This is so cool. One of the guys on my team who loves electric guitar, but who hasnt been able to afford any line 6 stuff just got engaged. I think this would be an awesome wedding gift!
I think the 5150 model in this unit can sound good, but the settings used in the video were bound to result in a bad tone. As a metal player, I would like to make suggestions when using high-gain amp tones. There is a reliable formula that results in a good metal tone. Rule number 1: DO NOT completely scoop out your mids!!! The guitar IS the midrange of the band's overall mix. With rule number 1 in mind, I suggest the following: 1) A guitar with a humbucker in the bridge. Active or passive doesn't matter, but any pickup with mid to high output is preferable 2) Overdrive pedal (Tube Screamers are commonplace) with the level about 90% and drive below 10%. This helps tighten any flub in the low end and helps to add aggression, attack, and clarity 2) Only use as much amp gain as you need. DO NOT crank the gain. Even though your tone is heavy, you still want clarity. It still needs to sound like a guitar and not complete white noise 3) Start with your amp's EQ flat. Only make minor adjustments to start. I like the following - Bass: 50%, Mid: 60%, Treble: 65-70%. You can use presence to add more brightness instead of scooping out the mids 4) Cab or cab sim: 2x12 or 4x12 with a dynamic 57 or 421 mic is a good starting point With any amp modeler, the POD included, the high-gain sounds can be great but they will sound bad if you do not set them up properly. Hope this helps!
I am a 100% tube amp guy, but when it comes to playing "worship" at church modeling tools are most practical in most situation...THIS pedal/tool is something that I may need to add to the arsenal. THANKS BRADFORD AND BRIAN!!!
@@Paragorn I just looked it up, It really doesn't do anything, just a high-gain distortion sound. It might be a really great distortion pedal for people who want that specific sound, But it's not really in the same category as this pod expressed. I would say it's in the category of like a blues breaker pedal. Are you sure you weren't thinking of something else?
These would be incredible to take on the mission field and gift to musicians in tiny churches all over the world! No need to worry about power supply type, just run on AA's. Incredible tone with easy to use controls for beginners or those who don't speak much English. Such a cool product!
Just getting bacķ into guitar after 20 years... Back then Line 6 had the original pod that you plugged into the PC and it was so much fun. Cool to see they're still making really great stuff.
Man, this sounds really great. Line 6 finally did it, they put out a product that sounds great without having to tweak it like with the Stomp and Helix and it's intuitive to use!!!! Quick and dirty and great!!!
Cool demo. I just bought one of these. Great how you can just start playing it and get great sounds, ideas, etc. no time wasted menu diving and tweaking every little setting.
Now we know why Line 6 came out with the HX one first then this. They want beginners to get both. This for three amps and the HX one for all the special effects that this one doesn't do. Great setup for a beginner just 2 pedals covers 80% of what they'd need for a long time.
@@Paragorntheir other recent amp stuff is all pretty expensive…. $650-700 for the stomp, 1000$ for the helix lt, 1600 for the helix, 500 for the pod go.. etc
Batteries! Love not tripping over power cables. I practiced at home for about an hour with it, took it to rehearsal for 3 hours and the batteries are still over half full. This pedal rocks!
Alright, everyone! They just released an editor for the pod express. I think it's pretty cool. The only thing is can't put your own IR in the pedal but man it still sounds sweet.
Outstanding review! I had no idea this thing had so many settings!!! That's a huge game-changer! It looks so simple but there's a LOT you can do. I think if they had first put this out in a metal enclosure at a higher price it would have gotten major respect as a very powerful battery powered tool we can have as a backup in our gig bags.
Honestly for the cost and the functionality, it’s sort of an iridium/acs1 killer…. Going back to the interview y’all did with Eric and Ben at L6 and Eric basically saying “we prefer to create a new market rather than just release what everyone else is doing”, this is basically that in a nutshell. It’s not for a guy like me with a full helix and/or native, but it’s definitely different enough from the competition to stand out
When I saw the price and another worship guitar player demoing it, I was like I gotta have this thing !, I travel to Thailand and I’ll just take it with me in my carry-on bag and I’ll have something to practice with. I am one of those guys that’s played amps, my whole life either mesa boogie or my Soldano 2x12 Thanks for the demo 🙏🏻 you guys did great!
I've been hesitating on this pedal, thinking it was Too Good, to be true... So many options and effects at the price point of One good popular pedal. This has been the best explanation and demo video of all its attributes, the I've seen on RU-vid. This will be my next pedal.
Right there with you! Headrush prime is a beast.. hoping this will be ultra light and simple solution. I’ll leave a power supply, expression pedal and Peterson strobe stomp on church stage ready to plug in upon arrival. I plan to nap wet events to the expression pedal. 🤞
I would love to see this used on a Sunday morning. My only hesitation is how quickly would you be able to switch to different settings between songs/ parts of songs.
Love that Bradford asked them about something like this to their faces in the interview you posted YESTERDAY, and their response was "We have to ask who would buy it . . . " 🤣
I had to buy it, waiting on delivery. I have listened to a few demos and there are more pos than neg points for sure. There is an undeniable digital nasal mid that is present in the gain sounds. I have had a helix, pod go, Tonex, tc and Onyx and even tried the NUX MG30 and Boss Me90. I think this box excels as a low price point solution. Its much nicer then the ME90. The battery feature is a big win. This little box has so many applications that it will be essential to have on hand. I was never a fan of the Spider style of effect editing but it takes you to useable places although not the exact tweak ability that a pro unit needs for dialing in the perfect tremolo for instance. This will be on my desktop and my gig bag. I wish it was released a year earlier;(could have saved me a bundle).well done
Absolutely love the pod. The matchless AKA “chime” with the Princeton cab is so good with just some gain and verb to taste. I’m trying to get better at the gain balancing. Having trouble with it being too quiet without the distortion, so I turn it up, but then it blows my doors off when I switch on the distortion that I have set to the footswitch. There are 3 volume controls. Alt + center knob, alt + tap + delay knob, and the headphone volume. I’m a little confused how to juggle these settings. I’ll keep practicing! God Bless!
Does Playing Boss LINE 6 POD make anyone else really happy? LINE 6 POD is quickly becoming my favorite pedal. It's just so beautiful and sexy. Practically free and the second you drop her on the board that chill ass mofo gives you a Rich Dark Gushing Robust tone.. And you also get this cute little 1/1 feedback response usually too harmless to be forgotten. But more than that, the Line 6 Pod is just so positively alluring. It comes on the board like "do you want to cast a spell?" and I'm like "yeah Line 6 Pod i do want to cast a spell let's do this shit" and when she attacks she's like "SPELLS ARE FUN" and I'm like "yeah they are SO FUN." She doesn't say some bullshit macho shit like "I will destroy you" she's just like "nah spells are fun and voodoo spooky.” And she looks so happy. I mean this is an inanimate object that literally brought my guitar to life by magic. It understands it's life is a temporary magical gift and the dude is just fucking loving it. I mean just look at her face she’s just so happy and cute as a button. I am literally never sad when Line 6 Pod is on board. IDK if she's gonna ever make it into the pedal HOF or not, but for now she a super dope chill pedal.
Received mine on Saturday and played a Church Sunday. Even with only basic knowledge of the pedal it sounded great. I kinda wish I had this before my Helix and quad. smaller learning curve for the old. 😂😂
I purchased one for our other guitar player to use just as an amp model to run his pedalboard through and to our board. And when he needs to play accoustic he can just hit the on botton and bypass the amp. Worked great yesterday during service.
Thanks for thorough demo on the Pod Express control settings. Nice to hear P90s demoing the effects section. Old fart, just recording casually now. I cancelled my IR-2 backorder, this better suits me. Skip using Bias/DAW and I can just turn knobs again (with labels I can actually read, cough, Boss). Now how many months we have to wait.
This is fantastic - i am genuinely surprised that they went with more boutique amp choices rather than the same old same old. I'll definitely be getting one of these at some point just for the safety net of having a backup modeller in case something happens. On a different note, this is a great walkthough video. I'm new to your channel as worship music isn't my thing but I really appreciate your style of presentation - its really refreshing when there are so many obvious shills out there who'll say anything is great because they're getting paid to do so!
This will be a huge seller for Line6. I hope they make a premium version with a metal chassi. I will buy one though. Been looking for something small and portable that sounds good and doesn’t break the bank. This one fits well!
For goofing around at home or one stage sound if you need to be cheap. Otherwise, get an Orange valve amp for clean and overdrive sounds.. A chorus/modulation pedal, delay pedal, run them through the loop. Great pickups directly into the amp.
At that price point, this is a fantastic backup option -- if my board flakes out I can keep one of these in the sound closet and get by in a pinch. Or if I have a kid who wants to get into volunteering on the team but he doesn't really have any gear I could loan out something like this without losing a lot of sleep. Throw one in a box under the backseat of the van and if I show up somewhere that my amp is going to kill someone (or if I have a volunteer show up with a 100w amp that's not going to work on a Sunday morning), throw it at the end of the board, great direct solution in a pinch. I'm gonna have to kick the tires on one of these.
I am gonna bypass the cab and amp sim in this and use it in my fx loop as a mini hx effects. A great way to add some more versatility to my live pedalboard. And it also gives me a tuner and a looper without taking up much space and very cost effective!!
When the HX One came out, I thought it meant that Line6 realized that the HX Stomp was too good and they were going to phase it out and leave the HX Effects, Stomp XL, etc. so there was no sweet spot perfect pedal and you'd have to compromise... but now they've rolled out another perfect pedal for a different category, and I'm becoming hopeful that they are going to double down on perfect pedals across the board. Is this not the HX Stomp of pocket pedals, and battery powered too?!?!??!
This is like the ultimate upgrade for a mini board. Especially with stereo outs and the effects being post-cab stereo wet effects. Put like a boss RV-6 behind it and one of those mini tubescreamers in front and you have a very high quality, versatile board with an insanely small foot print. Edit: wow I didn't even see that it takes extra footswitch inputs. That's wildly powerful. I wonder if you can preset change with those footswitches? If so you might be able to even finagle low-level song based preseting out of this thing.
Brian, I am a worship leader, a mediocre guitar player, and in my comfort zone on the acoustic. I have always wanted to add the electric to my arsenal for when the band at church needs an extra punch in the rhythm side of the house. Adding an amp on stage is not really possible. I am not great at dialing in tone and honestly can’t think about it when leading the church. I need 2 great tones.. a nice clean tone.. and great overdriven tone. All while simple to switch and direct to PA. Is the POD Express the best solution for me?
Thank you soo much for such a through review. I'm toying with the idea with stand alone effects pedals or a device such as this..this device seems much better value with a quality sound. Most Important thing in opinion. As a newbie like me would you advise going down the multi effects pedal route such as great bit of if kit as the pod express or.. stand alone pedals such as tone city great value pedals but limit to one effect.? Many thanks in advance for any help or advice👏🎸
Great unit! Great review! Just to clarify: in 8:51 you said that pressing ALT+TAP+rotating MOD knob adjust presence but in L6 manual says that this function is in REVERB knob. Can you say if has a mistake on manual? The same for DIST knob to master volume, in manual says that's in DELAY knob. Again, great material! Thank you, guys!
Pretty cool so far of what I've seen. I play in a church worship band, using a Variax which I sometimes model as an acoustic guitar (Martin D28 most of the time). I currently do this through my old POD X3 and I have a setup through a simple preamp instead of amp. Curious...if you plugged an acoustic into this POD Express and went with the clean amp, how might it sound?
Hello ! thank you for this great demo ! do you think that it would be a great compagnon for my Marshall Silver Jubilee Combo in order to have multi effects... ? the "amp" section of the POD will not "kill" the tone of my Marshall ? thank you
Nice review. Thank you. It sounds great and neat form factor. Prie in Europe is €218 which includes 20% tax but is still well above the dollar price at todays rate which makes it less of a bargain. Hopefully price will drop soon or in the usual sales. Great for practice use.
Me. This is for me!! Love the for factor and price! A great tool for producers looking for some new sounds maybe for some Synths too! I may grab me one!! Good job boys!!!
The ultra-portable POD Express amp and effects processors lets guitarists take their tones wherever they go. Simple controls make it easy to use, while models derived from the HX family of processors ensure exceptional sound quality and authentic feel. POD Express offers seven amps, seven cabs, and 17 effects-including a looper-and it may be powered by three AA batteries (included) or an optional 9-volt power supply.
Seems like an awesome device and already have one on order. I think maybe the miss on it is not including Bluetooth. Would have been great to be able to stream music from my phone to practice along with instead of having to use a USB cord.
This looks amazing! Would you say this enough as the only pedal for rhythm guitar player ? And if so can you change effects during the same song with the foot switch? Thanks!
Sounds great! I’ll be able to afford this without having to get approval from the boss at home lol. I like the limited functionality of it which will save me from monkeying around with tones forever and not playing. Perfect to throw in a gig bag and head off to church.
Love this design. Questions: Can you turn off cab sim so you can run it with a solid state power amp and real speaker cab? Can you turn off amp/cab block so you can just use one or more of the effects?
I’m gonna get one just to get one… I’ve been using multi effects since my very first one in the late 80s… Roland GP-8… back then I did studio stuff. I also had a Yamaha SPX 90, a Yamaha GEP, 50 and way too much other rack stuff but it was the days of Steve, Luther and Dan Huff. Since I’ve had the various iterations of the pod rack units, TC, electronics rack units, avid 11 rack… I’m just tired of all the programming for the last probably three maybe four years for worship I use a Strymon iridium various overdrive and modulation and delete petals. Yeah and I’m carrying too much crap. I’m tired of it but I’m also not programming anything and I’m basically getting what I want. The only thing I really would love to have is a programmable pedal that just does delays and mod… still haven’t found overdrives in a multi effect pedal that make me hungry for more but this little guy thinking it may become my delay and modulation and reverb set up and then all I need is a few other drives… Maybe I still keep using the iridium I don’t know… But I’ve got a shrink set up because I’m tired of carrying everything… This is intriguing and for 175 bucks
I like this. That Friedman model isn’t based on a plexi though. A plexi doesn’t have a ton of gain. The Friedman is more like a JCM800 on steroids. Nice demo though.
What I would have loved to see on this would have been access to changing channels. Just two channels & ad our own channel changer pedal. That would have made it next level in functionality. Program two usable tones and then be able to change between them both.
Hello WT! First of all I want to say I'm a huge fan of everything you do and especially appreciate the wide range of topics and tones discussed. In a world where 3 out of every 4 videos is how to get the best metal tone, you all restore my faith in the journey that is tone chasing. So, thank you! Now to the pedal.... I should preface by saying Ive had some experience with all of the modelers. Ive owned the FM-3, a Helix LT, and am now a QC owner and user and the QC will be sticking around for a while. My initial impression of the L6 pedal is "why would they make that? It seems like they're reverting closer and closer to the "red bean" days." The pedal was sounded ok to me with the clean tones. However, when it gets the slightest bit of dirt and increasingly worse with more dirt, it seemed like you struggled to get a useable tone out of this little mistake of a product. Thats not an admonishment of WT or their abilities, but Line 6 in general. In my humble opinion, Line 6 in quickly falling behind the pack in terms of authenticity in the modeling scene. It seems like they rest on their laurels, if I can say that, and milk the HX engines while their competitors seem to pour more energy and resources into capturing true essences and characteristics and general authenticity of amps. Some of the competitors don't have the library of effects than Line 6 has, but......so what. How many delays and reverbs do you need to be able to choose from? To me as a consumer, I once again have to ask "why did the make this?" Line 6 took what you already had in the HX stomp, in a not much smaller package, and repackaged it as something "new and improved." How bout you take a few years, stop releasing essentially the same product over and over, and sink some resources into R and D. Ive just honestly grown weary of seeing the market flooded with things from Line 6. There's a reason slowly but surely pro players are shuttering their Line 6 gear and moving to Neural, Fractal or Kemper. It would be refreshing to see something from Line 6 that makes us say "wow!". But they retain the same stale amp models that dont get any better, no matter what box it comes in. In fairness, sound and tone are subjective. So what I may think sounds like something Zoom released in the 90's, someone else may think its the greatest thing theyve ever heard. But, thank you again WT for the work you put in and dedication to the craft. God Bless!