Your Opinion On POD XT LIVE!

[kalapoka]

Hey everyone, just wondering what you all think of the Line 6 POD XT Live unit. What do you think its pros and cons are? is it even close to simulating the real tones of all the great amps?!!!

Lets hear it guys!

Fahim

[JacksonVHT]

I think the Pod is great for playing at home and doing some personal recordings. It may serve as a good backup amp as well.

But I prefer a real amp otherwise. YMMV.

[mjtripper]

I like mine and use it a lot. The high gain tones are great but I've never been all that happy with the clean or slightly broken up tones. The effects all sound pretty good to me and it's great for practice and recording. I've taken it out a couple times but I prefer to just throw a head and cab in the car and go. The software is always being improved as well.

[Super_shredder]

i like the high gain stuff and the sparkling cleans but the overdrives arnt very good.

[jgcable]

Its fantastic and the PC editing software is the best in the business.
Its very close to the real thing.. until you are up on stage next to the real thing.

[lhrocker]

I love the unit. I used it live into the FOH board for 2 years straight. Had the best tone ever and the sound guys loved me. YMMV.

[sevser]

Run it into a good tube powered amp...I A/B the difference every practice and every gig...

[kalapoka]

Some good responses! Would you take it to the road? Would you gig with it? Esp if lugging big amps and cabs just isnt practical for you?

[MSS]

I sold my Pod XT and bought a fractal audio AxeFX...it is hands down the winner in modeled amps and effects IMO. The XT is fun to play with, you can get some good sounds from it and I think it's a great value for the money. The issue with modeling is processing power though. The Pod processes what it can with the chipset that it has and does a pretty good job of it.

[992gnt]

Run it into a good tube powered amp...I A/B the difference every practice and every gig...

And??? I just picked up an X3 Live, and I'm not convinced I'm gonna be happy with the tone through my tube amp. Sounds great through the headphones tho....

[nateb]

I have one hooked up to some monitors that I use in my office in in the late hours. I will agree, the overdrive stuff is crap. But, you can come up with some crushing tones and some good cleans. The unit has something for everybody. Now, when I did use the thing live (hooking into a poweramp -> 4x12 cabinet) and running at high volumes it did become a bit woofy.

-Nate

[Dreamland_Rebel]

i've used it for gigs with a Crate Powerblock for a couple years and it worked out real well. i still prefer a good Marshall tube amp so i've bumped it down to my back up rig.

but my lead guitarist won't spend the money on a tube head cause he thinks the XTL sounds good enough.

[jgcable]

Some good responses! Would you take it to the road? Would you gig with it? Esp if lugging big amps and cabs just isnt practical for you?

You are still going to have to lug around an amp and cabinets unless you intend on just going through the board.
The simplest live rig has always been and will continue to always be a good guitar amp and a good cabinet.
I use a Carvin Legacy head, a Marshall 1960B cab, and a few pedals. It takes me 5 minutes to set up and I can blow the back wall out of the club with the Legacy volume on 4.

[kalapoka]

I have one hooked up to some monitors that I use in my office in in the late hours

--- Damn you Man! I Wish i could do that

You are still going to have to lug around an amp and cabinets unless you intend on just going through the board.

--- In my country usually the venue/ sound company will have an amp, usually a marshall jcm 800. I haven't giged much with XTL - only twice and both times i went through the board. Next one i'll try going through the clean channel of JCM.

[Newc]

It took me 3 minutes to set up a 4-space rack and pedalboard when I played live - ADA MP-1 into a Digitech GSP-21 Legend's FX section (those stayed connected all the time, since they were in the rack) into the power section of a Fender RocPro1000 into a Carvin 2x12 cab, and the GSP footcontroller. Powered and ready.

I popped the bottom lid off the Anvil case to drop out the power strip and Volume pedal (which also stayed connected) and 1 cable which was the Amp input, then flipped it over to pop the other lid off where the buttons were.


With 2 minutes of practice and some common-sense (like leaving everything hooked up all the time and wrapping your cords properly as well as taking the time to put flags on them so you know where they go), a chimpanzee can set up a decent rack before the drummer gets a 5-piece kit set up.


It's even more simple for an XT Live and poweramp. Drop the XT on the floor where you want it, plug it into your poweramp, then plug in your cab and and guitar and turn it all on. Bam, you're set up just as fast as if you had a head+cab, plus you actually get a more interesting sound than just "guitar+amp".

But then if you don't intend to play anything that has any flavor, you wont need things like chorus, flanger, phaser, delay, etc, so the simplistic/tonally uninteresting approach is the way to go.