Hi all, newbie here with a question about my home guitar setup. I play mainly through a Line6 Pod XT Live, which emulates lots of amps and effects digitally. It can output in both "line" and "amp" mode. If I play live I run it straight into the PA, at line level. At home, I just run it (at line level again) into a pair of powered speakers. I believe that "Amp" mode gives an instrument-level output, suitable for sending into an amp.
Now, I've bought a phrase looper pedal (a Nux Loop Core), which I want to use for practising at home. I'd like to place it after the Pod XT Live, so that it is capturing the fully-processed signal. If I send a line-level signal into it, it clips like mad, so I turn the Pod to "amp" output mode to prevent this. The pedal seems to expect an instrument-level signal, which makes sense.
If I run the output from the looper straight into my speakers, the output is very quiet, presumably because its output is also at instrument level. I assume that I should bring the output signal back up to line level - what's the best way of doing this?
I guess I could use a DI box, but is this overkill? I don't necessarily need a balanced output, because the cable runs are very short. (My speakers take input through phono connections by the way, not XLR.) So is this a job for a preamp, or headphone amp, or something like that, instead? And if a DI box is the way to go, should it be active or passive? I'm not looking for an expensive (or necessarily high-quality) solution because it's only for home practice. But I don't want something that is going to colour the signal too much if I can avoid it.
Thanks in advance for any help!
Now, I've bought a phrase looper pedal (a Nux Loop Core), which I want to use for practising at home. I'd like to place it after the Pod XT Live, so that it is capturing the fully-processed signal. If I send a line-level signal into it, it clips like mad, so I turn the Pod to "amp" output mode to prevent this. The pedal seems to expect an instrument-level signal, which makes sense.
If I run the output from the looper straight into my speakers, the output is very quiet, presumably because its output is also at instrument level. I assume that I should bring the output signal back up to line level - what's the best way of doing this?
I guess I could use a DI box, but is this overkill? I don't necessarily need a balanced output, because the cable runs are very short. (My speakers take input through phono connections by the way, not XLR.) So is this a job for a preamp, or headphone amp, or something like that, instead? And if a DI box is the way to go, should it be active or passive? I'm not looking for an expensive (or necessarily high-quality) solution because it's only for home practice. But I don't want something that is going to colour the signal too much if I can avoid it.
Thanks in advance for any help!