The Steel Guitar Forum

I picked up a Line6 Pod Pro for a rediculously low price the other day. Anyone have any suggestions for a good setup. I have a stereo rack power amp, with a pair of bass speakers, or a Carvin SX200, or a Peavey TNT115 bass amp to connect it to.

Is it the Pod Pro XT or the original Pod Pro? If it's the Pro XT, I'm sure lots of people here can give you info. I'm definitely the odd duck around here still using the older version, but I definitely prefer the older one for guitar, and I double a lot.

I use a Pod 2, which is pretty much the kidney-shaped analog of the original Pod Pro. I use the Deluxe and Twin Reverb (Blackface I and Blackface II respectively) emulations. The stock clean sounds are set up for guitar, not steel, at least to my tastes, and it's not straightforward at all to fix all the issues directly from the face of the unit. So I go in using SoundDiver or Line6 Edit (via a MIDI connection to my computer) and pull out all the hidden extra drive and gain features they put on by default, and then turn the main gain (the Drive button) down around 12 o'clock or lower on the Deluxe, maybe a bit higher on the Twin Reverb setting. The bass, middle, and treble settings are pretty flat - maybe a little mid cut and treble emphasis, channel volume full up, light reverb using the stock spring reverb setting, and maybe a light delay set at 200 +- 50 ms. One can also choose the speaker cabinet - I like either the stock Fender speaker emulation or the Vox AC-15, the latter of which makes the whole thing sound a lot like my BF Deluxe Reverb with a Celestion Vintage 30 in it. I normally run this into a pretty hi-fi rig, so I set the AIR on, one can also adjust that from the MIDI software connection - I usually keep it pretty close to stock. I save several settings as patches, and that's what I use. One can quickly make temporary adjustments to a patch on the fly, directly from the unit, while playing.

I run directly into a steel amp's power amp - usually my NV 112 these days - or into a very clean GK bass amp set totally flat, which drives a 12" EV or 15" JBL or Black Widow speaker in a small cab. For low volume gigs, I use a 50-watt solid state bass amp, the Ampeg BA-112, perfect with lightly amplified acoustic instruments.

The thing I like about especially the Deluxe Reverb patches is that the clean tone really is similar to my Deluxe Reverb run at a moderate volume, but scalable to significantly higher or lower volumes without losing either the clarity (at high volumes) or zing (at lower volumes).

My take, of course.

Dave,

Thanks for all the good info. Mine is not an XT, is the older version. I don't have a midi port on my pc though, so that might be a problem. In fact, I don't even have windows. (Might have to hijack the wife's laptop

I've always been a big fan of using a couple of powered full range speakers, like the JBL Eons, run straight off the XLR outs of the POD Pro: plenty of volume, accurate reproduction of the tones you've dialed in at home, and a quick setup. You can get something like the MIDI Mouse or other single button footswitch to step up and down through patches. I've been working with Pete Anderson helping him get a two POD (wet/dry) rig together for his summer tour with Moot Davis, and he's using the little Rocktron MIDI switch to change patches on them.