Line 6 Pod HD Setup - Revision history

Meambobbo at 00:57, 24 February 2016

2016-02-24T00:57:23Z

Meambobbo at 00:56, 24 February 2016

2016-02-24T00:56:17Z

Show changes

Meambobbo at 00:52, 24 February 2016

2016-02-24T00:52:08Z

Show changes

Meambobbo: /* Practice */

2016-02-22T03:52:38Z

‎Practice

Meambobbo at 03:13, 8 October 2015

2015-10-08T03:13:09Z

Meambobbo at 03:52, 13 April 2015

2015-04-13T03:52:44Z

Meambobbo: /* Practice */

2015-04-09T19:52:31Z

‎Practice

Meambobbo: /* Effects Order/Position */

2015-04-09T19:51:53Z

‎Effects Order/Position

Meambobbo: /* Practice */

2015-04-09T19:46:45Z

‎Practice

Meambobbo: /* Practice */

2015-04-09T19:45:07Z

‎Practice

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 The cab selections in non-Studio/Direct modes use "live-voiced" cabs which are a mild EQ effect designed to make whatever real cabinet you are using sound more like the cab model selected in the cab. Note: although you can change the selected microphone and there is a gap in audio as you change selections, it has no effect on the tone. These are disabled by selecting "no cab".
 These have also been called cab simulation without mic simulation. "Cab simulation" is the wrong name. By itself, it does not come close to the frequency response changes made by real guitar speakers - it is designed to supplement, not replace, a real guitar cabinet (or speaker simulator/IR). Without such, "cab simulation" will sound nothing like a real guitar cabinet, mic'ed or not. It will be very harsh.
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 Input 1 is routed into the left side of the first line in the signal. Input 2 is routed into the right side. This is important to know if you plan on using multiple instruments simultaneously.
 When the signal hits a stereo effect, each half of the signal is processed separately and output to the same side of the stereo field that it entered.  When a signal hits a mono effect (including amp models), the stereo signal is mixed down into a mono signal, processed by the effect, then split back into a stereo signal with equal left and right signals.  See [[Line 6 Pod HD Effects#Mono-Summing vs. Stereo|the effects page]] to see which effect is stereo or mono.
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 Use this method if you want to run the Pod straight into a PA system, mixing board or mixing board for live purposes or a computer/DAW, home stereo, or headphones for recording or practicing. The Pod will completely simulate a guitar rig - amp (including pre-amp and power amp) and speakers (including cabinet). If you want, you can disable some of these features and use other gear to get that tone - like a speaker simulator device or a convolution reverb device/software that is using an impulse response (IR) designed to mimic a guitar cabinet.
 You can additionally use effects from the Pod or use external effects, placing them before the Pod or in its effects loop (or even after if you use 1/4" or XLR output).
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 The above settings should work well for most gear. But perhaps your gear is different, or perhaps you simply have different tastes about what is harsh or sounds good. As long as you're not running the output of a real power amp into the Pod or other effect (high watt power amp output should only be run into speakers or a dummy load) or sending a line level (mostly anything not coming from an actual instrument) signal into the Pod's instrument level Guitar In input, you probably won't break anything by experimenting.
 My friend used to run his Boss multi-FX processor into his Fender amp, and he got the best tone by using the speaker simulation in the Boss unit, even though he was running into real guitar speakers. When he told me his settings, I thought, "That's not right" and tried to tweak his gear how I thought it should be set up. I could never get a better tone than what he already dialed in using the "wrong" settings. Whatever gets you the best tone and doesn't break your gear is how you should run it, no matter how many people say that your settings are "wrong".
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 ''The simplest is to use the FX Loop effect block.'' Place the FX Loop at the end of either one of the channel paths, right before the mixer. At the mixer, mute the channel with the FX Loop to guarantee no signal is passing through. For the other channel, set the pan to full center - this allows both sides of the stereo spectrum for that channel to pass through to the analog outputs on the unit.
 The upside for this method is that you get two stereo outputs (FX loop send is a stereo output). Also, if you don't want to use multiple/special cables to extract the stereo output, you can just use a single 1/4" unbalanced cable for each signal to get mono output. The downside is that you need to place the FX Loop before the mixer, so you have to apply any post-amp effects twice - once in each channel, which can run into DSP limit errors.
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 With firmware v1.4 the PodHD got variable input impedance. Line6 says before this the impedance was always set to 1M, but I feel like something changed...for the better. The unit seems more responsive to me. Anyway, I like this setting at 1M or 3.5M. This allows the loudest, tightest, and brightest tone to pass from guitar to Pod, which helps dial in the high gain tones I like. If you prefer a muddier or fuzzier distortion or looser feel, you may want a lower value.
 For the F-Ball amp model, I find it can get kind of gritty and nasty for the distortion if your guitar signal is a bit bright. When I want a smooth tone from this model, normally I like to use a Mid-Focus EQ to roll-off enough high-end to smooth the tone out. However, if I don't have enough DSP or effects blocks to do so, I will turn down the impedance to attenuate some highs. I like it around 230K for this.

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 [[Category:Guitar]]
 [[Category:Gear]]
 [[Category:Guides]]
 [[Category:Pod HD]]

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 This page covers how to physically connect the Pod to your gear and how to setup common settings as well as understand how they work. There's basically two operating modes for the Pod: "direct" or "live". "Direct" means you're connecting to a DAW, PA/mixing board, home stereo, or headphones, and you want the Pod to simulate a mic'ed guitar cabinet. "Live" means you intend to use an actual guitar cabinet/speaker. Note, if you are connecting to a DAW and using an external IR to simulate a mic'ed guitar cabinet, I treat that as a "live" setup, although all the physical connections are the same as a "direct" setup.
-Unlike full-range speakers, guitar speakers are designed to generally have a unique (not flat) response that rolls off the low-end and high-end frequencies, typically around 120 HZ and 5 kHZ (see [http://celestion.com/product/1/vintage_30/ Celestion's Vintage 30 frequency response graph]). Additionally, they have certain features such as phase inaccuracy that contribute to a unique tone. They are often driven to distortion as well. Guitar cabinets are often driven to the point where the reverberations inside the cabinet and degree of air compression change the way the speaker(s) behave(s).
+Unlike full-range speakers, guitar speakers are designed to generally have a unique (not flat) response that rolls off the low-end and high-end frequencies, typically around 120 Hz and 5 kHz (see [http://celestion.com/product/1/vintage_30/ Celestion's Vintage 30 frequency response graph]). Additionally, they have certain features such as phase inaccuracy that contribute to a unique tone. They are often driven to distortion as well. Guitar cabinets are often driven to the point where the reverberations inside the cabinet and degree of air compression change the way the speaker(s) behave(s).
 In contrast, most PA systems, headphones, monitors, home stereo speakers, etc. are designed to produce a relatively flat response with little distortion. Sending a guitar amp (or model) signal directly into such speakers is going to sound very harsh and buzzy. Even if you apply extreme EQ to roll-off the highs and lows, as well as accent the presence like a guitar speaker, you don't get a guitar speaker or cabinet's unique nuances.

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 This page covers how to physically connect the Pod to your gear and how to setup common settings as well as understand how they work. There's basically two operating modes for the Pod: "direct" or "live". "Direct" means you're connecting to a DAW, PA/mixing board, home stereo, or headphones, and you want the Pod to simulate a mic'ed guitar cabinet. "Live" means you intend to use an actual guitar cabinet/speaker. Note, if you are connecting to a DAW and using an external IR to simulate a mic'ed guitar cabinet, I treat that as a "live" setup, although all the physical connections are the same as a "direct" setup.
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 The only time I recommend moving the MASTER Knob lower is when you are not using your main rig. By doing this, you are sacrificing tone for ease-of-use. You should gain stage and level your patches as above for your main rig. For other rigs that distort with the amount of volume you're sending them, the easiest way to attenuate the signal is using the Pod's MASTER Knob. Rather than digging into the mixer settings on all of your patches, you can just change one knob and be done for all patches. This may result in additional noise in the signal, but that's acceptable in this case. This applies equally to using headphones.
 [[Category:Guitar]]

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 ''Note: the MASTER knob only affects the tone sent to the analog outputs.'' For the digital outputs (AES, SPDIF, USB), the signal is never converted back to an analog signal and never hits the analog Master Knob gain stage. The Pod's signal is mostly digital; it goes:
-* Input Source > A/D convertors > digital signal processing > D/A conversion > Master knob attenuation > analog outputs
+* Input Source > A/D convertors > digital signal processing > D/A conversion > Master knob attenuation/amplification > analog outputs
 Even when setting up a patch that is close to maxing out the Pod's maximum digital signal level, with the MASTER Knob at 100%, I do not hear any distortion occuring. So proper gain staging dictates setting this knob to 100%. Line 6 documentation echoes this opinion, saying this setting results in the highest signal-to-noise ratio from the unit. But be wary of what you're connecting the Pod into. I have clipped the effects loop return of my amp when setting this too high - my amp provides no control to attenuate the loop return signal.

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 == Effects Order/Position ==
+See [[Effects Ordering/Position]].
 == Gain Staging ==

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 Digital devices feature the additional danger of digital clipping, where the signal level exceeds the digital resolution and produces a harsh distortion. Yet, if you follow proper gain staging, the principles are exactly the same. ''You will only achieve digital clipping by setting a gain stage too high'' (provided you aren't clipping the unit at its input A>D converter).
-Some of the controls in the Pod adjust the signal level digitally, rather than emulate an analog gain stage. For instance, the amp block's Ch. Vol. (VOLUME knob) is not simulating analog circuitry. I believe the mixer levels and volume effect operate the same way. This basically takes the consideration of a noise floor out of the equation, but replaces it with loss of precision. Setting one of these REALLY low will not add noise to the tone but will introduce slight manipulations to the signal's waveform and lose certain details. Similar to distortion concerns, it's best to treat everything like an analog gain stage, setting them high enough to preserve the signal integrity.
+Some of the controls in the Pod adjust the signal level digitally, rather than emulate an analog gain stage. For instance, the amp block's Ch. Vol. (VOLUME knob) is not simulating analog circuitry. I believe the mixer levels and volume effect operate the same way. This basically takes the consideration of a noise floor out of the equation, but replaces it with loss of precision. Setting one of these REALLY low will not add noise to the tone but will introduce slight manipulations to the signal's waveform and lose certain details. ''Similar to distortion concerns, it's best to treat everything like an analog gain stage, setting them high enough to preserve the signal integrity.''
 I believe the Pod has three actual analog gain stages - FX Loop Send/Receive and the Master Knob (the right-most physical knob on the unit). Same rules as usual apply.
-Note: the MASTER knob only affects the tone sent to the analog outputs. For the digital outputs (AES, SPDIF, USB), the signal is never converted back to an analog signal and never hits the analog Master Knob gain stage. The Pod's signal is mostly digital; it goes:
+''Note: the MASTER knob only affects the tone sent to the analog outputs.'' For the digital outputs (AES, SPDIF, USB), the signal is never converted back to an analog signal and never hits the analog Master Knob gain stage. The Pod's signal is mostly digital; it goes:
 * Input Source > A/D convertors > digital signal processing > D/A conversion > Master knob attenuation > analog outputs

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 Thinking in terms of analog gear, take the relatively simple example chain of:
 * Guitar > Tube Screamer > Amp > Chorus (in effects loop) > Amp
-Even here, the Screamer has two gain stages - Drive and Output. The amp likely has 5 - Drive, Channel Volume, Loop Send, Loop Receive, and Master Volume. The chorus pedal likely has 1 - Output. You have 8 gain stages to tune, so that they all work in harmony. The Chorus does not have an attenuator on its input. You must set the effects loop send volume low enough to keep it from clipping. You probably want the Screamer to have low Drive (its "hot" gain stage), so that it only provides a touch of distortion, but you want to dime its Output (which stays clean). You want most of your distortion from your amp's preamp. So you crank Drive there. You don't want much power amp distortion, so you set Master Volume just below where the power section starts to break up. Channel Volume likely stays clean even at high settings, so you crank that up fairly high, but it's main purpose is to balance one channel's volume against another - you may have to keep it lower than 100% for that.
+Even here, the Screamer has two gain stages - Drive and Output. The amp likely has 5 - Drive, Channel Volume, Loop Send, Loop Receive, and Master Volume. The chorus pedal likely has 1 - Output. ''You have 8 gain stages to tune, so that they all work in harmony.'' The Chorus does not have an attenuator on its input. You must set the effects loop send volume low enough to keep it from clipping. You probably want the Screamer to have low Drive (its "hot" gain stage), so that it only provides a touch of distortion, but you want to dime its Output (which stays clean). You want most of your distortion from your amp's preamp. So you crank Drive there. You don't want much power amp distortion, so you set Master Volume just below where the power section starts to break up. Channel Volume likely stays clean even at high settings, so you crank that up fairly high, but it's main purpose is to balance one channel's volume against another - you may have to keep it lower than 100% for that.
-Cannot find image.
+How does this translate for such controls in the Pod? ''The Pod features almost everything mentioned above digitally.'' Most of the time its algorithms are emulating exactly how an analog signal would be processed. So you want to follow the same advice as with an all analog chain.
 Particularly troublesome are the EQ effects. Some are worse than others. When I'm using an EQ as the first piece of my chain, I will get a nasty digital-sounding distortion when I pick hard. To compensate I add a Volume effect to attenuate the signal before the EQ. If I'm using EQ's behind my amp block, I need to keep the Ch. Vol./VOLUME knob relatively low (45%) to prevent from clipping EQ's. For single amp patches, I put everything in Channel A and use the Mixer Levels to set my final patch volume. For dual amp patches, I usually have a Mid-Focus EQ last, which provides a Gain parameter that I use to set my final patch volume.
-Digital devices feature the additional danger of digital clipping, where the signal level exceeds the digital resolution and produces a harsh distortion. Yet, if you follow proper gain staging, the principles are exactly the same. You will only achieve digital clipping by setting a gain stage too high (provided you aren't clipping the unit at its input A>D converter).
+Digital devices feature the additional danger of digital clipping, where the signal level exceeds the digital resolution and produces a harsh distortion. Yet, if you follow proper gain staging, the principles are exactly the same. ''You will only achieve digital clipping by setting a gain stage too high'' (provided you aren't clipping the unit at its input A>D converter).
 Some of the controls in the Pod adjust the signal level digitally, rather than emulate an analog gain stage. For instance, the amp block's Ch. Vol. (VOLUME knob) is not simulating analog circuitry. I believe the mixer levels and volume effect operate the same way. This basically takes the consideration of a noise floor out of the equation, but replaces it with loss of precision. Setting one of these REALLY low will not add noise to the tone but will introduce slight manipulations to the signal's waveform and lose certain details. Similar to distortion concerns, it's best to treat everything like an analog gain stage, setting them high enough to preserve the signal integrity.
 I believe the Pod has three actual analog gain stages - FX Loop Send/Receive and the Master Knob (the right-most physical knob on the unit). Same rules as usual apply.
 Note: the MASTER knob only affects the tone sent to the analog outputs. For the digital outputs (AES, SPDIF, USB), the signal is never converted back to an analog signal and never hits the analog Master Knob gain stage. The Pod's signal is mostly digital; it goes: