NAD - HD147

[meisterjager]

I've been using a 1998 Pod Pro through the power section of my Mesa Boogie for a while now, and during the last Chimp Spanner tour this was perfect, as I was actually using the power section of Pin's Diezel Herbert. I really like what I get out of it, even if it may be a bit on the scooped side.

But I soon decided I didn't wanna be carting around my Mesa if I'm not using it properly, so I wanted a simple solution. After Paul got his new Vetta II, I decided to look into other Line 6 amps, and this one seemed like a good choice!

I spent the last few days not being overly keen on it - there was a lot of fizz and it felt very scooped - but then I read that actually cranking the thing makes a difference. So this morning, I whack the volume up 'til it hurts and

THIS THING SOUNDS MASSIVE.

It's a ....ing beast! I've been using 6505's and Mesa's for years, and I honestly wouldn't miss them as long as I had this. That perfect middle ground of decent, thick tone, and the slightly 'false' sound of modelling technology that we want in the live sound for Chimp Spanner, to keep it faithful to the recordings.

And don't even get me started on how much it cost me.. I practically stole it.

So that's the story - here's the pics! Cheers for reading!

[Albionic]

nice score and its such a cool looking amp

[Goatchrist]

Congrats! Clips would be cool!

nice score and its such a cool looking amp

Definetly! Looks ....ing awesome!

[electricred]

You used a POD through a Herbert?

[CYBERSYN]

Looks saweet!

[meisterjager]

Originally Posted by Goatchrist

Congrats! Clips would be cool!


Definetly! Looks ....ing awesome!

I'll try and get some, man! I haven't got many means of recording at the moment, and god knows my mic'ing up my cab won't do it justice!

Originally Posted by electricred

You used a POD through a Herbert?

Yeah? Why would I want to use a Herbert when I spent hours dialling in tones on my Pod? You're obviously assuming it sounded bad, but you're jumping to conclusions.

[Levi79]

Originally Posted by electricred

You used a POD through a Herbert?

I'm with this guy. I don't really understand it, but i know some guys who like their amps to sound somewhat digital and keep their mids close to 0. The Herberts are some of the most high quality, great sounding metal amps known, so that's why we don't really understand. It's really cool that you like what you like no matter how much it costs though. Enjoy your new amp dude. I'd love to hear some clips too!

[electricred]

Originally Posted by meisterjager

Yeah? Why would I want to use a Herbert when I spent hours dialling in tones on my Pod? You're obviously assuming it sounded bad, but you're jumping to conclusions.

Uh, who's jumping to conclusions here? I never even hinted that a POD would sound bad, and I'm a POD owner myself. You can't deny that opting for a ~200 dollar piece of digital equipment when there's a ~4000 dollar amplifier of higher quality, and undeniably better sound at your disposal is a strange decision, but whatever.

[JamesM]

Originally Posted by meisterjager

Yeah? Why would I want to use a Herbert when I spent hours dialling in tones on my Pod? You're obviously assuming it sounded bad, but you're jumping to conclusions.

Your response:





Sweet looking amp, dude.

[meisterjager]

Originally Posted by electricred

Uh, who's jumping to conclusions here? I never even hinted that a POD would sound bad, and I'm a POD owner myself. You can't deny that opting for a ~200 dollar piece of digital equipment when there's a ~4000 dollar amplifier of higher quality, and undeniably better sound at your disposal is a strange decision, but whatever.

Firstly, I don't mean to sound stand off-ish, dude. Let's talk it out! Basically, I'm not about to go ....ing around with someone's own amp settings to get it sounding how I want it to. Herbert's are probably my favourite amps ever, that mid-cut section is out of this world! But I play live guitar for Chimp Spanner. The kind of tone synonymous with CS is very much Line 6's overdrive tones, and very clean, modulation-drenched clean tones. We prepared for the tour for around 2 months getting everything sounding how we wanted it to out of the Pods, experimenting with X3's, HD500's and the Pod Pro. I'm thankful I was allowed to use the Herbert as I did - it got the job done and was mega reliable for the whole tour. I wouldn't have done it any other way.

It would be such a complicated rig to just use a regular tube head and incorporate not only the additional effects, but the additional switching - I personally own a Mesa Rectifier and a 6505+, so I'm more than familiar with 'real' amps!

Paul was also using a Pod - an X3 through the power section of an Engl Invader. Swanny, the bass player for CS, was also using an X3! And they truly sounded sick! We we're both so stoked with how our gear was sounding that it never even occured to us to start using these big money guitar amps to their full potential. Our set ups meant we could throw our rack cases on top of everything else and go - super convenient, super easy

Originally Posted by Levi79

I'm with this guy. I don't really understand it, but i know some guys who like their amps to sound somewhat digital and keep their mids close to 0. The Herberts are some of the most high quality, great sounding metal amps known, so that's why we don't really understand. It's really cool that you like what you like no matter how much it costs though. Enjoy your new amp dude. I'd love to hear some clips too!

Yeah I think you get it man! I think of myself as more than able to dial in a good live sound - I've done it for ....ing years now. I wouldn't use anything if it was sub-par, sound wise. However.. we definitely weren't keeping mids close to zero! Pods only sound good with a lot of mids It's where the angry lives!

[Wookieslayer]

Damn those have always intrigued me. I saw a band few months back use 2 HD147's with 7 strings and shit was heavy!

Congrats!

[CYBERSYN]

didn't MNEMIC use HD's?

[electricred]

Originally Posted by meisterjager

Firstly, I don't mean to sound stand off-ish, dude. Let's talk it out! Basically, I'm not about to go ....ing around with someone's own amp settings to get it sounding how I want it to. Herbert's are probably my favourite amps ever, that mid-cut section is out of this world! But I play live guitar for Chimp Spanner. The kind of tone synonymous with CS is very much Line 6's overdrive tones, and very clean, modulation-drenched clean tones. We prepared for the tour for around 2 months getting everything sounding how we wanted it to out of the Pods, experimenting with X3's, HD500's and the Pod Pro. I'm thankful I was allowed to use the Herbert as I did - it got the job done and was mega reliable for the whole tour. I wouldn't have done it any other way.

It would be such a complicated rig to just use a regular tube head and incorporate not only the additional effects, but the additional switching - I personally own a Mesa Rectifier and a 6505+, so I'm more than familiar with 'real' amps!

Paul was also using a Pod - an X3 through the power section of an Engl Invader. Swanny, the bass player for CS, was also using an X3! And they truly sounded sick! We we're both so stoked with how our gear was sounding that it never even occured to us to start using these big money guitar amps to their full potential. Our set ups meant we could throw our rack cases on top of everything else and go - super convenient, super easy

I can't fault you for preferring consistency and familiarity, and if you were satisfied with the sound, that's all that matters. Thanks for a civil response! I'll let you get back to enjoying the new amplifier. How are you running effects with the HD147?

[Greatoliver]

That looks really nice! Is it a digital preamp with a SS power section then, or does it have valves? Are you still using your Pods through this, or does this do everything you need now?

And finally, you said you were putting Pods through 6505s and Mesas, was that the power stages of a regular head? Had you considered getting stand-alone power amps?

Sorry for all the questions, but I love CS's sound and so am very interested!

[iff]

Happy new toaster day.

[meisterjager]

Originally Posted by CYBERSYN

didn't MNEMIC use HD's?

I have seen that whilst looking around the web finding out stuff about this head, yeah! Pretty cool - I don't know if they still do, but we're playing with them at Euroblast in Germany this year, so we'll soon find out!

Originally Posted by electricred

I can't fault you for preferring consistency and familiarity, and if you were satisfied with the sound, that's all that matters. Thanks for a civil response! I'll let you get back to enjoying the new amplifier. How are you running effects with the HD147?

I'm literally running onboard effects man! For now it's doing just fine, it has a master reverb, then a section of delays and a section of modulation sounds. All very usable sounds, too!

Originally Posted by Greatoliver

That looks really nice! Is it a digital preamp with a SS power section then, or does it have valves? Are you still using your Pods through this, or does this do everything you need now?

And finally, you said you were putting Pods through 6505s and Mesas, was that the power stages of a regular head? Had you considered getting stand-alone power amps?

Sorry for all the questions, but I love CS's sound and so am very interested!

Thanks for the quesitons, man!

Well firstly, when it came to Chimp Spanner this was the first time I used Pod's live, so I was originally just using my existing hardware with the pod, which meant running the pod through the power amps of whatever amp I was using. I thought about buying a dedicated poweramp for the Pod Pro I have, but, for instence, to buy the Mesa 2:50's or 2:90's I'd have liked, I would have sold my Rectifier, and then had to add more money - so I figured I'd keep hold of the heads I already have

And yeah, this HD147 will be my whole tone in one box. The Pod Pro will be staying at home for jams! It's completely solid state, and from what I can figure out is basically a bunch of simplified XT models, plus pretty much the whole 'metal' add-on pack. So it has the Big Bottom, the Diezels, the Bogners, the Mesa's, etc etc.

It's simplified in the sense that it doesn't have the massive tweakability of the XT/X3/Vetta/Vetta II's as far as stomps and everything goes, but personally having too much stuff to tweak means I'll normally .... something up

Originally Posted by nomop

Happy new toaster day.

[ZOMB13]

Awesome man!

I miss mine, especially the blue LEDs I modded it with


I spent countless hours modding tones on the HD147 and Line6 Edit, we used this on our new CD too :P

[InTheRavensName]

I miss mine too, I think I'll be grabbing another when one comes up cheap!

[CYBERSYN]

Are you guys boosting them? or do they have a screamer model on board?

[meisterjager]

So.. I just bought another one. Back ups, right? In total, I've scored 2x HD147's and 1x live-in flight case, with a built in 3u rack and draw. For under £500... I said god damn! That's me pretty much tour-ready!

I'm definitely gonna look into swapping out the LEDs to a different colour! I was considering white.. but blue looks pretty cool!

Originally Posted by CYBERSYN

Are you guys boosting them? or do they have a screamer model on board?

I boosted mine, like, once. It sounded okay, but this was before I realised that cranking the thing actually made a different to tone. I figured solid state stuff didn't do that The HD147s have a compression button, which for the most part seems to behave in much the same way my boost did. So no, I won't be using an external boost. Thankfully. This makes things real easy!

[Spinedriver]

Originally Posted by meisterjager

I boosted mine, like, once. It sounded okay, but this was before I realised that cranking the thing actually made a different to tone. I figured solid state stuff didn't do that The HD147s have a compression button, which for the most part seems to behave in much the same way my boost did. So no, I won't be using an external boost. Thankfully. This makes things real easy!

It's funny, when I had my Randall T2, I tried using an Ibanez TS7 in front of it but the on-board 'boost' button actually sounded better. go figure..

I was very close to getting one of those a few years ago instead of the T2 but the T2 was both local and cheaper.

[Chickenhawk]

Originally Posted by meisterjager

I'm definitely gonna look into swapping out the LEDs to a different colour! I was considering white.. but blue looks pretty cool!

Red, green or purple.

I vote red.

And congrats on the score.

[ZOMB13]

Nice, 2 HD147s!

White would look awesome!

I think of that everytime I look at the pee yellow/orange LEDs on my Vetta II...

[meisterjager]

I think white LEDs would look super clean! And really make the chrome pop

Just waiting to find out when the second one's getting shipped. I keep turning it on expecting to want to tweak the tones, but I really have very quickly hit the sweet spot I think!

[Tree]

Would it be at all possible to post clips?
Youtube has terrible videos