Line6 POD - Is it worth it ?

  • Thread starter Thread starter leedon
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Just to reinforce what I said, I was dissapointed with the POD pro I bought instead of the GT5 until I sat down with the thing and understood it. If you perseveare you will get the sound you desire but you have to be willing to work with it.

As far as I'm concerned, though you can alter settings on the boss GT's, what you hear is what you get very much from the beggining. It's OK/adequate but that's all. I'm more interested in the tone that I get, not a bunch of effects so you sound like a covers band.
 
Hey AlChuck, that's pretty cool ..is the delay the Pod too? I posted in another thread about how I wanna try experimenting with micing a amp to get the sound I want...well, I found a pretty good example of a nice mic'd amp tone. I emailed this guy and he said he used a lowly Crate dsp 80 no less! Obviously, he knows what he's doing if you listen to it...pretty wicked solo too! There's just a characteristic 'presence' or ambience that the Pod lacks compared to a well positioned mic , for some things imo. Check it out and see if you agree, the song btw is the one called Disturbance. http://artists.mp3s.com/artists/131/troels_oxenvad.html
 
Yeah, the delay was just the POD's delay/swell setting. Didn't do anything to it except plug and play.

Disturbance -- WOW! That guy is hot, and the whole piece is pretty interesting.

About the tone, it's great, but I can't really discern what you're saying. I mean, I agree it sounds terrific and better in how it sist in the mix. Does it sound better because it was miked, or was it because of the overall quality of the mixing and mastering, outboard effects, etc? I think the only way to really hear what you mean directly would be a real A/B comparison, done like so:

have a guitar signal miked through a Marshall or a Fender Deluxe Reverb or some amp that the POD has a model for;

have the same signal sent through a POD set the same or as close as possible (treble, bass, mid, gain, etc)

use no effects

Record each to a separate track

Compare.

But what a pain! I'm not gonna do it!

Seriously, I have no doubt that a well-miked smoking amp recorded by an experienced recording engineer in a great room is gonna kick the POD's ass every time.

But the difference is so small now that, for the price and convenience of the POD or something like it, I think it's a great tool, indispensible even for a guitar player like me.

If I get a huge recording contract some day ;) , then I'll buy some great amps, hire a great engineer, rent a great studio and do it right for the ages.

For my humble bedroom studio, there's just no contest. POD, plug 'n play!!!
 
I agree with AlChuck...my official statement on the matter is, and you can quote me, "if you want to record ONE great amp sound, get ONE great amp and a SM57...if you want to record MANY good amp sounds, get a Pod, J-Station,etc. etc. yada yada....
 
AlChuck - I think the quality of the mix and how the lead guitar parts sit in the mix helped to bring out the differences between a mic'd amp and direct. Maybe it's just me, but it just sounds like there is some space to the sound. It's worth mentioning too that he recorded this himself , I believe ,using a Crate amp, so that's proof that it doesn't take a million dollar setup in a big studio to get good results. (Talent helps though!) But I agree with you that the Pod is pretty good for alot of applications and you can't beat it for quick and easy plug and play. I've just used it and fiddled with for quite awhile and gotten good results most of the time, but now wanna get one GREAT tone to use for typical leads/melodies in instrumentals and what not.

Gidge- Wow, you just put into words what I'd like to do. Get an amp to get that one GREAT lead/melody tone AND keep using the pod for virtually everything else.
 
Just for balance, I'm just going to pop in one more time.

The POD sounds great the first time you hear it. In fact it'll blow your mind.

After 6 months of tweaking, however, you will realize its sad limitations. It does in no way sound like a natural tube amp...it has some characteristics, but doesn't quite get there. On most amp models what they call "warmth" is a boomy midrange and too much low end. At best the POD sounds like a good solid state...which isn't always so bad.

I understand that the POD is supposed to sound like a mic'd amp...it sounds like a poorly mic'd amp. It sounds like a single mic sitting 4 feet in front of an amplifier. Adjustment of the AIR setting via the soundiver software helps, but not enough. It is difficult at times to get the POD to sit in a mix without some crazy ass EQ settings on the POD itself, and then manually cutting boom below 400hz.

In the POD's defense, it is great for recording loud heavily distorted guitars.

The effects on the POD are noisy. Its reverb is SOOOO bad that it's completely unusable...both the plate and room reverbs. The flangers and choruses are noisy and dull. The delay works but decays poorly (yes I use sounddiver, I rarely touch the actual controls).

I've owned a POD for some time now and use it exclusively for recording, because it's all I have. However, I've taken to recording it direct AND running a line out to my guitar amp (stupid old peavy) and close mic'ing the amp. This results in a much fuller and more natural sound. Nothing tubey though. In fact, my Sansamp Bass Driver sounds better in this respect.

When I say tubey I'm not talking about some crazy hard to understand concept either. It's a sound that some people like and others don't care about. Let me just say this, if you're a Pixies fan, you will grow more and more disappointed with the POD each time you use it. Plug into a POD and play it for a while...then immediately go plug into something nice...like a Fender Princeton...and you'll say, "oh, I get it now."

But then again you do have to tweak. Tweak tweak tweak tweak and tweak some more. Do you enjoy tweaking? You better get used to it.

Slackmaster 2000
 
Something to try is to run your guitar into a preamp BEFORE going into the pod. Also, an extension of this would be running something like a mesa v-twin into the pod.
The pod is a fun toy, with some doctoring you can get good tones. The yamaha dg sounds better as does the sans amp psa 1. Anyone wanna trade their dg for my pod?

Also I'm wondering if anyone has used the boss vf-1. Ive heard it sounds good compared to the pod, anyone use it?
 
Boss vf1

Robert Jay,
The Boss VF1 is packed w/ stuff!! 24 bit a/d conversion & 30 bit internal processing. The tag was $400.00 in the store & I only sampled it before buying the GT3, I like a pedal layout & the vf1 had more features than I needed. It's not even in the same class w/ the POD but only 50 bucks more. Although, the 2 units have completely different overall sounds so it depends on your taste. Bottom line, vf1 over the POD anyday.
 
Slackmaster2K said:


The effects on the POD are noisy. Its reverb is SOOOO bad that it's completely unusable...both the plate and room reverbs. The flangers and choruses are noisy and dull. The delay works but decays poorly (yes I use sounddiver, I rarely touch the actual controls).

[...]

But then again you do have to tweak. Tweak tweak tweak tweak and tweak some more. Do you enjoy tweaking? You better get used to it.

Slackmaster 2000
Click to expand...

OK, so back to my dumb question that nobody's answered yet:

Given that these PODs and J-Stations and soforth are digital simulations and you have to tweak them in the software anyway, has anyone tried to use the software amp/effect simulators in Cakewalk Audio FX 2 for the same end result and just eliminate the expensive and problematic hardware from the exercise?

Sounds like an obvious answer, if the software's any good. Thanks for any input.
 
Hi,
The problem is that while even with units like the pod you tweak on your computer, the actual processing happens in the unit with dedicated dsp's. While there are distortion plug ins the processing muscle required to do high quality amp modeling will zap your cpu.
For pro tools le(host based) there is a sans amp psa 1 plug in wich I have tried and it really KILLS the cpu to the point where I cant use it in real time often. On the dsp based tdm pro tools system there is also a psa 1 AND a pod plug in called amp farm, but that system is a bit more powerful.To get to the point, sure you can use a plug in but to make it sound good your cpu will be brought to its knees most likely.

Some of these amp modeling and effects units are reasonably priced. The sans amp plug in almost costs the same as the actual hardware. So, Id say your best bet at this point is definately the hardware. with a unit like the boss vf 1 youll get much more than just amp modeling, but also multi effects up the ass, mic models, a vocoder, and synthy sounds. For a few hundred you can be set up real nice.

So to answer your question, even though you tweak the pod on your pc, the actual processing is done in the pod. If your deciding wich one is for you, try em' all out and take a leap. Theres no clear cut winner, but the pods effects really do suck shit. If your on the tight budget the vf1 has good effects, thouh its reverb is not lexicon quality. I think if I had it do do over its the vf 1 over the pod simply because I am on a tight budget, and I could use the otyher effects as well.
 
The problem with using plugins is that the output is going to be delayed. With a good soundcard and fast machine, the output will be delayed at least 20-40ms which is audible. With a lower grade setup the output will be delayed half a second or more which is downright disturbing. So you'd have to monitor your sound clean and use the plugins afterwards....this is a big problem for most people :)

If you're going to buy a guitar processor, buy hardware.

Slackmaster 2000
 
I've tried the Pod and the Bass Pod Pro,and I think they are pretty nice,but for a good bang for buck ratio,try the Digitech RP200. I got mine for $130 and it has more FX than the Pod,plus it has the assignable expression pedal which makes the unit very giggable.
 
I think the POD is a fantastic peice of gear and I personally hate direct recording! The thing is, If you like the convieniance of direct recording , you have the option of doing so and it does it well!. What I'm surprised at is no one on this thread mentioned that you can send the POD's signal out in front of an amp or practice amp and Mic it and record it (it pretty much turns the POD into the Flextone head!)! Its a very versatile piece of gear.

Now that being said, It is my personal opinion that it is the individual persons recording experiance/knowledge that will either make or break your guitar tone! I have heard people who used digital modeling or regular guitar amps and get a sh*&ty tone and I have heard the exact opposite(a good example of an excellent tone/production skills was posted on the first page---The guy who used the crate digital amp and some of the other samples!)

To try and stick to the original post, I think it would be a better option to buy a hardware based guitar modeler like the POD and you could use software effects later on
in the mix. Just my opinion!
 
OK, so you can't use software for recording amp simulations and guitar effects due to the latency and CPU saturation, but how about using it to treat the recorded guitar part in the mix _afterwards_?

Do the same problems apply?
 
In my experiance, I have used software effects on a guitar tracks after it was recorded without any problems!
9 out of 10 times I prefer to use my outboard gear(because I own a lexicon pcm80) but the software
plug ins are very powerfull and they are getting better all the time!
 
the pod sounds too good for me, as in too perfect. maybe it's got nothing to do with tubes but the sound lives when miced and the modeller, well models.

though i am biased to tubes;)

guhlenn
 
I am a tube nut myself!! I use Mesa Boogie amps for my guitar recordings but I have heard some great tones that were recorded with the POD through a tube amp.

When you slam the front end of an amp with the POD and crank it, Its pretty hard to tell your using Modeling Technology ( I said pretty hard not impossible!!) ;-)
 
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