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What am I missing?


benthere77
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Hello,

 

I received my POD GO today after so much anticipation from reading all of the awesome reviews online.  I am running it into a Headrush FRFR speaker (108).  Based on my research online this seemed to be a can't-lose combination.  But alas after a couple of hours of downloading various custom tones and trying to tweak settings, I am unable to dial in even a playable tone.  The closest to decent has been a patch I downloaded for $4.99 called "Mayer Of Toneville" which sounded awesome on the YouTube video but mediocre/playable in person.  

So far I am unable to get a tone that's even as good as my current set-up of a Blues Junior (with Bill M mods) and Tube Screamer.  Not even close really. I simply cannot get anywhere near that bright, clear, sparkly Fender tone that warms up beautifully with a little overdrive.  (Mayer/SRV)

 

I've tried doing a factory reset, upgrading the firmware, checking all of my cables and connections.  Nothing really works.

The SRV and Mayer of Toneville presets that I downloaded sound nothing like the guy playing/selling them on YouTube.

Any of the other presents or my ridiculous attempts at building my own preset sound either completely muddy or too weak and tinny.  Impossible to get the volume right.  On some presets I can barely hear it and others almost blow my windows out.  

Here's the thing....I've heard what people are doing with this device and I know it can't be the Pod Go. It has to be something I'm doing or not doing.  

 

I may be a little old school when it comes to digital guitar tech but I make a great living as a software developer.  There's no way I'm too dumb to work this thing..lol

 

Please help.  Any advice or insight would be greatly appreciated.  I'd hate to send this stuff back.

 

 

(Note: I bought this after giving up on the Spider V 120 MKii. Which sounded infinitely better after I did a factory reset but the Line 6 rep assured me this Pod Go was superior so here I am.)

 


 

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Hi @benthere77  Contrary to its name the Pod Go isnt just plug in and go. Its going to take a while for you to learn how to use it and I think your expectations to find your tone on the day you bought were probably a tad unrealistic. I've had my Pod Go for 3 weeks and I'm still on a learning curve - however I've been using digital modelling gear for years for gigging so I've gained some modest experience with these. When I first plugged in I was hugely disappointed as I couldn't get anywhere near the tones from my old Vox Tonelab SE (that came out in 2003) and I thought I'd made a bad mistake and was contemplating returning it. But now that I'm figuring it out, I'm simply over the moon with it and getting some stonking tones. There's a lot to learn and in the nicest way your experience as a software developer isn't really going to help you. Learning about tone, EQ, amps, cabs etc is a journey and that journey can often take you down an entirely different road when your gear changes and you have to think a bit differently to real amps and stomp fx.

 

What guitar are you using and can you post a link to a recording of the tone you're trying to get? Through Pod Go you can save and share patches so if I can come up with something that I think might work for you I'd be happy to send you something to try. I'm not familiar with the patch you bought but these will rarely sound the same with your gear compared to theirs and I very recently posted on this topic on The Fretboard. If you could let me know the core elements in the patch you're working on ie amp, cab, reverb, delay and fx types that you're trying to get your tone with and the chain order I'll see what I can come up with although I may change these of course.  This might help me to understand what (if anything) might be bringing about your initial disappointment. I'm still learning myself so it will be an interesting exercise, and I have a few different guitars so should have something that's reasonably close to what you might be playing.  Don't worry, it's all in there and it's just a case of figuring it out, & I'm happy to try & help. 

 

On my Souncloud page (https://soundcloud.com/richard-birch-1 ) there's my e-mail (plus links to my youtube page).  Drop me an e-mail and I'll have a go. 

 

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cristt -

 

Thank you four your response.  I am using the Main Out Left/Mono to connect to my Headrush FRFR.  I actually don't have any headphones so I haven't tried that.  I do intend to get a pair though because that was another draw to this device.

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voxman55  -

 

Thank you so much for that response.  That does make me feel better and I have to admit I had the expectation of more or less plug it in and bam, there's my dream tone. I can see now that that was unrealistic.  

Unfortunately I'm at work and super busy at the moment so I can't give a real in-depth response right now.  The song I was working on before I bought this is "Riviera Paradise" by SRV.  So the first tone I was after was that beautiful crisp/warm Fender clean tone with some nice reverb.  I was getting so much closer to that with my little Blues Junior Fender amp than I have gotten with this GO.  And I know that can't be right! 

I really appreciate your kind response and I will get back to you later with a couple of links to my desired tone. 

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On 7/9/2020 at 9:46 PM, benthere77 said:

sound either completely muddy or too weak and tinny. 

 

I replied in your other thread headphone vs FRFR I think it was.  But yeah, I'm 95% sure that the poor sound quality is just coming from the speaker.  It is a budget speaker, and from every recording I've heard of it, you're describing its innate sound.

 

So yeah, the Pod Go is 200% better than the Spider Amp, but your FRFR 108 is killing all of your tone.  Try plugging to your sound stereo if you have one (ex; Go headphone out), and you'll likely notice a dramatic sound improvement if your stereo has decent sound.

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I don't know if it was on another topic but a possible solution might be using a stereo (balanced-TRS) jack cable from the pod go to the speaker, instead of a normal instrument (mono) jack cable.

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11 hours ago, cristt said:

I don't know if it was on another topic but a possible solution might be using a stereo (balanced-TRS) jack cable from the pod go to the speaker, instead of a normal instrument (mono) jack cable.

 

 

That was exactly the problem!  It probably did come up on another thread because I posted the solution there once I figured it out.  Three days of thinking I had made a huge mistake to going "wow, this thing is really cool and sounds incredible!"

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Hi Benthere77, Ive got the same problem, Podgo into Headrush FRFR108, it has horrible tone. This is on the factory presets and downloaded presets. No amount of tweaking (hi/lo cut/etc) works, so i got TRS cables to try, still the same. When i go into the fx return on my Marshall DSL 40 it sounds a 100 times better. What settings are you running on podgo as i'm about an hour away from selling the headrush. Feeling really deflated by it

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On 7/20/2020 at 7:07 AM, bennylee79 said:

Hi Benthere77, Ive got the same problem, Podgo into Headrush FRFR108, it has horrible tone. This is on the factory presets and downloaded presets. No amount of tweaking (hi/lo cut/etc) works, so i got TRS cables to try, still the same. When i go into the fx return on my Marshall DSL 40 it sounds a 100 times better. What settings are you running on podgo as i'm about an hour away from selling the headrush. Feeling really deflated by it

 

Sorry for the delayed response.  Busy with work last few days and haven't checked in on this forum.

"What are my settings?"  This is a very loaded question! Lol...There are so MANY settings. Also, I'm still trying to figure this damn thing out.

Let me preface this by saying I'm still not satisfied with my sound through the HeadRush but getting better.  

The quickest thing I can recommend is to try these patches I've attached.  The ".wav" file is an "I/R".  After importing the patches below (and the .wav file) alter the patches to use this "IR".  It goes in the cab slot of the effects chain but the I/R option will only be available if you have an IR loaded.  Make sure that "Global EQ" (in preferences) is bypassed when you try these patches.   These should give you a decent sound through the HR108. 

I'm sorry you are feeling deflated.  I felt the exact same way.  Really was sort of devastating as I had so much excitement and anticipation about getting this.  

(PS: If you like these tones and have success...go to YouTube and find a guy named Jonathan Cordy.  Check out his Pod Go videos as these are his tones and maybe use the donation link to send him a few bucks or "buy him coffee" or whatever.)

 

 

OH 412 MES-ST V60 OH1F-06.wav JCFullert2.pgp JcTwin.pgp JcTwinB.pgp JcTwinC.pgp

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  • 2 weeks later...

I have a FRFR-108 arriving later this week so thread is worrying :D but I have a TRS-XLR cable and the pod go sounds pretty good through both monitor speakers and even my hi-fi so I don't see how it can sound worse through a proper frfr setup.

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  • 1 month later...
On 8/4/2020 at 2:11 PM, cyrusj said:

I have a FRFR-108 arriving later this week so thread is worrying :D but I have a TRS-XLR cable and the pod go sounds pretty good through both monitor speakers and even my hi-fi so I don't see how it can sound worse through a proper frfr setup.

Wondering how your sound is and does the 108 meet your needs?

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53 minutes ago, Northsea said:

Headphones don’t lie...or shouldn’t. I’m having problems too. Good luck. 


Headphones are probably the least reliable way to monitor a source, as far as getting an actual flat response. Quality studio headphones have their place and give you a better idea of what’s happening, but I wouldn’t ever trust what I’m hearing from headphones to set up tones.

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What I meant is there is nothing else colouring the sound. No amp/cab/speaker/environmental noise or issues. The headphone out should be the truest represent of the sound. Every great album ever recorded was recorded with the artist with a pair of headphones on....and I bet they weren’t all great quality!  But I accept your point and hope I have clarified mine. 

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  • 4 months later...

meh - i just returned mine today after a month of trying. i started with line6 back @ 2001 when i joined a band who’s singer owned an og Flextone amp and a red bean. my experience up to that point with fx was mostly dod/digitech single pedals and an old RP-1, after that it was a boss GT-6 thru HK amps. when i went back to amps it was spider iii combos and half stacks, then a spider valve (which i absolutely loved) necessity brought me back to the floor with a POD HD400. it took a while but eventually something clicked and i got the tone i wanted; even a close approx. of the coveted steve harris and justin chancellor bass tones. but this thing just didn’t cut it. out of every single preset, i found exactly TWO that didn’t hit my ears the wrong way. the rest sounded pretty identical to each other and any downloaded tones were hampered by “required IR not found...” just seems like too much of a hassle to get usable sounds out of it that are anywhere near what i see in reviews/demos. i play deftones/lizzard sort of stuff on a baritone tele (stock pups) and a PRS baritone (duncan pegasus/sentient pups) both tuned to A standard (bass in E)  so distorted tones are already a bit of an epic mission with digital fx; but the GO just did not impress me at all.

i plugged my HD400 back in before boxing up the POD go, just to be sure, and my ears were happy  again.

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6 hours ago, engine-III said:

meh - i just returned mine today after a month of trying. i started with line6 back @ 2001 when i joined a band who’s singer owned an og Flextone amp and a red bean. my experience up to that point with fx was mostly dod/digitech single pedals and an old RP-1, after that it was a boss GT-6 thru HK amps. when i went back to amps it was spider iii combos and half stacks, then a spider valve (which i absolutely loved) necessity brought me back to the floor with a POD HD400. it took a while but eventually something clicked and i got the tone i wanted; even a close approx. of the coveted steve harris and justin chancellor bass tones. but this thing just didn’t cut it. out of every single preset, i found exactly TWO that didn’t hit my ears the wrong way. the rest sounded pretty identical to each other and any downloaded tones were hampered by “required IR not found...” just seems like too much of a hassle to get usable sounds out of it that are anywhere near what i see in reviews/demos. i play deftones/lizzard sort of stuff on a baritone tele (stock pups) and a PRS baritone (duncan pegasus/sentient pups) both tuned to A standard (bass in E)  so distorted tones are already a bit of an epic mission with digital fx; but the GO just did not impress me at all.

i plugged my HD400 back in before boxing up the POD go, just to be sure, and my ears were happy  again.


Did you try creating your own presets from scratch? If you only look at the factory presets or use presets downloaded for other people, you’re really only scratching the surface of what’s available.

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2 hours ago, phil_m said:


Did you try creating your own presets from scratch? If you only look at the factory presets or use presets downloaded for other people, you’re really only scratching the surface of what’s available.

yes, i did. but, respectfully,  that response seems a bit too commonplace and isn’t really a solution. i understand that it’s not a simple  “plug and play” type of deal - it just seems to me that after 20 years the level of complexity to get even one attractive tone to start with out of 30+ banks of presets is starting to outweigh the benefits of the newer models. in the past it seemed that having so many “artist presets” was the draw towards modeling amps/pedals - having a good, usable starting point and patches that actually showed how they could be used. most of what i hear with the GO seems redundant. i feel like it’s unnecessary to have so many when things like the snapshot mode and blocks mean you can turn things on and off to essentially get the next patch in the list. again, personally i feel like quantity over quality and the added hassle of having to buy things like IR’s is taking over the usability of the products, especially when simple/useful things like having enough effects blocks or dual amps are being thrown out. i understand there will always be a sacrifice between product versions and that business is business, but IMO it’s just not worth it with this one.

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Have to admit as a veteran of MFX I didn't even try the factory presets until recently. Glad I didn't as they're same as most of the other manufacturer factory presets - pretty flat and dull. Have to admit I've had no problems get a nice tone out of the Pod Go. Blank preset, add in an amp, turn the Master UP,  Channel Vol around 8, Gain down to around 2.5 initially and that is a good starting point for my setup with most amp models, whether it's through Monitors, the Return on my Katana (obviously cab/ir turned off) or headphones. Tend to tweak the amp eq and usually the presence to taste then it's ready for any pedals. Really enjoying the overdrive fx and chorus effects in particular. Only thing I'm struggling with is getting a decent acoustic tone...that's as much to me using a PRS SE as anything else. Even with the coils split it doesn't sound close to as good as my old Yamaha Pacifica (mind you everything else sounds so much better). 

 

 

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Sorry to hear some of you are having disappointing results. I received my Pod Go on 1/2/21 and this is a brand new experience for me. One advantage I have is that I'm retired (I'm 67) so I'm able to devote a good amount of time daily into figuring this out.

 

As others have said, it's not a plug in and play unit and I wasn't expecting it to be either. I'm running mine directly into an Alesis RA/100 Reference Amplifier and 2 Alesis Point Seven Monitors. I've had this setup for years but hey, it works and works fine!

 

As said, been at it daily, getting things to my liking, checking it the next day, tweak here, change this, try that......it's been a fair amount of work. But I'm liking the results. So far I have 2 clean sounds I like using the US Double Vib and the Cali IV models. Semi dirty sound using an Essex 30 and a Matchless Jump. Also got a Brit Plexi Brt model and a Brit Plexi Jump model that I'm really liking. 

 

Again, this is brand new stuff for me so I can't compare it to this, that or the other thing. I admit it's been a lot of back and forth but for me its been worth the effort. But the real test will be when I use it at church for the first time and I'm already sure I'm going to have to fine tune things to some degree. But that's okay because this will lighten my load considerably. Got very tired of lugging my amp, 2x12 cab and pedal board around. 

 

I wish you all well with whatever you decide upon.

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9 hours ago, Rossco02 said:

Have to admit as a veteran of MFX I didn't even try the factory presets until recently. Glad I didn't as they're same as most of the other manufacturer factory presets - pretty flat and dull. Have to admit I've had no problems get a nice tone out of the Pod Go. Blank preset, add in an amp, turn the Master UP,  Channel Vol around 8, Gain down to around 2.5 initially and that is a good starting point for my setup with most amp models, whether it's through Monitors, the Return on my Katana (obviously cab/ir turned off) or headphones. Tend to tweak the amp eq and usually the presence to taste then it's ready for any pedals. Really enjoying the overdrive fx and chorus effects in particular. Only thing I'm struggling with is getting a decent acoustic tone...that's as much to me using a PRS SE as anything else. Even with the coils split it doesn't sound close to as good as my old Yamaha Pacifica (mind you everything else sounds so much better). 

 

 

actually, ironically, a really good acoustic sim is THEE thing i was shooting for and after seeing a demo of a user patch/ir setup i was initially convinced that the rest would fall in line as was the case with my hd400 - didn’t happen.

i am by no means a gear snob and my main guitar is also a PRS SE baritone mushok sig that i found in nearly mint condition for $250. as far as build quality, it was a set-neck baritone that was perfect and the price allowed me the funds to upgrade other components on a very solid body and neck. for the acoustic tones i was using an ibanez artcore hollow with a graph-tech ghost system that, again, allowed upgrades without putting me in debt. the tones i managed to get out of both running thru the hd400 were MORE than adequate which made me think the GO would make them that much better. but...

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On 1/14/2021 at 6:01 PM, engine-III said:

the tones i managed to get out of both running thru the hd400 were MORE than adequate which made me think the GO would make them that much better. but...

 

On 1/13/2021 at 1:50 PM, engine-III said:

yes, i did. but, respectfully,  that response seems a bit too commonplace and isn’t really a solution. i understand that it’s not a simple  “plug and play” type of deal - it just seems to me that after 20 years the level of complexity to get even one attractive tone to start with out of 30+ banks of presets is starting to outweigh the benefits of the newer models. in the past it seemed that having so many “artist presets” was the draw towards modeling amps/pedals - having a good, usable starting point and patches that actually showed how they could be used. most of what i hear with the GO seems redundant. i feel like it’s unnecessary to have so many when things like the snapshot mode and blocks mean you can turn things on and off to essentially get the next patch in the list. again, personally i feel like quantity over quality and the added hassle of having to buy things like IR’s is taking over the usability of the products, especially when simple/useful things like having enough effects blocks or dual amps are being thrown out. i understand there will always be a sacrifice between product versions and that business is business, but IMO it’s just not worth it with this one.

 

There are tons of free IRs, and when you use them instead of the bothersome [amp + mic + distance], the Go's usability gets a lot higher, as it's a PITA to experiment with amps/mic/distance.  And as the majority of tone is from the amp, you're really doing yourself a huge favor by using IRs imho.  But if you don't mind the PGO's amp+mic+dist thing, you likely won't be missing much in terms of tone.  

 

But reading YT comments, you're not the only one who seems to love his HD400/500.  Not entirely sure how it compares sound-wise, but I'd think the Go would sound better as it's the latest emulation gen (helix tone).  Getting there might be a challenge though, so having years of tuning your hd400 tone vs jumping in Go and trying to reproduce/improve your hd400 tones might not be super easy...  

 

And yeah IMHO the presets aren't a huge help and could have been better.  But how they sound depends on your playing and  your guitar, so again you can't really compare to the sounds you've dialed in your hd400; which are already tailored to your taste, playing, guitar, etc.

 

 

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Hi, first post here. I've been exploring with my new Pod Go since getting it last month. Still finding my way around but have found some presets that are good staring points (e.g. Breaker of Hearts for any 70s/80s Marshall sound, Just Like Heaven for 80s alt). Others that are challenging/innovative setups I wouldn't have discovered on my own (Streets Have a Name). Disappointed in the John Mayer, Robben Ford and Mark Knopfler ones, as I like those guitarists' actual sounds.

 

Was surprised to find that the Friedman amp (called "Placater") is my favorite so far, since I've really never heard folks talk about them. Built a preset with Placater Clean, ProCo Rat, Transistor Tape Delay (micro delay and short feedback for just a small echo) and LA comp w default setting. Also swap in a Tube Screamer in front of it. Patch it from main out to the front of my Fender Deluxe 85 clean channel. With the TS808 and low drive, neck pick-up get a nice Frusciante. Up the drive, no compression for SRV. Switch to bridge pickup for Black Crows. Switch to ProCo and bridge pickup, compressor on for Santana. Swap in a Phase 90 and up the delay time for Andy Summers.

 

Would love to hear from others what go-to rigs you've created. While there is insane amounts of choice on the Pod Go, I'm thinking there will be probably a dozen elements I'll find I rely upon for 90% of my sounds.

 

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On 1/20/2021 at 9:19 PM, markdavenport70 said:

Would love to hear from others what go-to rigs you've created. While there is insane amounts of choice on the Pod Go, I'm thinking there will be probably a dozen elements I'll find I rely upon for 90% of my sounds.

 

I play hardtail Ibanez RG. My current favorite tones:

 

https://line6.com/customtone/tone/5107727/ - designed by Richie Castellano. Placater Dirty with one of the stock cabs. Sounds great on it's own, but I use it with Ownhammer's Recto cab from Core Tone Bundle (OH 412 RECT V70B 421-EDGE, no low or high cut) with no additional tweaks and to my ears it sounds great as a fat, slightly scooped rhythm sound.

 

https://line6.com/customtone/tone/5107726/ - another high gain sound from Mr Castellano. This one is based on ENGL model and takes advantage of it's Mid Boost switching capability. I tweaked this one quite a bit, default settings are too wet and delay mix on expression pedal was annoying. He designed it with an IR. I use Ownhammer's OH 412 RECT V70B CUT-09.

 

https://line6.com/customtone/tone/5278854/ - a recent discovery, great high gain Placater Dirty sound, but needs an IR (again I use OH 412 RECT V70B 421-EDGE, Low Cuw 80 Hz, High Cut 8.0 kHz). For my ears it's very balanced sounding and I think it's a great starting point for tweaking. However Mod/Chorus Echo delay sound needs to go :)

 

The last three are my creations :)

https://line6.com/customtone/tone/5306104/ - Placater Clean, my go to clean and cleanish sound with Kinky Boost in the signal chain as a gain and boost option. Still work in progress. I use it with Owhammer's OH CTB 412 MIX from Core Tone Bundle.

 

https://line6.com/customtone/tone/5306112/ - big high gain Plexi sound with a stock cab. So far my best stock cab based sound. I tried it with different IR's but I somehow prefer the cab sound.

 

https://line6.com/customtone/tone/5306115/ - one of the first sounds I've created on Pod Go. I use it with York Audio's  1 USD Mesa 212 IR (https://www.yorkaudio.co/product-page/mes-212-v30-limited). I find that Blue Comp Treb in front of the amp tightens the low end quite a bit. This one is much brighter and focused than other Placater Dirty sounds I linked above. It still needs some tweaking but it's pretty fun already in it's current state.

 

Edit: the last linked preset (Fred 212) sounds great also with free 2x12 Framus IR's from this thread:

https://www.thegearpage.net/board/index.php?threads/my-framus-2x12-vintage-30-g12h-75-creamback-g12h-150-redback-g12h-30-anniversay-irs.2220503/

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On 7/22/2020 at 12:02 PM, benthere77 said:

 

Sorry for the delayed response.  Busy with work last few days and haven't checked in on this forum.

"What are my settings?"  This is a very loaded question! Lol...There are so MANY settings. Also, I'm still trying to figure this damn thing out.

Let me preface this by saying I'm still not satisfied with my sound through the HeadRush but getting better.  

The quickest thing I can recommend is to try these patches I've attached.  The ".wav" file is an "I/R".  After importing the patches below (and the .wav file) alter the patches to use this "IR".  It goes in the cab slot of the effects chain but the I/R option will only be available if you have an IR loaded.  Make sure that "Global EQ" (in preferences) is bypassed when you try these patches.   These should give you a decent sound through the HR108. 

I'm sorry you are feeling deflated.  I felt the exact same way.  Really was sort of devastating as I had so much excitement and anticipation about getting this.  

(PS: If you like these tones and have success...go to YouTube and find a guy named Jonathan Cordy.  Check out his Pod Go videos as these are his tones and maybe use the donation link to send him a few bucks or "buy him coffee" or whatever.)

 

 

OH 412 MES-ST V60 OH1F-06.wav 8.09 kB · 22 downloads JCFullert2.pgp 14.19 kB · 20 downloads JcTwin.pgp 9.29 kB · 19 downloads JcTwinB.pgp 9.29 kB · 16 downloads JcTwinC.pgp 9.28 kB · 16 downloads

Hi ! really thanks ! whats the difference between those 3 jctwin? sounds exactly the same for me. Plus I can't find those videos of Cordy using this presets

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