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themaddog « Excellent tones, extremely useful live »
Published on 06/18/11 at 11:07The Line 6 POD XT Live is a multi-effects board that models amplifiers, stompboxes, and effects. It has a 1/4" inputs and 1/4" left (mono) and right outputs. There is also a 1/8" input for CD or MP3's player at line level with adjustable gain for that channel. There are also MIDI connections which can be used with a sequencer to change patches. There is also a connection for the Variax guitars, whose one tone patches can be saved into each patch bank for easy switching.
There are large buttons to switch on and off the amp, stompbox, and effects for each patch. There are also two buttons to switch between patch banks, each of which have four buttons to change between the patches of each bank. The patch information is visibly displayed on a screen on the floorboard. Each patch can be named.
The amp, stompbox, and effects models can be updated by purchasing patches from the Line 6 online store.
UTILIZATION
Editing the patches is very easy. The manual is extremely helpful and offers further insight into how the POD XT Live operates.
The preset sounds are pretty each, and each of them are around 80% of the way there but will probably require some tweaking to meet your individual needs. Many, many factors can be edited on each patch, including the type of microphone that is being emulated as well as its placement in front of the synthesized speaker. The amp models are EXTREMELY close to the originals in most cases.
SOUND QUALITY
The models being amplified are EXTREMELY close to the originals in most cases. Many like the sound of the POD right out of its outputs and simply record that. I only use my POD XT Live for practice and shows, and prefer to play straight through my Mesa Boogie Single Rectifier for recording. If I needed some kind of specialty patch or live effects in a studio recording environment, I would probably implement the XT as it is definitely usable. I have used it in the studio to record scratch guitar tracks.
OVERALL OPINION
At this point, I couldn't do it live without one of these wonderful Line 6 products. My only gripe is that when switching patches, if using a delay the delay is cut prematurely, with no option to continue the rest of the delay when switching patches. The original POD and POD 2.0 did not work in this way, so if there was a 2 second delay set on one patch, it would continue with the rest of the delay when another patch was punched up, making for a seamless transition. That being said, I don't have any other problems with the XT Live, and that one thing is only a minor annoyance. The consistency that the XT Live is able to provide me from show to show is tremendous and prevents me from fiddling with my amplifier too much before each performance.
There are large buttons to switch on and off the amp, stompbox, and effects for each patch. There are also two buttons to switch between patch banks, each of which have four buttons to change between the patches of each bank. The patch information is visibly displayed on a screen on the floorboard. Each patch can be named.
The amp, stompbox, and effects models can be updated by purchasing patches from the Line 6 online store.
UTILIZATION
Editing the patches is very easy. The manual is extremely helpful and offers further insight into how the POD XT Live operates.
The preset sounds are pretty each, and each of them are around 80% of the way there but will probably require some tweaking to meet your individual needs. Many, many factors can be edited on each patch, including the type of microphone that is being emulated as well as its placement in front of the synthesized speaker. The amp models are EXTREMELY close to the originals in most cases.
SOUND QUALITY
The models being amplified are EXTREMELY close to the originals in most cases. Many like the sound of the POD right out of its outputs and simply record that. I only use my POD XT Live for practice and shows, and prefer to play straight through my Mesa Boogie Single Rectifier for recording. If I needed some kind of specialty patch or live effects in a studio recording environment, I would probably implement the XT as it is definitely usable. I have used it in the studio to record scratch guitar tracks.
OVERALL OPINION
At this point, I couldn't do it live without one of these wonderful Line 6 products. My only gripe is that when switching patches, if using a delay the delay is cut prematurely, with no option to continue the rest of the delay when switching patches. The original POD and POD 2.0 did not work in this way, so if there was a 2 second delay set on one patch, it would continue with the rest of the delay when another patch was punched up, making for a seamless transition. That being said, I don't have any other problems with the XT Live, and that one thing is only a minor annoyance. The consistency that the XT Live is able to provide me from show to show is tremendous and prevents me from fiddling with my amplifier too much before each performance.