POD XT

[Tony Z]

I'm thinking of getting the POD XT. I'm interested in using it primarily in recording direct with a little live use. I'd like to get feedback from those of you who've tried it, or purchased it. What do you think? Tony Z New Genesis Music

[Anderton]

I'm getting one any day now to review for EQ. Basically, its ancestor is the Vetta amp, which has a lot more dynamic range and is considerably cleaner than the Old School POD. What I heard at AES sounded very "hi-fi," especially in terms of getting rid of that aliasing at high frequencies. I'll keep you posted.

[Duhduh]

I heard a demo of one of these by the Line 6 rep. I was actually impressed! Ive never liked any modeling amps. And Im not really a purist. But this new POD XT is a [i]big[/i] step up from the original POD. Most of the amps it was modeling sounded pretty accurate. Its all different when you plug into it yourself, though.

[Salyphus]

With no disrespect intended, I'd sincerely like to know why none of the reviews of the original POD mentioned these problems that the POD XT supposedly rectifies? I mean, I read every piece of info I could find before buying my POD, and pretty much every review made it sound like this amazing miracle box! I was pretty disappointed when I got one and found out that it was very noisy, almost impossible to get a decent clean sound, fraught with digital 'glitches' (which is probably the same thing as the aliasing that Craig is referring to above), lacking dynamics, grainy sounding, etc. As if that wasn't enough, no review I've read mentioned that the battery is SOLDERED onto the PC board, meaning that when (not if) it runs out of juice you have to have the unit serviced just to change a battery. (Definitely something to check on the XT please Craig) Now don't get me wrong, I still think it's a useful device, especially for what it costs, but this exactly the type of information I look to reviews for. It can be hard to assess equipment objectively in a noisy music store (let alone people who can only shop online for whatever reason), and you certainly aren't able to bust one open and look inside in a store ;) Again, not trying to slam the POD or get on Craig's case specifically, just had to get this off my chest. BTW, I also have a Bass POD and am much more happy with it than with the guitar version. Then again I'm much more a guitar player than a bass player so perhaps I'm less picky :D

[halljams]

I've had an Ax2 for years and know the sound quite well. I listened to a bunch of demos of the new modelling and wasn't impressed much at all. Many of the same problems are still there although i agree the overall feel is bit more "real","present" i dunno, but not enough for me to upgrade. I think it will wait one more generation yet. Personally i love the idea of it all and couldn't give a rats ass that it's not a perfect representation, there are lots of great sounds and a huge variety, i love that. Analogue shmanalogue!

[Ultravibe]

I have an old ART AGX 2000 that I have put up against the POD and frankly like the SGX more. It was a lot more expensive purchased new, but you can get 'em used pretty cheap.

[Hippie]

The POD XT sounds like a winner if indeed the settings/models are cleaner; my only complaint with my POD Pro is the settings are way too grungy for most real world applications -and one channel is a bit hotter than the other. I'm going to check one out when they become available. Matt

[Anderton]

<> That's a very good and fair question. The issue is that units will inevitably get compared to what came before, and technology never stops going forward. It's like ADAT: compared to what came after (programs like Cubase VST, Sonar, etc.), it's positively prehistoric, what with moving tape along with 16-bit resolution. BUT compared to what came before -- half-inch 8 tracks with noise, constant need for alignment, reliability problems, and no way to back up -- the ADAT looked very good indeed. Think back to when the POD came out. There was nothing like it -- no J-Station, no V-Amp, no Yamaha DG-series...just rack-mount processors that did not do modeling. The idea of being able to dial in different amps and cabinets and have it sound good was revolutionary. A little aliasing on the top frets? No big deal, all units did it at the time, because that was the state of the (affordable) art. Some people considered it a cool effect -- there's a story of how an early Waldorf synth had aliasing, they produced an updated version that got rid of it, and so many people complained they put a switch in so you could select aliasing or not. Meanwhile, time has marched on. The POD Pro improved on the original POD, particularly in cleaner delay and reverb tails. The POD XT improves on the POD Pro, and so on. The fact is that I still use the POD and have been able to get great sounds out of it. When mixed in a track, you really can't tell it's not a guitar amp. What I expect from the XT is that you won't be able to tell it's not a GREAT, high-end guitar amp. Any review has to be taken in the context of its time. ANY review could have a disclaimer added that "In the future, it is very likely that similar products will be produced that sound better and cost less." FYI I understand that Line 6 is NOT going to discontinue the original POD, it will still be around as their "budget" box. The XT costs considerably more, so it had BETTER sound better .

[Magpel]

Sal', the word on the POD's faults and limitations is certainly out there--not in any of Line6's marketing materials to be sure--but if you track the user review databases, such as those at Harmony-Central.com, you'll see plenty of dissension. I have and use a POD 2. And I agree with all of the major drawbacks cited above--the levelling of dynamics, the distincly digital noise, and the difficulty of achieving lively clean sounds. That said, the POD is a pragmatist's box, not a purist's. I have a friend, a fine player, who swears by his Vetta. This bodes well for the XT. I won't be upgrading anytime soon, but in the absence of a well stocked amp closet, the evolution of amp modeling benefits us all.

[Dylan]

I played a Pod XT this week at a local music store. The clean sounds are much better than the original and the interface is vastly improved as well. I only played it through headphones and didn't try it with an amp, but my overall impression was that it still lacked the feel and response of a real amp. I play with a lot of dynamics so I tend to notice these things. Mabye it's the fact that I'm used to tube amps, but then again, even my solid state Tech 21 Trademark 10 amp seems more musical to me. For a recording device and a practice tool I can see lots of applications where the Pod can come in handy. But for me, the lack of dynamics and expression steer me away from buying one.

[Salyphus]

Thanks for your response Craig. I certainly understand what you are saying, but my point isn't to say "This product had faults because later versions were released which sounded better and were cheaper." Not at all, that would be ridiculous, as you suggest. Of course products are always being improved, and that's great. What I'm saying is that this product had some obvious faults which didn't seem to be mentioned in any reviews, and if a review doesn't mention the faults then what is the point? Sure, aliasing on the top frets may not be a dealbreaker, but I would still like to think that something like this would be mentioned in a review, so that the reader can draw their own conclusions as to what's most important to them. Same with the other problems mentioned above; these weren't 'missing features' but rather negative points about how well the product did the job it was advertised to do. I guess my point is that it seems that all too often reviewers tend to 'buy into the hype' rather than present an objective balanced viewpoint, and I think this is why we hear so many complaints about reviews only presenting the positive side of products, and why you so often hear people who are suspicious that reviews are being written to cater to advertisers (which does actually happen in some industries). Please note that I'm not levelling any such accusations here, just noting why I think people get suspicious, and why so many people say reviews aren't useful to them. (which we have had threads about here in the past) I mean, I brought this thing home and noticed its faults within a couple hours of using it, and was really disappointed that it didn't live up to the picture that all the reviews had painted of it. I'm not saying it should have gotten poor reviews, far from it---it was an excellent and revolutionary product, epsecially at the price point. But it cerainly would have been nice to have been able to weigh the actual pros and cons prior to making the purchase, which is exactly what I look to reviews for help with. Bottom line: just because a product is great doesn't mean its negative points should be ignored.

[Anderton]

Well, I don't recall reviewing the original POD...just the 2.0 update. I just did a quick search on my documents drive to check, but didn't come up with anything. So, I have nothing to defend in terms of reviewing the POD, but I'm going to defend the box anyway , because I was really blown away when it appeared. I play direct through PA systems and mixers, and all amps I had with direct outs were noisier than the POD (not digital noise, analog noise of course). They were also far less convenient to lug around, and very limited in terms of their sound. The direct outs simply didn't capture the cabinet or power amp's contribution to the sound at all. Compared to that, the POD was a huge improvement. Honestly, the POD didn't strike me as "leveling dynamics." I thought there was plenty of dynamics; one of the things I liked about it was that I could kick back the drive and get a chunky sound -- there wasn't that "dividing line" between distorted and non-distorted I hear in so many distortion devices. For any device as subjective as amp modeling and distortion, some people will not like the sound, and some people will. I also think reviewers tend to do comparisons to devices that are similarly priced. For example, in comments about the POD to friends, I frequently said that I didn't think the models sounded exactly like the amps, but they were useful sounds anyway. For $300, or whatever it cost, there really wasn't anything that came close at the time. At that price, I don't think anyone expected it to have the sonic detail and subtlety of a single-function device that cost two or three times as much. Remember too that reviewers get these boxes before anyone else. So you are correct, there's definitely more of a tendency to be blown away by "the shock of the new." Only after a unit has been out for a while do the subtleties reveal themselves. I know you said you found things you didn't like within a couple hours, but different people gravitate to different things. I found a few settings right out of the box that I absolutely adored, so when I ran into ones I didn't like as much, they didn't matter as much. Had I run into them first, well, I might have felt differently. But this problem cuts both ways. For example, I reviewed the Panasonic DA7 and gave it a very favorable review. I bought it because I liked it so much. But after a year of using it, it FAR exceeded my original opinion as I found out more it could do. Had I written the review a year later, it would have been over-the-top positive, with admittedly a few negatives thrown in I hadn't found out about initially. Your points are well-taken, and I always welcome an opportunity to demystify the reviewing process. It's true that not all reviewers spend as much time with gear as they should, or would like. It's also true that sound is very subjective, which is why most reviews tend to concentrate on the functionality so you can decide if there are any "deal-breakers," because only you can decide if you like a particular sound. Consider that the TR-909 was not reviewed favorably when it came out and was not very successful. Yet years later, it became the cornerstone of dance music. Despite all the people who owned PODs who had complaints about the sound, there were huge numbers of people who didn't have complaints. That's the nature of the beast, I guess.

[Anderton]

<> Well, maybe it's an advantage to not be soldered in, maybe not. For the longest time, I liked units that had socketed ICs. It made them easy to replace and test, should something go wrong, or substitute with improved versions. But then I started noticing that corrosion sometimes set in at the junction of the IC and the socket. I also heard reports of people living in polluted areas like LA who said this was a MAJOR problem. Also, with enough vibration, or if not installed properly, sometimes the chips would shake loose. If a battery isn't soldered in, then you have contacts pressing against something, and those contacts can lose stiffness over time or become corroded. So it's really a tradeoff. A battery like the one in the POD should last about 10 years. I wonder how many people will still be using them in 10 years. Although not soldering it in would save that service call, it could easily cause a malfunction before then. But soldering it in will GUARANTEE a service call in 10 years. It reminds me of the joke about why some people preferred routing plumbing lines outside. "Well, if it freezes, it's easy to get at." "But if you put the pipes inside, they wouldn't freeze." "Yes, but if they did, they'd be hard to get at." So I can check whether the battery is soldered in to the XT; that's the easy part. The hard part is deciding whether that's a positive or negative aspect!

[Anderton]

...and I should also make very clear that I've read some reviews that just plain suck, either due to misinformation, improper research, lack of ethics, or a combination of all three. I felt your comments about the POD reviews were courteous and honest, and said without any mean-spiritedness. So I didn't want you to think that I feel all reviewers are cool. Far from it!! But I do think (as just me, not as a reviewer) that the POD was a real breakthrough, and when weighing the positives against the negatives, at least for me the positives came out way ahead. So it's easy for me to understand why reviewers got all enthusiastic about it. However, you can also bet that now that everyone has had a chance to live with modelled amps, the XT is going to get much closer scrutiny. Amp modelling isn't new any more, and the standards are much higher.

[Anderton]

...and not to overstay my welcome, but this is a good topic, and really got me thinking... A lot of times the movies I like best are ones I just happen on by accident. If I've heard all this hype about how a movie is the greatest thing in cinematic history, I'm inevitably let down. I was thinking about "The Phantom Menace" -- it had to compete not just with existing movies, but with the affection people had for the first three Star War movies. If you recall, the reviews pretty much savaged it. But if Star Wars had never existed and someone named Bobby Schwartz made "The Phantom Menace," I bet it would have gotten great reviews. "Sure, some of the acting is pretty wooden, but Schwartz has created a rich fantasy world that stands up to repeated viewings." Several years ago Arnold Schwarzenegger made a movie called "Last Action Hero" that was a flop. I was doing a seminar in a town where it was playing, and wanted to see a movie. It was the only one playing, so I went in, expecting to see a mediocre action movie. Because my expectations were so low, I ended up enjoying the humor and the movie a lot. It didn't have Arnold blowing people up, it wasn't even violent (probably why it flopped). But if it had been hyped to me as the greatest movie ever made, I would have been disappointed. My conclusion? No real conclusions, except for my favorite phrase: "Don't believe the hype." Sometimes it's right on, sometimes it's not. And I guess the point of what you've been saying is the importance of keeping an open mind at all times, and always trying to see something from as fresh a perspective as possible...nothing to disagree with there, for sure. It's just hard to do sometimes. It's a little like falling in love: you don't notice some of those incredibly irritating habits that get to you later, because you're in love! Okay, now I'll crawl back into my hole and finish a sample CD review.

[Jotown]

Great thread. Does the Pod XT have a digital out? I have the J-Station, and I have been waiting for the new Pod. I dig the digital out of the J-Station. Thanks in advance.

[Valkyrie Sound]

Does this new POD have a LINE input like the POD pro? Is it rack-mount? Links to info? I've been thinking of something like this for some pure fun with my.... Trombone. No...really with my Trombone. :) Have you guys seen the all silver POD at Sweetwater? I just thought it was one of the coolest-looking products I've seen in awhile... kinda like a big shinny silver kindey bean. :D Valky

[Dylan]

[quote]Originally posted by Jotown: [b]Does the Pod XT have a digital out?.[/b][/quote]The only type of digital I/O it has is a USB connection for your computer. There is no AES/EBU or S/PDIF type output.

[Dylan]

[quote]Originally posted by Valkyrie Sound: [b]Does this new POD have a LINE input like the POD pro? Is it rack-mount? Links to info?[/b][/quote] [url=http://www.line6.com/podxt/index.htm]Here\'s[/url] some info. I don't think it has a line in, but I believe that it can be rackmounted with an adapter.

[js]

Hey Craig, Since you're talking about the review process, maybe you can clear something up that has puzzled me. Guitar Player assigns 5 stars ratings to a number of key attributes, including Tone. It looks as if price is a factor in the tone rating, rather than tone being assigned an absolute rating. It's always seemed strange to me that a $179 practice amp could get a 4 star tone rating, and a $2,000 tube amp gets a 3 star rating. Now if the practice amp sounded better than the other amp, then so be it. But I suspect that the two amps are being judged to a different standard. The other attributes that are reviewed (workmanship, playability, etc) do seem to be measured on an absolute scale. In my mind, tone should be an absolute as well, with the Value rating being the great leveler. Comments?

[Anderton]

<> I honestly don't know what the policy is over at Guitar Player, sorry. But it wouldn't strike me as too strange that a less expensive amp could have better tone than an expensive one. I'm not saying that's the case here, but there have been times in the studio when I've recorded with some cheap little practice amp instead of a "real" one because it sounded better on playback.

[not coaster MODERATOR]

Something that appears to be overlooked quite often when we talk about modelling is the use of drive and distortion pedals to frontload the sound. I use a real TS9, and JT Valveboy (Boogie/Plexi) tones into a Klon Centaur before it even hits the modeler. This takes quite a load OFF the modeler. What I rely on it for is good clean tones and speaker emulation. This opens up a whole new world for those of you exploring the magic of direct tone. I downloaded the new POD tones and was thrilled at the Trower settings. When my situation settles down I might but one. Right now my studio is still boxed up in a garage

[michael saulnier]

Thanks Craig, for the "behind the scenes" POV of a reviewer... As I was reading this thread, and your comments about reviewing based on prior "hype"... it seems to me the PODxt is going to face WAY tougher reviews than the original POD did. Because of all the competitor products and the success and weaknesses of the original POD, the bar will be raised a lot higher. Certainly many will immediately compare the sounds to the POD and PODpro, and considering the $399 US cost, if it doesn't sound way better, it's likely to get weak reviews. I am already hearing rumbles on user forums about the lack of the two amp capability that the Vetta has... it seems a shame this didn't make it to the PODxt... It was one of the Vetta's best features. And what's the story with the two pedals being nearly as much as the PODxt itself. Whoa. That's not a good thing. I can't imagine using my POD classic without the pedal board, but that makes the PODxt nearly $800 with the nicer "two pedal" board. That ain't right! guitplayer

[Jotown]

[quote]Originally posted by Dylan W: [b] [quote]Originally posted by Jotown: [b]Does the Pod XT have a digital out?.[/b][/quote]The only type of digital I/O it has is a USB connection for your computer. There is no AES/EBU or S/PDIF type output.[/b][/quote]Excuse my igonrance but does that mean that I will need a USB supported audio interface? Or can I just plug it into the USB port on my computer? Thanks in advance.

[etherize]

I wonder since they have a USB port on the Pod XT if they are going to make it compatible with the guitar port....it would be nice to get an update from Line 6 where they are with supporting the Mac with guitar port....I am also interested if Line 6 plan on upgrading Amp Farm to include the new functionality of the XT/Vetta

[Mats Nermark]

[quote]Originally posted by Anderton: Think back to when the POD came out. There was nothing like it -- no J-Station, no V-Amp, no Yamaha DG-series...just rack-mount processors that did not do modeling. [/quote]Craig, If my memory serves me right there was the Roland GP-100 which I think actually did modelling using their COSM technology. I will also receive a POD xt for review (next week) and I'm looking foreward to it! your diciple, Mats Nermark

[vintagevibe]

[quote]Originally posted by Anderton: Think back to when the POD came out. There was nothing like it -- no J-Station, no V-Amp, no Yamaha DG-series...just rack-mount processors that did not do modeling. The idea of being able to dial in different amps and cabinets and have it sound good was revolutionary. [/quote]Craig this is not true. Roland was the first to have amp modeling YEARS before the POD. Line 6 just came out with their version of modeling. It's a matter of opinion which is better. I had the POD and the Roland GT-3. I liked the GT-3 better and sold the POD. Roland has also had guitar modeling for many years. Line 6 has just released their own take on it.

[mix2much]

I bought the pod xt as soon as I could find one available. I have the first one and I must say that there is a big difference in quality between the two. The effects alone make this a wonderful device. I was stunned at how nice the chrous sounds were and the compressors and the stomp box simulators, etc. There's a lot to this box but it's still a modler.

[Anderton]

<> Okay, I always thought the Roland gear was not "pure" DSP-based digital modeling, but if it was, I certainly stand corrected.

[Dylan]

[quote]Originally posted by Jotown: [b] [quote]Originally posted by Dylan W: [b] [quote]Originally posted by Jotown: [b]Does the Pod XT have a digital out?.[/b][/quote]The only type of digital I/O it has is a USB connection for your computer. There is no AES/EBU or S/PDIF type output.[/b][/quote]Excuse my igonrance but does that mean that I will need a USB supported audio interface? Or can I just plug it into the USB port on my computer? Thanks in advance.[/b][/quote]The XT acts as a stan-alone soundcard in the same way that the Guitar Port does, so there is no need for any other hardware.