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{{Crumbs|blue2|1 |Line 6 Pod HD Tips and Pitfalls#Acoustic Tone|Acoustic Tone|Line 6 Pod HD Tips and Pitfalls#Bad Monitors|Bad Monitors|Line 6 Pod HD Tips and Pitfalls#Bad Room|Bad Room|Line 6 Pod HD Tips and Pitfalls#Low Volume|Low Volume}}
{{Crumbs|blue2|2|Line 6 Pod HD Tips and Pitfalls#Acoustic Tone|Acoustic Tone|Line 6 Pod HD Tips and Pitfalls#Bad Monitors|Bad Monitors|Line 6 Pod HD Tips and Pitfalls#Bad Room|Bad Room|Line 6 Pod HD Tips and Pitfalls#Low Volume|Low Volume}}
{{Crumbs|blue2|3|Line 6 Pod HD Tips and Pitfalls#Acoustic Tone|Acoustic Tone|Line 6 Pod HD Tips and Pitfalls#Bad Monitors|Bad Monitors|Line 6 Pod HD Tips and Pitfalls#Bad Room|Bad Room|Line 6 Pod HD Tips and Pitfalls#Low Volume|Low Volume}}
{{Crumbs|blue2|4|Line 6 Pod HD Tips and Pitfalls#Acoustic Tone|Acoustic Tone|Line 6 Pod HD Tips and Pitfalls#Bad Monitors|Bad Monitors|Line 6 Pod HD Tips and Pitfalls#Bad Room|Bad Room|Line 6 Pod HD Tips and Pitfalls#Low Volume|Low Volume}}
→Bad Monitoring
=== Acoustic Tone ===
Use headphones or re-amp to find your tone, especially if you are trying to dial in tone at lower volumes (which is generally a bad idea). The acoustic tone from your electric guitar will mislead you as to what your recorded/amplified tone actually sounds like. Using the HD's looper pre-position is a great way to dial in a tone. Or you can record a dry guitar, output it to a mp3 player, then play the clip on repeat from your mp3 player into your Pod. I use a 1/8" male to 1/8" male cable into a 1/8" female to 1/4" male converter into the guitar input of the Pod. You may need to adjust the gain, because your mp3 player's output level may vary from your guitar, but that's a simple adjustment. It's a good process that works.
=== Bad Monitors ===
Similarly, take note of the crappiness of whatever monitoring device you are using. If you are using headphones with low bass response, and you dial in your tones so they sound full-range on those headphones, your tones will probably sound dark as can be on other speakers. The best you can do is match how another artist sounds through those same headphones. Don't tweak from memory, especially when you have monitors that clearly do not have a flat response.
=== Bad Room ===
Also watch out for bass traps and other madness in the location you are tweaking. I was going crazy thinking the Pod just had crazy issues with the 120 Hz frequency spot, as all my low B notes had a lot more bass than any other notes. I blamed the Pod and was setting up all my patches to suck out bass in that range, then my patches sounded like crap in other settings. I blamed my monitors. Only recently did I figure out it's my room. I've limited myself to mastering my patches using good headphones, or by walking around the room to listen at different places. The tone has drastically less bass across the room.
=== Low Volume ===
Every rookie guitarist makes the mistake of dialing in his patches at bedroom level, only to get to practice (or worse a gig) and discover that his tone makes his amp very unhappy or is way too harsh. This is in part due to the frequency response amps and speakers expect - very bass or treble-heavy tones may cause them to distort. But it also has to do with how the human ear perceives loudness differently over frequency and sound pressure levels. See [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal-loudness_contours this Wikipedia entry] on the subject.