Please rate the line 6 Pod

tom anderson · From: leawood, ks., usa

I am trying out a line 6 mini pod. I play through a tube amp with no reverb. I would like any players who have tried any of the different pods to rate them. Do you use it on gigs, or just at home? Do you like the sound? Etc, etc.
I am thinking the pod is really for a solid state amp, but don't know much about them.
Thanks,
Tom

James Mayer · Posted 30 Mar 2010 11:13 am

Well, I think I'm the only SGF user that really hates mine. I have the Pod XT Live and think it sounds compressed and claustrophobic. The verbs and delays are pretty good (definitely not great), for a multi-fx unit, but everything else is pretty terrible, especially the distortions. It does cleans ok, but I have two of the add-on model packs and I could swear that most of the clean amp models sound exactly the same. Maybe just an EQ difference between them. They all FEEL the same, which is the difference between having 100 models and having 100 actual amps. It's really like having one solid-state amp with built-in effects that needs external amplification.

Mine is now used for two things, only:

- I use it to practice along with a recording as it has an auxiliary input, but I can barely stand using it in this context because of the crap tone that I get.
- Our vocalist sometimes uses it, live, because it has presets and the verbs/delays are good enough for this application.

It seems that a lot of people like to use them for direct recording and I've heard good examples of this. However, we have nice amps, rooms and quality mics, so there's really no point.

I've also heard a local steeler use his live through a Nashville 112 and I thought it sounded good, even great. Mind you, he was playing to the narrow strengths of the Pod (clean with a little reverb and delay).

You wanna buy mine?

Bill McCloskey · Posted 30 Mar 2010 11:19 am

I use the Pod X3 live. I don't know how it compares to the XT live, but I love mine. It is designed to go out through the PA system or through an amp like the Tech 21 Power Engine which does not color the sound. I also have a Podxt and will be selling it now that I have the Pod X3 live. Pod X3 Live has an expression pedal which can be a volume pedal, a Wah, or both. It is easy to use, and for what I play sounds fantastic.

b0b · From: Cloverdale, CA, USA

If you use a pot pedal and a tube amp, you'll feel the difference of the Pod in your foot and in the way the amp responds. Maybe that's what James is talking about. It's sort of like the difference between CDs and vinyl.

If you need a variety of tones and effects, and you don't want to carry around a lot of stuff to get them, the PodXT is a real god-send. All of the clean effects are good enough for stage use, and some of them are fine for the studio, too.

James is right about the distortion effects. They don't respond like tubes, and that makes them feel "wrong".
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Lynn Oliver · From: Redmond, Washington USA * R.I.P.

A mini pod is either a Pocket Pod or Pocket Pod Express, right? Those are based on the older Pod 2 engine, which hasn't gotten good reviews here on the forum. I've heard that putting a Radial Dragster between the guitar and the Pod helps a lot with the feel (better yet would probably be a Steel Guitar Black Box).

If you are planning to use a tube amp you would probably be better off with a stompbox modeler like the Line 6 M9 or just get a reverb pedal--the amp and cabinet emulations aren't really useful through a guitar amp.

Dave Grafe · From: Hudson River Valley NY

James is not alone in his dissatisfaction. Some years ago I purchased a POD and spent many weeks trying out all of the different "modeled" sounds, as in "oh, yeah, that's why people like the VOX amp" and "hey, doesn't the Fender Bassman sound cool" but the latency of the beast was such that every time I plugged straight into to my old amp the difference in presence and response was such that it was "oh yeah, that's why I still like REAL amps!"

In the earliest POD units the cleanest tone was still messy and full of nasty odd-order harmonics, I am told that this has been rectified but there is still the latency issue (the delay between the input and output signals) due to the nature of the beast, it's basically a computer that decides how to re-design the waveform that you are putting into it and this takes extra time no matter how it is done. I'm sticking with the analog amp that is ready to jump at the speed of light whenever I touch the string if that is my intention.

That being said, the handy nature of all that processing power and multi-effects at your fingertips in a REALLY small, programmable package definitely has its positive points, it's just not for me.

Eric West · From: Portland, Oregon, USA, R.I.P.

Podxts rule. Mostly for "no model" effects stacks. All the models are is attenuations for the most part. The reverbs, delays, compressions, and other things are all first rate in my experience. They are easy to set up for saving different banks and channels of defaults for different rooms. Easy to change from one to the other.

I have a pocket pod. They are yet again one more tired way to get rid of Pod2.0 guts. The reverbs are barely acceptable and they are kinda hard to set up and deal with in any but the simplest of situations.

The XtLives, I had one of, and just never found room for it. Again all top rate effects, and if you do your homeworke and set it up, you can have any combo you want with any default combination without puching any buttone while you're playing, or fooling with anything but hitting another channel. Best for guitar that I've seen.

The downside of them is that IF you want the compressor and overdrive before the VP, you're stuck.

I usually have the level set to whatever room I'm playing so I can usually bring it up to full volume and be in the "band"...

Pod xt3s, are good if you want to run vocals and guitar with different channels at once, or two guitars etc.

Also the Podxts are Ring/Tip/Sleeve for those interested purists and the reverbs ARE stereo, as are several effects.

Smile

EJL

Ben Jones · From: Seattle, Washington, USA

I have the UX2 which is a recording interface with the line6 amp models and effects built in.
Its an excellent and inexpensive tool for the home studio. The high gain sounds are unacceptable. Too much fizz. I find the gritty and clean sounds to be very useable tho. Pete Anderson (Dwight Yoakam) records whole albums without amps using a pod and I think he sounds great. I find the delays, reverbs and modulations to be very good for digital effects, and the delays are not abd at imitating analog (tho nothing can replace my real space echo).

In twenty years I think the POD will be one of those classsic vintage effects.

playing with them live i know zero about. Eric sounds good tho the few times Ive heard him. Eric you dont use those amp models to color your SS amp? just the effects?

Jack Stoner · From: Kansas City, MO

I've been using a POD XT for several years. I developed my own "effects only" programs that I use with my steel and Nashville 112. A lot of the Steeler's that use the POD XT the way I do, for effects only, have downloaded and installed my programs and several local Steeler's have brought their POD XT's to me and I've loaded my programs into them.

I have a couple of preamp programs that I use for direct recording.

The POD 2.0, from most of the reports here is not as good for Pedal Steel.

I tried the Pocket POD, hoping the smaller unit, that would fit in my seat, would work, but I couldn't get it working for what I wanted so it was sent back to Musician's Friend.

Dave Mudgett · From: Central Pennsylvania and Gallatin, Tennessee

One thing you need to remember is that there is no "singular POD". They have been in constant evolution since they started.

Another thing you need to remember is that they can't be seriously evaluated on the basis of their stock presets. Each POD version has an internal engine, and then a particular set of presets geared for the market they want to tap into.

In my opinion, players looking for a clean sound, as would be typically used in mainstream jazz or country music, are not the market they've ever gone after - clean pedal steel types of sounds are not remotely in the picture. If you want to hear what the modeling engine sounds like, you need to go into 'deep edit' mode, start from scratch, and build the sounds you want.

The other thing is that the slave amp/speaker combo you run it through makes a huge difference. If you run it through a low-slew-rate, weak amp setup, it's gonna sound like a processor through a low-slew-rate, weak amp. There is some latency in the POD - but every amp has latency, some more than others - if the amp's power supply hasn't got enough juice to react quickly to transients, you get latency. Small amps with tube rectifiers and weak power supply filtering have plenty of latency - it's part of the sound. I tend to run my POD through a high-slew-rate amp with a good power supply like a bass amp or modern solid-state pedal steel amp like the NV 112, or a modern Boogie like the Nomad. I think it works pretty well like that.

So with all this said, I have found some of the basic POD modeling and DSP engines to be useful. The original POD and original POD 2.0 have a good set of basic Fender amp models (esp. the Deluxe Reverb) and a good DSP engine - the reverb is good and so are many of the other effects. If you strip away the presets they designed for rock players and start from ground zero, some very good sounds can be had. The biggest disadvantage I know about the POD 2.0 is that it's not possible (to my knowledge) to run it without an amp model at all - purely as an effects engine. I still use my original POD 2.0 for guitar routinely - most people can't tell the difference between the Deluxed-out POD into a NV 112 and my real blackface Deluxe Reverb. I also use mine for when I want a Fender Deluxe Reverb sound for pedal steel - but that is not my main sound these days.

The same is true for the Pod XT, and it has the advantage of being able to be run as a purely effects engine. But I still prefer the basic Fender Deluxe Reverb engine from the original POD 2.0 for electric guitar. I think the Twin Reverb sound is improved - on the POD 2.0, it had too much midrange missing and was a bit noisy. I imagine that's why many prefer the XT models for pedal steel. Myself, I moved to a Tubefex with the Newman presets (and a couple of others) for clean pedal steel, but I'm confident that if I tweaked up a Pod XT, it would be just fine.

Another wrinkle is that several years ago, they changed the DSP chip for the POD 2.0 and I just don't like the sound. Even the basic reverb is very grainy, like a space-echo type of sound, and is completely unusable to me. I tried to go into deep edit and 'fix' it, but it was hopeless. I bought one of these as a gift, and I found myself apologizing to the receiver, a young guitar player who actually liked the grainy reverb. C'est la vie, there's no accounting for tastes. I tried the Pocket POD, which was touted as a stripped down POD 2.0, and it had that same bad sound. Again, this is just my tastes - some people seem to like it, so YMMV. But the point is - when you say "POD 2.0", you now need to specify which one you're talking about - original vs. new DSP version. They changed the badge on the front with the new version, so there is a way to distinguish them - I discussed this in a thread back when I first noticed it.

On high-distortion sounds - I guess it depends on what you want and how you amplify it. You should not expect to get a 'big' Marshall stack sound unless you run it through a pretty powerful, high slew-rate power amp and speaker setup - forget about getting that sound running it through a Fender combo amp or even a powerful pedal steel amp. What's missing is the girth and bottom end of the big closed-back stack cabinets. But if I run it through the right clean and powerful high-slew-rate amp/speaker combo, even the POD 2.0 does pretty good 80s-90s hard rock sounds, which, to my ears, tended to be pretty extreme and a bit processed anyway. The Plexi model is OK for some hard 70s rock - again through the right slave system - but as far as getting the touch sensitivity of the real thing like a blues guitar player (e.g., me) would like, I don't hear that.

To me, these things are tools, like anything else, and need to be tweaked heavily to get what I want. If you want to go through that process, you might find something you like. But if you're not a tweaker, then you have to live with the presets and the market for whom it was developed.

My opinions, naturally.

Gerald Menke · From: Stormville NY, USA

I would rate any Pod I have ever used a 0 on a scale of 1-10. I believe it was Billy Gibbons who said something to the effect that the only people that are satisfied with all these amp modelers are those who have never played a real 4 input tweed deluxe or an AC30, plexi Marshall, etc.

I would avoid using one like the plague personally. The best direct sounds I have gotten have been with really smokin' mic pres, although the Roger Linn Adrenalinn has worked for me in a pinch.

The clean sounds are gross, and the overdrive tones are usable for making scratch tracks on demos, but beyond that, nothing. The way they make the steel or guitar "feel" is just not acceptable to me.

I hope your mileage varies... Smile

Dave Mudgett · From: Central Pennsylvania and Gallatin, Tennessee

Dave Grafe · From: Hudson River Valley NY

I might add, while this is not a steel guitar story but still worthy of sharing perhaps, that some years ago .38 Special appeared at the Alaska State Fair in Palmer, which necessitated flying in all of the band gear. The crew talked a reluctant Don Barnes into playing through a Pod patched directly into the PA rather than taking his double full stacks to Alaska and back.

All day before the concert he worried aloud that this was gonna totally suck but when showtime came he wandered out in front of the main speakers and stayed out there all night long, seriously laying it down and grinning from ear to ear. This proved good for him but better for the road crew, who at last were able to convince him that a combo amp for stage volume was all they needed to carry in the future.

Were you there that day Stu?

Lynn Oliver · From: Redmond, Washington USA * R.I.P.

I'd speculate that someone who wouldn't blink at spending an afternoon dialing in a single pedal would might balk at spending that much time with each separate effect incorporated in a POD. It's unfortunate that the presets are so useless.

Tony Dingus · From: Kingsport, Tennessee, USA

I record direct with a Pod Pro and I use a Lexicon MX200 for reverb. It works fine for me although I think the Pod's might work better for guitars with single coil pups. My guitar has a BL 710 on the E9 and a GL E66 on the C6. I think I'm using the Deluxe amp with a 112 cab.

Tony

Joey Ace · From: Hamilton, Ontario, Canada

I often use a POD-XT.
It's true that well maintained top of the line amps sound better in a purist way, but for the working musician, these gadgets are incredibly useful.

I program my own sounds. All the presets were useless for me.

To each his own, I'm just sayin I like them.

"The Proof Is In The Pickin" .... Here's a demo recording with me playing my 1999 Carter with a XR-16 pickup --> Hilton VP ---> PODxt ----> Board

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=omGY1u-x6BU

David Mason · From: Cambridge, MD, USA

I personally think it takes several months to learn how the interactions between the various functions of a well-equipped modeler work... after the first one, it gets easier. Think of how many years you spent trying different amps, speakers, effects, the order of them, matching all the levels? Consider, every time you use a tube amp or a Peavey with DDT you're playing with some degree of compression, in fact a speaker itself is a compressor of sorts - so how much compression do you use? EARS, baby...

I do wish I could just junk all the presets on any of 'em, it's just wasted storage. But I do truly like being able to try a lot of different things that I wouldn't necessarily think of, if I had to crawl around on the floor. Having said all that, I sold off my Pod 2.0 and Pod XT years back, because I find that Digitech & Boss are more musical in intent and execution. I have Digitech RP250 that's my quick-setup box, an old Digitech Genesis 3 that continues to please me, and a Boss VF-1 that's all scrolling and menus but is capable of amazing things - the ring modulator & guitar synth alone are worth the price of admission. The Vox modelers have many fans, too...

Uber-producer Pete Anderson has gone totally over to the Line 6 modeling, and you hear them way, way more often than you think. Again, if you've spent an afternoon with one and the sounds still suck, you have to consider all the members in the combination.

Eric West · From: Portland, Oregon, USA, R.I.P.

This (The Podxt especially) is one that people are too quick to dismiss.

To begin with it's 24 bit sound. The older 2.0s are 16bit. I don't know if the xt3s are 32 bit.

I really haven't ever noticed the "latency". maybe with a B.. I think just because it doesn't process the signal before you play it, people will always bitch...

And no, it will not make an amp with low headroom sound like it has more, nor will it mimic solid state OD breakup.

They will put a "tube type" overdrive "sound" through a solid state amp with enough headroom.

The "models" are for people that don't want to "fool with" setting it up right.

IT DOES take a good while to set things up so that they are there.

I saw Dierks Bently with GaRy Morse (thanks Joey) using one. Sounded fine to me.

As far s the 24 bit, I think maybe Llxxx Grxxx has 16+bit ears, but, bless his heart, I'd like to see him all happy with a cut recorded with an xt set up with a tube model, and not being able to tell the difference, after a couple of the studio guys agreeing not to tell him.. ("look at him there all happy with his old Fender and the Shure 58. He doesn't even see the direct hookup we're running into the pod ....tee...hee.....")

It mostly the ability to set three or four channels up to have different effects, reverbs, tremolos on or off at "default" (look it up) so you can just switch channels to have the same effects in or out, instead of having to punch up the effect. There's a four channel footswitch if you want, or you can just spin the dial and get a whole new set of defaults.

If you need to change your EQ for a certain room, and maybe remember it, you just push "save" and name it. There are TONS of banks available.

The info is portable with any memory stick, and there's a LOT of stuff you can do on a USB including using the thing as an interface.. I didnt need to buy that firewire Inspire thing, but I like it OK too..

All that and balanced stereo out lines (RTS) for those so inclined...

It's mostly that people have tried them, and were not aware that only lazy people use the "Cliffs of Dover" or "Purple Haze" models. They shouldn't wonder why they can't get them to sound like Lloyd at Panther Hall. There are a lot of factors.

First thing I did was wipe EVERY MODEL out and started from scratch. Just for kicks I use a "matchchief" or something new to spice things up, as some of them add bass and cut mids, scooping out ranges, but if I find anything cool I can save it to about 20 channels I hold open for "experiments".

You can also have a dozen different delay times for the "cascade" "jimmy dickens) thing, and choose a different speed on the fly.

It's all about setting them up, and saving something every time you find a better setting.

One more thing.

The rack mount xtPros IMHO are junk.

They are glorified RF antennae.

Vancouver Moose tonight Dave. Call for dir if you're free.

Smile

EJL

Leslie Ehrlich · From: Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada

I like the POD as a headphone amp or for recording direct into the computer sound card, but I don't like the sound of it running through an amp.
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Darrell Birtcher · Posted 4 Apr 2010 12:52 am

The first Pocket Pod I bought only lasted about 30 minutes. I use it's replacement with a little Mackie mixer to run all my instruments in a practice set-up. For steel and guitar I use an open backed 12" JBL guitar speaker. I bought the Pocket Pod to give me some amp and effect sounds inexpensively without taking up too much room. It is barely adequate for that. Most of the presets use the effects too heavily, so you have to do a lot of editing to tone them down. The worst thing is that there are just no good clean sounds. It seems to be geared to distorted sounds.

The best way to run it is to use the mixer's aux send as the POD's input, then take the POD's output and run it into another mixer channel so you can EQ the output. This also gives you the benefit of more control over the input level so as to minimize distortion. I leave this rig on all the time (yes, I know I'm destroying the planet by doing this) but when it's not in use I have to mute the channel because of all the background noise the POD makes. It also suffers from the grainy reverb problem mentioned earlier.

For what it's worth, a BOSS ME-70 multi effects unit isn't too bad on steel. I like it because you have much more manual control than most units, with a knob or switch for every function instead of having to program everything from a menu. Of course, you can always build presets if you like. It's pre-amp section is not snappy enough for clean tele sounds but I don't need that much high end twang for steel.

It's reasonably quiet. The reverb and chorus aren't the richest sounds out there but they're not grainy. You may or may not like the built in volume pedal. That's a very personal thing, but if nothing else it can be used as a back-up if your pot goes bad.

Jay Ganz · From: Out Behind The Barn

I must be doing something wrong. I've never had a problem getting clean sounds and smooth reverbs with a Pocket POD.
I did use the editing software to fine tune all my settings thru the USB port.
I connect it between the volume pedal output and a powered speaker cabinet.

Bill Terry · From: Bastrop, TX

I've never been a fan of the Pod 2.0 or more recently a Pod XT for steel. The XT is much better for clean tones I think, but I only use a Pod to practice through occasionally, it's just convenient at times. JMO, I know a lot of folks like them.

Dave M., I've heard a lot of Tommy's stuff with the Pod and he does get a good steel tone, but I'd have to say that like all good players he gets a good tone with whatever he plays through. I did start using a tube preamp behind the Pod sometimes (as Tommy describes in your linked thread) and that does help in my opinion. FWIW, I know Tommy cuts a lot of tracks with a Twin.. Smile

As he said in that thread, "whatever works at the time".. wise words.

Off topic a bit, I've lately had a lot more luck with the amp models in Logic 9, something about the algos I guess, but those models just 'feel' and respond to touch much more like an amp IMO.
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Darrell Birtcher · Posted 4 Apr 2010 9:35 am

That's interesting Jay. Maybe I've got another defective unit, or maybe I'M doing something wrong. I probably shouldn't have implied that there were no good clean sounds because I finally got one dialed up using the "Tube Preamp" model as a basis. It just seems to me that the unit has an emphasis on distortion type sounds. That's one of the hallmarks of a tube amp vs a solid state amp and I think they concentrate on that when they model them. Perhaps the grainy sound I'm hearing on the reverb is when the tail of the reverb fades down into the noise level of the unit. Mine really is quite noisy so maybe I have another bad one. Have any other users out there experienced a high level of background noise in their Pocket Pod?

Bill McCloskey · Posted 4 Apr 2010 10:07 am

You should be able to adjust the gate to cut down on background noise.

Eric West · From: Portland, Oregon, USA, R.I.P.

Ben. I usually use the "Tube Preamp". I guess I should have clarified, I don't do the "Bypass Mode".

Smile

EJL

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