Line 6 - Digital dream or Technological nightmare?
Posted: Tue Jul 03, 2007 1:16 am
I've had my pod xt live for a while now and the opinions of the unit in general seem to be polarized. It was all i played through while away at college, since using an amp at pretty much any volume proved to be too loud for dormitory settings. Mainly playing through my vox advt 15 while home at summer and then randomly taking the pod xt live for a jam i noticed a few things that seem to bug me about it.
The good: The clean amp simulations (fender deluxe, twin, etc) sound amazing. Reverbs, modulation, and delay effects also seem to be pretty top notch. I especially enjoy the stereo delay setting on an ac30 patch.
The bad: While the distortions geared towards heavy metal sound pretty authentic to me, milder to moderate levels of gain lack dynamics and the saturation that you get from playing just about any real amp regardless of tubes or solid state. The pedal worked great while i went through a few stints with various desperate local metal acts but i find the distortion extremely lacking when i play music that i actually enjoy. The initial "Attack" of the amp sounds just like the real thing but there is a lack of saturation on all models unless you really drench it in gain.
This was recorded using windows stock recording program, the quality of my playing is as bad if not worse than the quality of the sound.
http://download.yousendit.com/6AE08C5834589F13
I think you can really hear what i mean in this clip.
The good: The clean amp simulations (fender deluxe, twin, etc) sound amazing. Reverbs, modulation, and delay effects also seem to be pretty top notch. I especially enjoy the stereo delay setting on an ac30 patch.
The bad: While the distortions geared towards heavy metal sound pretty authentic to me, milder to moderate levels of gain lack dynamics and the saturation that you get from playing just about any real amp regardless of tubes or solid state. The pedal worked great while i went through a few stints with various desperate local metal acts but i find the distortion extremely lacking when i play music that i actually enjoy. The initial "Attack" of the amp sounds just like the real thing but there is a lack of saturation on all models unless you really drench it in gain.
This was recorded using windows stock recording program, the quality of my playing is as bad if not worse than the quality of the sound.
http://download.yousendit.com/6AE08C5834589F13
I think you can really hear what i mean in this clip.