Unreal sound from the little 'ol Cube

Fingers Mcginty

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iSImMlrCXIo

Karl Hungus

Ah yeah, the cube is a force to be reckoned with. Awesome little fella, and every guitarist should have one. It's my most used form of amplification.

Fingers Mcginty

yeah have to say it beats my pod hands down. Ever DI'd it thru a desk?

Karl Hungus

Fingers Mcginty wrote:

yeah have to say it beats my pod hands down. Ever DI'd it thru a desk?

I don't know about beating the Pod, my XT Live is some serious bit of kit.

Nope, never DI'd it through a desk.

So Glad

Yes, I hope to buy one sometime but my mates one sounds bloody brilliant for the size and wattage! I'm gonna use it to busk the whole of Dark Side Of The Moon on Grafton Street

So Glad

Fingers Mcginty wrote:

yeah have to say it beats my pod hands down. Ever DI'd it thru a desk?

Hold on, it beats your POD? Let's not jump to conclusions!

The POD is still and awesome creation....

sei046

my pod xt live still has it i afraid!

Karl Hungus

You cannot diss the Pod I'm afraid.

I've been running mine now for the past hour through the Return of the effects loop on my ENGL with the mix up full, essentially just using the Poweramp section of the ENGL. God it sounds more awesome than the microcube ever could!

Handy little trick with the effects loop though.

Fingers Mcginty

Mine is the red kidney bean

Karl Hungus

Fingers Mcginty wrote:

Mine is the red kidney bean

Is it an XT or 2.0 though?

Fingers Mcginty

the ould POD 2

Karl Hungus

Ah that makes sense. Heard those weren't all that great. Haven't played one myself though, I'm speaking purely from XT Live experience.

So Glad

I've never fully been able to use the full potential of my PODxt because there is SO many options. I could spend hours forging a tone. All Line 6 need to do is make a PODxt that could run on batteries! Then I will be satisfied beyond belief!

We can always dream..........

So Glad

By the way Karl, I'm loving the sig!

Karl Hungus

So Glad wrote:

I've never fully been able to use the full potential of my PODxt because there is SO many options. I could spend hours forging a tone. All Line 6 need to do is make a PODxt that could run on batteries! Then I will be satisfied beyond belief!

We can always dream..........

Ah yeah, it's probably one of the best toys I've ever bought, I can spend ages tinkering with it, there's just so many things you can do, so many wierd and wonderfull features, and so many different amps. I got the Metal Shop expansion pack at Christmas, and that adds some seriously nice models to it, if you're into that kinda thing.

Funnily enough, today was the first time I ran it through the effects loop of the ENGL, bypassing the preamp. Before I'd generally run it infront of the amp on the clean channel if I was using the amp models. Great amount of things to do with the Pod so there is. It's kinda reduntant, but running an ENGL model on the Pod through an actual ENGL amp is pretty funky. Deizel and Bogner models are damn cool aswell. It can take ages to tweak the sounds properly though, practically each amp model has to be tweaked differently.

I like the idea of a battery powered Pod, but I'm assuming you mean something like the Microcube? That would be cool indeed, but you've got to hear the Pod blasting out at you from a big **** off 4x12!

So Glad wrote:

By the way Karl, I'm loving the sig!

Yeah, it's a great film, and that scene was just stomach-crampingly funny. I was using the sig on another message board, and I loved it so much, I just had to port it over here.

I was going to change the quote aswell to an Anchorman quote, but I haven't decided on what yet.

So Glad

Ok, so I've my PODxt running into my Marshall MG50DFX's input with the clean channel gain at about 4, is this ok? Would it be better to use a different input? This never occurred to me. Also, yeah, Microcube is LIKE a PODxt with batteries, but I'm talking about LCD screen and huge tone database, and maybe a small pedal board..........*druels*

"Go **** yourself, San Diego."

Karl Hungus

So Glad wrote:

Ok, so I've my PODxt running into my Marshall MG50DFX's input with the clean channel gain at about 4, is this ok? Would it be better to use a different input? This never occurred to me.

Yeah, of course that's ok. Although, I'd probably turn off the gain, and get all the juice from the Pod.

As for using a different input. Depends on whether your amp has an effects loop or not. Essentially by plugging the Pod's output into the loop's return jack, without the send connected to anything, you're bypassing the preamp and just using the poweramp section. You're getting a cleaner signal for the Pod that way.

Dunno if that'll work on your MG, as the mix control on my ENGL when set to full completely bypasses the preamp.

So Glad wrote:

Also, yeah, Microcube is LIKE a PODxt with batteries, but I'm talking about LCD screen and huge tone database, and maybe a small pedal board..........*druels*

"Go **** yourself, San Diego."

Why not rig one with a car battery?

Jack Vegas

Gots to love the POD, any time I've been practising in any studio I can always plug into any old amp they have kicking about and get brilliant tones, probably the best peice of kit I've ever bought, my Pod XT.

Slaanesh

As for using a different input. Depends on whether your amp has an effects loop or not. Essentially by plugging the Pod's output into the loop's return jack, without the send connected to anything, you're bypassing the preamp and just using the poweramp section. You're getting a cleaner signal for the Pod that way.

That's a great idea, must try that when I get home. Can never seem to get the sound I want through my AVT100.

Karl, what do you do to keep volume levels similar between patches?

Have you found any nice distortion presets? I'm mainly playing Rock/Pop with my covers band and the classic distortion I use sounds a bit washed.

Karl Hungus

Slaanesh wrote:

That's a great idea, must try that when I get home. Can never seem to get the sound I want through my AVT100.

Yeah, that's probably the preamp of the AVT colouring the tone too much. Not too sure if it'll work as well with the AVT as it does with my ENGL mind you, it depends on the effects loop. I think the loops on Mesa Boogies have been problematic in this reguard, as the mix is really dry.

Slaanesh wrote:

Karl, what do you do to keep volume levels similar between patches?

Just tweak by ear really.

Slaanesh wrote:

Have you found any nice distortion presets? I'm mainly playing Rock/Pop with my covers band and the classic distortion I use sounds a bit washed.

Hmm, there's so many ways to get a good distortion sound from the Pod. I'll generally run a high gain amp model with the "Screamer" stomp patch, which is based on the Ibanez Tubescreamer. That never fails to make things sound good.

Hope that helps.

JHet

Atomic amps are the absolute dog's do da's for modelers.

http://www.atomicamps.com/

Everyone is raving about them on the various MFX websites. I got one myself for my GT-8. Man it rocks, literally.

Basically its tube cabinet/poweramp designed specially for Multi FX Processor units. You just plug straight in from the output on your modeler.

The inherent problem with modelers and guitar cabs is that the cab will have a particular voicing to go with whatever preamp it comes with. This colors the tone and often makes the MFX sound like sh1te.

The atomic speakers are designed to be as neutral as possible. The speakers are powered by two JJ 6L6 power tubes. It really warms up the sound and gets rid of fizz which is one of the major problems with MFX.

I know this is way OT. Sorry bout that, but i thought it might be useful to some people.

All the Best

les-paul

Uh, don't tubes and neutral mix up rather badly on the same paragraph?

As I learnt it, if you're spending your bucks in a modeller you should preserve its output as much as possible, ideally running through a flat response amp and full range speakers, so I don't really see how tubes can help here.

Sounds quite like a great marketing hype to me. That said, I'm never happier than running my Pod XT through my Vox Pathfinder sh*t*, with Gain as low as possible, that is.

Dord

I bought a Microcube late last year and i'm VERY impressed with it. I can get some sweet sounds out of it. I love just messing about and seeing what whacky sounds I can get. one setting that surprised me is the "Mic" amp selection. This one seems to change so much based on your guitar and pickups. I've gotten some nice sounds out of it, such as the sound of Rush's "Fly by night". I got that sound almost exact!! :eek:

then I just went all out on that setting and cranked the gain, chorus and delay. using the volume pot for swells with these settings I can get it sounding like synth strings.

JHet

les-paul wrote:

Uh, don't tubes and neutral mix up rather badly on the same paragraph?

As I learnt it, if you're spending your bucks in a modeller you should preserve its output as much as possible, ideally running through a flat response amp and full range speakers, so I don't really see how tubes can help here.

Sounds quite like a great marketing hype to me. That said, I'm never happier than running my Pod XT through my Vox Pathfinder sh*t*, with Gain as low as possible, that is.

It alters the tone, but in a very good way. It adds warmth and depth, something often missing with modelers. Tubes help to really fill the room, and achieve that lovely saturation point. The atomic i would say, is not totally FRFR like a keyboard amp or PA, but what it does is so much better than either of these. I've tried it all my friend, and IMHO the gt-8 through the atomic is the best i've ever had it sounding period. no BS.

Fingers Mcginty

Karl Hungus wrote:

....my XT Live is some serious bit of kit.....

Is that the bean or the the one with the pedals you have?

Slaanesh

Fingers Mcginty wrote:

Is that the bean or the the one with the pedals you have?

The 'Live' bit means the floorboard version.

Karl Hungus

Fingers Mcginty wrote:

Is that the bean or the the one with the pedals you have?

One with the pedals.