POD 2 vs. POD Pro

[Guest]

Hi,

 

If anyone has had the opportunity to compare POD 2 to the new POD Pro I would be very interested in your findings and your opinions.

 

Please write in!

 

Mats Nermark

[Chip McDonald]

The Pod Pro seems to have a more.. realistic "depth of field". Resonances - like during muting, seems to translate better IMO, and it tracks dynamics more linearly than the POD (although it's still sort of strange). Sensitivy in the upper harmonics seems more linear as well (like pick attack, brushing your hand along the strings, etc.). These two things combined I think gives the output of the unit a more "alive" sound than the POD.

 

It still has a slightly strange feel to it - less than the POD, but I noticed that suddenly after playing through it for about 10 minutes the "odd" sensation disappeared. Yes, I know the latency on both units is supposedly sub-10 ms, but I'm still going to attribute this sensation to it since I can't ascribe anything else to it. I've played through the wet output of chorus pedals before, and guitar rigs split with modulated delays, and it "feels" the same way.

 

I wanted to knock down a region around about 8k by a few db on all the presets - it seemed there was a timbre there that masked the differences between all the models. In other words, I played through it and spun the selector knob while it went through the different amps, and noticed a common "sound" which seemed to be around 7-8k. I eq'ed that down a bit, and it seemed like suddenly as I spun the knob, each model seemed much more idiomatic. I hear this sort of thing with a lot of the digital "modelling" amps out now; I think of it as "cloudiness", but the Pod Pro practically doesn't have it (as opposed to the Crate junk, or Roland's VS series).

 

The Marshall Super Lead sounds exactly like the tone on Hendrix's "Isabella" I noted, when set for a more clean tone.... The rest work as advertised as well. To be honest, I'm tired of futzing about trying to get great guitar sounds on a limited/restricted budget: I've got the guitar sound I want, but I know I need an API512, a U47, LA2 and a great sounding room to capture it properly. I can't believe I'm saying this, but I'm probably going to have to get one of these.

[Anderton]

One big difference is the POD Pro has greater bit resolution. You'll really notice this if you set up long delays with lots of feedback. The repeats are much cleaner on the POD Pro; they get pretty grungey after a while with the standard-issue POD. And you get a digital out, too...