Using a Pod 2.0 live through an amp.

[alanknott]

Hi to everyone, I can't remember ever posting on this forum but found useful and good advice in the past. I've used my trusty old Pod 2.0 for many years mainly as a recording interface and managed tp get excellent tones from it but every now and then have tried using it in a live setting, mainly at jam sessions with mates and through guitar amps. Using it in a live session has given varying results, mainly not particuarly good.

 

However recently I took it to a practise session and used it through a friends keyboard amp with minimal tone settings dialled in and found the results were very good (used the AMP setting on the little switch). We even used it with a microphone for a 'blues harp' and got some great realistic vintage blues vibes from it too. Using it mainly in manual mode I could get some great guitar tones, mainly clean ones using a little delay, chorus, compression, etc. I was really blown away with it.

 

This morning I repaired an old transistor bass combo amp and decided to try my Pod 2.0 through it. The results were very good even through the main input jack, then through the effects loop return (marked as Aux in on this particular bass amp) so effectively using the Pod 2.0 as the preamp.. I'll definitely be going down this route in the future and trying more live stuff with it.

 

I'm not sure whether this has all been covered by posts in the past and not trying to teach anyone how to suck eggs but wanted to share the experience. I've tried the Pod through quite a few guitar amps in the past with poor results, even clean channels, but use these through a keyboard amp or bass amp and the results can be amazing, I'm sure could be used for live performance too. Maybe the input impedance and preamp circuitry is so different on Keyboard / bass amps to guitar amps?

 

If you have bben having the same dilema as me, this is well worth trying. Good luck..