Guitar Multi Effects Pedal Selection

[Rick E. Jackson]

I'm interested in picking up one of the following effects pedals:
Boss GT-8
VOX Valvetronix LE
Line 6 POD XT Live

Plan to use it with a variety of guitars including ES-335, SG Standard, Tele, and tube and SS amps. I most often need clean sounds with analog delay, phaser, flanger, rotary speaker, compression, and tremolo.

Overall construction and reliability is also important. I keep my equipment for a long time and it gets a lot of use.

I'd appreciate hearing from anyone who has one of the pedals listed to get your opinion and the pros and cons.

Thanks,
Rick

[James Mayer]

I've got the Pod. I don't like the tones, in general. They seem really plunky and plastic to me. The other effects are pretty good, but not great. Compressors are unusable/useless. Great verbs and delays.

I recommend the Vox, which my bandmate has, or the Zoom G series. Much more open tones in those units.

[Webb Kline]

I just bought the new Pod X3. I haven't had a lot of time with it yet, but from what I can see so far, it sounds miles better than the XT, which I never quite liked as much as the earlier Pods with the exception that they had more selections. It's a lot easier to read than the XT.

The X3 will even allow you to stack two different amps together. I bought it primarily for clean sounds because it is supposed to have a lot of them, plus it models something like 98 different effects pedals.

I'll post a review in a few days after I have some more time to work with it.

[ajm]

You didn't say what you were going to use it for (just practicing, playing live, recording, etc.).

I always wanted to buy a multi-processor as far back as the 80's.

I'm glad now I never did. A lot of them won't let you adjust things quickly on the fly. With pedals you just reach down and turn a knob or two and you've got it.

The ease of adjustability is the main thing that I see. On a lot of them you can play with the order of effects. They sometimes have different brands of effects to choose from (for instance, tube screamer, fuzz face, distortion +, etc.) so you don't have to buy every brand of pedal on the market.

For me, I'd still rather get a good amp, guitar, and a few good pedals and just be happy with that.

The absolute main #1 thing that I can see getting one of these for is practicing, ESPECIALLY if you live in an apartment/condo. Get a good pair of headphones and you can blow your ears out in stereo and not inconvenience your neighbors.

[David Mason]

I have a PodXT, Digitech Genesis 3, Behringer V-Amp 2 and a Digitech RP250. I think the Digitechs are the best sounding for standard guitar, and the RP250 is the sturdiest of the bunch. It has a assignable floor pedal on it, but I keep it on a stand - I bought it instead of the littler RP150 because of the line-through. There are other people who like the overall Line 6 tonal choices better than Digitech's, it's a tough call. For dead clean effects the Pods might be the most versatile. Surprisingly (or not), the Behringer is the best for screaming rock, I've been in touch with my inner feral Goth these days.

[Jerry Hayes]

Rick, have you looked into the Boss ME-50 multi effects board? I've had mine about 3 years now and love it. All the effects are able to be changed with a knob just like a stompbox so you can get some very subtle changes in your patches. I have the basic set up using reverb, analog delay, distortion, tremolo, compression, and acoustic simulation. On patches I have several distortions, chorus, stereo chorus, flanger, wah, and a bunch of other things. What's cool is when you're playing the basic board and you want a little more compression, you just tweak the knob, you don't have to go into a program mode or need more delay, just tweak the knob, same for distortion. There's also an onboard master volume knob. To program a patch you just set up whatever you want by turning the stompbox style knobs and then when you get it like you want it, just enter the thing. Even an old dummy like me could operate this thing........JH in Va.

[Webb Kline]

I've had a couple of days to work with my new X3 Pod now. It took a while to get used to the architecture of it and the manual is useless. But the boys over at the Line 6 forum got me in the right direction. I was digging too deep. It's a lot easier than it seemed at first.

Anyway, I put together a combination of a '63 Vibrolux with 2-10" speakers and a '67 Dual Showman with a pair of 15s for my steel rig (you can link together 2 amps with the X3), and that baby has tone to die for. This is the first time I've ever really forgotten that I wasn't playing through a real guitar amp.

Next I designed a rig for my G&L Legacy. I am using a 57 Fender Tweed. The old Pods had these amps, but they didn't sound anything like this.

There is no end to the choice of stomp boxes. Great phasers, an Ibanez tube screamer, quality delays...

Who knows whether the honeymoon will last, but so far, I'm diggin' it.

[Rick E. Jackson]

Hi Everyone, thanks much for the feedback on your effects pedal experience. I'm going to use it 95% for live performances. I replace my pedals about every 5 years. Webb, I've been reading up and looking at the Line6 POD X3 live, specs look fantastic. My biggest concern is that they put it in a plastic housing. I will need to get to the stores and hear/compare the VOX, Boss ME-50, Zoom, and the others mentioned in the replies. Like everything else in this music hobby, it boils down to personal preferences. One of the most annoying things about my current effects (Digitech RP300) is that I can't see the display at all when playing in the daylight and that might require an LCD readout. Gives some merit to Artie's suggestion of individual effects pedals. Thanks again for the feedback. Rick

[Webb Kline]

Hey Rick, Yeah the floor model did get cheapened up. I bought the bean model. It still has the same rugged housing. I've always used the bean because it sets handily on a mic stand bracket next to my steel where it's easy to tweak the eq if needed or for me to see the tuner. The new tuner is excellent. I use one of the floorboards while playing 6 string and use the bean controls while behind the steel. The floor model is too inconvenient to use with the steel when I already have 8 pedals and a volume control to contend with under there. I guess that's what steered me toward the bean Pod rather than any of the many floor units that are out there to begin with.

It does cost more to go with one of the short or long board floor controllers to use with the bean rather than just buying the X3 Live. I picked up one of the newer short boards for $150 used on ebay and it's like brand new.

Anyway, that's my .02. I'm very happy with it.

[Rick E. Jackson]

Thanks to all who replied to my questions about the fx pedal. I checked them all out and ended up going for the Line6 POD X3 Live. Main reasons for going this route: The large LCD display is readable outdoors (you can see what patch you are on), the unit can be used for guitar and bass (good if you play both instruments-plenty of room to create banks for each), and editing patches on board was fairly easy despite the significant number of options. I picked it up at 20% off at a one day sale at Sam Ash. On the down side: construction-wise it is not as rugged as some-it has a metal top and sides and plastic bottom, and there was no editor program available at the time of my purchase. Also, I will need to do a lot of tweaking of the presets as I use mostly clean sounds. The editor program will make that task much easier. I purchased a nice Gator bag for it that fits perfectly. Thanks again all for your feedback. Rick