POD HD vs. Axe FX once again!

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Cool comparison clip....nice tune as well !

I prefer the Axe, but the HD isn't bad.

I would have really liked to hear the real amp cut in as well.
 
Pod definitely has a different character. Not bad, Just different. Seems to be a little more scooped nu-metal type tone where the axe has a little more going on in the midrange. More body which seems to sit better in the mix. Again, they're different but neither are bad, at all.
 
Great video. I personally prefer the Axe in these clips, but the Pod isn't doing bad.
Love the commentary too ;)
 
+1 on the commentary.

in the first video i thought the line 6 sounded better than the fractal. but in the 2nd video the axe fx smokes the line 6.
 
I put both vis up, Axe/L6 and the Fortin listening through BX8a's. The Fortin, Axe and L6 tones all sounded good in a different way with the Fortin sounding the best or clearest followed by the Axe then L6 with respect to how they sound in the mix.
 
ang said:
the pod doesnt sound bad. it has this weird nasal tone to it. what impulse did u use?

I think I used the V30 stock impulse. I made myself using everything stock to give the Pod a chance ;)
 
jonah said:
Great comparison! (Gôtt gung!)

Which one do you prefer yourself?

- jonah


The Axe of course... So much faster in the attack response. And for me that's a BIG advantage.
 
Oh is that you? I have been very confused over your videos man. In this video the HD cuts through the mix ideally. But in your other comparision video the Axe sounds much better. So I am totally lost. I need to justify spending $2400 on a unit that would make me have to spend an additional $2000 on a Drawmer sample rate converter to up-convert to my 88.2 pro tools sessions - since the only way to acceptably go into my m-audio soundcard is by optical spdif only. (The reason for the Drawmer Digital management tool is to avoid a phenomenon called "drift" and other issues in low end SRC which affects tone and higher order harmonics.

Its either that or $500 on an HD which is 88.2-compatible (and would be faster than your latency complaint since i would be avoiding all this conversion and de-conversion).. Please do the math because i am not good at math.

Butafter hearing your clips where the HD cuts through well with the drums and sits very well in the mix especially for metal - what would you say to this? is the difference really worth the $3900? Honestly I do not want to make a stupid decision. I dont care about effects and processing, i already use waves, and i am saving up for an eventide H8000 one day for the very far out effects.... but i am still in a key debate here over Axe and HD as per the sound of one of ure videos you have posted here. And even Axe Users in here are granting that the HD is "not bad". This is evidence of some sway despite a bias towards axe - so that logic dictates to go with HD and save the 3900 and still get acceptable sound.
 
Eventide, Axe-Fx and Drawmer are high level gears.
Pod is not IMO so i see no interest to spend money with high level gears for a bad signal, i better will try to get first a good signal.
By the way you can go analog with the Axe and get good results, you don't need absolutly the Drawmer.
 
The IRs you use have such a big effect on the end result. If the POD HD had custom IR support it would be comparable to Axe-Fx and I would probably buy it. Still it wouldn't be as good as Axe-Fx. There are two cabs that sound good in the HD500 IMO. One is the Uberkab with a ribbon mic and the other is the XXLV30 cab with a condenser mic. (I spent a week experimenting :D ) Still both of those have too much low end. I had bass at ZERO and it was whoomping way more than Axe-Fx and we all know it's really easy to get the Axe-Fx whoomping if you want to. (read: depth) So to me the HD500 metal models sound like they have "depth" on 10 all the time and the presence doesn't fix it like in the Axe-Fx. There's no filter tricks or LOW CUT!!! in the HD. The EQ's are crap. :( Also there's no amp master knob in the HD500 so you can't simulate your amp driven louder or lower... it's just the master level they decided to use at Line6. The master in HD is just patch volume... sorry. However we tamed the low end with a tubescreamer and cut the bass with it's bass knob at zero. This way it's still bassy but low cut took care of that in our DAW.

This is what we accomplished at Dollar Sound: http://www.mediafire.com/?zo3pyl057waho0c (yes, our studio is called dollar sound :lol:)

In comparison here's the same song played with Axe-Fx: http://www.mediafire.com/?bk9bfs94jpgsbxb

We got the Axe-Fx tone pretty quickly. Just TS808, Recto Noob, German cab no mic. We've been tweaking the POD500 for days to get that sound and we are experienced tweakers.

No parallel effects, no filter effects, no custom IR's, bad factory IR's. That's how I feel about the POD HD and I'm not taking sides. I wanted it to work... it didn't.
 
Tone_Freak said:
I need to justify spending $2400 on a unit that would make me have to spend an additional $2000 on a Drawmer sample rate converter to up-convert to my 88.2 pro tools sessions - since the only way to acceptably go into my m-audio soundcard is by optical spdif only.

Why not buy a proper high quality soundcard, that 1) does SRC well and 2) performs well recording the Axe-Fx analog?
Seems not reasonable to me to pay two grands in order to compensate for a weak interface :?
 
Tone_Freak said:
Oh is that you? I have been very confused over your videos man. In this video the HD cuts through the mix ideally. But in your other comparision video the Axe sounds much better. So I am totally lost. I need to justify spending $2400 on a unit that would make me have to spend an additional $2000 on a Drawmer sample rate converter to up-convert to my 88.2 pro tools sessions - since the only way to acceptably go into my m-audio soundcard is by optical spdif only. (The reason for the Drawmer Digital management tool is to avoid a phenomenon called "drift" and other issues in low end SRC which affects tone and higher order harmonics.

Its either that or $500 on an HD which is 88.2-compatible (and would be faster than your latency complaint since i would be avoiding all this conversion and de-conversion).. Please do the math because i am not good at math.

Butafter hearing your clips where the HD cuts through well with the drums and sits very well in the mix especially for metal - what would you say to this? is the difference really worth the $3900? Honestly I do not want to make a stupid decision. I dont care about effects and processing, i already use waves, and i am saving up for an eventide H8000 one day for the very far out effects.... but i am still in a key debate here over Axe and HD as per the sound of one of ure videos you have posted here. And even Axe Users in here are granting that the HD is "not bad". This is evidence of some sway despite a bias towards axe - so that logic dictates to go with HD and save the 3900 and still get acceptable sound.

Actually in the HD500 you would be doing SRC conversion (probably a lower end one) w/in the HD500 since it internally processes at 48kHz native sampling rate. Any other sample rates have to be converted. So you wouldn't be avoiding conversion just relying on whatever sample rate converter that they put in the hd500.
 
javajunkie said:
Actually in the HD500 you would be doing SRC conversion (probably a lower end one) w/in the HD500 since it internally processes at 48kHz native sampling rate. Any other sample rates have to be converted. So you wouldn't be avoiding conversion just relying on whatever sample rate converter that they put in the hd500.

Yep. The idea that you need to spend $2000 on an SRC to connect the Axe digitally at 88.2 is ...(insert your own adjective here). If this makes sense to you, buy the Pod.

Even reamping with the analog I/O of the Axe produces stellar sound quality and negligible noise.
 
steadystate said:
Yep. The idea that you need to spend $2000 on an SRC to connect the Axe digitally at 88.2 is ...(insert your own adjective here). If this makes sense to you, buy the Pod.

Actually, I strongly doubt that the internal sample rate of the pod is anything but 48 as well... and that its 88.2 SRC is just a final element in the chain with the 88.2 option - so i could be left with low quality SRC. (And please keep in mind - the comparision clips are relying on the Line 6 D to A and then back to the Apogee A to D. So maybe the line 6 HD sound can be better if kept strictly digital. But then if the D to A outs are crap then live gigging would be low quality. So I am stuck again. I think I am just going to go trade in a bunch of gear including my eclipse back to my retailer towards an apogee - but only if the Apogee would have pristine SRC< and only if it would work going optically in into the M-powered pro tools sound card (since Pro tools 7.4 will not work with anything but the m-audio soundcard.) But when i upgrade to Pro Tools 9, I would have the apogee ready since now pro tools 9 works with all hardware.



Even reamping with the analog I/O of the Axe produces stellar sound quality and negligible noise.

Sure, it could be the best for all I know... but there is no point with my M-Audio soundcard through which the only acceptable way to input is the Optical input, and definetly to avoid those horrid M-audio A to D converters which would butcher whatever is coming from the Axe.
 
Wouldn't it be easier to just get a better soundcard for like 400 than a converter for 2000?

Ah. Pro Tools...
Never mind.
 
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