Hi there,

I plug my POD HD 500 straight to the front of my combo, a Fender Blues Junior III (no send/return). I'm waiting for a new Marshall JVM 410C but I´ll have it in 3 months... here in my country this amp is not a common piece of gear... so I had to order it specially for me.

I mostly play hard rock / metal, and I was using the COMBO FRONT output, but I found I had to set the HIGH value of this output mode very low (-38) to get a good sound with high gain tones. It sounded OK, but in "bypass" mode (I mean a blank patch, no amps, no effects) the difference between the POD and the natural sound of the amp was HUGE. With the POD sounded very dark and lacking of treble and presence. So I had terrible problems with the cleans, I had to add lots of EQ...

So the question is, is the POD HD 500 so trebly as I find it?

Now what I did is changing my output setting to COMBO POWER AMP, doing the inverse, adding EQs to manage the high frequencies when using high gain tones. I found the cleans "breathing", crispy and good sounding with this output setting... but I'm having a lot of trouble with the high gain tones, specially when I use the JCM 800 amp, also with the Treadplate... Even I started to have a "buzz" when using high gain amps with a Screamer as a booster, specially with the JCM 800,  like a saturation (this issue is worrying me...)

I have the POD HD 500 for two months by now, and still I'm not able to get good tones from it, even with the huge possibilities of the EQs (I spend HOURS a day tweaking, so it´s not a matter of time... and YES, I read Meambobbo's holy book!!!)

Any ideas that can help me?

Many thanks!