Should I stick with my 6505+ 112 Combo or go with a Line 6 POD HD Pro?

M

Meatballx

New member
One of the things that I hate the most about recording guitar is placing my Shure SM57 mic up to my 6505+ 112, dialing in a tone, chugging repeatedly trying to adjust the mic, and then have some clumsy idiot crash and burn all the work I did by bumping in to a cable moving it a centimeter. Not only that, I feel that I'm not able to get the most out of my amp due to poor room treatment and not having another person to help out with setup.

Here is my current setup:

Jackson Dinky DK2L -> Peavey 6505+ 112 Combo Amp w/ Celestion V30 -> Shure SM57 -> Tascam US-1641 or AudioBox USB -> Studio One V2

I was looking in to so Amp Modelers and ran across the Line 6 POD HD Pro and it sounds awesome, but Im seriously worried that if I purchase this guy I will be majorly sacrificing tone for ease of use. By that same token, the ease of use may help create more consistency between sessions for making a cohesive record. I'm also loving the idea of being able to record in total silence, since my 6505+ doesn't get a full, warm tone until my neighbors call the police :P

Does anyone have any experience or recommendations? I plan on keeping my 6505+.....I NEVER sell music equipment. Thanks for reading!
 
Do you have to choose? You'll probably prefer the recorded amp in many cases, but, as you note, modelers can be useful for a lot of other things. I've had some luck recording leads with modelers, but almost always prefer mic'ed amps.
 
And I definitely feel your pain on mic placement (you can verify that by reading some contemporary threads). At least it's not drums, though.
 
Im not choosing between the two, I would simply be adding the POD HD Pro to my arsenal, but I see no purpose if I dont plan on using it more than my 6505+. Im pretty much a full volume, bridge pickup guitar player who doesnt play around with effects as much as I should. I really just want to make recording guitar far more simple with as little background noise as possible (that 6505+ has a lot of buzz).
 
If you don't use (and don't plan on experimenting) with FX, you probably will not get the tone you want from a modeler. The hardest thing for any modeler to do is reproduce the sound of slightly-overdriven tubes through a good speaker. Why not download the free Line 6 PodFarm version and play with it to see if you can get tones you like, you can just plug your guitar directly into your interface's instrument input. Note that the free PodFarm cannot be used as a plug-in, only as a stand-alone version. If you buy the Pod, you get the full version of PodFarm (I think with a lot of the model ader packs).
 
Meatballx said:
Not only that, I feel that I'm not able to get the most out of my amp due to poor room treatment and not having another person to help out with setup.
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I don't necessarily buy this logic. The room isn't going to come into play much, if any, with a 57 right on the speaker.

For all the other reasons you listed, sure try a sim. Don't give up on your amp though.
 
I think it depends. If you have your sound and tone then a real amp / mic is a way to go. If you like to play around with tones depending on the song then a modeler is a nice tool to have.

I don’t know how many other people do this, but I think an investment in a reamping box is a smart move. ( I use the Radial Engineering Pro RMP Passive Reamping Direct Box) I record dry using amplitude or split the signal and record dry. Once the part is down then I can have my complete focus on dialing in the amp, pedals and mic placement and not getting psyched to play. Especially if your time is limited.
 
Greg_L said:
I don't necessarily buy this logic. The room isn't going to come into play much, if any, with a 57 right on the speaker.

For all the other reasons you listed, sure try a sim. Don't give up on your amp though.
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Ill be the first to say that I am not by any means an experienced sound engineer :) I LOVE my 6505+ though, it seriously has the most killer tone I've heard in a long time! I just cant seem to capture that feel =/

greenascanbe said:
I think it depends. If you have your sound and tone then a real amp / mic is a way to go. If you like to play around with tones depending on the song then a modeler is a nice tool to have.

I don’t know how many other people do this, but I think an investment in a reamping box is a smart move. ( I use the Radial Engineering Pro RMP Passive Reamping Direct Box) I record dry using amplitude or split the signal and record dry. Once the part is down then I can have my complete focus on dialing in the amp, pedals and mic placement and not getting psyched to play. Especially if your time is limited.
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That is actually quite brilliant. Do you have any resources (videos or articles) that use used to learn the technology? I'll of course be doing some myself, but I always enjoy reading what others have acclaimed.
 
The reamp idea is a good one. That also makes it so you can get the performances any time and do the reamping some time when the neighbors aren't going to have a problem with it.

As far as modellers go, you can easily get a bunch of usable sounds out of them, but you will never get the exact sound that you are getting out of your specific amp. Whether or not that's a problem is up to you.
 
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