How many producer-engineers are using the pod xt for the MAIN rock guitar sounds?
I heard in June, Line 6 is slated to release the new POD xt with RTAS compatibility.
I have an mbox2 pro, how might a hook the POD with mbox2pro for recording???

So far, I just have amplitube LE that came free with PT LE 7.3 and it ok but it doesn't have great tone. THanks TL SPACE I was unable to make it sound a little more cool, as can be heard at:
http://www.soundclick.com/bands/page...?bandID=516588
mp3 is at 320kbs
I hoping that the POD XT will get better guitar tone than this clip has. Possible or will the POD XT basically be the same?

I've tried and tried, but spun my wheels trying, only to have extreme difficulty come mix time.

Some of the sounds sound good on their own, but don't seem to play well with others.

Having said that, there are some usable clean tones and some nice effects and texture guitar sounds, but for the big gain sound, I couldn't get it to make me very happy.

There's nothing like the real thing!!

sure it gets bashed a lot here in GS.. but it's an useful machine...
though IMO it's better not to rely on it for everything... but if you use it and also mic amps the results can be very good IMO ... BTW, get all the model updates, they are worth it, and have some of the best models...

Best advice is to use it via AES/EBU and DI the guitar.
I love the Pod Pro XT when used this way- ie bypassing its converters.

As said above, it can work in some situations. If you've got a small project studio or home studio, it may be ok. But if you're running a professional recording sudio, you'll probably need some real amps.

As a side note, over all I prefer the sound of Amplitube 2 and Guitar Rig 2 to the sound of my PODxt Pro or Tonelab. YMMV

there's just no comparison to the real thing...honestly. I want there to be, but there's not. I just downloaded the Amplitube 2 demo and was really, really impressed with it. It really might have better sounds than the Pod, but I haven't used it in a mix. Check out Amplitube - the AC30 is pretty killer.

Be forewarned! There are A LOT of Pod haters on GS.

The only way you'll know if it works for you is to use it and listen. Listen!

There was just an article in most recent issue of TapeOp with a guy who now only uses Amp Farm for his guitar tracks. You might want to read that to get one person's thoughts on it (actually, two, if you include his engineer...also interviewed).

I personally have used it and have found uses for it. I still have an old POD Pro...I would imagine the tones from the XT are much improved.

Best of luck!

I like to use the Pod XT for cleaner texture/FX guitars. Sits well with miced up higher gain tracks in the mix.
The thing I do with the Pod, if I use it at all, is always put it through some analog gear before tracking it. On the last album I did, we cut the rhythm and main lead guitar with cabinets and mics. Cleaner guitar layers were done with Pod XT > API 550a or b > LA 4/1176 > PT. I try to get some transformers in the signal path. Sometimes I'll run the Pod through a DI box > mic pre > then the path mentioned above and drive the mic pre a bit hot for some more transformer saturation.

FWIW

-Scotty

Pods work if you need a saturated/processed/papery gtr sound. Its tough to get any "bite" out of them cuz those frequencies just aren't there. You can definitely get a usable sound in most case, but a lot of time, "usable" just isn't good enough for most people.

i really like the pod XT

Of course you have to tweak it a lot, but you can get some great results, sure lots of people hates it...Most of them never went further than fukking around with the presets... As mentioned before the latest modeled amps than you can dowload from line 6 website and the extra packs are worth it. I don't say it's the best ever solution for recording guitar or that real amps are ****...Of course not. But it a damn powerful tool and can be extremely useful.
We have both an XT pro and a normal XT. To our hears, there's no difference between the 2 (using the digital out of the pro or the analog out of the normal XT) but the pro offers some cool feature like reamping.
Special mention to the bass pod xt....Great tone. I think you can get the bass pack for the guitat pod xt now.

Well i have the opposite feeling, i don't use extremley saturated/distorted sound. i think the pod xt is particulary good at emulating slightly overdriven amps and clean ones like the ACs 30/15 Orange D30 and Fenders...
For me the best tip i can give to pod users is to play with the different mics settings...It does really change (as it should) the feel and response of the modeled amp.

I love it but you really need some real mic'd cabs in your mix also.

I am trying to find the article but didnt Adam D from Killswitch use POD's on one of the abums? Or who knows, maybe they still do?

Like I said...dont quote me on this...

I'm not a POD hater...I'm not an amp sim hater...I've got a POD, and a sansamp. But I can honestly say that the POD doesn't even come close to a decent amp properly mic'd. It can't compete. And I think I know why...

The Line6 stuff and indeed some other speaker simulators like the Motherload II (which is amazing btw) rely on phase shifts somewhere in the speaker simulator section. I dont know how they work but if you try, you'll find that you can never make them 'go in' with a DI or a mic'd amp, or a second artificial reamp...they just go out of phase. Sansamps dont do this, and I think its one of the reasons why the sansamp seems to consistantly make it's way onto records...on bass every day, but also on guitars and drums and all sorts of other things. This also explains why the POD tracks never seem to be quite at the front of the speaker in the way that a mic'd cab can do when close mic'd. These phase shifts seem to create a space between the speaker and the guitar.

I'm not a physicist or a Line6 engineer, so feel free to blast away but this is what I believe until someone shows me a better reason why they dont work.

J

I have a PodXT bean, and previously had a Bass Pod Pro which I sold in favour of analog solutions (Sansamp, MXR 80, JDI, preamps - anything is better for bass).

IMO, almost anything analog blows the Pods away. And almost any plugin effect blows away the Pod effects.

I like the Pod for the tuner - that's about it. And as an A/B reference for anyone who seriously want to know what sounds better.

I'm not a Pod hater. I am a noisy guitar amp hater - and there are many noisy guitar amps that I truely despise more than a Pod.

Don't confuse Pod hate with DI hate. It's not rational to blame a Pod for boring DI sound IF you hate DI sound and choose to use your Pod as a DI. If you really need to hear speakers and air and mics and preamp, then use the Pod as a guitar preamp and stop whinging.

A Pod is very versatile, and if you can't get something useable then it's really your own fault. Consider it a lo fi toy and have some fun with it.

Having said that - I really don't like the Pod AIR modeling. To my ears, it's simply a cheesy room reverb with two slap back delays to give a bit of space. It's permanently enabled on the headphone out, so don't use it's headphone out. Disable it, by using it in Live mode (turning it into a guitar preamp).

A convolution reverb with a nice cabinet impulse is far, far more realistic.

Use the balanced outs - lots of people don't realise it has balanced outs on TRS.

My major gripe is the wierd wolftones in the amp models, particularly the british amps in general. Try single note scales up the high end - yuck.

Buy some analog stomp boxes and listen with your ears. Basically, you can replace everything in the chain with the real analog stuff, and ultimately it ends up as a digital eq emulating an amp tone stack.

If I could buy amp tonestacks in a box, I wouldn't need my Pod ... but that's basically where good analog preamps come in.

I think it also matters what kind of wood you have plugged into it. An LP Custom with Bill Lawerences, or my 99 Universe with EVO7 bridge, Blaze middle and neck, and it sounds great.

Plug a crappy guitar into it, and it sounds bad.

I'm a pod hater, and I'm a guitar player first, gearslut second. i went through every iteration of the pod gear over the years and thought it sounded good, but that was just because i forgot what a real Twin or AC30 or Marshall really sounded like. i "found" those amps again, and out went the pod. probably forever.

but can it be useful? sure, for putting down ideas at midnight to not wake up the kids. for recording anything i want other people to hear? fuggetaboutit.

Thats called an Eganter M4, or the less slutty Randall series

well, all my guitars are very good... i simply don't use cheap guitars... and i seem to get good sound anywhere... maybe that's why...

You know, the other thing that I did (for live stuff) was got an ADA tube preamp and a couple of ADA 2x12 cabs. Cranking that up sounds pretty good.

not much of a "producer" here, but I'll chime in.

I own an Pod XT Pro, and have spent HOURS tweaking / refining patches for it, looking to get good tones out of it.

Then I bought a few amps and never looked back. It's been unplugged for the past month +

But I wont sell it... it has its uses (it'd be great for some purposefully awful sounds... you can get some truly bizarre results with the FX pack and some experimentation), and actually was the only thing I recorded through up until just not being able to extract what I want out of it, and seeking other alternatives.

There is some hard-to-describe lifelessness to the tone when using one, and that DOES transfer to recordings. It's also notorious for having that dreaded 'buzz' around 5-7k in higher gain situations, and curing that with EQ typically sucks even more life out of the sound.

Latest issue of Tape Op ... Interview with Sally Browder and Pete Anderson (LA producers) - they both use Line 6 modeling exclusively from what I've read. They seem pretty happy and able to dial in whatever they want with it.

You can use a pod and a pod xt for recording guitar
but it won't be pro............

i remember vernon reid used those ada pres and liked them a lot...

there was one specific guitar sound i was able to get with a quadraverb Gt that was pretty awesome too (it used a resonator filter instead of an eq)...

also i remember one time plugging a tech 21 xxl fuzz box directly into the mixer with a whirlwind mic eliminator and i got a great fuzz tone with it that made it's way into a record...and it was a great tone...

the sansamp rack was awesome also...

the pods are just like any other piece of gear... depends on what you do with it... i like them a lot and find them very practical (i have a pod xt and a bass pod xt) and they are great tools to experiment with...

and amps are great too... of course there's a special character in recording an amp that is unique...

why not use it all? each option has its pros and cons...

but yeah... the main difference is in the guitar and the player...

Yea, the Pod is usable... just depends the use. I think that doing stuff like music for TV shows, or music for commercial spots... then it's a great tool. You don't have a ton of time to get the stuff done, and you just need a quick workflow. Tone isn't paramount on a TV commercial for a hemmroid cream. I'll agree that bypassing the convertors isn't a bad idea at all.

Also, for scratch tracks, or for use on tracks to reamp later... it's a great idea.

I have a PSA-1 however that seems to actually do "keeper" tracks much better than the Pods that i've used.

If you got to the Line6 forum you can hear mp3's posted by everyday users and I have to say that a lot of them sound REALLY good. I have Podxt and Guitar Rig but I NEVER try to make them sound like a "real amp". For intsance, I don't give a **** about a particular "Mesa" sound or "Fender" sound. If I use the Pod or GR then I am just going to make it sound the way I want it too.

Too many people get wrapped up in whether or not they sound "real". They sound different so just use them to your advantage. If you are a purist (or elitist) then stay away from the Pod because you will be too busy comparing the models to the real thing. But I personally don't try to make them emulate any particular amp. Although I have played guitar for 15 years, I have never looked for "THE ULTIMATE GUITAR TONE". I like different tones. Tons of different tones. I consider them just another paint brush.

And I believe Todd Rundgren used AmpFarm for ALL the guitars on Bad Religion's "The New America". And as mentioned before, Sally Browder and Pete Anderson use the Pod exclusively. Meshugga used the Pod AND DFHS for some of their records.

I don't understand how anyone can say they aren't "pro"? What the **** does that mean anyway?

i dont know the ins and out of all his productions, but i'm willing to bet he didn't use a pod for any of the distorted guitars. hes got plenty of great amps to cover those tones (ie SLO100). However, its possible for some of his clean guitars to have been run through a POD. I'm pretty sure he used a Fender amp for the clean stuff on the new CD though.

Anyway, how does the pod or a sans-amp hook up to the mbox2pro's????

once again, you post the lamest one liner.

Anyway Pods are one of this subject on gearslutz where nobody is going to agree.

cut allencollins some slack, he has made more efforts in the last year from what I saw him post before... that is cool in my book.

Anyway, anyone know how to connect them up?