhat clearer grasp of the incredible depth of options and configurations. Now, my sound is absolutely incredible. Really, I'm shocked at what I've been able to squeeze out of this pedalboard and I didn't think I could get much better sound than my previous multi-effects unit so if you don't like the sound you get with it, keep fiddling with it until you figure out the auditory nirvana that it can do.
ONLINE SUPPORT
There are a few setup videos on Line6's website and they'll take you through the different setup options. Knowing to look for these videos and actually taking the time to watch them was the key and this is something that Line6 could improve upon in future products, but I highly recommend seeking them out and watching them. Expecting musicians to take a lot of effort and really get super deep in this thing, well not many will. I did but I'm just nuts like that. You can go to their forums and someone there can help you some of time with your questions. Otherwise, you may be searching all over the web to find that one answer to that question as there's not a video tutorial for every feature this thing has. Support has been just so-so with Line6. If you are high maintenence with support, you may be in trouble unless you have a skilled friend that has one too.
IS THIS FOR YOU?
Many non-technical people would have never bought this to begin with. It would scare them to attempt to operate it and they would also be the ones that say "I'm old school. I just stick with all analog pedals. That's all I need. These digital effects never sound good". If I had a nickel for every time my old school friends worship the analog effects, I would be wealthy now. On the surface, analog products should be better. They can't give you anywhere near the price vs. performance and value you'll get with this product instead. I assure you, good sounds are aplenty, but great sounds come from really learning, not just poking around turning knobs, but learning how everything really works. I just came to write some more of this review while taking a break from playing the POD HD500 and I noticed how I'm amazed at the sounds I'm getting since I figured out the real setup for each way I use it, whether it be live with my own amp, straight to the boards playing live, or recording into my computer at home.
In summary, if you're technical-minded, patient, and really want the best in solid-state guitar multi-effects, this is the product for you. If you're old-school analog only, rich, and/or anything but technical, run far away - this isn't for you.
