Another POD question

  • Thread starter Thread starter Neil Ogilvie
  • Start date Start date
N

Neil Ogilvie

Still Learning.......
Ok, I have £250 to spend on an amp for gigging and recording.
I'm looking at a POD that I can hook up to my PA live, or into the soundcard to record.
Either that, or a £250 Marshall combo......
I'm edging toward the POD at the moment as Weezer toured with them with no problems. They also would have more tones than a cheap Marshall.
AND...... It would be quiet when recording at 3 in the morning.
So, do they sound any good? I'm not using brilliant guitars or amps at the moment, so how much of an improvemnet will it be?
Will I (an amatuer) be able to tell the difference?
Cheers.
 
Depending on the style of music you'll be performing live and the size of your PA, you can gig with just a POD. I played out for years in a full band and was playing into only a Tom Sholtz Rockman directly into the PA (no stage amp of any kind). It can work. I've got a POD and they sound pretty damn good. Is that what you should do? It depends.
 
Meshuggah has been touring with POD's...although personally I thought their guitar sound sucked hard when I saw them recently.

How's that for a helpful reply? :)

I think the POD gets a 10 in the ease of use department, and a 5 or 6 in the sound quality department.

Slackmaster 2000
 
be sure to test drive the tech21/sansamp line of products. they kick ass live. no fx like the pod, but I never cared for the pod fx anyway.
 
how about using them live? Are they any good if half way through song I want to change from a real punchy distorted sound (say the Mesa Boogie Dual Rectifier) to a nice bright clean sound (say a Fender or summat).
Are they any good at this? And you need any extra pedals or anything?
Cheers for all the help so far.
 
Neil Ogilvie said:
how about using them live? Are they any good if half way through song I want to change from a real punchy distorted sound (say the Mesa Boogie Dual Rectifier) to a nice bright clean sound (say a Fender or summat).
Are they any good at this? And you need any extra pedals or anything?
Cheers for all the help so far.
Click to expand...

depends on the amp or pedal. Some of the Tech21 amps have 3 channels, but each channel is a particular voice... ie. channel 1 is Fender, 2 is Marshall, and 3 is Boogie. The Tech21 Tri-AC has 3 channels which can be set to anything. I've used my Tri-AC in practice and it kicks ass. I've run into my amp, straight into the PA, and I even kicked ass with it going into my friend's home stereo.
 
JR#97 said:


depends on the amp or pedal. Some of the Tech21 amps have 3 channels, but each channel is a particular voice... ie. channel 1 is Fender, 2 is Marshall, and 3 is Boogie. The Tech21 Tri-AC has 3 channels which can be set to anything. I've used my Tri-AC in practice and it kicks ass. I've run into my amp, straight into the PA, and I even kicked ass with it going into my friend's home stereo.
Click to expand...

Can this be done with the pods?
 
I think that the world will be a better place when we get over the sentimental attachment to amps and everybody starts using pods or jstations direct to the board.
 
The world might also be a better place if you could hear. :)

Neil, there is a floorboard unit for the POD and line6 amps that I think goes for about $300. Seems rugged and stable enough.

I know that the POD 1.0 was pretty nasty in terms of switching...long delays and some popping. They fixed much of this with the 2.0 upgrade though. I still turn my output down quite a bit whenever I change amp models or effects, but IMO you could probably get away with using it. I mean every time you hit a switch there's always a chance of some nasties, and you just have to learn how to work your equipment to the best of its capabilities.

Go try one is my advice...almost every music store in the world carries this stuff!

Slackmaster 2000
 
Slackmaster2K said:

Go try one is my advice...almost every music store in the world carries this stuff!

Slackmaster 2000
Click to expand...

I will give one a try........ Only there is one very very small music shop on my little island. :D
Anyone heard the Behringer version? I heard its almost exactly the same?
And also, with the POD is there a way of getting a smaller pedal board? All I need is a clean channel and a dirty channel like the basic marshalls........
 
You've got your POD, your J-Station, and your Behringer something or other. They are all *very similar* devices, and all have various strengths and weaknesses.

If the j-station has a decent pedalboard, I think it's something you should look into because you can snag one for $150. The J-Station also has bass and acoustic amps available (the POD does have a fender bassman, but doesn't sound good on a bass IMO), and it has better software from what I've seen. If I was shopping right now I'd probably focus on the j-station just because of the price.

The behringer...well, I dunno. Both Line6 and Johnson are well-respected names, while Behringer is often the cheap immitation. Going on just "names" alone, which can be dangerous, I'd consider the POD and J-Station first, and be very thorough in my examination of the behringer.

Slackmaster 2000
 
purchase a pod like you would any other piece of musical gear: find one in a store and test drive it.

Some love them. Some hate them. But then again, you can name anything from the Beatles to 5 string basses and get the same varying degrees of love and hate.

Me, I wanted one so I could record and get reasonable tones. Did I expect it to sound exactly like a real collection of amps, nope. But I also don't go into McDonalds expecting to get a burger just like off of my grill at home.

I got a POD first and sold it about a month later. I didn't care for the tones in it... no matter how much I futzed with it, it still sounded prefabricated and generic in it's tones, IMO. So then I got the Behringer V-Amp and I have had it for almost a year now and love it. I've only fired up my 'real' amp 3 times since then and that was for live gigging. It sounds nothing like a real marshall or fender or mesa, but it sounds like a real amp in a real room to me, which is all I care about. I paid 99 bucks for it and have more tonal variations than any 99 dollar amp I can find. It also came with a free pedal switcher and carrying case.

the newer versions (up to 2.5 now, I think) have gotten even better reviews, but I've felt no need to upgrade, as I'm extremely satisfied with mine as it is.

That's my take. 1 of many. Do yourself a favor and try before you buy. You may turn out to be a modelling hater. Or a lover, you just never know.
 
I can test a behringer v-amp - they have one here!
I'll test it out. If you think it sounds better than a pod, then it might be a possibility. You've got to remember though, I'm only a poor student who plays and records in his spare time, so I'm no expert on guitar tone or anything.
Cheers for the replies so far, but any more opinions would be appreciated.
 
Aw heck, if you're at that level then just get the cheapest of the three....you'll still be worlds ahead of the poor sucker who spends his first few years trying to squeak sounds out of a peavy practice amp!

Slackmaster 2000
 
HEY NOW! I HAD A PEAVY AMP! ------- sighs --------
thought I would get that out.

and also, I play through a Dean Markly Cab and I run my Boss ME-30 Multieffects Proc. through it and it sounds awesome, plus there are almost countless sounds you can get from that sucker. When playing live, I use my Boss plugged into the mains, sounds cleaner, also makes it stereo for the delays and phaser effects and stuff, but running it through a tube amp, or even digital, it sounds great. People must think so too, cause they keep coming to hear us play.

FrEaK
 
POD's are not that expensive either, and pay off more in the long run. -----------> I too am a student. I feel you pain on the poor issue. Sucks huh?
Look into Boss Pod or even the Line-6 Pod, I have heard good things from it.

FrEaK
 
Neil Ogilvie said:
how about using them live? Are they any good if half way through song I want to change from a real punchy distorted sound (say the Mesa Boogie Dual Rectifier) to a nice bright clean sound (say a Fender or summat).
Are they any good at this? And you need any extra pedals or anything?
Cheers for all the help so far.
Click to expand...

I think POD's are okay for a modern, compressed distortion but for a clean or vintage dirty sound they are pretty mediocre. The flanger, chorus and tremelo are next to worthless. The reverb and delays are okay.
 
Tex, you're right about the original pod, but not the PODxt. The clean sounds are probably the best thing it does, and it does them extremely well. Basically, to me, it seems like for the PODxt, Line 6 listened to all the things that everyone was bitching about, and concentrated on providing all those fixes. So the clean sounds are way better, the effects are way better and you can do multiple effects per sound, you can store your own changes to the default amp model settings (so you can turn to any amp model and have it set with whatever default gain, eq, cabinet, and microphone setting you want), you can store around 40 default effects setups so you don't have to start from scratch with efx for each sound, you can place the delay or modulation effects pre or post amp, the I/O is 24-bit, there's a dedicated presence knob, etc. etc...

Now, of course, all the users who complained before are complaining that it doesn't sound like it used to, it doesn't have enough distorted models, etc etc. Which just proves that you can't please all the people all the time.

I have samples I'll be posting within the next week of what it can do, that I think are pretty impressive.
 
Charger
Have you used the usb port?
Are midi messages sent through the usb or do you need to have a seperate midi connection?

Any replies will be much appreciated as I'm seriously considering getting this piece of equipment!:cool:
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top