POD X3 Windows 10 software question

[slack666]

Hi, really daft question. I've owned my POD X3 since new and flit in and out of playing guitar every few years. 

 

Today (on a Win10 PC in reinstalled last year) I went to use my POD X3 through the PC. It works, USB is fine and it picks up OK. But I am missing a way to control what tones are active on the x3.

 

Pretty sure it used to be gear box. But that has been replaced with Pod Farm now by the looks of it, but that has a strange problem for me.

 

It lists a ton of presets on pod farm (different to those on my hardware) and when I select one, the tone changes.

 

However, there ends up with some strange mashup of the tone selected on the hardware and what I selected on Pod Farm.

 

For example, if the hardware says "American Punk" and I select "Nothing Else matters Clean" that sounds totally different to if the tone on the Pod is say "Blizzard".

 

So the Pod Farm doesn't seem to have full control of what's happening on the POD.

 

What am I missing? I just want to be able to select tones from my PC and have a uniform experience.

 

I assume no way of getting GearBox back and running? Or some other tool that selects the tones actually on my Pod X3?

[silverhead]

Pod Farm is not meant to be used along with the POD X3 tones. Pod Farm is software that produces tones using the hardware of your PC; the X3 produces its own tones using its own hardware.

 

Gear Box is an old tone editor/librarian that was used with the X3 back in the day. I’m no longer familiar with what you should/can use today as an editor/librarian with the X3. However, you can do all your tone selection and editing using the X3 itself. You just won’t be able to back up and restore things to/from your computer.

 

Perhaps others are more knowledgeable about what librarian software is still available for the X3, and they can help you with that.

[slack666]

Thanks silverhead. Yeah, that's really what I am looking for, a library that I can use from the PC, as dialing blindly through menus on the X3 itself is super slow and clunky.

 

If we are to no longer have access to Gearbox and that has been replaced by Pod Farm 2 then that's fair enough.

 

But as I have Pod Farm 2 on my downloads page for my POD X3, I would assume Pod farm 2 supports my X3 - and therefore some way to get it to line up what I am selecting on screen with the tones I actually here, rather than this strange mashup I am presented.

 

There is a reasonable chance I may be doing something wrong. I have not used Pod Farm .before, I have always used Gearbox previously...

 

OK, I have a kind of solution. I was searching for screenshots of Gearbox to check something. I found a link:  http://line6.com/software/readeula.html?rid=3121

 

This takes you to Gearbox 3.72 - which I have just installed on Windows 10 without issue and seems to work.

 

If you were to go to look at Gearbox software, the latest version I found (and downloaded before this initial post) was v3.60 which doesn't work on Win10.

 

So that certainly answers my initial need for a way to select the X3 tones.

 

But if anyone knows how to get the Pod Farm 2 app to work correctly with the X3, that would be really cool. Even if it's as simple as selecting a very plain clean tone on the x3, or a bypass or something. I expect someone else far more experienced than me has already worked this out!

 

Cheers

[silverhead]

22 minutes ago, slack666 said:

....

If we are to no longer have access to Gearbox and that has been replaced by Pod Farm 2 then that's fair enough.

 

But as I have Pod Farm 2 on my downloads page for my POD X3, I would assume Pod farm 2 supports my X3 - and therefore some way to get it to line up what I am selecting on screen with the tones I actually here, rather than this strange mashup I am presented.

....

Again, Pod Farm is not a replacement for Gearbox. They are different types of products.

 

Rather than thinking of Pod Farm supporting your X3, it’s actually the other way around. Pod Farm is supported by an audio interface device to get its sounds/tones into either a recording program running on your computer or into external speakers. The X3 is one such audio interface. But when used on this way the X3 is not producing its own sound/tones; it is acting strictly as an interface device for the Pod Farm and recording software running on your computer. Pod Farm has no ability to interact with the X3 in terms of an editor/librarian.

[slack666]

Thanks for the explanation.

 

But if Pod Farm supports the X3 (which it does according to the page I downloaded it from) then why do we end up with this mess up of sounds, and how do we get it so we just have, for example, the Pod Farm only sounds, as they are supposed to be heard?

 

I assume that must be possible, otherwise surely they can't say it supports it? Maybe I just need to find the right clean / neutral tone on the POD and everything on the farm will sound right.

 

There is a strong chance I am doing something wrong here. I'll have another play about tomorrow to see if I can work anything out.

[silverhead]

You need to feed Pod Farm the ‘dry’ signal from your X3 over the USB connection. The dry signal is the completely unprocessed guitar signal, not just a clean neutral tone. Consult both the X3 and the Pod Farm manuals in the USB Audio sections to get the details of how to do this. 

[silverhead]

To understand how this setup will work you may need to understand a bit more about both your X3,  the Pod Farm software, and also how your speakers or headphones work with the X3.

 

The X3 processes your guitar signal and sends the output to connected speakers, headphones, and also over USB to your computer if connected. The settings in your X3 allow you to control these output destinations. The X3 is also an audio interface device that communicates with your computer over USB, independent of producing sounds from your guitar. For instance, you can use the X3 as your computer’s audio card and listen to iTunes, YouTube or whatever using the speakers or headphones connected to your X3. You don’t need to have your guitar connected for this.

 

Pod Farm is a program that runs on your computer and produces guitar tones from the signal it receives over USB from a connected audio interface device such as the X3. In this case the guitar signal you want to send the computer over USB is called the ‘dry’ signal. In other words, both your X3 and Pod Farm are intended to take a dry guitar signal as input and process it to produce the ‘tones’. The tone generation aspects of both the X3 and Pod Farm are not meant to be used or listened to simultaneously, as you’ve discovered.

 

To hear the Pod Farm tones without hearing the X3 tones you need to:

- connect your X3 to your computer over USB

- connect your speakers or headphones to your X3 outputs

- configure your X3 to NOT send its processed audio to the outputs you are listening to. You only want to hear the computer’s output (Pod Farm) from the X3 outputs.

- configure Pod Farm to take the ‘dry’ tone signal sent by the X3 over USB as its input.

 

The manuals will help you from this point.....

 

 

[slack666]

Thanks for the detailed answer. While I haven't figured out exactly how to do this, this has given me enough info to get a working solution.

 

To hear the Pod Farm tones without hearing the X3 tones you need to:

- connect your X3 to your computer over USB  (This was already done and working)

- connect your speakers or headphones to your X3 outputs (This was already done and working)

- configure your X3 to NOT send its processed audio to the outputs you are listening to. You only want to hear the computer’s output (Pod Farm) from the X3 outputs. (this was the problem, not sure how to do this, but found a way below)

- configure Pod Farm to take the ‘dry’ tone signal sent by the X3 over USB as its input. (this was already done and working)

 

As it was just the dry signal part I was missing and couldn't find how to just send dry over the USB (even with the manual that came with my X3) I looked from a slightly different way. As I now had Gearbox again, I found that had a tone called "Basic Guitar Tone", which was close to dry. That wasn't quite perfect still, but I switched the 3 "things" off (Amp, Compressor and Reverb from memory) and that leaves not a lot (or maybe nothing) going on with the tone. So this is either dry or at least, dry enough for an occasional home guitarist like me.

 

I'm sure there will be a better way to mix what sounds get sent where, but this will do me. The Pod Farm tones sound right enough and I don't have to make changes to my X3 which means when I come back in a year or two I won't wonder why the X3 is not working right!

 

Thanks very much for your help and patience with me on this silverhead, much appreciated.

[slack666]

I definitely hear the problem with leaving the pod tone to route out of the speakers.

 

While on most tones you don't notice it, especially the distorted ones. On quiet stereo echoy ones, the additional clean tone is very noticeable.

 

Looks like I will need to dig in to it again later to work that out. But at least I'm on the right track now, thanks.

[silverhead]

3 hours ago, slack666 said:

....

- configure your X3 to NOT send its processed audio to the outputs you are listening to. You only want to hear the computer’s output (Pod Farm) from the X3 outputs. (this was the problem, not sure how to do this, but found a way below)

.....

See manual page 6.2 Outputs. Set both Tone 1 and Tone 2 to Mute for the outputs your speakers are connected to (XLR or 1/4”).

[silverhead]

Also,see manual page 8.2 for USB info. The dry signals from Tone 1 Input and Tone 2 Input are sent over USB channels 7 and 8 to your computer. Make sure Pod Farm is set to receive, as its input, whichever one of these channels/signals you want to use.

[qwer11]

Hey there! Would it be possible for you to share more detailed guidelines on how to fix this issue?