A Bunch of Amps in a Box? The Line 6 POD Scores Big!

May 21, 1999

A lot of us have a friend that threatens on occasion to hook you up with the equivalent of Mister or Miss Right, only to have that perfect person turn into something with fangs. Amp manufacturers have been telling us for years that they have finally accomplished putting the sounds from a dozen amps in one, with less than perfect results. Some products came close or offered outstanding value like Peavey's Trans-Tube line, but most missed the mark. The POD from Line 6 can now claim victory in the "bunch of amps in a box" battle. Housed in a sturdy box measuring about 9 inches by 5 inches, the POD is tough as nails and easy to use right out of the box, but such simple controls and layout that I can't imagine a guitarist not falling in love with after 10 minutes.

(Click for a larger artist's rendering)

The POD features four basic sections on its front panel. A group of knobs along the top of the POD provide basic functions like output level, EQ, reverb, and drive. A row of six buttons that control the built in tuner, a noise gate, selection of the POD's factory patches, and a tap tempo button that allows the user to change the speed of flanges or delay times by just tapping the button for the desired effect. The Tap Tempo button also lets you access additional features like a drive and presence boost. The Effects section, one knob on the right side of the POD, features an impressive array of all the standard effects along with a collection of combined effects mixing delays, choruses, tremolo, and flange. At the heart of the unit is the Amp Models knob. In a technology that Line 6 calls "Tube-Tone Modeling," the company has painstakingly analyzed the characteristics of various amps, different types of tubes, how the sound is colored and shaped, and designed a software based model of some of the most popular amps in the world. The POD is not a sampler, but a chip/software based solution for recreating tones. The Amp Models knob features 16 different models from "Small Tweed" to recreate vintage Fender amps, to "Rectified" reproducing the Mesa Boogie Dual Rectifier. The back panel features the inputs and outputs along with MIDI in and out, and the power switch.

POD Amp Models POD Clean - The top end of a Roland JC-120 and the bottom end of a Marshall JTM-45 head POD Crunch - Boutique combo sound POD Drive - Merges elements of various high-gain amps POD Layer - Combination POD Crunch and Drive with blending control Small Tweed - '52 Fender Deluxe Tweed Blues - '59 Fender Bassman Black Panel - '65 Fender Deluxe Modern Class A - '96 Matchless Chieftain Brit Class A - '63 Vox AC 30 with Top Boost Brit Blues - '65 Marshall JTM-45 Brit Classic - '68 Marshall Plexi 50 watt Brit Hi Gain - '90 Marshall JCM-800 Rectified - '94 Mesa Boogie Dual Rectifier Tremoverb Combo Modern Hi Gain - '89 Soldano X88R Preamp Fuzz Box - '60's Dallas Arbiter Fuzz Face Tube Preamp - General instrument preamp Bonus MIDI Accessible Amp Models Jazz Clean - '87 Roland JC-120 Boutique #1 - Dumble Overdrive Special Clean Channel Boutique #2 - Dumble Overdrive Special Drive Channel Brit Class A #2 - '60 Vox AC 30 non-Top Boost Brit Class A #3 - '60 Vox AC 15 Small Tweed #2 - '60 Tweed Fender Champ Black Panel #2 - '65 Blackface Fender Twin Boutique #3 - Budda Twinmaster head California Crunch #1 - '85 Mesa Boogie Mark IIc+ Clean Channel California Crunch #2 - '85 Mesa Boogie Mark IIc+ Drive Channel Rectified #2 - '95 Mesa Boogie Dual Rectifier Head Modern Hi Gain #2 - '89 Soldano SLO Super Lead Overdrive

For our first tests, we used a small Mountain transistor practice amp with 10 watts, only one volume knob, and an 8-inch speaker, thinking that achieving a fat Marshall tone from such a small unit would provide a significant challenge. To make things even more interesting, I used a $100 guitar with one single-coil Lace pickup. Plugging the unit in and flipping through the amp models, I had to do a double take to make sure that I didn't plug the thing into my Marshall. Everything from the VOX AC-15 tone to the model of a Matchless Chieftain was amazingly reproduced through my little practice amp. In fact, I can say with confidence that if I was playing a low volume show or had great monitors, that I could use the above small rig with confidence - something I would never try without the POD.

Moving on to the effects, I discover that they were obviously designed with the same quality as the amp models. All of them sounded as good as the effects in my much-loved DigiTech RP-7, and the "Rotary" effect had me forgetting about getting a Leslie for my set-up. The Tweak Effect knob works in different ways depending on the effect that you are working with, but usually provides a volume or EQ boost to your patches. A small switch on the back of the POD lets you select between "Direct", useful for recording or going straight into the board, and "Amp" when using the POD as an in-line effect-type box between your guitar and amp, as in the above set up.

Turning to the POD's 36 built-in presets that combine various amp models with effects, I also found an amazing amount of authentic sounds to choose from. The smooth way that the POD can go from a '52 Fender Deluxe with slight reverb to a Soldano X88 with a 200ms delay is very impressive. To complete the "live" portion of the POD review, I ditched the practice amp and the cheap guitar and plugged into a VOX AC-30 with a 82 Gibson Les Paul. The POD blew me away, adding tonal choices when I wanted them, and providing quality effects when I just wanted the natural tone of my rig.

Effect Tap Controls... Tweak controls... Notes Bypass N/A N/A Turns off the effects Compressor N/A Ratio 5 Compression ratios available Chorus 1 Speed Depth Square Wave "LFO" type chorus Chorus 2 Speed Depth Sine Wave "LFO" similar to Roland CE-1 Flanger 1 Speed Feedback Light Flange Flanger 2 Speed Feedback Heavy Flange - inverted Rotary Speed Depth A Leslie speaker sound Delay Length Level Quick delays Delay/Swell Speed Attack Swell Classic stomp box sound Delay/Chorus Speed Level Rack-type Chorus Tremolo Speed Depth Fender Type

Line 6 didn't stop there. The Emagic SoundDiver software included with the POD is an editor/librarian that turns your computer into a POD control station. It lets you store POD sounds, edit them on screen, and provides access to extra parameters that are not available with the POD on its own, including 12 additional amp model. All you need is a MIDI interface, and a whole world of features become available. Using Sysex commands, you can use your computer to store POD sounds and edit them from a friendly interface, or exchange sounds between two POD's and email patches to your friends. The software also makes full MIDI automation of your POD with a MIDI sequencer a reality, similar to Line 6's Amp Farm software for Pro Tools, but can be used on any Pentium system or Mac with a MIDI interface. Editing a POD sound is easy with parameters for editing features that you can't edit from the front panel of the POD, such as the reverb control.

While the POD can be controlled from an external foot controller sold separately, that is about the only feature that I can think of that doesn't come stock on the POD. If you are like me and use a multi-effects unit like a DigiTech RP-7 or 20, the lack of a foot controller out of the box will be the only minus in a unit full of pluses. There are cheaper ways to get a good tone, but if you are looking for one of the best products on the market for recreating both classic and modern tones that are very close to the original, the POD is for you. Everything from the high quality feel of the controls to the amazing sounds it produces could make the POD one of the most loved and used pieces of gear you own.

Kit Benge (kit@harmony-central.com) has written for BAM, The Rocket, The Chicago Reader, and gobs more. He has been a sound engineer, tour manager, booking agent, and personal manager for dozens of acts since 1978. Kit currently operates a public relations/event-planning firm, plays with lots of gear, and is rarely seen outside of an island near Seattle.