can't get a decent sound on Pod xt live or hd400

[sacha_baptista]

Hi, 

 

I am a guitar teacher and I am new on the Line 6 community. About 8 years ago, I bought a second hand pod xt live and never found a preset that I liked... I just thought "well maybe it's as good as it gets, I'll just live with it". Some time later, I download a ton of presets from the custom tone website, and only one of them was kind of ok.

 

A couple years after that, a friend gave me his hd400 so I thought it was my opportunity to finally have a sound I like... but nope. It even sounds worse than the xt live... When I go from presets to presets, some have a super low volume, so I boost it, the next one nearly blew up my windows.. So I reduced it, etc. All the sounds have a sort of super messy distortion (not in a good way... but i a "your speaker is broken" way!), with a very "plastic-y" sound, not at all what I like.

 

I know line 6 is know for their good sounds and all, so I wondered "why can't I get that? I must be doing something wrong".

 

I have to say I am a bit confused with the output settings, such as:

 

hd400:

live vs studio

line vs amp,

gnd vs lift

 

xt live:

line vs amp

studio direct vs combo front vs combo power amp vs stack front vs stack power amp ... you get the idea

 

So, I have tried all the combinations I could imagine, and though there is an obvious sound difference, none of them is remotely close to what I am looking for.

 

In short, I am looking for a sort of 80's heavy metal sound (iron maiden, evh, steel panther, ratt, etc), and a sort of bluesy clean one.

 

My setup is :

 

Charvel pro mod san dimas -> line 6 xt live or hd 400 -> Marshall mg30dfx

 

Could anybody help me clarify what I am doing wrong?

 

Your help will be greately appreciated.

 

Thanks in advance.

[NebWeb]

Regarding the XT Live, I'm in much the same boat. I'm using a 750€ Yamaha guitar and a 350€ Roland Cube (RRP fifteen years ago - I bought them cheap second hand). I bought a Zoom G1Xon (80€), and have no trouble getting good tones from it, even on very different amps. All the presets are a very good starting point, and I only need to tweak them a bit to get them to sound what they are supposed to sound like. The problem with pedals like that though, with only an up and down footswitch, is that they need to be 100% pre-programmed for your set. So I got a second hand XT Live because it had more flexible footswitches. However, getting a decent tone out of it is much, much harder.

 

In my case the default presets were pretty much erased by a previous owner, and I can't reset the unit because then I'll lose the modelling packs they added. But using the Monkey software I have tried the default presets out one by one and didn't find anything close to what I was looking for. Further, nothing I've downloaded from the 'custom tone' site sounds anything like it is supposed to in the description either. For example, the Randy Rhoads preset I downloaded for the Zoom is beautiful without any tweaking. The Rhoads preset I downloaded for the XT Live sounds appalling; nothing like him at all, no matter how much I tweak it. Another thing is that I can make the guitar 'sing' and 'scream' very easily with the Zoom, whereas I can only describe the XT Live as 'stable' and 'flat'. For example, I can do pinched harmonics on it, but I'm left with the feeling that something was missing. With the Zoom I make a F*** yeah' face, and on the XT I tend to look over at my amp and make a 'WTF was that?' face.

 

I think the XT is much more sensitive to equipment, and much less versatile than the Zoom, and I find presets a waste of time. I'm sure the presets sounded good on someone else's guitar and amp, but they don't translate well. Especially the way the cabs interact with the Stomp effects. I can get a half-decent tone using an amp/cab model, but then the Stomp effects just destroy it.

 

I also find some of the default settings for the effects completely baffling. As you say, everytime you turn the tweak button, you don't know whether you're going to get your head blasted off. And some of the default settings just don't make any sense at all - as if they were set by a Line6 tech who didn't actually play guitar. It is really, really annoying that we can't save over the default settings of the effects. It should just remember the last user setting, and I think this is the biggest flaw of the unit.

 

I've had the XT Live for several weeks, but I've only had a few hours to mess around on it during that time. The main problem I have at the moment is that I can't play loud in my apartment. So when I set-up tones at low volume that sound OK, when I take them to rehearsal, they sound completely different (and usually really horrible). I'm going to try to find a way of spending a few hours alone in our rehearsal space, creating tones from scratch at high volume, before I give up. I only paid 100€ for my unit, so it's not a disaster if I end up getting rid of it.

 

But I still have hope that I can find one tone that I like which will sound good throughout the whole clean, crunch, distorted, chorus/phaser, and wah range of effects. I mean, professional musicians used this unit for gigging back in the day, so it must be possible to get a decent tone out of it. I should have more time over Xmas to play with it, and will post back if I have a breakthrough or some kind of epiphany. I don't think many of these older modelling units do Metal very well though, so I may have more luck than you. This guy seems to know what he's doing, so I guess this is as good as the Metal tones get. Sounds OK, but nothing special.

[aaron__aardvark]

I have never owned a guitar amp in my life, though I have spent a lot of time on the PodXT forum, years ago, when the PodXT probably had the best amp models you could buy.  I always listen to my amp modeling through headphones.  Some people played through a very clean amp, like a keyboard amp, because it doesn't color the sound much.  If you are having distorted amp sounds on your Pod, and you put them through a distorted real guitar amp, that is equivalent to: guitar>distorted Marshall amp>distorted Marshall amp (well maybe that is equivalent to jumping the amp though).  How many people would do that?  If you play it through a very clean amp, it will probably sound pretty similar to how it sounds on headphones.  I don't know if they are in business anymore, but there was some company that made a real clean guitar amp, made to work with guitar amp modelers like the PodXT.  I have never tried one.  Before I bought a keyboard amp (when I was in a band), I played synths through a guitar amp, and it sounded pretty crappy.  Maybe this thread will help:

 

 

[NebWeb]

Yes, that's correct. Ideally you want a speaker which is as clean, neutral and flat as possible, so it doesn't colour the effects coming from the XT Live. But when using presets and downloaded patches, having a neutral sound yourself would only help if the person who created the patch/default preset also used an un-coloured amp or studio monitors.

 

If your combo amp has an auxiliary input for inputting an mp3 and jamming along to, then you can try plugging the XT Live into that. This input should bypass the amp's own gain/EQ circuitry, and just apply fairly uncoloured amplification. You might have an effect loop in/out on your amp, and using that input would achieve the same thing.

 

If you can't do that, then another way of adjusting your amp's tone might be to play some music through it (without equalizer applied in your mp3 player), and adjust the amp's bass/mid/treble so that the music sounds as unmuddied and crisp as possible.

 

However, I know all this stuff and I'm still struggling to get a really good tone. Horrible tones - easy. Passable tones - with a lot of work. Killer tone - yet to hear it.

 

This guy has a tone I'd like to achieve on the XT, but I'll be damned if I can get anywhere near that. Hear those pinched harmonics in his solo? Nope. Not on my gear. Yet if I put the guitar straight into the Roland Cube and choose one of the distortion models, I can get quite close to that sound easily. Having said that, I have only been able to spend a few hours on the XT so far, and mostly at very low volume. So I still have a lot of experimenting to do before I give up on it. But out of the box, the Zoom blows it out of the water. If the Zoom sound modules were in the XT Live casing, I'd be a happy man.

[feelnofrets]

I hate to be a killjoy but truth be told, you're trying to replicate 80's tones that were recorded on tape and mastered through analog equipment and that's where digital world doesn't cut it.
No matter how good a "modeled" amp, stomp, tape saturator or whatever it is, it won't deliver the nuances of electricity passing through capacitors, transformers etc and how they color sound.
It can reach a point where it comes close, but never close enough to satisfy.
I find myself going back to amps, SM57's and cabs to get real tones, and use digital equipment for fast tracking or projects that are not so demanding when it comes to the sound of the guitar.

As for the dude you linked, why don't you message him on youtube ? He might be kind enough to send you the tone on file :)

[sacha_baptista]

Thank you everyone for your input on the topic!

 

NebWeb:

 

On 12/15/2018 at 5:25 AM, NebWeb said:

Regarding the XT Live, I'm in much the same boat. I'm using a 750€ Yamaha guitar and a 350€ Roland Cube (RRP fifteen years ago - I bought them cheap second hand). I bought a Zoom G1Xon (80€), and have no trouble getting good tones from it, even on very different amps. All the presets are a very good starting point, and I only need to tweak them a bit to get them to sound what they are supposed to sound like. The problem with pedals like that though, with only an up and down footswitch, is that they need to be 100% pre-programmed for your set. So I got a second hand XT Live because it had more flexible footswitches. However, getting a decent tone out of it is much, much harder.

 

In my case the default presets were pretty much erased by a previous owner, and I can't reset the unit because then I'll lose the modelling packs they added. But using the Monkey software I have tried the default presets out one by one and didn't find anything close to what I was looking for. Further, nothing I've downloaded from the 'custom tone' site sounds anything like it is supposed to in the description either. For example, the Randy Rhoads preset I downloaded for the Zoom is beautiful without any tweaking. The Rhoads preset I downloaded for the XT Live sounds appalling; nothing like him at all, no matter how much I tweak it. Another thing is that I can make the guitar 'sing' and 'scream' very easily with the Zoom, whereas I can only describe the XT Live as 'stable' and 'flat'. For example, I can do pinched harmonics on it, but I'm left with the feeling that something was missing. With the Zoom I make a F*** yeah' face, and on the XT I tend to look over at my amp and make a 'WTF was that?' face.

 

(...)

 

I also find some of the default settings for the effects completely baffling. As you say, everytime you turn the tweak button, you don't know whether you're going to get your head blasted off. And some of the default settings just don't make any sense at all - as if they were set by a Line6 tech who didn't actually play guitar. It is really, really annoying that we can't save over the default settings of the effects. It should just remember the last user setting, and I think this is the biggest flaw of the unit.

 

(...)

 

But I still have hope that I can find one tone that I like which will sound good throughout the whole clean, crunch, distorted, chorus/phaser, and wah range of effects. I mean, professional musicians used this unit for gigging back in the day, so it must be possible to get a decent tone out of it. I should have more time over Xmas to play with it, and will post back if I have a breakthrough or some kind of epiphany. I don't think many of these older modelling units do Metal very well though, so I may have more luck than you. This guy seems to know what he's doing, so I guess this is as good as the Metal tones get. Sounds OK, but nothing special.

 

I am happy I am not the only one dealing with those issues... I really see myself in your text. And about the video link, indeed, nothing special about his tone.. It sounds cheap to be honest.

 

aaron_aardvark & NebWeb:

 

On 12/15/2018 at 9:42 AM, aaron__aardvark said:

I have never owned a guitar amp in my life, though I have spent a lot of time on the PodXT forum, years ago, when the PodXT probably had the best amp models you could buy.  I always listen to my amp modeling through headphones.  Some people played through a very clean amp, like a keyboard amp, because it doesn't color the sound much.  If you are having distorted amp sounds on your Pod, and you put them through a distorted real guitar amp, that is equivalent to: guitar>distorted Marshall amp>distorted Marshall amp (well maybe that is equivalent to jumping the amp though).  How many people would do that?  If you play it through a very clean amp, it will probably sound pretty similar to how it sounds on headphones.  I don't know if they are in business anymore, but there was some company that made a real clean guitar amp, made to work with guitar amp modelers like the PodXT.  I have never tried one.  Before I bought a keyboard amp (when I was in a band), I played synths through a guitar amp, and it sounded pretty crappy.  Maybe this thread will help:

 

 

On 12/15/2018 at 12:19 PM, NebWeb said:

Yes, that's correct. Ideally you want a speaker which is as clean, neutral and flat as possible, so it doesn't colour the effects coming from the XT Live. But when using presets and downloaded patches, having a neutral sound yourself would only help if the person who created the patch/default preset also used an un-coloured amp or studio monitors.

 

If your combo amp has an auxiliary input for inputting an mp3 and jamming along to, then you can try plugging the XT Live into that. This input should bypass the amp's own gain/EQ circuitry, and just apply fairly uncoloured amplification. You might have an effect loop in/out on your amp, and using that input would achieve the same thing.

 

If you can't do that, then another way of adjusting your amp's tone might be to play some music through it (without equalizer applied in your mp3 player), and adjust the amp's bass/mid/treble so that the music sounds as unmuddied and crisp as possible.

 

However, I know all this stuff and I'm still struggling to get a really good tone. Horrible tones - easy. Passable tones - with a lot of work. Killer tone - yet to hear it.

 

This guy has a tone I'd like to achieve on the XT, but I'll be damned if I can get anywhere near that. Hear those pinched harmonics in his solo? Nope. Not on my gear. Yet if I put the guitar straight into the Roland Cube and choose one of the distortion models, I can get quite close to that sound easily. Having said that, I have only been able to spend a few hours on the XT so far, and mostly at very low volume. So I still have a lot of experimenting to do before I give up on it. But out of the box, the Zoom blows it out of the water. If the Zoom sound modules were in the XT Live casing, I'd be a happy man.

 

I don't think my Marshall colours my sound, or at least not a lot. I really tried to make it as invisible as possible so that the main tone I hear would be the XT.

 

I do have a CD-in but either there is a problem with it or it's been programmed by an lollipop. When I try to play music through it, I only hear a sort of blurry woom---woom... Imposible to hear a HH for ex. Plus, even if it worked as planned, I find it very inconvenient as there is no volume / master setting to control it. Also, no EQ. Indeed, the EQ only controls the guitar-in channel. 

 

Actually I am sort of thinking my tone is not that bad after all.. I have watched the second video and again, sounds really cheap to me. I'll try to record a short video of me playing clean / distortion, harmonics etc so you can "see" what it sounds like. But in the meantime, if you want to have an idea, you can hear it here. 

 

On the first video (Steel Panther - Asian Hooker) , I tried using a new preset, of which I am not convinced at all.. If you compare it with the other ones, it sounds less precise there is too much low-mid. I tried to adjust it but haven't found the sweet spot yet.

 

On the second video (Steel Panther - Eyes of a Panther), I think that was my favourite preset.

 

On the videos 3 to 15 (Van Halen - Jump to Dokken - Don't Lie to Me), it was my old preset, which I sort of liked, but again, not 100%. The other videos are irrevelant because they are either too old and the recording sucked (even more than the recent ones) or it was recorded in a recording studio, where I got a super killer sound (video 16 : David Lee Roth / Steve Vai - Ladies Night in Buffalo), which of course I can't get at home.

 

My recording "method" is pretty simple :

 

I start the original song (medium volume) and play over it (high volume). The video and sound are both recorded using my iphone's camera app (hahah I know...), and then, that's it. I export it as is, no editing.

 

Feelnofrets:

 

On 12/17/2018 at 3:24 AM, feelnofrets said:

I hate to be a killjoy but truth be told, you're trying to replicate 80's tones that were recorded on tape and mastered through analog equipment and that's where digital world doesn't cut it.
No matter how good a "modeled" amp, stomp, tape saturator or whatever it is, it won't deliver the nuances of electricity passing through capacitors, transformers etc and how they color sound.
It can reach a point where it comes close, but never close enough to satisfy.
I find myself going back to amps, SM57's and cabs to get real tones, and use digital equipment for fast tracking or projects that are not so demanding when it comes to the sound of the guitar.

 

Yea.. I think you have a point. Maybe it's as close as it gets to a real amp.

 

That tone is really close to what I am looking for

Rhythm

Lead

 

 

[NebWeb]

You seem to have a better tone than I can get.

 

However, if you listen to the bend at 25s in Eyes Of A Panther, that is the kind of nuance I'm talking about. I can't help feeling that this bend, like my own, sounds somehow underwhelming. It loses power and 'texture'. It's too 'stable' at its peak. It's missing some of the emotion and strength that was put into it. That's one thing I'm finding really hard to achieve with this unit - that moment when you're tearing it up to a backing track, and that 'rock god' moment never comes. A fizzle rather than ignition.

 

My growing opinion is that it provides a safe, stable sound for music like pop, blues and jazz, but if you want to rip it up a bit with some metal, or even get a bit dirty and punky, it lacks the punch and bite to do so; and when you push it too hard it just becomes a digital mess. However, this could also just be lack of experience with it, or some kind of psychoacoustic bias. As I said, I'm going to keep trying for a bit.

[pbecker314]

Another great amp for amplifying Helix and also the various POD units is the Spider Valve, either the original version or the MkII version. These amps have an effects return jack on the back that lets you run any external modeler through the Spider Valve's power amp and then to the speakers, so that you bypass the built-in SV preamp. The advantage here is that the SV amps are powered by a 40 watt 6L6 tube power amp which sounds great. And the combo models come standard with Celestion Vintage 30 speakers. It makes for a great tone with any good modeler. And these amps are available for great prices since they were discontinued many years ago. YMMV. Pete