PODxt - User Review

[Offshore Angler]

This thing is amazing!

In an effort to keep Mrs. OSA happy, I picked up a PODxt for JamZone and practice use. The DRRI at 85db is sweet, but I wanted a direct recording solution that would double as a DI box in the event of an amp failure. Lugging the old rack gear is not an option I want to do.

Took it out of the box, and read the manual. The manual sucks, and is written in a conversational manner that a 15 year old would find inane. Plus, it never really tells you HOW to use it. It tells you What, but not how.


Now, before all the cork sniffers condemn me for using a PODxt, consider the following:

This is on a separate loop in parallel with my analog effects, not in then chain. Also, when using digital effects, you need to realize that using the same patches for headphones or recordig won't work. You MUST adjust your patches for the psycho-acoustic effects to keep them from sounding unnatural and digital. If you are willing to delve into the "smiley face" response curves and get a grip on how the highs and lows of processor become exxagerated when played at stage volumes you can get some danged nice sounds playing live. It's a skill that takes some work or a good sound engineer.

The first thing I did was connect the USB cord and install the latest drivers and software. Next, I downloaded the TonePort software. Then, I plugged it in with headphones and played with it. For the first hour, I was thinking "Boy this thing is complicated and doesn't sound that great." Then, I started to get the hang of it. It's SO danged easy once you understand it it's silly. All the knobs seem to make it very complicated. But they are really for editing. All you need to play live is the little knob next to the display. It selects the patches you've saved. Select an amp, a cabinet, effects, signal chain, tweak, and then store it.

The TonePort sofware makes it a breeze. You see the amp and the effects right on your screen. Coudn't be simpler.

So after learning how to use it a little, I made a patch for a TS 808 and a little compression, modeled through a BF Deluxe. A/B'ed it with my rig. Holy Crap! It sounds every bit as good once I EQ'd to work at perfromance volume with an amp. Next, a JTM45 with a RAT. Again, amazing. It truly delivers tones that, unless you had the real deal right next to it, you coudn't tell the difference. The new software upgrade is the sland.

Will I ditch my rig? No. But having this on a loop and being able to call up a Matchless Cheftian or a Marshall 100 with a Big Muff when required can't be a bad thing. Or an MXR Dynacomp, or a tape echo, or you name it. The models are solid. The UI is a breeze, and on the spot tweaks are via tone controls, drive, and prescence are right there for you.

It even responds to the guitar's volume control like the real deal. Like I said, amazing. What a great tool. It takes some learning time but the effort is well worth it.

Hopefully, I'll be able to do some JamZone stuff with it shortly so you can hear it.

Kudos to Line6.

OSA

[hudpucker]

I've been jonesin' to try mine out with one of these:

http://www.atomicamps.com/

[Rickenjangle]

Congrats, OSA! Did you get the XTlive or the Kidney Bean?

[Gravity Jim]

... having this on a loop and being able to call up a Matchless Chieftain or a Marshall 100 with a Big Muff when required can't be a bad thing.

You got that right!

A POD Pro has been my only recording amp for many years now, and it sounds so good and is so versatile, it has ruined me for most real amps (I had a Blues Junior, for example, and it sounded like total crap no matter what I did... so now I'm holding out for a truly great amp).

OA, your experience demonstrates why so many guitar players reject units like the POD out of hand. I have always found it amusing that the same tube snobs who will buy an amp, swap out the tubes, swap out the speaker, mod the tone stack, change the speaker again, try 15 different drive boost pedals - all in a months-long effort to get a great sound out of it - will spend 10 minutes or less running through the pre-sets on a POD and declare it useless.

But as you wisely discovered, you have to turn the knobs! If you approach a POD xt as you would an amp - as a blank slate that you're going to experiment with, with knobs you can turn to change to sound - it reveals a vast array of great tones and head-spinning versatility.

Like any other tool, you just have to learn what it does.

[Don]

I had a POD 2.0 and replaced it with a PodXT as soon as they got the firmware right.

I use it for headphone practice and direct recording. I love the thing! It's best with a PC. Line 6 Edit and/or the TonePort software make it complete. The GUI is actually fun to use.
My 11 year old son enjoys it. He sets the Pod to the hardest rocking presets and uses the Tone Port metronome as a cheesy drum machine and rocks out with the power chords that I showed him.

I actually use it to learn what type of effects I might want to buy and what situations to use them in.

It doesn't sound nearly as good and alive as my real gear, but most non-musicians would actually like the recorded PodXT's sound better.

[clayville]

I like mine fine. Very versatile, and lots of usable stuff amongst the novelties if you really work at it, like you say. Probably haven't done as much "build a tone from the ground up" work as you describe though OA. I find the software (Line6 Edit) a lot easier and more intuitive for editing than the bean itself.

Don't miss Line6's CustomTone library site. I'm a about a lot of fx, so I've found the "start from somewhere and tweak the bejeezus out of it" method to be very useful (if not ultimately very educational). Mixed in between the hundreds of Vai and death metal contributed tone presets are some very cool jumping off points.
http://customtone.com/


That said... I'm really digging the warmth, tubulocity and realism of the Womanizer pedal, and use it for 85% of my JamZone stuff now. Even though it's an eighteen trick pony instead of an 800 trick pony. Man... those eighteen...!!

[seagate]

I still use my POD 2 for recording, you can't beat it for that. Yeah sure a cranked amp with a 57 in front of it sounds better but it's unlikely any mortal can pick it in the mix and in the middle of the night it's not really an option.

One thing I started to do is record a totally dry signal (using the DI output of the StroboStomp) as well as the processed one. If I need to change something I just reamp it through the pod. The possibilities are endless.

[Offshore Angler]

Gianni, I got the bean.
I'm freaking grooving on this thing. I got a DR patch through 2x12 that sounds every bit as good as my DRRI. At nice, easy volumes.

Seriously, junk all the uber gain phaser patches to get the kids and build a few amps and this thing will flat knock your socks off.

Questions for users-

When I save a patch how do I get the correct output? The manual has some total rambling bullshit that tells you nothing about it.

And, if you select a patch you built with the "select" knob, if you hit "effects" and change them, is there a way to default or navigate back tothe way you built them?

Additionally, I uploaded the drivers, but in GuitarTracks I don't see the USB as an input device. Not supported? Not biggie, I need a better recording package anyway.

OSA

This is so far, the greatest peice of gear I've ever bought.

[Offshore Angler]

He, he, I built a model of my stage rig. It sounds awesome. If my amp takes a dump I'll XLR into the PA and have the same rig.

I may even take the notebook, set it up with the editor, and select patches with it between songs. Any guitar players in the audience - PSYCH! That would be so funny. Even if I didn't use it and just stealthed onto the analog loop. "How does he freaking do that?!!! Itr sounds totally real!!!"

[clayville]

This is so far, the greatest peice of gear I've ever bought.

I love it when folks love where they park their hard-earned cash.







Now... e-mail me the damn patches!

Seriously though... the output volume thing can be tricky -- depends on the guitar, the pup output, etc, with 'etc' covering a heck of a lot of ground. But by following the gibberish in the manual you should be able to mostly regularize the outputs from the presets you create (give or take the gain changes from the output, drive, eq, stomp, chan vol knobs and mod, delay and/or cab buttons) if you do it all at once, that is sometime after you have a pile of presets ready to get into 'output synch' with each other. It's a lot of parameters though, with a wide range of affect on the tone & volume... so it won't be perfect unless you set all the knobs on the bean to 12:00 noon and only futz with the presets through the software (if that makes sense).

I'm pretty sure it remembers whether you had any of those buttons depressed the last time you used the patch (and so doesn't go back to 'zero' in that sense, but to the combination depressed in the black part). To save your patches without the fiddles/tweaks to the knobs or parameters you might have made on the fly without saving the edits I think you just twiddle the selector knob to something else and it reverts to the last version in its memory.

You can also backup all your presets to your pc (and it saves the file as TodaysDatePodxtBackup) which can help save you from wayward wandering.

[Offshore Angler]

Thanks clay, looks like the "channel volume" is the key to it. I like to keep it as high as possible to keep the signal to noise ratio in a happy place, but so far, this thing is so quiet it doesn't matter.

Looks llike you can tweak the settings in LineEdit and then when you look at the bean you see dots that show the presets next to the virtual knobs. Let me figure out how to email you a patch and I'll do it in a day or so.

[JAM]

Modeling technology has come a long way since the first Line 6 I played through. My little Vox amazes me, my SR and Princeton are now in the closet.

[grito]

Hey OSA. I'm struggling between a PODxT and a Toneport UX1. How you plugging into the computer? You using the USB?

[clayville]

I have an Mbox... so I tend to use the L-R audio outs of the PodXT for recording, becuase that's the chain I'm used to.

[dirtdog]

I had a POD 2.0 and replaced it with a PodXT as soon as they got the firmware right.

I use it for headphone practice and direct recording. I love the thing! It's best with a PC. Line 6 Edit and/or the TonePort software make it complete. The GUI is actually fun to use.
My 11 year old son enjoys it. He sets the Pod to the hardest rocking presets and uses the Tone Port metronome as a cheesy drum machine and rocks out with the power chords that I showed him.

I actually use it to learn what type of effects I might want to buy and what situations to use them in.

It doesn't sound nearly as good and alive as my real gear, but most non-musicians would actually like the recorded PodXT's sound better.

Hey Don, how would you compare the two (the 2.0 and the xt)?

I just picked up a Pod 2.0 on a smokin' closeout deal. But I thought I should have spent the extra dosh and picked up the xt....

DD

[bigrockshow]

has anybody tried it in front of a amp instead of the pc? does it sound as crappy as people make it out to be?

[Dale]

I have the 2.0 (or whatever the last chip upgrade was) and the XT. The 2.0 is more refined and processed to me. Easier to get to tape. The XT is more realistic, but that comes with the need for more studio skill to get things as you would like them in the end.