POD or DG Stomp?

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ciggidy

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Here's the deal. I want to start doing some electric guitar recording. I have a good tube amp and plenty of good analog effects. However, the best time for me to record is at night and, living in an apartment complex, I can't have the amp blaring at high volumes after hours. I'm wanting to spend around $300. I've pretty much narrowed it down to the two units in the thread. I have no desire to use these with an amp, but solely for direct recording. Which one is better for this purpose? The POD sounds pretty good from what I've heard, and I like the fact that it tells you what amps it is modeling. But the DG Stomp is cheaper and the little bit I've heard of it sounded pretty good to, plus you can turn the effects on and off with the foot switch. Any suggestions?
 
Guitar can

Ive tried both, the pod way is not mine, the stomp seems cool, spent 1hr tweaking in a shop wanted it even had a store credit, typical gas scenario, could not be convinced, read all the reviews, liked the simplicity, effects are cool, amps are ok, spks are weak and they aren't important to me since I use a vg88 for home recording. I was looking foe a wash n wear box for jamming, giging, recording etc.. I'm still on the fence but my gut reaction was to back off, not a great sign still for 300$ it beats the pod as long as your not jonesing for heavy dist, also sales guy mentioned the digitalout is 48khz, could be a problem on the dither, still neat box, tone did not do it at first smack, unsure if the box close or open, give it a shot.
 
Stomp it for me

I was in the same boat recently, and I ended up going with the DG Stomp. The POD has more "models," but to my ear, the Yamaha sounded more realistic. I think one good thing about the Stomp NOT naming specific models is that you tend to use your ears more. It's VERY easy to dial in a tone with the STOMP. I find that a sound that I would have thought worked well in a mix was not what I ended up going with after tweaking a bit.

Bottom line is that lots of people like both. Either one of them will be fine for you in the end. I think that, for the price, the Yamaha has more features - SPDIF out, the footswitches (add an expression pedal for $40 or so and you have wah and real time control of up to 8 parameters). The Stomp has 16 speaker cabinet emulations.

If you can, compare them side by side with headphones. The Stomp seemed to have better responsiveness to pick control/volume and just sounded better to me. The extra features were just a bonus.

You can hear a sampler I did of the Stomp during the first week I got it here:

http://www.acidplanet.com/Lounge/SongDetail.asp?PID=48583

You may need to register to download, but it just takes a second. Download the mp3 instead of streaming the 33k wma file.

Have fun. :)
 
Nice work!

I liked the sounds from the yamaha. I had heard samples of the Line 6, but not the DG Stomp. The tones were very good. Were you recording direct? Also, the tones produced in the three examples were more modern sounding. I'm really into more vintage sounds of say a fender blackface or marchall plexi. IMO, the Line 6 does a pretty decent job of copying those tones. Can the Yamaha do that? If so, I will probably go with the Yamaha.
 
Well, I think with the specific models the POD has, it may come closer to doing, say a 59 bassman. For my uses, like I kind of hinted at before, I don't necessarily think "I need a 72 Marshall head through a Mesa 2x12 cab." I have tended to do a lot of dialing to find the right sound for each part of the mix. I think there are definitely some "Fender" sounds, and "Marshall" tones. There are 8 basic amp models, and within those, there is a TON of variety. I have been able to dial in an AC/DC tone, an EVH type tone, etc without too much effort. The one tone I haven't quite got, and I think it is more of my guitar I am using, is a SRV type sound, but I can get pretty close (Using the tapped front pickup on my Big Apple Strat.)

All those tones on those tunes were recorded direct, from the Stomp into my Mackie into the line in on my SB Live.

Like I said, I thought the Yamaha sounded a bit better overall. If you really need to mimic specific amps, the POD might be better for you. For me, I kind of carve my own sounds out, and for that the Yamaha seemed the better choice. Hope this helped.
 
the j-station seems pretty cool also.its cheaper and you get an spdif output on it.

i own the pod 2 and i think its good for some things bad for others.to get a really good tone out of the pod youll want to run it into a decent pre and and do some eq twiddling.then also try experimenting with reamplification.

i thought the sounds being so clean exposed theyre flaws.but putting a tube preamp in front of that with an eq i could really mess around with it.then add a tube preamp guitar stompbox like the mesa boogie v-twin and things stand to get severely out of hand:).

i kinda wish idve gotten the pod pro though cause its editing and spdif make it much easier to cope with...

go to a music store sit down and a/b them. also the j-station is $270.if you dont like the sound you get when you bring it home add eq,tube pre amp,compression etc and experiment with the gain.
 
Like I said, it's all a matter of taste, but when I was comparing the POD and Stomp, I also played with the J Station, and I hated it.

I think the POD and J Station both had some good sounds, but the J Station seemed very digital sounding to me. I think I would agree that the POD is good for some stuff, and not for others. The Stomp seemed to be the best for clean to crunch sounds. The medium gain sounds REALLY clean up a lot when you back off, which I think is great and I found it very convincing.

Personally, the reason I wanted one of these is so that I could go straight into the pc without bothering with a preamp ar anything else. I know it is still easier than micing an amp, but I don't want to have to twiddle the eq or something else to get an acceptable sound.

Anyway... ;)
 
well you cant just wave a magic wand for great tone.youll get a decent tone with either. id suggest getting what you want to get, what your ears tell you is right.

the idea of getting a great direct tone without a half decent tube pre(even a blue tube)or select solid state pre or eq is absolutely absurd. as stand alone tools these amp modelers are toys imho.you have to experiment with the pod to bring out its greatness.

i assure you all the big time players that rant about the pod are running it through their neve and adding eq.without at least an art pre amp to add a little dirt it will be too clean.

p.s.- the most important thing to know for getting a good tone with a pod is that dialing knobs will only take it so far,then you have to make it sound good with your playing.you have to be aware of the sound your playing so that you emphasize its good points with your playing technique.different amps and different amp sims break up differently,sustain differently and respond to your touch differently.if you work within what your sound gives you you can trancend it by using its strong points in what you play.

in other words listen to what you play with what ever tone you use and make whats coming out of your speaker/headphones work with your skill.any sound has a use within its limits.

listen......to........the....silence......and .......sound.......and the sound inside the sound......

peace,
robert
 
well... okay.

I'm not a kid who thinks tone is only in the amp, or the guitar, or the effect box. I've played for about 9 years and have all of my gear that give me the best tones for playing live.

I'm looking for something that can approximate that sound for direct *home* studio recording. To me that means no messing with lots of other equipment for eq purposes etc. I live in a town where I can't just go down to the music store and listen to all these models side by side.

I guess my main question, after research on my own outside of this thread is this- For all you people who have had the chance to play them side by side, which of these two units give you a better, more authentic tone in the fender clean, marshall plexi od type tone? I'm not into super gain, I prefer older tones and little to moderate gain.

I know the POD has presets to cop these tones. However, after all of my research, I gather the Yamaha to be better as far as responsiveness. So, with the right tweaking, can I get a good aproximation of those tones? I know I prefer the effects on the DG stomp too. My only problem is Yamaha doesn't let you know what kind of amps it's modeling. How dialable are these sounds on the stomp?
 
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