stusaysmoo

just a bean.. all the patches are on customtone

Hi Guys, I did most of these a while back for a thread on TGP and realized that I never shared them on the actual POD HD forum! Thought you may find them interesting. Did the `Mother` one this evening and it reminded just how good the HD can be at emulating classic recordings.. I never really spend that long on these as i find you can sometimes go round in circles if you take it too seriously, but it gives a nice idea of how good it can sound if you take the time to recreate the entire signal chain instead of just pedals and amp. Besides who has time to learn stuff note-for-note just to demo a sound. Enjoy, maybe we can provoke a discussion about building these sounds for those interested in more than just simulating an amp and a mic. https://soundcloud.com/stusaysmoo/tracks Laters, Stu

look guys don`t get me wrong, I love the HD series and I have found it capable of some really great results. For me it is 90% of the perfect product and i don't really think there has ever been a better time for guitar players to be able to get such great results for such a reasonable price. I fully support the strategy of charging for more models and features and generally think that line6 are ahead of the rest of the industry by a fair way. BUT.. they have reached that plateau by doing things differently to the big corporates, by actually listening to the people who use the stuff they sell, and that strategy in my opinion is what makes them capable of creating the most useful and effective tools for musicians and making their customers feel like they are part of the product. But I am British, so I am afraid sarcasm and some good old fashioned moaning are part of the deal... The HD series represents for me the first and only product of it's type which allows a knowledgeable studio engineer to fully create the signal flow of a recorded guitar amp. That may sound silly in the context of other products that are around like the Kemper ore Axefx but it's true.. almost Sure, for a lot of guitar players its all about the pedals and the amp (can I A/B this with my, or someone else's real gear and it will sound the same). But really it's more complicated than that in the context of a classic recording and the components of a guitar tone contained within it. The bottom line is this: A 100% accurate representation of a Marshall plexi miced with an sm57 is, in my opinion, practically useless to anyone. That is, its useless without access to the other tools we audio engineers would apply to that signal to make it fit into a recording. Basically, it sounds like a**. In fact its probably the reason why a ton of outboard gear was invented to wrangle it back to a sound that is actually pleasing to the ear... but i digress So what I see Line6 are doing fills me with excitement! they are modelling the other parts of the studio recording process to allow those of us who understand that world to begin, for the first time, to build a complete signal chain inside the Pod and produce a sound which is actually representative of what you would hear coming out of your speakers when you put your favorite album on and marvel at the sonic amazingness contained within it..the vintage pre model for example.. who is that for? for me that's who, the studio engineer. Soooo you can imagine my confusion at the EQ models, probably the single most important tool at my disposal to create pleasing results, the sonic `chisel` with which I will create my sculpture of awe inspiring tone, and it's all wrong.. mind-bogglingly so. Same goes for the compressors, the second most important tool to a recording and mix engineer.. no ADSR controls! sure to a lot of people that sounds insignificant, but in terms of the potential of the product its a massive handicap. Think of it like a very realistic looking plastic fruit. It looks about right, until you take a bite.. same kind of deal. Its pure frustration at the potential available here, so do not mistake it for bashing. My real concern is that it may be an accidental move by Line6 to provide these tools because they are `connected` to the guitar world, without considering the actual implementation of them in a real recording and therefore doing nothing but frustrate and confuse the very people those tools are aimed at. If the problems are fixed, the potential of the HD is way beyond that of a simple recreation of a guitar amp sound. It will allow, for the very first time, to approach the recreation of RECORDINGS of a guitar amp. It's so very close and i'm not sure they even realize it.. How many times have you read on a forum discussing classic guitar sounds (on recordings) and some bright spark will make the point that the sound on the album they are hearing is 1/2 the guitar gear and the other 1/2 is the studio gear and engineer? Its so very true, and sometimes, not to blow my own trumpet, more than half due to the audio engineer. i hope that explains my perspective on this, and why for me it is not a `wait for the next product in 5 years` situation. and to answer the question of why i don't contribute here: Isn't that what i just did? :)

I truly pity you if you needed me to clarify that representing eq frequencies in % was a bad idea.. I suppose we can leave it to other manufacturers to make professional tools and line6 can be resigned to the `toy` status their `experts` seem to think is acceptable.

not buying any of it sorry.. SOME of your eq models are in Hz. fix the ones that are not, then we will move along. Seriously, listen to your customers.. is the global eq in %? and please tell me its not cos you are worried people's patches may sound different.. I can speak for all of us when I say.. do it we don't care! as soon as I have an idea of what frequency I am adjusting they will all sound better anyway!

I can't help feeling that the word hard is a relative term for a company that can design and build the pod hd.. they could have presented the eq values in binary.. or hex? or even in apples, bananas and kiwi fruits. but it doesn't change the simple fact, that frequencies are measured in Hz, and gain is measured in Decibels. If you bought a car that had it's speed measured in %, would you buy that argument? no me either..

Hi Guys, I have read through this thread (mostly :P) and have a little summary to add for you line6 peeps.. 1: fix the EQ % thing, its just plain weird all eq should be the universally accepted standard of dbs and hz 2: Give us models of: console eq (neve, ssl, trident, amek heck even mackie whatever take your pick) guys, they got it right the first time, don't try to re-invent the wheel.. you don't get points for original EQ design since 1977 graphic eq ala boss ge7 (yes I know it has one, but where is the other half of the frequency spectrum? 2.2khz is only half way, give me the other 5 bands please I feel like someone sliced my eq pedal in half and ran off down the street with the treble frequencies), or if it must be 5 band then split it evenly. guitar needs at least 10k as the upper frequency band, same goes for the parametric.. if I bought a hardware eq that stopped at 2khz, I would return it for a refund and assume whoever market it are partially deaf or only ever eq whale song) Line6 say they listen to their customers.. I dare you, no I double dare you mother***ers to find me 1 single pod hd owner who doesn't think your eq % thing is the worst idea since Greedo shooting first.. a compressor with adsr ! even $30 pedal comps have an attack control, its embarrassing really please add it Everything else is nice to have, IMO those things are a huge gap in your product's basic capabilities now for the nice to have, you can charge me for these: EH electric mistress flanger model.. how the hell am I meant to get my Gilmour on without that?! should be illegal not to include on every modeller.. sure you can argue one man's pudding is another man's punishment but I will go out on a limb here: 204 million pink Floyd albums have been sold. there are a lot of people out there who like the sound of the electric mistress.. you could say it's a pretty safe bet..ohh yeah and there is the Police.. I think they sold a couple of albums too boss ds-1.. cos 1 billion people use them and the RAT sucks balls, but also because Satriani and Vai both use it and 90% of your customers will like one or the other... tape saturation sim, because its a HUGE part of every vintage recording of a guitar you ever heard. ohh and how about the ability to add a second speaker/mic combination without having to also add a second amp model? or even just hybrid mic combinations.. (57+87 for example) its just IRs anyway, mix 2 together! go speak to the Yamaha boys about some spx effects.. I'm sure they wont mind giving you the algorithms.. reverbs especially go talk to them, no really do it.. you can check with them about the eq thing too.. but umm.. they will laugh at you be warned Presets.. I mean really.. hire a studio engineer for the love of all that's holy, we are not that expensive. you could have presets that sound like multi-platinum recordings, but instead they sound like the 12yr old kid playing in a store on a Saturday morning.. don't kid yourselves, your product is a block of gold wrapped in a brown paper bag, wrapped in a sock.. like my school report always used to say: "Full of potential but must try harder..." meh Thanks, Stu