HD500 Review

[mr_sooty]

Well like I say, you have a lot more experience with the HD500 than me, I just mucked around on it for a week and gave my initial impressions. Re the headphone thing, I really think they should find a way to make it sound better through cans, given that so many people are going to be testing it that way, especially trying it out in a shop. Regarding user friendliness, sure it's easy to dial up a fairly basic amp sound, as long as you find the bit where you have to change the output to 'studio direct', something you wouldn't think to do without reading the manual (or forums). What I found a little trickier when I was just using the onboard screen and figuring it out for myself were things like setting up the expression pedal to switch between wah and volume. I was having a few issues with that until I used the software instead. It's very easy with the software. Tweaking the EQ's of the amp is obviously a piece of cake.

I think my review may have come across as being overly negative. I was reasonably impressed with the unit and came pretty close to buying it, but decided in the end to spend my limited funds on something else for various reasons. The tones in the clip you've posted sound great, proving it's quite possible to get some more than decent sounds out of it, which I don't dispute.

[slash-ed]

Cam, I didn't intend for that post to come across as attacking you, so hopefully you don't see it that way. I've just picked a few of your comments (which I felt were common to the general modelling vs tubes argument) to reply to by way of argument. In fact, I think it could be a good idea if you posted your reply above on the blog post, so that perhaps it'll spark some conversation on the other side of the coin as well?

[hamo]

Listened to the tone clips. Fuck's sake Ed, you are a seriously talented motherfucker.

[slash-ed]

Haha, you're too kind. The song right at the end is probably my favourite for showcasing more "in-between" tones that the HD500 can do well. It's a pity though, because that's a good song that I really hate listening to.

[Scooter13]

I just had a listen to the tone clips through my Sennheiser earbuds. It does sound shit!
Actually the rhythym guitars sound better than the lead guitar sound. There's still a digitalness IMO to the lead guitar sound I reckon dude. It reminds me of the POD X3. But I'd like to listen again through my monitors when I get home.
I disagree about the tube amp sounding as poor through a mic in to cans though. If your mic is set up well and you've got some good cans, and you've got a tube amp humming along at a good volume, it can sound pretty damn good through headphones. But the problem is you generally need a professional to capture that sound for you, or in my case, spend an entire morning fucking around with mic placement and then fucking your neighbours off when you turn your amp up enough to get that cabinet thumping and resonating. The POD takes you 90% of the way there in no time at all...providing you can use modern technology

Have you done any double tracked guitars with the POD Ed? I'd be interested to hear if things can thicken up and sound a bit fuller in a track with twice the ...err...layers?

[slash-ed]

*cough* Say so on the blog post *cough*

We need some dissenting opinions.

Also, you DO realize that by the time you got your Rockerverb loud enough, there wouldn't have been a 2km radius within which the sound of the amp wasn't bleeding through your headphones?

One of these days I'm going to do a blind test and see how much this "digitalness" factor is in your (not you in particular, but a general "your") heads. I suspect a lot of it may be... seeing as before I started telling people "Hey I recorded this with an HD500", I'd actually get the "cool tone, what amp did you use?" comments, but once the HD came out they'd all be like... oh, nvm kthxbai.

[Scooter13]

I'm happy to post it to your site man. I just don't wanna post some shit I waffled here to be on your more professional site...

...Banned?

There's always some psychology factor though, I agree. I also studied signal processing in uni, and built an analogue sampler to digital converter, so I understand everything that's happening in digital conversion and trying to reproduce an analogue wave form from 1's and 0's. But if the resolution is high enough, and by the time it get's put on a digital track and mixed and mastered, who the fuck would tell the difference.

Maybe you should try recording to analogue tape and see if we can tell the difference. You'd need to post the recordings out to us to hear though?

[mr_sooty]

Cam, I didn't intend for that post to come across as attacking you, so hopefully you don't see it that way.

No, not at all. Just saying we don't actually have polar opposite views of the HD500. I didn't hate it. I just didn't love it enough to buy it.