AnonPhibes Posted October 31, 2024 Share Posted October 31, 2024 The new control interface is fantastic, found myself messing around and I'm really happy with the dirty sounds but I can't get a truly clean sound from any of the amps. Updated firmware yesterday, it seems like every clean sound has some digital distortion in the background: it's as if I have a clean sound from one source and a very quiet sound with fuzz on it just barely audible. It only goes away if I turn the amps to "off" which sounds not bad actually but lacks flexibility. For what it's worth my unit is one of the very first, one of the big-box stores let me have the very first one; they hadn't even tried it yet so it's possible this is a bug that got fixed later. Or of course could be user-error on my part, anyway otherwise I'm super-happy with the unit. Thanks for reading! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
silverhead Posted October 31, 2024 Share Posted October 31, 2024 How are you monitoring the sound? Amp? Headphones? Speakers? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AnonPhibes Posted November 1, 2024 Author Share Posted November 1, 2024 Tried all three, it's most noticeable with the headphones (KRK over-ear.) I can minimize the effect by dimeing the channel volume and master and turning the gain nearly off but it's still there, it sounds for all the world as though I have one amp set to clean and another, much quieter, with fuzz on it playing in the background. I left the entire first bank untouched so all the original sounds are there, it's really not subtle. No clean sounds are really clean, except the "no amp" option which doesn't seem to be affected. Also I'm not cranking the outboards volume knob, definitely not overdriving the headphones themselves. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
anihilus Posted December 15, 2024 Share Posted December 15, 2024 The clean amp on Pod express is a Fender Princeton Reverb. From what I have read, this amp has a slight overdrive. So I guess that is why you can't get a completely clean sound. If this realy is the case, I find it very strange why Line6 chose this amp. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
petur03 Posted February 15 Share Posted February 15 Did you ever solve this? I just got my Pod Express and I'm having the same issue, I can't get a proper clean sound. The best I can get is to lower the gain as much as possible and turn down the volume knob on my guitar. To get enough volume, I max the channel volume, master volume, and cab volume. This way it's decently clean, but still distorts sometimes if I play too aggressively. I thought my unit was broken at first, but looking up Fender Princeton on Youtube, it seems like it does indeed always have some distortion. Firmware is up-to-date, and I've tried this on a variety of setups, with active and passive pickups, monitoring with different headsets, and through line-out and USB. They all have the same issue. Very strange indeed by Line6 to not include ANY pure clean sound in this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rwinking Posted April 2 Share Posted April 2 I guess "clean" is relative. When I think of clean, I think of a Fender Twin or Roland JC120. A princeton is not clean in my book but compared to a Peavey EVH..... 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AnonPhibes Posted April 19 Author Share Posted April 19 On 2/15/2025 at 2:14 PM, petur03 said: Did you ever solve this? I just got my Pod Express and I'm having the same issue, I can't get a proper clean sound. The best I can get is to lower the gain as much as possible and turn down the volume knob on my guitar. To get enough volume, I max the channel volume, master volume, and cab volume. This way it's decently clean, but still distorts sometimes if I play too aggressively. I thought my unit was broken at first, but looking up Fender Princeton on Youtube, it seems like it does indeed always have some distortion. Firmware is up-to-date, and I've tried this on a variety of setups, with active and passive pickups, monitoring with different headsets, and through line-out and USB. They all have the same issue. Very strange indeed by Line6 to not include ANY pure clean sound in this. I have it working better than before but had to max things right out to get a working clean sound; minimum gain, max master and channel volume. It sounds OK but you lose headroom on your other channels, if they're too loud then the clean sound is inaudible by comparison. On the whole I'm very, very happy with the PodExpress especially for the very small amount of money, but Line6, if you're listening, maybe a little more headroom on the only clean amp? 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jay_not_jay Posted July 16 Share Posted July 16 If the POD Express Guitar had a truly clean channel it would be a complete solution for the tones I want, which would be incredibly convenient given how small it is. Listening to the demo of the POD Express Black, it sounds like it has a very clean amp model called "Pure". I would happily have traded away one of the other amp models in the POD Express Guitar (in my case the "Lead" amp model, but I'm sure others would fight for their own choice) to get an amp model as clean as that. The POD Express Guitar was my first Line 6 unit and I was very impressed. I've ended up buying a second hand X3 because it had a huge amp list including many bass amps and I know I can resell it for only a small loss if I don't get on with it. I love the Line 6 "Clean" amp model. It really warms up when the drive is increased while staying clean. Unsurprisingly given the age difference, I prefer the POD Express Guitar's amp models over the closest equivalents in the X3. I'll be interested to see which I end up using more. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
daveaphotopod Posted September 11 Share Posted September 11 On 7/16/2025 at 12:23 PM, jay_not_jay said: If the POD Express Guitar had a truly clean channel it would be a complete solution for the tones I want, which would be incredibly convenient given how small it is. Listening to the demo of the POD Express Black, it sounds like it has a very clean amp model called "Pure". I would happily have traded away one of the other amp models in the POD Express Guitar (in my case the "Lead" amp model, but I'm sure others would fight for their own choice) to get an amp model as clean as that. The POD Express Guitar was my first Line 6 unit and I was very impressed. I've ended up buying a second hand X3 because it had a huge amp list including many bass amps and I know I can resell it for only a small loss if I don't get on with it. I love the Line 6 "Clean" amp model. It really warms up when the drive is increased while staying clean. Unsurprisingly given the age difference, I prefer the POD Express Guitar's amp models over the closest equivalents in the X3. I'll be interested to see which I end up using more. This is why I went with the Pod Express Black. I was initially turned off because it seemed too "metal" based. (I mean not that I don't like that type of music, but not what I was looking for) But when I learned it had the PRS Archon which has HUGE headroom, from what I know/understand, then I was sold. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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