share ko lang experience ko of buying the pod hd500. i was abroad for a couple of months and i was determined to get a nice pedal from a guitar store. i was thinking of getting a nice wah or a nice delay unit. buti nalang i stumbled upon the pod hd on youtube, and a couple of forums including this one. i had mixed opinions about this unit. i was never a fan of digital multi fx pedals, so i was a little skeptical. moreover, andaming vids sa youtube where the demos terrible. BUT, may mga vids din that convinced me that this pedal requires a little tweaking to get a good sound out of.
so i tried it at a guitar store, where they had a 400 and a 300 for public testing. the output was through headphones, which were decent looking naman. i must admit i was really turned off by the unit. especially the clean tones and the slightly over driven sounds, they sounded kind of thin. i though that was the end of my pod hd gas. pero something in the back of my head told me to keep an open mind with this unit. so i did.
eventually, after a month or so, i was able to test an hd 500 into a real amp. i was not that impressed at first, kase i really had no idea how to tweak the unit, and it didnt have the "best of pod hd 500 presets" in it, so i had to start from zero in creating a set-up i like (i.e. effects chain, amp model, etc). eventually, after about an hour of tweaking, i convinced myself to just buy the unit, and figure it out when i get back home. And if hindi ko talaga trip, benta ko nalang sa pinas.
funny thing was, when i plugged it straight into the input of my fender roc pro (a decent amp) i was totally blown away. i havent really explored the other possibilities like going direct via the xlr outputs, or by using the 4 cable method, im pretty contented with going straight into a clean channel, using everything in the pedal like effects and amp sims. i am really happy with this unit and very excited about exploring its capabilities.
just a couple of complaints though
1. it doesnt sound good with headphones. it just doesnt work for me.
2. i have yet to find a good set up for recording, but i plugged it straight to a mac via usb, and tried to record using garage band. there were latency issues (i read this was remediable), and a very noticeable tonal change. iba talaga pag may totoong speakers ka
3. not very impressed with the pitch shifting capabilities
4. you do have 8 slots for effects units in the signal chain, but if you use the more "complicated" effects like the pitch shifters, or synth effects, this might limit the number of slots you can use.
hope this post helps.
