Why Line6 Sucks!!!

Oops, forgot to mention that over the past few months I've made 3 calls and sent 2 emails. :o

The last call was a few hours after that post. I figured I'd give them another shot before I start looking to replace my POD Pro with a different modeler.. It's alright for messing around at home, but for recording or jamming with friends, it's not as good as I'm used to.


I know what you mean about customer support crews, though. Then again, most good companies train their employees before letting them take calls.
 
As for my Pod XT -- I love the little piece of shit. :D

I like that I can toss it in a bag and practice away from home or record at 3am without waking up the folks in the next county.

But what really blows about Line6 is the quality of the converters and other components they use in manufacturing...their first amps (AxSys and early AX212) were made with car audio parts.

To get a sense of just how bad they will destroy your sound, though, take any good quality amp (in my case a Bogner Shiva with EL34s), plug your guitar into the POD, turn all the effects off such that you're as close to "bypass" as you can get with one of these, and then into your amp of choice...then compare the "with POD" sound to the "sans Pod" sound. :eek:
 
I don't normally post in forums, but I was doing some research on old Line 6 stuff because I plan to buy a (Guitar) POD Pro from a friend (for only $150 :) ) . When I read this thread I was really scared, but I decided to call Line 6 myself. I am so glad I did.

This is what I found out:

Not only they still support, fix and answer questions about the old Bass POD and the Guitar POD Pro but they actually offered me a free EPROM upgrade for the POD Pro I am going to buy (again, it is an used unit, so it's not like they will profit anything from my purchase). In my book, this is decent customer service.

The only thing they don't support anymore is a program called SoundDiver that was used to edit the patches on the old POD with a computer. They told me this is a free software and that it was created by Emagic.
I don't see what the big deal is to discontinue support on a software that was a freebie in the first place. And they told me the software STILL is available online for free (I haven't checked their website to see if it's true). I'd just have to learn how to use it by myself. Again, no big deal.

The internet is a great source of info, but there is also a lot of BS around so it is good to get the facts from the company.
 
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blgtr said:
I don't normally post in forums, but I was doing some research on old Line 6 stuff because I plan to buy a (Guitar) POD Pro from a friend (for only $150 :) ) . When I read this thread I was really scared, but I decided to call Line 6 myself. I am so glad I did.

This is what I found out:

Not only they still support, fix and answer questions about the old Bass POD and the Guitar POD Pro but they actually offered me a free EPROM upgrade for the POD Pro I am going to buy (again, it is an used unit, so it's not like they will profit anything from my purchase). In my book, this is decent customer service.

The only thing they don't support anymore is a program called SoundDiver that was used to edit the patches on the old POD with a computer. They told me this is a free software and that it was created by Emagic.
I don't see what the big deal is to discontinue support on a software that was a freebie in the first place. And they told me the software STILL is available online for free (I haven't checked their website to see if it's true). I'd just have to learn how to use it by myself. Again, no big deal.

The internet is a great source of info, but there is also a lot of BS around so it is good to get the facts from the company.
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Software for editing the pods, and podxt is not free. You pay for that within the price of the unit, and the feature is a selling point to the consumer. My experience is legitimate, and there is no BS about it. I now have a Bass Pod Pro that I can not edit via the midi PC interface. To not make the new software backwards compatible to the model I just paid $500 for 2 years ago is an insult, and short sighted, and just plain not fair to the consumer. The software was an Emagic product, however, they also are of no help on the matter, and do not respond at all, so I turn back the Line6, since this a function of the POD Pro that I can not use. The answers I got from Line6 via e-mail were exactly as I stated. No BS about it. So go ahead and buy that used Pod Pro, and try the deep editing PC interface. Have fun with that. I for one would take the word of the consumers that have had bad experiences or that of the company with a bias interest in swaying your opinion. They want you to buy thier product, I don't care if you do or not.
One has to wonder if they might even have employees post with "damage control" on threads like this. It was sent to them.

Anyway...

Now, I did contact Line6 again in the last couple days with another question about how to activate the Midi thru, however, in another short sighted move buy Line6, there is no midi thru on the Bass Pod Pro. A feature that every other midi device I have ever owned has had. So they did answer that question about the Pod Pro unit. However, the answer was basically that $500 does not get you that very basic feature.
 
Im making sure i get an alarm installed in the house after this, but i think line 6 stuff sounds pretty good. I own a spider II head model and have played through many different POD units. Is the tone as accurate as the real thing? Of course not, but it the amp models do sound good.

Im not the only one who thinks this either. I was fortunate enough a few weeks ago to see the Alan Parsons Live Project play at an outdoor show. You know who Alan Parsons is right? He's the guy who engineered Dark Side of the Moon. His own band sounds quite nice as well. What did their lead guitarist play through? A Line-6 PODxt PRO through stacked flextone cabs.

On the flipside, My Spider II HD blew up about a month ago and cost $100 to get fixed. My friends Spider II HD had the same problem. Also, i bought the 1x12 version of the amp to play through cab before I got the head. When I got the amp I noticed it didn't have a speaker out jack. When I asked line6 how to hook it up to the cab they said, "Speaker extension jacks are a feature of more high-end amplifiers". Ok, thats why my p.o.s. crate GFX30 ($180) has an 8ohm extension then? Because its "high-end" right? How much do you think they saved by leaving that out of the amp design anyway? $5 per model?
 
I stated it a few times. I can not get the software to see the Pod Pro, it may be a software problem (and probably is), or it might be a problem with the pods midi functions. The software was done by Emagic, which I have tried to contact, and have yielded no reply. The new Line6 software does not support it's "out of production" products.

I am well aware that this is a great place to find answers to problems like this. It was not the point of this thread.

...also, after spending an hour on the Behringer Bass V-amp Pro, I don't even care about that Line6 hunk of crap anymore. The Behringer unit sound just as good, if not better, and has a TON more features, not to mention software that works. It may not be built as solid, but it's not getting road worn in my studio, so it will be just fine. Plus it was only $140, so if it blows up, or becomes outdated in 2 years, no big deal, at least I'm not out $500.
 
Toker41 said:
I am well aware that this is a great place to find answers to problems like this. It was not the point of this thread.
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So the point of the thread was to say Line6 sucks, gotcha.

Want to sell the Bass Pod?
 
Ive had a POD 2.0 for a few years and I think its great, for recording... The guy that mentioned about plugging your guitar into your pod and then plugging the pod into your amp and hearing what a tone sucker they are is correct, but the point is, they arent really meant to be plugged into an amp, no matter what anyone tells you... They are really meant to be a direct in tool... You can do the same test with loads of different pedals etc, most dont have true bypass... Anyway, sorry to hear that Line 6 have let you down.
 
Toker41 said:
One has to wonder if they might even have employees post with "damage control" on threads like this. It was sent to them.

Anyway...

Now, I did contact Line6 again in the last couple days with another question about how to activate the Midi thru, however, in another short sighted move buy Line6, there is no midi thru on the Bass Pod Pro. A feature that every other midi device I have ever owned has had. So they did answer that question about the Pod Pro unit. However, the answer was basically that $500 does not get you that very basic feature.
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LOl.. no I don't work for line 6..I wish.. I bet thats a cool job :) but anyway.. I bought my used POD PRO and hooked it up tpo my Mesa 2:90 power amp.. best tone EVER.. who cares about on-screen editing anyway

Im truly sorry you had a bad experience with them and you feel like you have to spread lies on the internet to feel better about it. but Im very happy with my purchase and with the way I was treated by line 6.

peace
 
Spread lies? You pompous ass! Who the hell are you to call me a liar? Because my experience with them was different than yours, I'm a liar?
After a statement like that, and seeing how you only have 3 post, and didn't even join this site until right after this thread was forwarded to Line6, I have to wonder again if maybe this is damage control via a mole, and even if it's not, ...go f*ck yourself, newbie! How do we know YOU are not lying? My experience with Line6 was exactly as I stated. It's great that you had a different one, but that DOES NOT make me a liar, nor does it give you the right to call me one! :mad:

I guess everyone else that posted about a problem was lying also? Asswipe!
 
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sorry if I offended you in any way.. I was just pissed off because I almost gave up on my purchase based on this thread here (and the one on HC) thinking if my preamp breaks down nobody would help me fix it.. but then when I decided to talk to them, it was the exact opposite..


again.. I did not meant to offend you.. thats one of the reasons why I dont like to talk on the internet.. its hard to read emotions and stuff..

anyway.. my apologies again

peace
 
Nicely put...all is good.

I hope you have a good experience with your Pod. I have never questioned the sound of the Line6 products, and my Bass Pod Pro does have some really great tones. My Behringer has many more, though, and more features, and cost a lot less.
Anyway...
...any time you are looking to buy a product you have to read both sides of the coin. Some people have good experiences, and some have bad. This is true of all gear. Read the good and bad, and decided how it weighs out for your needs. Also, it is good to contact the company first, as you did, and not just go buy what you read on threads like this one. As someone stated, sometimes it depends on the person you get on the support line.
For me, I will not deal with a company that is as short sighted as line6, when it's products are often expensive, and advertised as "pro" equipment, yet doesn't have the most basic of features.
 
Im not the only one who thinks this either. I was fortunate enough a few weeks ago to see the Alan Parsons Live Project play at an outdoor show. You know who Alan Parsons is right? He's the guy who engineered Dark Side of the Moon. His own band sounds quite nice as well. What did their lead guitarist play through? A Line-6 PODxt PRO through stacked flextone cabs.


probably had some small marshalls and fenders under the stage that were actually mic'd and was paid alot of money to advertise it on stage, and probably only used the effects, not the modeling ?? :) :)

The thing about line6 in my opinion is most people use it wrong. correct me if im wrong but....use a line6 amp at home to practice and get a really nice sound that will blend well with the CD your playing with.....use it for direct recording......use even for live by using the direct out to the board, and it will sound OK with your amp as your monitor on stage. but micing a line6 amp/combo/cab seems dumb to me, and i dont think that is what they are meant for, they already reproduce a mic'd cabnit sound on their own dont they?? so tell me if you mic a line6 arent you.........

micing a mic'd sound??? that is where your trouble lies in my opinion, the headrood is gone, already eaten up by the modeling/ heavy compression built into the amp, it leaves very little/no room to shape the sound in a live situation. As a result they have very heavy bottom end at high volume levels, leaving the sound tech with mud. Not to mention compared to a real tube amp you do not get the playing dynamics/string/pick interaction.
 
metalj said:
probably had some small marshalls and fenders under the stage that were actually mic'd and was paid alot of money to advertise it on stage, and probably only used the effects, not the modeling ?? :) :)
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Ian Bairnson is his name and he is responsible for some astonding guitar sounds throughout the 80's, 90's and through the present.

There would be no reason at this point in his career and more appropriately no reason for Line6 to pay for that kind of hoax. If Ian has chosen a Line6 array it's cause he likes the "sounds" he's getting out of it.
 
dont know much about line 6 products, but i know 3 people who have the green delay pedal and one of the footswitch knobs if broken off for all 3.

its a really cool pedal and i would definately pay for it, but not if its going to break in a couple months.
 
hey toker thanks! :)

I also have a behringer v-amp pro and I agree, it is a great preamp. I am moving it to my studio now that the pod pro is on my live rack.
the problem I had with the behringer for live shows was the gap when I switch amp and cab models. I don't know it the bass v-amp is like that. But the preamp sounds great and it will work perfectly for my studio.

I agree that in terms of sound quality the behringer is very close if not equal to the line 6 for a lot less $$.. they do that with every product they copy though.. which is not good for the industry, but it is a good thing for musicians on a tight budget.
 
Line 6 junk

Feel free to write me and send me any of your broken line 6 stuff.

I have a habit of resurrecting other people's throwaways... Hey wait, maybe there's a guy like this near you somewhere.
 
Joseph Hanna said:
Ian Bairnson is his name and he is responsible for some astonding guitar sounds throughout the 80's, 90's and through the present.

There would be no reason at this point in his career and more appropriately no reason for Line6 to pay for that kind of hoax. If Ian has chosen a Line6 array it's cause he likes the "sounds" he's getting out of it.
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HAHAHAHAHA oh yeah line6 definitely doesnt need to pay professionals to endorse their products, everyone's just lining up... :p
 
I realize that the POD is primarily for direct recording. I do not use it normally in front of an amp for live use. I merely offered a test to demonstrate for yourself just what crap their converters and circuts are. If they were good then they wouldn't maul your guitar signal. If they were good then your guitar would sound equally good either through the unit or bypassed. This does not appear to be the case in my experience. The difference was shocking.

Keep in mind, when a lot of pros use Amp Farm they're just using software and not the mediocre hardware. I'm sure with $2,000 Benchmark converters it would be great. ;)

That being said, I do use my PODxt for recording when I am unable to crank up my real amp and use real microphones. I can live with the degredation especially since I use the pod for its heavily effected sounds anyways.

I have used my POD through a PA while playing live and it was fine..."discriminating tone" just goes out the window in such situations anyways.

As for prior L6 experience:

I owned an early AxSys that went to the shop three times and it finally caught on fire.

Replaced with an AX212 -- died twice, repaired, upgraded and sold it. That thing was just buggy.

I also own their filter pedal and it broke in less than 18 months. I gigged with it for a few months and then, in studio use, it just died.

I had a bandmate who used an early Spider that he couldn't keep running. Dead, dead, dead...then I quit the band and who knows what happened later.

Customer service has been inconsistent...sometimes great (when I had a direct line to GVW) to non-existent. I think it's totally hit or miss. I think what this thread is documenting is just this random nature of their customer service and the ambivalence that people have toward their products.

Personally, I've been using L6 gear for nearly a decade and I'm done with them once my Pod dies, which should be any day now. :eek:
 
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