Pod HD500 gain through DT50

[Paulzx]

Hello Chaps,

 

Some time ago I invested in a Pod HD500 and a DT50 2x12 combo amp, as an upgrade from my Vetta 2 combo. Being mainly a hard rock player, I was aiming for some nice saturated high gain distortion tones but I seem to be struggling to get what I want.

 

Plainly, it's not subjective regarding the tone. I'm not talking about taking an amp tone and adding some dirt,

I'm talking full on overdriven gain saturated distortion.

 

So far, I've had a better distortion tone just plugging my lead straight in to the amp, naturally I'm not going to settle for that when I've got a pod and a Line 6 link cable ready to use.

 

I've found the best amp model in the pod for this, is probably the treadplate (not the pre amp version), but even with the drive fully up, it sounds crunchy but it just sounds like it needs more gain. When playing my guitar with this amp model, the low end is very boomy and the top end is quite tinny. In fact, when the A string is hit on the guitar, the DT50 produces a noticeably unpleasant thump, which it doesn't do with any of the other open strings.

 

Anyway, if I listen to the pod direct using head phones, the distortion tones sound great, problem solved! Except like most players, I don't want to sit there with head phones, I want to hear the thing out loud.

So why is it going wrong when I'm running it through the DT50? Surely that should improve it not weaken it?

 

I haven't changed the tubes in the DT50. I don't have a lot of experience with tube amps but I have the feeling that replacing tubes won't suddenly give me masses of distortion that was missing before.

 

Maybe I should remove the DT50 altogether and just run the pod into a speaker cab?

 

What do you guys think, have I just hit a limit on what this setup can do or am I missing something obvious.

I do know that when I watch some youtube demos of pod hd500 distortion tones, it sounds a lot better than what I'm getting at the moment.

[Paulzx]

Fortunately I managed to solve this myself in the abscence of any help.

 

For anyone also owning a DT amp and using with pod HD500, the simple answer is that you cannot use the standard

amp models, you have to use the pre amp versions, the difference is huge.

 

I still think there are only one or two amp models that are really any good for a modern high gain sound, but at least I'm on the way

to getting something I can be happy with