Pod Pro Blues

[Resonant Alien]

I have a POD 2.0 and a Roland GP100 (the first modeling guitar preamp ever made). I bought Roland back in '96 when it first came out, and it still blows the POD away. Roland doesn't badge the GP100 anymore - they sell it as a BOSS GX700 or something like that, but it is awesome. You can pick up a used GP100 on eBay for about $350. The BOSS goes new for about $850. All the hype over Line6 and POD is overrated IMO. It's "OK", but there is much better stuff out there. Native Instruments Guitar Combos ($169) sounds better than POD if you want to go the VI route instead of the hardware route.

As for "real" amps , I've never found one I liked that wasn't loud. I have used a VHT 2x10 Pittbull for about 5 years - I love the tone but it is loud. My solution? I bought a 12" Celestion and built an isolation box out of MDF and lined the inside with Auralex, permanently mounted a Sennheiser e609 inside. I also run a THD Hot Plate Attenuator between the VHT and the speaker box. Works like a dream and my wife still loves me.

Best of luck

RA

[lane_hagood]

I have been using the Pod Pro for guitars for a while, I haven't been really excited about the sounds it produces. I have a home studio and have been using this as an alternative to an amp...noise reasons. That being said, can anyone suggest an amp that would be good for all styles and not extremely loud...don't want to piss my neighbors off. Is anyone using an amp that is worth checking out?

All info is appreciated...thanks in advance.

i should have metioned this before but, i find that the sans amp analog stuff sounds pretty convincing. especially when compared to a pod. that my op anyway. i am getting really fatigued to the sound of my pod pro.

[lane_hagood]

I've tried the nanohead and i wasn't imperssed. Low wattage for sure, but small and grainy sounding and very expensive for what it is. It is a great idea, but it doesn't do it for me. zvex stompboxes are great though! Champs are great especially if you pipe them through a 10" or 12" speaker. The 8" is cool, but it is limited in it's uses (great for doing Keef richards stuff) Supro, valco, magnatone yadda all made very cool little amps that are really similar and very low wattage. some of those can still be had for a song. Harmony made some cool amps and i have a harmony H400a, small 8" amp, couple of watts, However, it has no power transformer so it can be a little dangerous, but i like to live on the edge and it does sound good.

My .02 cents, save up and get the emery super or microbaby. You won't find a more expressive and huge sounding amp.

yep, I have a red pearloid valco that i used until it really started getting warn out. needs a replacment speaker( 6 in) hard to find a good one and they dont make the rectifier tube for it anymore( i dont think). cool sound though with a tube screamer. i have also used a super champ which was great. but they are going for $800 these days. i got mine for $200 in 1989.

really, check out this guy at guytone nice little 5 watt amp called the gilmore. there are some sound files to listen to.

[lane_hagood]

I've tried the nanohead and i wasn't imperssed. Low wattage for sure, but small and grainy sounding and very expensive for what it is. It is a great idea, but it doesn't do it for me. zvex stompboxes are great though! Champs are great especially if you pipe them through a 10" or 12" speaker. The 8" is cool, but it is limited in it's uses (great for doing Keef richards stuff) Supro, valco, magnatone yadda all made very cool little amps that are really similar and very low wattage. some of those can still be had for a song. Harmony made some cool amps and i have a harmony H400a, small 8" amp, couple of watts, However, it has no power transformer so it can be a little dangerous, but i like to live on the edge and it does sound good.

My .02 cents, save up and get the emery super or microbaby. You won't find a more expressive and huge sounding amp.

yep, I have a red pearloid valco that i used until it really started getting warn out. needs a replacment speaker( 6 in) hard to find a good one and they dont make the rectifier tube for it anymore( i dont think). cool sound though with a tube screamer. i have also used a super champ which was great. but they are going for $800 these days. i got mine for $200 in 1989.

really, check out this guy at guytone nice little 5 watt amp called the gilmore. there are some sound files to listen to.

[lane_hagood]

I have a POD 2.0 and a Roland GP100 (the first modeling guitar preamp ever made). I bought Roland back in '96 when it first came out, and it still blows the POD away. Roland doesn't badge the GP100 anymore - they sell it as a BOSS GX700 or something like that, but it is awesome. You can pick up a used GP100 on eBay for about $350. The BOSS goes new for about $850. All the hype over Line6 and POD is overrated IMO. It's "OK", but there is much better stuff out there. Native Instruments Guitar Combos ($169) sounds better than POD if you want to go the VI route instead of the hardware route.

As for "real" amps , I've never found one I liked that wasn't loud. I have used a VHT 2x10 Pittbull for about 5 years - I love the tone but it is loud. My solution? I bought a 12" Celestion and built an isolation box out of MDF and lined the inside with Auralex, permanently mounted a Sennheiser e609 inside. I also run a THD Hot Plate Attenuator between the VHT and the speaker box. Works like a dream and my wife still loves me.

Best of luck


pods are way over rated

RA

[yofo]

I'll chime in with a low cost tube amp that I love , Crate Vintage Clube 30. I have a Marshall JCM 800 and a old Fender Twin and a big Crate VC that are great live but I record with the Crate VC 30. You don't have to be "loud" to get GIANT gtr sounds. I like the old ones before they added DSP.

[David Polich]

I've tried every guitar amp modeler there is - Digitech, SansAmp, Pods (old and new), Marshall JMP-1, Korg, Vox, I can't remember all of them now...

For my ears, the Vox Tonelab is the clear winner. It's the only one with an actual tube in it, for one thing. 90 percent of the time I'd rather use the Tonelab than any real amp. It's the first modeling box that made me say "that sounds like a guitar amp with a mic on it".

As good as any amp may be, you are stuck with that amp and its speaker cabinet. You can't swap them out. The Tonelab (and software amp emulators) give you the option of swapping "heads" and "cabinets" in as many combinations as you can think of.

Had a guitar player in here a few days ago with a cheap little boutique amp and six pedals and spaghetti wiring everywhere. His setup hummed and crackled and just plain sounded crap - but since he was the client's choice, I went along with it. Ya know, telling a guitarist his amp sounds bad is like telling him his kid is ugly. Anyway, the Tonelab would have solved that situation in a hurry.

For software amp emulators, both Amplitube2 and Guitar Rig 2 (not the original Guitar Rig) sound very good - Amplitube 2 has the edge in realism, I'd say, but not by that much.

[lane_hagood]

I've tried every guitar amp modeler there is - Digitech, SansAmp, Pods (old and new), Marshall JMP-1, Korg, Vox, I can't remember all of them now...

For my ears, the Vox Tonelab is the clear winner. It's the only one with an actual tube in it, for one thing. 90 percent of the time I'd rather use the Tonelab than any real amp. It's the first modeling box that made me say "that sounds like a guitar amp with a mic on it".

As good as any amp may be, you are stuck with that amp and its speaker cabinet. You can't swap them out. The Tonelab (and software amp emulators) give you the option of swapping "heads" and "cabinets" in as many combinations as you can think of.

Had a guitar player in here a few days ago with a cheap little boutique amp and six pedals and spaghetti wiring everywhere. His setup hummed and crackled and just plain sounded crap - but since he was the client's choice, I went along with it. Ya know, telling a guitarist his amp sounds bad is like telling him his kid is ugly. Anyway, the Tonelab would have solved that situation in a hurry.

For software amp emulators, both Amplitube2 and Guitar Rig 2 (not the original Guitar Rig) sound very good - Amplitube 2 has the edge in realism, I'd say, but not by that much.

I hear you. I always split a DI off the guitar if at all possible and record a direct unprocessed signal that can be either reamped with softwear or with a reamping setup ( pod pro on the past). i am going to start using radial's reamp box and not even tell 'em. hee hee.

[lane_hagood]

Has anyone tried using that isolation cabinet that has the 12in celsetion and a mic built into the box? i cant think of who makes it.

[markwayne]

I'll second the Roland GP100. It does a spot-on Fender and Matchless emulation. It can also do a very convincing, low-gain Marshall plexi. The Sansamp PSA-1 is another great "direct box" for certain tones. The Tonelab is also a nice sounding box.

I never understood the popularity of the Pod. Talk about the power of hype. I owned a Pod for several years simply because so many clients would ask for it by name. I'd let them use the Pod and then let them compare it to the Sansamp, GP100 or my Marshall or Boogie. Over the years that I owned the Pod, and after hundreds of sessions, I think it might have ended up on a half-dozen tracks at best. And those guys had no taste.

Wayne

[Kind Of Loud]

I never understood the popularity of the Pod. Talk about the power of hype. I owned a Pod for several years simply because so many clients would ask for it by name. I'd let them use the Pod and then let them compare it to the Sansamp, GP100 or my Marshall or Boogie. Over the years that I owned the Pod, and after hundreds of sessions, I think it might have ended up on a half-dozen tracks at best. And those guys had no taste.

Which Pod, are you referring to.??... Is it v.1.0, v.2.0. or the current XTv3.0..??

I'll take a guess, and assume you do not have the XT, because if you did, I would recommend you seek medical attention immediately, and have your ears tested.
By the way...Jeff Beck used a Podv.2.0, on his last CD "Jeff"....I guess the man has "no taste"..

[markwayne]

Which Pod, are you referring to.??... Is it v.1.0, v.2.0. or the current XTv3.0..??

It was a v2 which I gladly sold. The clients who asked for the Pod at that time had often not even heard one. They had just read about it somewhere and figured they should use one on their sessions. That's what I meant by hype.

I'll take a guess, and assume you do not have the XT, because if you did, I would recommend you seek medical attention immediately, and have your ears tested.
By the way...Jeff Beck used a Podv.2.0, on his last CD "Jeff"....I guess the man has "no taste".. Wink

I have heard that the XT is a major improvement. But, no, I won't be going down that road again. I can see the usefullness of the Pod as a portable device for sessions without cartage. It's sort of like a super-charged, modern-day Rockman (which a long laundry list of famous guitarists - including the Beckster recorded with in the 80's).

Oh come on! Jeff Beck! That's hardly fair. Jeff is famously experimental, cavaliar and agnositc about equipment. I've read that Beck once plugged a Rat pedal straight into a Shure Vocal smasher PA after blowing up his Marshall at a 60's era concert and sounded brilliant. All that being said, Jeff's newer stuff is so highly processed that the original tone is often obscured. Anyway, Jeff is one of them. You know the artists who could plug into a toaster and still sound great. I didn't mean to dismiss the Pod completely.

Equipment choice is a very personal area. It's probably good that we don't all like the same tones or devices, or musicians would have an even harder time finding their own voice.

Wayne

[Kind Of Loud]

Hey markwayne.....

2.0, huh..??? Yeah, I gotta admit, I wasn't exactly jumping for joy with that version..About the only use I found for it, was to blend in a bit of "fenderish" clean tones on some rhythm tracks.....If you ever get a chance to audition the XT, preferably at your studio, I think you'll find it to be quite a useful tool in your arsenal....Takes some tweakng, but I'm quite impressed with it...My Marshalls, Fenders, and Boogies are getting quite dusty...

As far as Beck's guitar tone being highly processed, I think now a days, unfortunately, all guitar tracks get processed to the max..At least, from what I can tell...So I do wonder, what difference would it make by using these new gadgets, or the real McCoy..?? Things get eq'd, squashed, limited, and then squashed again at the mastering stage, I have to wonder......"....he/she played thru a what..??!!!!"...HA! HA!

Good chatting with you...

[lane_hagood]

Hey markwayne.....

2.0, huh..??? Yeah, I gotta admit, I wasn't exactly jumping for joy with that version..About the only use I found for it, was to blend in a bit of "fenderish" clean tones on some rhythm tracks.....If you ever get a chance to audition the XT, preferably at your studio, I think you'll find it to be quite a useful tool in your arsenal....Takes some tweakng, but I'm quite impressed with it...My Marshalls, Fenders, and Boogies are getting quite dusty...

As far as Beck's guitar tone being highly processed, I think now a days, unfortunately, all guitar tracks get processed to the max..At least, from what I can tell...So I do wonder, what difference would it make by using these new gadgets, or the real McCoy..?? Things get eq'd, squashed, limited, and then squashed again at the mastering stage, I have to wonder......"....he/she played thru a what..??!!!!"...HA! HA!

Good chatting with you...

Yes, most pop music is so processed that it makes little difference. there are lots of sounds used that are super sharp eq's slices of an original take. It sounds good in context, but not "real".

I think that any version of the pod is fine as long as you dont need a "real" sound.

This really wont work obviously for americana or roots rock artisits who need an organic sound.

Also. alot of the desent sounds that people coax out of the pod are run through avalon's or other units to impart additional tone. I think at that point it is sort of defeating the purpose of what the pod is puported to do.

I still use mine...but i am not impressed by the sound of it. so guitars sounf bettter than others... my rick sounds better than my tele.

[Kind Of Loud]

think that any version of the pod is fine as long as you dont need a "real" sound.

I don't work for Line6...HA! HA! A real sound..??? Hmmm, maybe not, but it's getting real close...For instance...A friend of mine, who uses a PC with Sonar, downloaded a free program that will process "impulse responses". So I brought over some tracks I had recorded, with my PodXT...He found some impulses, of guitar cabs mic'ed with various mics, through diffrent pre's, and I gotta tell ya...."Is it live, or is Memorex..!!"..HA! HA! So if realism, is what you seek, it's damn close to being here already..!!!

Also. alot of the desent sounds that people coax out of the pod are run through avalon's or other units to impart additional tone. I think at that point it is sort of defeating the purpose of what the pod is puported to do.

Well.....Besides being great pre's, these units also "color" the signal in a favorable way...Why would running the Pod through them, defeat it's usefulness..??...I've run my XT through my UA2-610, for just that reason. But I do it less now, because my UAD Pultec warms things up quite nicely....Same effect, to these tortured ears..!! HA! HA!

So yeah, it's probably the old cliche...."Different strokes, for different folks."

Take care.......