Line 6 POD Pro

Purchased at a music store for around $600.00 and the floor board for about $300.00. Tried it out and loved the sound our of the headphones. It is much harder to get that same sound out of my Marshall and Mackie PA rig but it can be done with patients.


A very versitile unit. Lots of effects and sound modeling capabilities. There are endless ways to connect it various equipment each giving different advantages. I currently run in live mode with the PA outs feeding my mixer and the power amp outputs into the stereo fx loop of my marshall AVT275 (I run the two stereo outputs from the marshall to my mixer also). The sound can be tricky to set up because the two OD's can get really muddy and ugly. I use the unprocessed guitar out to feed my korg tuner and then it goes out to another mixer channel. I use it to blend in a little clean tone under my heavy distortion for some incredible deep rich heavily overdriven tones or sweet fat clean sounds. I play everything from classical to thrash so I needed the versatility of this unit.

The software controll is kind of cumbersome and it took a lot of practice and patients to get the sounds I was looking for. The Sound Diver software can be kind of a pain to connect and get working with the Pod unit also. The on/off switch of the floor boards wah had to be adjusted because it didn't work. Also, several of the knobs and buttons and jacks were loose and had to be tightened up right out of the box. I was also missing the CD. For the money I spent on this system I would think thier quality control could do a little better job.

Once everything was tightened up and adjusted to work it seems to be pretty durable. I haven't had it on the road yet so I don't know for sure how well it will hold up. I don't have much doubt about the Pod Rack unit but I do have some about the floorboard accessary. A few really good rowdy nights will tell...

It looks cool and sounds great after you set it up and tweak all the settings to your liking but that can be very time consuming. Overall a great unit but the price of the unit and the footboard together is pushing a grand and I would have liked a little more for that much money.

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

I bought the unit in a music store in Utrecht, The Netherlands about one and a half year ago, in february 2001. I paid 1600 guilders whis is about 700 dollars. More expensive than in America, yes, but hey... It's a long swim to Europe, ya know!

This is the lowdown on the Pod Pro, these three things: great sound, great versatility and good solid build.

The presets are all quite metaly or very very country-sounding, but once you get to combine your amps with cabs and FX, you get these really YUMMY tones, which can be fantasticly lifelike or very, very interesting. With 32 amp models and 15 speaker cabs to choose from, there's 480 combinations to make so you won't get bored that quickly.

The classic combinations are good (like the plexi with the 4x12 greenback cab for that Blackmore sound, it's as close to the original as it gets!) but try some 'odd' combinations and you'll be astounded! For instance, a VOX AC30 over any of the 4x12s will sound INCREDIBLE, especially when using clean sounds on the verge of overdrive. Or that little Fender Deluxe amp on full blast over the Line6 2x12 cab, that sounds EXACTLY like Kravitz' sound on 'Mama said'.

I use the POD live on stage through a 2x100W Crown PA amp into 2 Hughes&Kettner Attax 112 Pro 1x12 Thiele cabs. It sounds really good, although it can be a hassle matching the different amp/cab combos in volume. I use the floorboard too, which is nice but a little bulky and, to be honest, bloody expensive! But it's a killer combination, and the wah on the floorboard sounds really good for rock and blues jobs.

In recording I use the Pod Pro's digital out straight into a Yamaha digital console. It sounds perfect! You can check the soundbites on http://www.the-music-of-us.com for that!

I play a G&L Legacy Special and this proves to be a good choice. Most amps let the guitar sound ring through really nicely, so plug a shitty guitar into this thing and that'll be exactly what you hear. The Matchless emulation (my personal favourite) has guitar tone coming through even at full blast with OD and compression at max. Brilliant!

There's a couple of things I'd like to see changed. The price of the floorboard for one, although I love the way it's connected (throught one single UTP network cable!) and the optical controls on the wah & vol.

But these are things to look into, Line6:
- Some amp combo's are much, much louder than others. I know that's this is the most realistic, but it's hardly practical.
- Some options are only accessible through midi, but I'd like to see these editable from the panel. Especially: vol pedal pre/post preamp, reverb type and noise gate threshold.

The thing is built really sturdily. I've been using it on the road for one and a half year and it hasn't failed me yet (knock on wood). I've built it into an SKB case, of course.

The red anodized aluminium front panel scratches a bit easily, but hey... Nothing lasts forever. It's well-built enough, with switches and connectors of good brands (Neutrik for instance).
The floor board is equally well-built and will last for ages, I'm sure. Like I said earlier, the wah and vol are optical controls, so no need to carry contact cleaner around.

In short: I really, really like the Pod Pro. It works perfectly in the studio as well as on stage, although you need a whole new set of patches for that, so get yourselves a midi cable and install SoundDiver!

So, bottom line: Very, very nice piece of equipment, and I can really recommend it to any guitar player, pro or amatuer. Inspite of some minor flaws I'll give it a five out of five.

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

Paid around $600 for this unit from Musician's Friend on the web. I already had the POD (1st revision) and was looking for more functionality in a rack mountable unit for my live rig.

What's not to like!? The POD Pro has significantly more models and choices than the regular POD and conveniently slips into my Quik Lok rack system. The sound quality is top notch and the amp models are so believeable it even turns the head of some vintage freaks I know that turn their noses up at all the new digital equipment.

There's really nothing I don't like. Other than the additional modeling selections, etc. this unit doesn't really have much over the POD. It might have been cheaper for me to just use my POD and get one of the floorboard controllers - which you would have needed anyway, but nevertheless I'm glad I purchased it.

Quality and construction are first rate. A strong metal housing provides drop safety, although if mounting in a rack you shouldn't run into that situation much. Still roadies sometimes bang things around when setting up, this unit can take anything. The knobs and controls are all a high quality feel and will take years of road abuse.

I think for around $600 you get one sweet unit that will allow you to put together just about any sound / amp model or cabinet combo you can think of. These days, I'm running more and more of the mix through the PA and the POD Pro is where it's at if this is how you set your rig up for playing live.

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