HD500 review from a GT10 owner

[luntho]

like many others here I've been more or less blown away by the clips that I've heard, so I decided to try it out myself. went down to my local dealer (musicdealer that is and grabbed a 500 and a 400 for evaluation over the weekend. having used a gt10 for 2 years I'm kinda picky when it comes to tweakability and having control of the parameters. this is a problem area with the pod imo. but lets start with the positive things.
The amps/cabs in some of the models are really great, beeing a marshallguy, this is always the first thing I look for in a new modeller. in this area the 500 is miles ahead of my BossGT10. both the park and the j45 sound really great. the jcm800 is a bit disappointing (see my other thread) to me it sounds more like a 900 and I never liked that one. drZ and divided are 2 more positive surprises to me. fenders are good, maybe slighly better than the gt10, and the highgain-amps are also much better.
The FX (delays, reverbs, chorus, flangers etc)are good but the GT10 is on par or better in this area. I was a bit surprised about this since there's been so much talk about the great fx. I mean they ARE good, but apperently I haven't realized how good the gt's fx are http://img.thegearpage.net/board/ima...ons/icon11.gif
distpedals are good, could have been a couple more, and maybe less fuzzpedals (5?) compressors are a bit on the weak side compared to the gt10.
now for the bad parts: I find tweaking to be a PITA on this one, unless you use the software which is good. the icons on the 500 reminds me of pac-man(the game, remember?) and the 400 screen is so tiny pacman won't even fit (may be a good thing) I've never thought much of the gt10 screen but in comparison it really shines. I haven't really looked into the assigns yet, but at least it seems like you can control some parameters this way. on the gt10 you can assign up to 8 parameters at a time to one switch, and every param. you can think of is accessable via the assigns. I hope the pod can do half of this and I'll be happy.
OK, final verdict? well, I'm gonna keep one of them, that's for sure, probably the500. some of the amps are just so good, I can't imagine a life witout'em
this is just a review written by a gt10 user. I've never owned a pod before so it'll take som getting used to. completely different way of tweaking and accessing stuff, but hopefully I'll get used to it.

/Thomas

[Lution]

thanks for the review. My 500 should be here next week.

[fr8_trane]

Originally Posted by luntho

like many others here I've been more or less blown away by the clips that I've heard, so I decided to try it out myself. went down to my local dealer (musicdealer that is and grabbed a 500 and a 400 for evaluation over the weekend. having used a gt10 for 2 years I'm kinda picky when it comes to tweakability and having control of the parameters. this is a problem area with the pod imo. but lets start with the positive things.
The amps/cabs in some of the models are really great, beeing a marshallguy, this is always the first thing I look for in a new modeller. in this area the 500 is miles ahead of my BossGT10. both the park and the j45 sound really great. the jcm800 is a bit disappointing (see my other thread) to me it sounds more like a 900 and I never liked that one. drZ and divided are 2 more positive surprises to me. fenders are good, maybe slighly better than the gt10, and the highgain-amps are also much better.
The FX (delays, reverbs, chorus, flangers etc)are good but the GT10 is on par or better in this area. I was a bit surprised about this since there's been so much talk about the great fx. I mean they ARE good, but apperently I haven't realized how good the gt's fx are http://img.thegearpage.net/board/ima...ons/icon11.gif
distpedals are good, could have been a couple more, and maybe less fuzzpedals (5?) compressors are a bit on the weak side compared to the gt10.
now for the bad parts: I find tweaking to be a PITA on this one, unless you use the software which is good. the icons on the 500 reminds me of pac-man(the game, remember?) and the 400 screen is so tiny pacman won't even fit (may be a good thing) I've never thought much of the gt10 screen but in comparison it really shines. I haven't really looked into the assigns yet, but at least it seems like you can control some parameters this way. on the gt10 you can assign up to 8 parameters at a time to one switch, and every param. you can think of is accessable via the assigns. I hope the pod can do half of this and I'll be happy.
OK, final verdict? well, I'm gonna keep one of them, that's for sure, probably the500. some of the amps are just so good, I can't imagine a life witout'em
this is just a review written by a gt10 user. I've never owned a pod before so it'll take som getting used to. completely different way of tweaking and accessing stuff, but hopefully I'll get used to it.

/Thomas

I find your review to be fair and most likely accurate.

I always thought Roland had the best clean fender sims of the non-axe modelers. The fact that you like the HD even slightly better is a good sign because the XT/X3 fenders were plastic sounding garbage. I NEVER liked any roland gainy models ( I own a cube 60 and have had Boss GT's in the past). Cosm seems to be in last place to all the other modelers in this respect at least IMO.

As for the FX... I own an M13 and as good as the FX are there are some shortcomings. For instance I find roland and Digitech modulation FX to be superior across the board to L6. I think the Roland standard verbs (hall, room plate) are at least as good if not better. L6 has some cool non standard verbs like the particle which is pretty cool. I think the L6 delays are very good but a bit overrated. Boss and digitech are right there with them. I think TC electronics owns in the delay category and the strymon tape and analog sims are best in class.

All that said I LOVE the tube driver and L6 drive models and have yet to hear another digital box that has similar quality drives.

So yeah its a mixed bag. But I do think when the dust clears the HD amp sims are going to be a clear cut above any existing roland product. Roland (and Vox for that matter) still suffer form the same thing L6 did. They haven't updated thier cosm modeling technology in 10 years.

[whiteop]

Going to give the HD500 a shot to though I think the GT-10 has excellent effects and is extremely tweakable.

[desdinova]

Thanks for the review!

[luntho]

yes, I agree about the cosm-tech, it's been around since the 90's and haven't improved much. if we could pick the best pieces out of the pod, gt10, vox and digitech we would have a killer-box, that's for sure.

[Wesman61]

It'd be really nice to see Boss step it up on their amp sims. L6 says the HD's have 10 times the processing power of previous units. Maybe Boss could leave the COSM thing behind them and really take a quantum leap into the future.

[fr8_trane]

Originally Posted by guittguy1

It'd be really nice to see Boss step it up on their amp sims. L6 says the HD's have 10 times the processing power of previous units. Maybe Boss could leave the COSM thing behind them and really take a quantum leap into the future.

At this point I think Roland and Vox have no choice but to rethink their entire modeling lineup.

The Pod HD looks like its going to be wildly successful. And I already think the Digitech RP series is ahead of both Roland and Vox in terms of amp modeling. They are playing catch up.

Competition is a good thing.

[Gaetano Capuano]

Thanks for the review. I am a GT-10 user, I had about a month with the M9, which supposedly is the same quality FX as the HD's. Some of those FX are good, alot are garbage IMO. The Octo is fantastic and the L6 distortion rocks. if They made a distortion pedal that rocked exactly like that I would purchase it. But the GT-10 kills it in FX all across the board. Sorry, but this section of TGP is like total L6 drool, figured I would jump off that band wagon for a second at least.
From the Recto clips, I like it better than the Axe! Maybe the 300 in the GT's FX loop is the way to go for me.

Do the HD's have the Octo?

Thanks for the review, you confirmed alot for me.

[whiteop]

Yeah the GT-10 has some of the best effects around particularly in the delay and
modulation departments and clean amp sims. If you aren't a high gain player it's
the perfect pedal.

[luntho]

a pod hd in the loop of the gt10..yeah, why not indeed!!

[Gaetano Capuano]

Originally Posted by whiteop

Yeah the GT-10 has some of the best effects around particularly in the delay and
modulation departments and clean amp sims. If you aren't a high gain player it's
the perfect pedal.

Right on Whitetop. The JC120 is outstanding too.

[whiteop]

Yes it is. I found a trick that where you can get good sounding high gain patches. Use the Full Range amp sim with the Metal Zone and tweak it so it doesn't sound like the typical bees in a can sound. Sounds very nice and rich. A lot of people say you can't do high gain but you really can you just have to know what you're doing. I learned just about every facet of it. The reason I use an RP1000 and soon to be HD500 is because there was so much tweaking you could do on the GT-10 it led me down to the path to madness. I couldn't leave the knobs alone....lol. It had so many options it was like being a kid in a candy store so I got the RP1000 because there were a lot less options and you could dial in a decent sounding tone with a lot less tweakage. I still have it in excellent shape with no scratches or dings at all in it's original packing material in the box in my closet. Looks as good as the day I bought it.

[bmi]

The verbzilla has octo.

[whiteop]

Hey Guy I see you're a worship player too (looked up your bio info off of your profile page). Join the club...

P.S. I'm not a drinking man...lol