Making the Jump from watts to Ghz. What do you think of my choices?

[one50watts8ohm]

Hey Sevenstring community,

I'm finally taking the plunge into digital guitar recording, yay whoopee and that jazz. I've been looking at the Line 6 POD HD Pro X Rackmount unit that retails for around 649.99 to 699.99 and would like your expertise on a slew of questions. if you can only answer one of them each i'd be infinitely grateful as the guitar center guys are all pretty average on the knowledge base of this new product.

I was wondering if any of you have anything good to say about it or bad* to say about it? hopefully from just strictly hands on experience.

Here are some things about my rig. Pretty ghetto as I am mostly using a JCM 900 atm.

Schecter c-1 classic 6string
ESP LTD Stephen carpenter Tele 7 string
Macbook Pro running mavericks and Logic 8,9, or X. I can also use Ableton Live. (does the line 6 work with ableton?)


I would like to be able to just plug straight into my computer if possible. and then just head phone out cause i have some nice Sennheiser's that i can use.
(if you recommend monitors... which ones? maybe on the nicer side but also just a steal for the price of the pair... could always get those next paycheck.)

I will be using this for mostly Jazz and Metal with the occassional acoustic being plugged in.(does that sound any good btw???)
I'd like to record directly with my mac book pro using Logic X.

How is the sound of the unit? the feel? Does it make you a better player or just hide your sloppiness, or Is it true?

Are there better units or programs out there for the price within the 1000.00 range?

...thanks again for your time! I hope to be uploading tracks within a month to my soundcloud if this all works out like i hope it will. Send me good vibes guys!

Disclaimer. yes... I know about the axefx. I also know about the 2400.00 price tag. Some day

Sincerely,

theroybot

 

[sage]

Bro, I would load Logic up and set up some LePou free amps and IRs before dropping that kind of cake on a Pod HD Pro. There are a bunch of other free and paid amp sims out there that are outstanding. If it's recording that you're looking to do, spend some money on a decent interface that you can plug your guitar directly into (I use an Art Tubefire 8 and Focusrite Saffire Pro 40 and find them both to be easy to use), a pair of nice monitors, and a little sound treatment for your room. Getting proper tones with headphones is pretty difficult because they can be really deceiving and ear fatigue sets in earlier as well.

Keep the JCM900 for live use if you require it down the road. I can't see an instance where I'd prefer to use the HD Pro over the available amp sims. Your MacBook Pro is an incredibly powerful computer that can handle running your DAW of choice and an amp sim. Outboard gear is not required.

 

[macgruber]

if you want an all in one unit, the pod hd is great bang for the buck. yes, it takes a lot of tweaking to get your tone sounding great, but once its there you can just leave it as is.

i ran one for about a year and would still be happy with it for a main rig.

 

[Given To Fly]

I would like to be able to just plug straight into my computer if possible. and then just head phone out cause i have some nice Sennheiser's that i can use.
(if you recommend monitors... which ones? maybe on the nicer side but also just a steal for the price of the pair... could always get those next paycheck.)

It is possible to record and only use headphones, I did it for a year with decent results, but nothing can replace a pair of properly placed studio monitors. The listening experience of being in the sweet spot and hearing a clear stereo image is not subtle; it will change how you hear music in general. The Equator D5's are $399 for the pair and are worth at least twice the price. You purchase them directly from Equator.

I will be using this for mostly Jazz and Metal with the occassional acoustic being plugged in.(does that sound any good btw???)

Unfortunately, acoustic - electric guitars sound pretty bad when you record the pickup direct.

 

[one50watts8ohm]

Bro, I would load Logic up and set up some LePou free amps and IRs before dropping that kind of cake on a Pod HD Pro. There are a bunch of other free and paid amp sims out there that are outstanding. If it's recording that you're looking to do, spend some money on a decent interface that you can plug your guitar directly into (I use an Art Tubefire 8 and Focusrite Saffire Pro 40 and find them both to be easy to use), a pair of nice monitors, and a little sound treatment for your room. Getting proper tones with headphones is pretty difficult because they can be really deceiving and ear fatigue sets in earlier as well.

Keep the JCM900 for live use if you require it down the road. I can't see an instance where I'd prefer to use the HD Pro over the available amp sims. Your MacBook Pro is an incredibly powerful computer that can handle running your DAW of choice and an amp sim. Outboard gear is not required.

I like the Idea of having something like this: Focusrite Saffire Pro 24 | Musician's Friend,

though I value the Idea of plug and play and also being able to save a setting and no matter what knob i touch being able to properly get that input level's tone exactly as I had it.

You guys have much more experience then I do and I value your opinion, let's ballpark here.

If I got the:

Saffire Pro * link above

and these

Equator D5 Coaxial Studio Monitors for Home or Studio. Active Nearfield Monitors.

Id be better off then buying the line 6?

I've played through a compressor into say a amplitube type simulator and was weirded out by the latency delay. but this focusrite says zero latency. Is it really no different then playing through the line 6?

 

[one50watts8ohm]

if you want an all in one unit, the pod hd is great bang for the buck. yes, it takes a lot of tweaking to get your tone sounding great, but once its there you can just leave it as is.

i ran one for about a year and would still be happy with it for a main rig.

This brings up a lot of Idea's for live use and that definitely is a factor for the overall want of this.

The Idea of having almost the same sound that you had on a track fine tuned for live use? Great application. I'm almost considering this as a cheaper alternative to the axefx, and the idea of having something that has just as much application in the studio as your main live rig.. pretty lucrative. I understand that I might not get the tone chaser's wet dream, but all in all isn't it the music that matters?


...pfffft jk! Make it bounce on my chest!

 

[macgruber]

I'm almost considering this as a cheaper alternative to the axefx, and the idea of having something that has just as much application in the studio as your main live rig.. pretty lucrative.

the pod hd is essentially a lower price alternative to an axe fx ultra. very similar features (the main difference is that the pod has usb direct recording - the ultra has IR loading)

 

[Stresspill]

I could go in depth into the reasons why the Axe FX is just a massive con, but I'll surely be hanged for making such claims on this site

As sage said, there's a lot of software based amp sims that are great, the 'Amp Designer' plugin that comes with Logic Pro I think fairs up really well, but you need to know how to use it in a mix, and spending $$$ on other gear won't negate that.

I do like having a standalone piece of hardware though, firstly just so you can externalise the processing of your guitar signal and take the load off of your computer's CPU, plus I also just prefer having a real set of knobs to manipulate the parameters, just makes the whole process a bit more natural.

I used to own the Pod X3 Pro, and that was great for rock and metal both rhythm and lead tones. Fear Factory, old school Meshuggah, Fellsilent all used Line 6 and made it sound badass.

 

[Given To Fly]

The Eleven Rack is both a guitar preamp and an audio interface. Avid is releasing the Eleven Rack Editor so that people who don't have ProTools can edit presets using the computer editor which is much easier than editing from the front of the hardware unit. There was a fair bit of negativity towards the Eleven Rack amongst the metal community because of its inability to create good high gain tones. Fortunately, some people put some time into designing better presets than Avid did and revealed the inability was mostly in the users, not the Eleven Rack. I was awful at making presets so I copied other people's and tweaked them a little. I actually learned a lot about how signal chains work by doing this. Anyways, a used Eleven Rack with the Expansion pack might run you $400 and thats on the high side.

You're good on the monitors!

The Eleven Rack has no dedicated foot controller so you'll have to figure that out. The Voodoo Labs Ground Control has sort of become the go to foot controller though.

The Focusrite you are looking at is probably a great audio interface but it doesn't really solve the guitar related problems. You could record a DI signal and use amp sims but that taxes your CPU and can cause latency. The DSP on the Saffire Pro 24 is geared towards compression, EQ, reverb, etc. which are all great, but they are mixing tools everyone uses; you need an amp simulator which brings me back to the Eleven Rack...

 

[noUser01]

I'm with Sage on this one. Especially considering that BIAS is coming to Mac as a plugin. That's definitely worth waiting for and I think sounds much better than any other amp simulation plugins I've used.

That being said if you're set on the plug and play thing then the POD HD Pro is great, pretty solid unit that sounds and feels great, has lots of options and is great on the go. That being said you'll get more detailed control over your amp with BIAS, and with plugins you will have a bit more routing options than with a POD (for example, you can have 3 noise gates if you want, or run more than 2 amps at a time if you want, etc).

 

[7stg]

I Highly recommend getting the 7 or 8 inch version for studio monitors. Because the 7 or 8 inch versions give the ability to better hear what is going on in the low end, they will still work well in a small room, and will work well at low levels but have more headroom when wanted. I have liked the Adam F7 or the Yamaha hs7 or hs8.

Software is a great option, but several of the options are at the point that the next version should be out and any upcoming tradeshow, AES in March??? Guitar Rig released September 1, 2011 and PODFarm released May 17, 2011 are both included here. So, stick with demos or freeware unless you don't mind paying for the old version just before release.

Here is Guitar Rigs releases plotted out, one of his dates is a little off but it gives the idea. Version 6 will be the longest time between releases since the beginning.
I Calculated when Guitar Rig 6 will be Released - Gearslutz.com

There are a couple interfaces that are coming out with thunderbolt that will reduce latency. The audio must be processed by the computer and the factors here are CPU power, Ram speed/quantity, and bus speed usb>firewire>thunderbolt. With a good setup there shouldn't be a difference between using a PC vs separate hardware.

Another thing, make sure that your input has a high enough impedance. 1M ohm is the standard for guitars and I like 10M ohm.

 

[FretsOnFyre]

The Eleven Rack is both a guitar preamp and an audio interface. Avid is releasing the Eleven Rack Editor so that people who don't have ProTools can edit presets using the computer editor which is much easier than editing from the front of the hardware unit. There was a fair bit of negativity towards the Eleven Rack amongst the metal community because of its inability to create good high gain tones. Fortunately, some people put some time into designing better presets than Avid did and revealed the inability was mostly in the users, not the Eleven Rack. I was awful at making presets so I copied other people's and tweaked them a little. I actually learned a lot about how signal chains work by doing this. Anyways, a used Eleven Rack with the Expansion pack might run you $400 and thats on the high side.

You're good on the monitors!

The Eleven Rack has no dedicated foot controller so you'll have to figure that out. The Voodoo Labs Ground Control has sort of become the go to foot controller though.

The Focusrite you are looking at is probably a great audio interface but it doesn't really solve the guitar related problems. You could record a DI signal and use amp sims but that taxes your CPU and can cause latency. The DSP on the Saffire Pro 24 is geared towards compression, EQ, reverb, etc. which are all great, but they are mixing tools everyone uses; you need an amp simulator which brings me back to the Eleven Rack...

+1. IMO, the Eleven Rack is quite a bit better than the Pod HD if you're looking for a hardware solution. Otherwise, as mentioned, Positive Grid's BIAS is pretty damn good as far as software, and it's like 20 bucks.

 

[noUser01]

+1. IMO, the Eleven Rack is quite a bit better than the Pod HD if you're looking for a hardware solution. Otherwise, as mentioned, Positive Grid's BIAS is pretty damn good as far as software, and it's like 20 bucks.

The desktop version is probably going to be a hell of a lot more, but yeah it'll still be awesome.

 

[one50watts8ohm]

Might be a dumb question but can I use the Eleven rack with Logic Pro X?

 

[noUser01]

Might be a dumb question but can I use the Eleven rack with Logic Pro X?

Someone else correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe you can only use Eleven Rack as an interface with Pro Tools. You can however run your Eleven Rack into an audio interface and record it into any DAW. I'll let someone else confirm or deny that, but yes you can use it with any DAW though the method might change.

 

[Ewan]

Start off with a cheap usb interface which allows you to plug your guitar directly into your computer. There are loads of interfaces with 2 mic pre-amps and pretty much any of them will do. Use an amp sim plug-in for your sound. Of you get a lot of latency try to find the settings on either logic or the interfaces drivers to reduce it. Don't bother with outboard gear unless you fancy playing without your computer turned on. Logic has some amp sims that you can try straight out of the box, but in my opinion they are rubbish, but I never spent much time tinkering with them. Get a recommended plugin for amp simulation, again there are loads. I use revalver.
When recording, monitor through the plugin (i.e. what your playing and hearing goes through the plug in) but only record the dry signal. That way you can change your guitar tone after you've recorded at any time. This is especially important for you starting out since you'll probably record a load of stuff with a tone that you've found and then months later find a better tone using a different plugin or different settings. You'll easily be able to transfer that tone to everything you've recorded so far. It will also help to keep your sound consistent between songs. It also means you don't need to spend hours getting the perfect tone before recording. You can record with a crappy tone if you're feeling inspired and sort it out later when your more in the mood for that.
I only use one amp model for everything, I think the default 6505 model, and I control the gain with the volume sliders in logic.

 

[one50watts8ohm]

Dear Sevenstring community,

First let me start off by saying thank you for your opinions on the matter I had.

After deliberation of the pro and cons. I think I made the right decision.

I did go with the Line 6 Pod HD pro X.

It arrived by ups yesterday morning and I've been playing with it ever since. I've recorded a few things just from the factory presets and some new tones i've come up with just on the first day.

I'm not gonna say that I think these are good. But I did have a hell of a time creating them. it seems like the tone possibilities of this thing are quite massive.

I will be likely getting some M audio 5 inch monitors from a friend for relatively cheap and in good condition. I will also be getting the saffire pro in the mail anyday now for the purpose of what i hear is called "reamping" similar to what Some of you were saying about recording the dry sounds and be able to later change them if I find a new tone or new idea.

Please follow me on soundcloud and i'll do the same.

https://soundcloud.com/the-roybot

I've uploaded a few things from my adventures over the last 24 hours.

 

[sage]

I Highly recommend getting the 7 or 8 inch version

That's what she said.

Congrats on the purchase! That honeymoon phase with a powerful modelling device is always super fun. Enjoy.