Line 6 HD500

Hello GT'ers was just checking in to see if anyone has any experience with the Line 6 POD HD 500, I see a lot of nearly new ones are on the listing sites with the sellers reason for selling as one of complexity issues or it's more than they need. I'm running Fender Fuse which is great and I do recommend, "simplicity of use is a key feature". but for example it doesn't have a tube screamer effect etc.

i do own an hd500 and I like it quite a bit. The models are sweet. It's incredibly versatile, though there are a lot of options and some things that are counter-intuative. What are your plans for playing though? The most impressive piece of modeling anything that i'd had over the last few years (and best value, btw) has got to be Scuffham amps S-Gear. I only had the demo but I plan on buying it. For playing at home or recording you'd be better off to buy this and an interface and some speakers, which are all multipurpose.

i realize that's not what you asked though so feel free to ask any specific questions about the HD500 and i'll answer them as best I can.

Thanks for responding, I have a few questions however number one would be lets say for example I have stacked a fuzz and overdrive then maybe some chorus and compressor, ok now I've set my preset then in a lead line I need some echo so I set another preset right next to the original tone, no problem so far, well how time consuming will it be to go in and change the parameters of the overdrive for example. I mean on the fly how long would it take approximately and would I have to be right on top of it to see the screen? I mean with a pedal board you can get right after it but with this system?

I have owned an HD500 for the last year and yes you could add an effect on the fly but I wouldn't recommend it. I have a standard set of effects that I use, NG, OD, Comp, Delay, Rev that I use that I have dialed into a sound that I like. I then use that set as a template if I need something different for a song, but I'm making those changes at home with a laptop and not on the unit at the gig. Yes you can make changes if you really need to on the unit, but it's not a simple process.

If you need to adjust quickly on the fly, then something like the Boss ME-70 is probably a better ME unit.

I picked up an HD500 a few weeks ago and so far I'm loving it - I've mostly got to grips with how to build tones with it. It can be quite intimidating at first, but the PC software is a dream to work with so that makes setting up your tones that much easier.

In answer to your question there are a number of approaches you can take. You can create a patch with an echo effect in the chain, on or off by default. You can then assign the echo to a footswitch and switch it on/off as if its a separate stompbox within the patch. You can do this with multiple effects.

As for parameters being altered on the fly there is always the expression pedal - you could assign one effect parameter to the expression pedal. A bit limited, but it would work. Either that or just save your different OD setups as different patches.

It's really not that hard to go in and tweak on the board itself once you get used to it.