All user reviews of 3/5 for the Line 6 POD X3 Live

I play guitar in a garage band of 40 somethings who are trying to recreate our teenage years. Call it a mid-life crisis, or whatever, but the simple fact of the matter is finally we can afford the toys we've always wanted, and now we get to make time to play with them. Sure, men never grow up, but who cares, we're having fun.

My wife actually bought this for me as an early Christmas present recently. She wouldn't say exactly, but after looking it up I can see she paid about $500 at one of those online music gear retailers. I did want a new guitar, but when she asked me why I told her I was getting tired of the same old tones. On her own, she went and researched and decided to get me this as we, like most folks, are on somewhat of a budget this year at Christmas. What an amazing woman.

Wow, this board has it all. Effects for acoustic and electric guitar, bass, and vocals. It can process two live streams so you can hook your guitar up to it and use the vocal processor at once - amazing. It can serve as a front end to any home (or heck, even professional) recording rig, and is just as comfortable in front of my half stack. This thing has so many amp, cab, and effects models built in, i don't know what to do with them all - I know, try them! Seriously, there are like 98 amps for guitar, 24 cabs, almost 30 bass amplifiers and maybe like 20 bass cabinets. There are also 6 preamps for vocals processing! Built in! You can even run seperate lines from one guitar through two different processes and to two different amps. Talk about crazy. The unit runs USB 2.0 for interfacing with your PC and whatever your flavor-of-the-month record software is, or S/PDIF digital out if you have Pro Tools or something that can take a fully digitized signal. I also like the fact that I can take this board over to my buddies house and plug straight into his PA. Because of the various amp models, etc. it's a lot easier than lugging my stack around.

As with anything that offers this much, the board can be somewhat cumbersome. While I think it's slightly easier to use and a little more intuitive than, say, a POD XT, there are a lot of things to play with so don't expect to know your way around this board until you've had it for several months. That's really my only complaint with it, that they packed almost too much into one unit.

Construction? How about built like a brick shit-house? This unit is tough, built of strong materials and just feels solid and heavy. Ive already dropped it twice I think moving it from my computer room to my garage and it takes a lickin and keeps on tickin. You old timers will remember what commercial that is from! Some of the switches seems a little flimsy but that just might be me. Something to keep an eye on over the long term, but right now I dont see a problem.

Nice job Line 6. The POD X3 Live is packed with cool stuff to experiment with, has multiple line processing capabilities, supports multiple instruments/vocals, can be interfaced to anything from an amp, PA, computer or other recording device, contains tons of amp, cab, and effects models, and is all bundled together for around 5 benjamins. Cant beat that!

This review was originally published on http://www.musicgearreview.com

All effects are l.
All numrique
No publisher Mac / PC for now.
MIDI in out
Full XLR Jack Audio out, SPDIF out, mic and player (mp3 or other)
Pdalier.

UTILIZATION

Not for beginners IMMEDIATE but doable for those who are not scotch on guitar / cable / amp.
No software currently shipping makes uncomfortable but possible.
Manuel clear.

SOUND QUALITY

Extra

OVERALL OPINION

Pdalier gnial in sound, connections, amount of effects. In particular, the SPDIF output, which saves 2-way (requires STREO) if the mixer in possde, MOTU Traveler, for example).
BUT, there is a but, no editor available for the moment, and that has lasted five months. When we had used to edit with a computer, you get the nose of the machine with the blood that rises a notch against the head not very big but more important than the Pod XT Live .
Line6 has released an update of the firmware (internal software) which should allow the future to use editor but in my case, and I'm not alone, it produces a sound resembling an acute feedback (F # 14 I box) that dclenche random image. Check out the website of the forum Line6 X3 at ddi.
That said to put a (big) BMOL this excellent machine (when running). My solution to return as the previous version of firmware, but I permettra_t_elle the use of editor? Line6-released version t_il clean it because all keys are not machines (lottery!). In short I love BCAN but ...

- Effects available: Full Crank, amp simulations, and other traditional effects a little more original ... You probably already know all this, there is the complete list of simulations on the Line6 site.

It's all digital, eh, and it goes up to 96kHz / 24bit S / PDIF.

And so, there's a BIG mass simulations and effects, but in practice, we realize that, at the amp simulations, in the end everything sounds, not the same, but not very far either and similarly in use it will say "normal", we will use probably not the plethora of effects.

Everything can be edited easily with Gearbox on the PC, save its presets, etc.. and also use POD Farm to use the sounds of POD in his favorite VST host. That said, we must love the sound of the POD for that = p

- Connectivity: very complete, and finally to the fact that I use, ie home studio and concerts.
There's MIDI (and since an update, all parameters are editable via MIDI!), S / PDIF out very well to register for instrument inputs (finally a guitar, and one in but personally I do not feel significant difference), a microphone input (moderately usable because of gain control ... which is rather faulty), a Variax input, effects loop, output jack is going to be a guitar amp to a mixer and XLR outputs that they are really made to go to the mixer ...
So what level of connectivity y 'get by!

UTILIZATION

Using my faith in a few moments we can use features "basic" edition kind of effects, all that, and then deepening the beast, one can mount pretty cool routing capabilities;
Personally, when I use it to record, I plug my guitar to the pod, the output S / PDIF pod on my sound card, and I record in "dry", after I do what I want with the sound; at the same time I listen to what I play with an output jack plugged into my POD amp;

Live is a bit different, I use almost all functions of the POD I think = p (except that which is yet his fame, the amp simulations!)
So, I have a guitar that fits into the Aux input, an entry in Guitar one plays with samples with my band so there 's a sequence (Ableton Live) that runs on the PC I plugged the PC POD MIDI program change and programmed in Ableton Live so I do not have to change the presets and I can concentrate on the game! It is extremely convenient.
I have two in the POD amp simulations, one that goes into my amp to the left and one right (I play in stereo) and I just change the guitar from time to time!

Y 'after a huge amount of other routings that could invent ...

SOUND QUALITY

Ah, the rub here a bit.
I say no, when I had my only experience with a "real" amp was a Line 6 Spider II, so inevitably I was delighted, amazed, and so on. Now I have changed a little, and as many effects like delay, and simulations of distortion pedals are pretty convincing, as the amp simulations, when there's a little gain, a kind of fizz so acute frequency varies depending on the model of amp and speaker chosen; again, the dynamic part very quickly, and when using the POD in normal use (by plugging into a PA system), it is muddy and the sound tends to drown completely in the mix. The clean sounds, and light crunch kind class A tube amp pushed to the max are much more convincing that said (and I mean basically metal-boy!).
But if you have nothing else like material and it is to the metal, frankly, that's fine, but it is far from sound "pro".

Cons by using only the simulation of distortion pedal on my 100w all-tube (made by my dad!) Oulah it sounds! Whether with the Screamer or the Metal Zone, there's the very heavy! But you can not use the other effects such as "Stomp."

Also, big disappointment: the Bender, and all effects which act on the signal frequency. Truly shameful! Once we play two notes (and sometimes only one!) From the sound completely peanut, sometimes he can not hang the frequency and it's been mounted in the high incoherent ...
Line6 algorithms are completely overwhelmed by the competition at this level

OVERALL OPINION

Me being used quite extensively for 2 years and a half, I think what I said reflects fairly well the state of my mind! I tried just about all the possibilities it offered, and I must say that if tomorrow I were offered an Axe-FX in place, I say no! Before the purchase, I tried a BOSS but I was even less convinced ... Not talking about Digitech ... I think in its price range, it is very good!

Otherwise, very simply, I would say if you do not need routing capabilities "special" that you only play with one or two types of sounds, it is better to add € 100 and take 3 / 4 excellent pedals, but if you're the type to mess a lot to do experiments, without being too cruel on the sound quality .. is a very good value for money!

HOWEVER, I thought I heard recently that the L6 was removed from sale, and in fact I no longer see it for sale anywhere on the net! So perhaps a new version is it prepared? To see!

And so, with experience, I would do this election? ... My faith, it depends, if I had money I could do better but for less than 500 € ...

Modeling Effects Pedal Multi controllable by computer .... OK .. computer music
Connectors ... Complete USB / XLR jqck Variax .... ..

UTILIZATION

Simple and easy thanks to the Monkey software. edition by the software easy enough .... but complicated gearbox compared to guitar RIG4


SOUND QUALITY

The effects are effective if properly adjusted ... but the simulations
Which instruments do you use?
Vigier Excalibur Amp Kustom Lag the beast hybrid.

Which ones do you prefer, you hate?

I like the simulation of marshall variac and black Panel 2
by the simulation debender cons ..... not glop ....



OVERALL OPINION

For how long have you been using it?
Sold since 2009 ..
Did you try many other models before getting this one?

POD XT, Zoom, ... ToneLab ....
What thing do you like most/least about it?
The honeycomb, which is present even in the clear .....

What is your opinion about the value for the price? At a little expensive
Knowing what you know now, would you make the same choice? Yes and No because the simulations are quite good after long leveling ..... it is not used on stage ... but still effective computer music