Line 6 POD HD Thread

[Indigenous]

I appreciate the response. I suppose I wasn't very clear in my first post. I'm familiar with the 4cm, and I know that it is feasible to run it through a tube amp. I was under the impression that the amp will still give a bit of color to the POD, making it sound differently from a POD running through a PA system or a power amp. I'll also admit that I confused myself a bit with the FX in and out, because they are labeled differently on the Deville. I'm not the brightest sometimes.

What I should have asked is if it would be worth it for me to get the POD, considering my current options. I love the sounds it can get, so I figured after a bit of research it wouldn't hurt to pose my question to everyone here, since you all know quite a bit about it.

Sorry for the confusion, and for annoying you to answer this question.

 

[leechmasterargentina]

I appreciate the response. I suppose I wasn't very clear in my first post. I'm familiar with the 4cm, and I know that it is feasible to run it through a tube amp. I was under the impression that the amp will still give a bit of color to the POD, making it sound differently from a POD running through a PA system or a power amp. I'll also admit that I confused myself a bit with the FX in and out, because they are labeled differently on the Deville. I'm not the brightest sometimes.

What I should have asked is if it would be worth it for me to get the POD, considering my current options. I love the sounds it can get, so I figured after a bit of research it wouldn't hurt to pose my question to everyone here, since you all know quite a bit about it.

Sorry for the confusion, and for annoying you to answer this question.

Man...if the POD sounds great by itself, it sounds even better with a tube amp.

 

[Nemonic]

Man, that is okay and I am glad that you explained the problem. The thing is that this thread highlights when there is a new post, and it pisses easily when you find out that someone asks for something he can do on his own. Now this is not totally your case.
You should start with posting a link to the particular model of your Fender.
I have not played that amp. I assume it is going to give tube voicing to your tone, even saturation when you crank the poweramp a bit.
It is going to sound way different than PA, because you won't be using the cabinet and poweramp modeling.
We also do not know what kind of sound do you aim for. You can always use just the effects, especially in conjunction with both Deville's and POD's FX Loop.

 

[LolloBlaskhyrt]

Someone tonematch this please

https://soundcloud.com/nolly/vik-caprice-t-outrageous

(if it's possible). I'm using an RG with Duncan Distortions, if this can help

 

[meambobbo]

That's good to hear from your personal experience, meambobbo. I'll probably go with the Bx8's. I thought I'd have to fork out some hefty coin to buy the pair in mint condition but there are some pairs on Ebay going for as low as $349.00 . So I may be getting them sooner than later... It's getting kinda old using my home stereo system and RCA speakers. Bass sounds terribly muffled and it pops at high volumes. Really hindering my desire and ability to record/mix right now...

Thanks again, guys for your helpful advice! Much respect

I bought my BX8's off Ebay for around the same price. The seller boxed them like crap and the UPS guy appeared to have dropped the box - out the gate the volume knob on the back was broken on one. I had to send it to M-Audio to fix it, but they did and for not too much money either. Overall it was still a good deal. About 4 years later, one of them stopped working - not sure if it was the same one that was repaired or not. Turned out one of the giant capacitors tied to the power supply blew out - I could see it was quite "puffy". I replaced it myself with some $10 caps - fairly easy repair.

They're still going strong today.

 

[MikeK]

Thanks for that Intervals patch Ricky, anxious to try it out when I get off work today.

 

[meambobbo]

i may be able to score a Kemper KPA for cheaper than you'll find anywhere. Still a pretty penny and I'm a cheap guy. anybody want to chime in and let me know how idiotic it would be for me to pass up this deal?

edit: i realize this is a bit off-topic. but my real question is whether anyone here has used both and can answer whether the KPA is so mindblowingly better than the pod hd, it is worth the money.

 

[Nemonic]

I doubt that there are people who can tell you, because it takes time to learn how to work with POD, while the Kemper seems to be sort of plug'n'play device.

If I were you, I would grab it with both hands. Your work would be still present a lot here, but you would end the suffering of infinite tweaking, probably.

 

[meambobbo]

i found a way to pre-EQ the Pod HD amps last night that has solved my tweaking itch...I'll post it soon - night and day type difference in tone I'm getting. So I'm finalizing all my patches and I'm done. I'm happy with the Pod...would certainly be happier with the Kemper, but how much happier, that is the question.

The way I'd be getting the KPA would be unethical to re-sell. But even if I hocked my Pod, I'd still be paying a wife-angering amount for it.

 

[Poltergeist]

i found a way to pre-EQ the Pod HD amps last night that has solved my tweaking itch...I'll post it soon - night and day type difference in tone I'm getting. So I'm finalizing all my patches and I'm done. I'm happy with the Pod...would certainly be happier with the Kemper, but how much happier, that is the question.

The way I'd be getting the KPA would be unethical to re-sell. But even if I hocked my Pod, I'd still be paying a wife-angering amount for it.

Interested to see your EQ discovery,bobbo!

I think you should really get the KPA if it doesn't break the bank for ya.... How good of a deal are you getting verses the commercially listed price?

 

[RickyCigs]

Bobbo, I'm not sure if you thought of this yet or not, but you could profile all of your pod tones on the kemper

 

[RickyCigs]

Tonight will be new patch night for me. However, I'll be teasing you with them until I reach the next milestone on my YouTube views

Today's tone match: All Shall Perish-Awaken The Dreamers
Next tone match: Threat Signal

 

[meambobbo]

Interested to see your EQ discovery,bobbo!

I think you should really get the KPA if it doesn't break the bank for ya.... How good of a deal are you getting verses the commercially listed price?

Ok, so let's get into this EQ thing... I've always noticed I couldn't get my Periphery patch to have the same "clanking metal" sound in the top end - real rough and grinding, and kinda open at the same time. Like the tone has more of a percussive element to it, rather than just the squishy, chunky palm mutes. I noticed I could get a bit more of that tone recently by using a Parametric EQ to reduce some lower mids (~35% freq, q, and gain) before my amp model. I employed this mostly on my patches with the Uber, as I felt it sounded a bit more natural and similar to a Mark IV - works for both the raucous Lamb of God tone and a Petrucci tone, although there are subtle differences on the center frequency I targeted. Yes, this can reduce some of the squishy goodness of a boosted tone. But if done in the proportions and targeting the right frequency, you get the right balance.

So for my Periphery patch, I have a couple gates, a tube comp, and a q-filter in front the amp. The Q-Filter is what really pre-EQs the amp to get a more focused distortion. I found a setting of around 60% worked best - any lower and there wasn't enough bite in the high end; any higher and the low end thinned out while the high end got a bit harsh.

So I tried something a little different - I pushed the Q-Filter frequency up to about 80% (keep in mind I'm using it in band-pass mode). Normally, I would never go this high. Anything past 70% you start to lose the mids boost to get squishy palm mutes - everything becomes percussive. As expected, I lost my squishy palm mutes, and I got that harsh metallic grinding high end, but the sound was too thin. So I added a Parametric EQ to boost up the punch/lower mids to add that back in. And I found that I could also get some of the squish back, to get my palm mutes a chuggin, but without diminishing the percussive and raucous high end I was trying to dial in. It took a lot of playing around, but I figured it out - and it worked. I can't remember exactly but I believe I settled on the following settings:

Q Filter: BP, Q:0%, Gain:13%, Freq:75%, Mix:35%
Parametric EQ: Lows: 45%, Highs:55%, Q:40%, Freq:30%, Gain:70%

I also found it was essential to run the Parametric EQ AFTER the Q-Filter, or it didn't work correctly.

I applied the same logic for my Chaosphere patch, and it worked perfectly, completely replacing the Screamer; however, the settings were a bit different. I think I used a Q-Filter freq of 90%, and a Parametric freq of 45 or 50%.

On the Periphery patch I'm using the Fireball model. Some sort of midrange boost is essential to tighten it up. That high-frequency Q-Filter gives it quite the nasty treble boost - works great for rhythms but can be harsh for leads. However, you can just turn it off for leads or use the neck pickup and it's ok. I settled on 75% frequency because as you go higher you sacrifice some squishiness that really djent on palm mutes to a raucous, grindy top end. Really around 50-65% gives the most squishy, tight mutes, but it can sound a bit "fake". So 75% was the compromise. I then messed with the Parametric until the sound wasn't ridiculously thin anymore. Overall, the tone is a bit thin and dry sounding, but I find it's bigger than just using the Q-Filter, and sounds more natural. It also sits perfectly in a mix. I'll try to get a clip up tonight.

On the Chaosphere patch, I'm using the Rectifier model, and I'm actually pushing the power section pretty hard. The Screamer always makes it too squishy. Sounds cool to just chug on mutes, but it's obviously lacking and sounds completely fake. I found the Recto responded better to higher Q-Filter freq settings. In fact, I had initially thought I may use 100%. As expected, you lose all squish. Mutes becomes nasty and percussive, like you're playing through single coils. I tried the same settings for the Parametric as I did above with the Fireball, but it just didn't work - I was just adding a little fuzz to the grind. So I tried more to give it the standard ~800-1k midrange boost to bring out the djent. That seemed to not only bring back the appropriate amount of squish, but thickened up the low end enough as well.

Post-EQ wise, I actually found it was easier to dial in my final frequency response. I still kept with the Mid-Focus to tame the extremes. I usually have an additional Parametric, where I can dial in some presence or scoop some of those honky ~700 HZ mids, but I mainly use it to shelf the high-end down with the Highs parameter. I usually end up around 30-35%.

If any of this is confusing, hopefully seeing the posted patches will help. Maybe I'll even make a video

 

[meambobbo]

Hey Rick, I'm definitely not worried about losing my Pod patches. I guess the main things I'd miss about the Pod would be the foot controls and some of the crazier effects that I don't think the Kemper has. I'm also not worried about having to tweak the Pod to get a desired tone - I have a whole setlist of tones I've dialed in, and feel can only be minimally improved. If there's a few more I want to dial in, I could fairly quickly dial them in, now that I feel I know all the tricks. The main concern is money vs. sound quality. I wouldn't use the Kemper to do too much that I'm not already doing on the Pod - the tone would just be better. I'm sure I'd expand to use a few more tones, but my core tones would be the same as I've got on the Pod.

 

[meambobbo]

Rick, definitely try out the advice above on the Fireball for an All Shall Perish tone.

 

[RickyCigs]

Rick, definitely try out the advice above on the Fireball for an All Shall Perish tone.

I think this approach will work better for the threat signal tone, but I was going to try it anyway lol

All Shall Perish have a lot less of the high end metallic string sound. I talked to Chris Storey about his setup on Awken the dreamers and he said he used a rocktron prophesy into a vht power amp with a Mesa cab. No boost involved. I'm not sure what Ben was using at the time, but I'm sure ill be able to pull it off either way.

 

[RickyCigs]

alright, so this one was a lot trickier than i thought since both guitarists tones are so different from each other. let me know how i did!
https://soundcloud.com/rickycigs/all-shall-perish-tone-match

 

[Veldar]

Any guys tried to get a cliff like wah sound from the Pod's at all?

 

[RickyCigs]

busy busy busy!

here is my Threat Signal tone match. pretty damn pleased with this one
https://soundcloud.com/rickycigs/threat-signal-tone-match

any thoughts?

 

[Konfyouzd]

Anybody have a HD Pro that just suddenly stopped receiving input? I've had mine for all of 2 days and it's like a damn brick now...