POD 2.0 - Swiss Army Knife or One-Trick Pony?

[HomeRec]

I've recently been considering picking up a Line 6 POD 2.0 for guitar recording. My question is, is the POD 2.0 only good for guitar, or can it be used for other applications as well, such as bass guitar and vocals? I know that maryslittlesecret (from 30SoS) uses it for bass as well as guitar.

 

[Badger]

Well...I have used it for bass, and it works great, I justed used the fender bassman setting and turned the gain down. I would imagine that there are several settings that would work well. I have heard of it being used for blues harp, and I plan on running my hammond through it one of these days just for the hell of it. I have a pod pro, and don't even play gtr or bass. I traded a really screwed up mustang for it(for which I payed 50 bucks).

 

[Gidge]

Look into the J-Station...its $149 and has a few pretty damn good bass amp models......also, acoustic guitar simulator......I have an Ovation patch that sounds so pretty......

 

[bongolation]

Yeah, count me as another vote for getting the J-Station instead. The new firmware has some new bass models (as well as W2000 support) and you can't beat it for the price. A POD may be better for a couple of things - or not - but it's not even remotely worth the price differential right now.

I got my J-Station for $124 about six months ago and there's no way anything can touch it for twice that or more, still.

Do expect to use your computer to fiddle settings, though. J-Edit is absolutely the way to go with a J-Station. Fast, intuitive, fantastic. The J-Station presets aren't diddly, but you'd be amazed at what you can do with the software!

 

[HomeRec]

Okay, I will consider the J-station as well, since two people have mentioned that it has bass and electric guitar support.

However, the original question still stands... does anyone know if the POD 2.0 can be used for bass as well as guitar?

Bdgr - Thanks for the input, and good deal on the POD.

Gidge - You mentioned that the J-Station has an acoustic guitar simulator... does that mean the POD does not?

bongo - You said that the new firmware has some new bass models. What is included in the original unit without firmware upgrades?

 

[mikeh]

The POD is an amp simulation device - the amps it simulates are "guitar amps, however I have used the POD with bass guitar and have been satisfied with the results I got

There is a seperate "Bass POD" which simulates "bass amps", but I've not heard one and can't comment.

I have run synth patches through the POD, but the real strength is as a guitar amp simulator. You could run vocals through the unit, but there are much better processors available for voice processing. Yes the POD has effects, but they are "secondary" to the amp simulation..

No the POD does not have an accoustic guitar simulation.

 

[Krystof01]

The POD is all about tones; that simple, don't buy it for effects. Yes you can use it on drums, vocals, bass etc..and I have. You generally set the pod to tube pre-ap and bypass then add whatever else you want.

If you don't have seperate units for these processes, then Id' say the pod would be sufficient. But be willing to work at it. You have got to get on terms with the pod and understand how it all works. You've got to tweak to get the sounds that you want.

 

[HomeRec]

If you don't have seperate units for these processes, then Id' say the pod would be sufficient. But be willing to work at it. You have got to get on terms with the pod and understand how it all works. You've got to tweak to get the sounds that you want.

I definitely know about tweaking and working with multi-effects processors; I have a Korg A5 guitar effects pedal, which I have been using for quite some time. With any such unit, you always have to spend a fair amount of time fiddling with the settings to get the sound you're looking for.

The POD 2.0 seems to at least be good for bass and electric guitar - not a Swiss army knife, but not a one-trick pony, either. Guess you could call it a "two-trick pony".

P.S. - mikeh - Good information. Thanks.

 

[bongolation]

bongo - You said that the new firmware has some new bass models. What is included in the original unit without firmware upgrades?

The firmware and software upgrades, as well as archival past versions, are easily downloaded from the Johnson site, so it doesn't really matter which version you actually buy. The one I got had v1.6 firmware, but I upgraded twice up to the current (I think!) v2.0 with the added bass and guitar models. If you can pick up a good used one a couple of years old, even, a few minutes of downloading and installing will give you a J-Station that's essentially identical to the current production.

The only difference that I know of is that the new ones have a little more robust AC adapter,

There's a guitar POD and a bass POD, but the J-Station has models for both, which are of course interchangeable if you want to experiment, I suppose.

I like using the SWR bass models for guitar, come to that - though my personal guitar favorite is the Vox AC30 model.

If you get a J-Station, don't be put off by the rather schlocky presets, which are basically demos to show the extremes the unit is capable of. Install and run the J-Edit software and you have immediate and intuitive access to all sorts of new options and sounds that are all but inaccesible otherwise. Make new presets and save them to the unit and to disk for backup and trading.

 

[Badger]

The gtr pod does have one bass amp model.

 

[Elco]

You could use the Tube Preamp model on the Pod for bass...but yea, it's probably not as versatile as the J-Station for bass. Dunno about vocals. For guitar though, all the head to head comparisons I've read about on the net since way back when, seems the Pod has always had a slight edge in terms of most liked guitar tones overall, for whatever that's worth.

 

[bongolation]

For guitar though, all the head to head comparisons I've read about on the net since way back when, seems the Pod has always had a slight edge in terms of most liked guitar tones overall, for whatever that's worth.

Yes, though I believe that all the ones I've seen were comparing the standard settings, and even then, the differences are not that great - certainly not enough to justify paying TWICE as much for the POD.

The J-Station's factory presets are indeed GARBAGE for the most part, but they are also irrelevant. When I got my J-Station, I thought it was junk, because I didn't have a Win98 platform or MIDI interface I needed to run the J-Edit software (now J-Edit is also downloadable for W2000 and Mac).

J-Edit is what it's all about. The people who have disparaged the J-Station are not J-Edit users. It's a night and day difference. There are about half again more "Deep Editing" features instantly available in J-Edit, such as extensive speaker cabinet and reverb models, that are impossible to access easily otherwise.

You can tweak up some _amazing_ user presets extremely easily in the J-Edit program and then store up to thirty-three of them in the J-Station's onboard memory. If you're using the J-Station in the studio, you can just keep it running off J-Edit and going into your recording rig through the S/PDIF outlets, thus instantly tweaking your recorded guitar sounds as you go along.