Pod X3 Live Sounds Thin/way Worse Than Pod 2

[airbus]

Hello POD experts! :)

 

I have a POD X3 Live which I bought about 4-5 years ago.

Maybe 2 years ago I stopped playing it, because I somehow wasn't happy with its sound. Now I have used a POD 2.0 of a friend of mine and I found the sounds great!

Compared to them my X3 Live Sounds are a lot thinner and less powerful - the basses are too weak somehow and the higher frequencies it is not so defined. (that is true for any of the sounds - also for the preset ones)

 

Do you guys have any idea what might be the reason for that?

I guess the X3 Sounds should actually be at least as good as the POD 2.0 sounds...

I already tried to use earlier versions of the Flash memory, but that didn't change anything.

 

I appreciate any advice that could be helpful here!

 

Cheers! Airbus

[brue58ski]

You may find this obvious and I'm not trying to be insulting but are set up to Studio Direct in the outputs.

[airbus]

What do you mean?

That I should or should not use the Studio Direct setting in the outputs menu?

[silverhead]

It depends on how you are monitoring your sound. What X3 outputs are you using, and what are they connected to? If you are going direct to a mixer, PA, or studio monitors you should be using Studio/Direct output mode on the X3. If you are connecting to a guitar amp you should use one of the Live output modes.

[BigChas52]

POD 2.0 contained models that, for the most part, were more "idealized".  They gave the flavor od the amp, but weren't necessarily spot-on accurate.  The high-gain, overdriven, models tended to be pretty good, but the clean models left a lot to be desired.  It tended to be a bit easier to get sounds that were "perceived" to be good right out of the box.

 

With POD XT, and continuing on to POD X3, Line 6 improved the accuracy of the modeling.  This was most apparent in the cleaner models.  This accuracy came at a price; there were great sounds in there, but it was harder to coax them out, especially with the higher gain models.  The real benefit is that the XT/X3 is much better suited to live play.   2.0 tended to be a bit difficult to get good sounds out of for live play situations.

 

I have used my XT Live, X3 Live, and now HD500 for live play for years.  I depend quite a bit on clean tones.  POD 2.0 would not have been particularly suitable.

 

To sum up, there are great tones in the X3.  In my opinion they are for the most part better than the 2.0, but it takes some work to coax them out.

[GilmourD]

What do you mean?

That I should or should not use the Studio Direct setting in the outputs menu?

I think what he's asking is if you're set to Studio Direct or one of the other settings. The other settings cut midrange (making it sound thinner) to compensate for the midrange push of a guitar amp, so if you're using one of those settings for something other than a normal guitar amp the tones could be a bit thin.

[airbus]

Hey guys!

I realized now, that changing the amp equalizers on my POD doesn't change the sound at all (even when going directly to a mixer).

This means that something should be broke, right?

Or is there a way to disable the amp equalizers?