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New pod go owner - new IR's necessary?


cleanplanets
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Hi guys, 

 

New pod go owner as of yesterday. Was able to dial in a pretty fun tone in about 10 min. just needed to crank up the presence and a few levels in the cab ir to get a pretty alive feel. exciting! 

 

So basically everywhere on the net you hear that the pod go cabs suck, and if you get aftermarket ones it really comes alive.... is this true?

 

if it is true, can someone point me towards the best sounding cabs for the pod go? im looking for basically three sounds -  high gain 80's lead , some rhythm metal and juicey fender clean type stuff. 

 

 

Thanks in advance. 

 

 

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I was pretty disappointed in how the pod go sounded when I first got it. Very dull and fake sounding. It almost makes me wonder if I have a defective unit. Everything works fine though. After loading a custom IR and heavily EQing though it changes radically. I find myself using the 10 band EQ and boosting the 8khz and 16khz ranges both by 10 to 15 db. It sounds absolutely amazing now. Here's a link to some IRs. My absolute favorite is one of the soldano cabs. Not sure which pack its in though.  

 

https://seacowcabs.wordpress.com/

 

 

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Just to conclude!  If you're starting out with IRs, thanks again @voxman55 and @olerabbit grab these:

 

1) ML Sould Lab best IR,  It's just one IR, but it's pretty good, very balanced!  Just sounds 'right'.    https://www.dropbox.com/s/m4fwk8jx6m08hse/ML Sound Lab's BEST IR IN THE WORLD.zip?dl=0

2) L6 Allure pack, 6 IRs, but they're pretty good.  https://de.line6.com/allure/

3) Seacow's Christmas pack.  It contains a 45 IRs, they're pretty good sounding all quite varied.  https://seacowcabs.wordpress.com/2019/12/24/seacow-cabs-christmas-ir-pack/

 

Just with these 3 downloads, you'll end up with around 50 IRs, and while it takes some time to import them all, once you have them it's much easier to jump from on IR to the other, and it's much simpler/faster than going through the L6 PGO cab/mic/distance thing.  I mean, when you click on a Mesa Boogie cab, you'll instantly get the Mesa sound, same for Marshall, and for some reason seem to make the sound 'pop' a little more than the default cabs seem to do...  They just instantly give you "the sound".

 

But still they don't sound drastically different to the L6 cabs, comparing a Fender one with the same mic they sounded basically identical, but, just being able to click on an IR is much better than having to select the cab, then change the mic, and then change the distance.  Plus not having to remember exactly what every cab/mic/distance setting sounds like and having to endlessly experiment with settings...  A much easier/faster process, and absolutely ZERO messing around with mics/distance, priceless!   Just having these 50 cab options would take you weeks of trial/error configuring the default cabs, and most likely you'd just never get to experience these sounds...

 

Surprisingly, I was expecting the Tone Junky IRs to sound great, but I found the sound from their free pack to be quite bland and disappointing... Even if some said TJ's IRs were fantastic, I couldn't hear it...  Might be amp matching...  So far I just mainly used the Dirty Placater Amp with heavy riffs;  haven't gotten around to clean and lead.  So maybe they'll do better there...  But yeah to me the above 3 IR packs all sounded quite a bit better.

 

Also Seacow has a lot of cabs and IRs...  But my issue is that in packs, when you're getting 500 IRs at once, when you get 50 IRs for 1 cab; 10 different mics & 4 different placements for each, that's just too many, and kinda pointless unless you're so picky about your IRs and you're really anal about your mic & placement and want that exact sound...!  It becomes obfuscation through quantity...  For me, too many options, scrolling, and 50 IRs for 1 cab is just too much; much prefer the above packs simplicity!  :D 

 

Oh, and btw, you can import multiple IRs at once...   Don't do like me and import them 1 by 1... lol

 

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Personally I'm pretty happy with the stock cabs in most instances. Some of the IRs are better but I don't think the stock cabs are a disaster. I guess it all depends on what you expect. This is a step for me in terms of modelling from the much cheaper Boss and Zoom MFX so I'm more than pleased with the quality.

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There's nothing wrong with the stock cabs - it's all about setting them right re high & low cut, and choosing the right mic. A mic that's great for recording or headphones (eg ribbon, more detail) might not be the best one for a live mix where eg a 57 or other dynamic will give you more punch to cut through the mix.  

 

First time I tried an IR I thought 'wow' why is that so different? Then I realised that a lot had to do with the dB levels being higher so you got much more of the cab tone.  When I upped the dB levels in the stock cabs and opened up the frequencies, and used the right mic and distance, what a difference!  To get a more 'in the room' feel don't use the automatic 1" distance - setting to between 2-6" can make a big difference.  Once you've got the hang of it you'll realise just how good the stock cabs are and that many IR's (but not all) are actually no better.  Some IR's can of course be very good so with IR's it's trial & error to see what you like.  There are some really good (and some not so good) free IR's around so definitely try these before buying IR's.  Again, you might find some bought IR's are very good, whilst there are others you simply won't like.  

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