The POD- Ultimate Tool for the Sessions Player?

RGN

RGN

New member
Several years ago I did some studio work for various local artists and it was a grand pain in the arse. I'd either have to haul around my own amp or use whatever amp they had laying around the studio (which I never seemed to get very comfortable with). So, if I were doing studio work these days I'd just stick my POD XT in the gig bag and be gone. That would be so great... you'd have a box full of effects and a truck filled amplifiers in your gig bag.

Do full time session guys still drag around gear or is the trend going towards more compact modeling stuff? I am well aware that a cranked Bogner XTC is going to sound better than a POD XT but I can't imagine living in NYC and dragging around a XTC to do a session.

Any thoughts?
 
Re: The POD- Ultimate Tool for the Sessions Player?

It depends. The more recognized/used players might still haul equipment...then again, the producers tend to rent alot of equipment for high $$ sessions.

I do know that some of the better known studios (such as the Sound Kitchen) are equipped with the POD PRO.

I have a friend who lives in Nashville and tours/records with other acts. He has his favorite amp, but he always brings his POD with him for variety.

BTW, I saw Lincoln Brewster live a couple of years ago. He and his bassist both played through POD's and a couple of stomp boxes, direct to the board.
 
Re: The POD- Ultimate Tool for the Sessions Player?

There is still a lot of variety- In my past life we hired a lot of studio guys that could get an incredible range of sounds from a pedal board and one or two amps- Considering that they often would have entirely differnt styles scheduled in one gig, these guys are better than most live musicians at coaxing a variety of sounds out of their gear- And as we've heard 100 times before, a whole lot of it comes simply from their 'fingers'-

On the other hand modeling has far less of a stigma than it used to, especially for recording- One of my Nashville buddies looked at me with disbelief when I brought a GP100 as my main amp to a jam almost 10 years ago- Now he rags on me becuase it's so old (I will never let it die and will get another one when it does:)

So IMHO we're on the cusp- If you've got the licks and your modeling patches give you the Trever Rabin to Tommy Tedesco range, you can sure save some back ache with a good rack of modeling units- One the other hand, tight reading, a trainied ear and ability to flow in multiple styles is a lot more important-

But the days of pure tube snobery are over- AB'd some tracks with our local 'golden ear' recently and he couldn't pick out teh models from the tubes (of course this was within a mix)
 
Re: The POD- Ultimate Tool for the Sessions Player?

About the only thing I find lacking in today's modeling stuff is the ability to do cool feedback stuff... I have tried to simulate feedback by holding my guitar right up against a monitor but it doesn't sound right.
 
Re: The POD- Ultimate Tool for the Sessions Player?

RGN said:
About the only thing I find lacking in today's modeling stuff is the ability to do cool feedback stuff... I have tried to simulate feedback by holding my guitar right up against a monitor but it doesn't sound right.
Click to expand...

Use a good bass amp or keyboard amp (preferably one with > 10" speakers) as a monitor, set the volume high enough, and you should have no problems getting decent feedback from your POD.

There's also the Tech 21 Power Block 60, which is basically a power amp + 1x12 speaker in a cabinet. That's next on my list to try for POD amplification.
 
Re: The POD- Ultimate Tool for the Sessions Player?

it's the breakup for me.. PODs never seem to crackle into life like valves do.. they're great recording tools, for sure - but playing live it really does sound you're playing from a record IMO

tom
 
Re: The POD- Ultimate Tool for the Sessions Player?

All the local session guys I know use pods as their primary recording tools. They're pretty ubiquitous nowadays.
 
Re: The POD- Ultimate Tool for the Sessions Player?

I dont know if you heard of them but Alkaline Trio just came out with a new albulm and i decided not to steel it from the internet and in the credits it says they thank line 6 and no other amp/cab companies were listed and i heard they used pod xt pro
 
Re: The POD- Ultimate Tool for the Sessions Player?

zionstrat said:
On the other hand modeling has far less of a stigma than it used to, especially for recording- One of my Nashville buddies looked at me with disbelief when I brought a GP100 as my main amp to a jam almost 10 years ago- Now he rags on me becuase it's so old (I will never let it die and will get another one when it does:)

But the days of pure tube snobery are over- AB'd some tracks with our local 'golden ear' recently and he couldn't pick out teh models from the tubes (of course this was within a mix)
Click to expand...

Cool, I still use a GP-100- it rocks!!! So does Trevor Rabin...and also, in a mix is the only place where it counts to a producer or music consumer.
 
Re: The POD- Ultimate Tool for the Sessions Player?

Hot _Grits said:
All the local session guys I know use pods as their primary recording tools. They're pretty ubiquitous nowadays.
Click to expand...

Makes complete sense to me... a $300 tool that get almost any tone or effect possible that will fit in a gig bag... no brainer. Again, I own three tube amps and love'em but for sessions work on other people's material I'd use a POD and spare myself the grief of transporting around a tube amp.
 
Re: The POD- Ultimate Tool for the Sessions Player?

Mincer said:
Cool, I still use a GP-100- it rocks!!! So does Trevor Rabin...and also, in a mix is the only place where it counts to a producer or music consumer.
Click to expand...

It continues to amaze me how many GEEP users there are out there (or the close cousin the VG8)- I think most of us were a bit shy about the move at first and have just come out of the closet:)

I now live off of one algorithem that I've yet to find in other modeling amps (and is virtually impossible in real tube land)-

You are boudn to know this, but for the others, the Geep has a great dual mode that allows you to mix two models at the same time and one of the first patches I wanted to replace was a clean chours effect that I formally got off off an L5 SS mixed with a crunch sound that I got off my pelxi 50 that I used for 80s Rush covers- I used the rolland 120 model with the marshal modle and got an exclent sound- It was so good that I assigned it to a split on one of my variable pedals and immedidately learned something cool- I could get the clean sound on one end, the cruchned sound on the other end, and a great number of varieties in the middle where the two mixed together-

Once I had that concept down, I took my favorite clean blackface and put it on one end of the pedal and full driven marshal on the other end and wow! Better than I anything I had previously overdubbed in the studio becuase I could just use my foot to dial in the exact mix for that part of that track- Also this patch tought me that the sounds in the middle can be entirely new..this one has the 'body' of the twin in the middle, wiht the 'edge' of the marshal and turned into one of my most used live patches- Solo time, push it forward- Then clean it up in the middle and back off to pure blackface for the quiet parts-

Also true wiht a marshal/soldano mix- Those sounds in the middle would only be possible with a lot of tweaking on overdubbs, or a mix pedal splitting to 2 stacks-

Utlaimately I beleive 90% of sound still resides in fingers/theory/etc. But the 10% that these modles add have brought many many other axe nuts up on stage to talk about where those sounds are comign from:)

Glad to find another GP100 user! We need to band together and convinse Roalnd to build an updated version before they all die from old age!
 
Re: The POD- Ultimate Tool for the Sessions Player?

I went through a phase where I owned a bunch of digital amps. They were fabulously versatile and excellent to be able to tweak and toy with.

But eventually there's something about tubes that they just can't do. Maybe it doesn't always come through in the recording for some but having played both I can tell you that there's just something to the "real deal."

I have a great fondness for both. I use a Behringer V-Amp Pro for recording and a handfull of tube amps for live work (Deluxe Reverb, Princeton Reverb II, Trace Elliot Velocette, modified Blues Jr).

To me they're just different tools for different jobs.
 
Re: The POD- Ultimate Tool for the Sessions Player?

Personally, I find the POD to be extremely versatile, and it is a simple way to play a wide variety of styles/tones without breaking my back hauling equipment.

I think if you are trying to get YOUR sound on YOUR music, a good guitar/amp combo is essential. But when you're playing other people's tunes and have to meet a wide variety of stylistic demands, the POD is the way to go...and it's MUCH lighter than even my Peavey Bandit.
 
Re: The POD- Ultimate Tool for the Sessions Player?

Skarekrough
Overall I agree and I know what you're talking about, but with me I wonder if it's really 'tubes'-

When I'm tired, and not in the mood to play, but gotta run the set, I just go straight to my princton- No set up, no edits, no varibles, just a sound that I know inside and out- It's perfect for that sound and I don't worry about it not sounding like the final sounds I need- I can 'interpolate' the differnence-

But I beleive that my love of the princton isn't actually "tubes"- It's just the sound of that amp that I know so well and yes, most of the sounds I need are 'tubish'-

I've kind of given up on the 'models don't sound like tubes' discussion, because they both get the job done..as you said verastility is one of the strenghts of modeling and they are different tools for different jobs.

But when the folks that have the ears can't pick out the differnce with blind AB comparisons, I come back to the thought that we simply know these particaular tube amps better than we could possiblly know all of the models that are out there and it's more that they feel comfortable than anything else-

I don't want to sound like a modleing bigot..I love tubes, and I love models just like I love Joe Barden and SD pups- I just wouldn't want to give a new gtrst the feeling that tubes or modleing are better than the other, and at least for me, it helps to understand why I still think I 'feel' a differnence-

BTW, what a great avitar!
 
Re: The POD- Ultimate Tool for the Sessions Player?

I agree with zionstrat. I think a person is just as likely to find "their" tone in a modeller as they are in a tube amp. One is not superior to the other - they are just tools.
 
Re: The POD- Ultimate Tool for the Sessions Player?

Mincer said:
They just did..the GT-Pro. http://namm.harmony-central.com/WNAMM05/Content/Boss/PR/GT-PRO.html
about $850 US...Id like to get it someday. but the geep is great for me now.
Click to expand...

OMG! Help me set up a slush fund to keep the inevitable $ news away from my wife:)

But just like you, i;m sticking with the geep for a while since it really does everything I need right now-

Actually just picked up a yamaha footstomp or whatever it's called for $100 just to have an extra modeler when I'm using pizo and magnetic outputs off of my nitefly- Althoug it has none of the bells and whistles of the geep, it has so many good modles that I found myself spending hours building new sounds that I've really already got on the geep-

so the moral of the story, is I'll try to hold off on the new one until I have no choice and yes I will budget a couple of weeks in the woodshed to build new sounds becuase at first look this appears a monster of a modeler-

Thx for the update!
 
Re: The POD- Ultimate Tool for the Sessions Player?

If I did session work on a regular basis, I'd get a bunch of tiny stuff that could sound big with the right production: a Vox tone lab, a POD, a Crate power block (I think it sounds great), a small Epiphone Galaxy tube amp, and Carvin's little "boutique" tube amp (although I haven't heard it yet). Those things, plus a pedal or three (wah, Tube Screamer-type, maybe a nice digital delay), and you could get a ton of sounds I think. You could run the Vox or POD direct maybe, and mic the tube amps.

Plus, you could stash them all in a Rubbermaid bin too, they're all so small!
 
Re: The POD- Ultimate Tool for the Sessions Player?

LesStrat said:
BTW, I saw Lincoln Brewster live a couple of years ago. He and his bassist both played through POD's and a couple of stomp boxes, direct to the board.
Click to expand...

LesStrat- Just noticed this comment- Isn't Brewster incredible? I still use examples of his work with Danny Chambers as examples to young students- They hear out of the widlerness and want to go for the solo before i show them how intricate the rhythem riffs are...or if they don't know how to sit back and wait for the sweet spot, I'll thow You alone at them and challange them to find anyplace earlier in the song, or a better build than Brewster's solo-

Also if you like Lincoln, did you catch Dan Huff on early SC chapman? Dancing with the dinasours still knocks me out-
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

Mincer
Introducing the PowerStage 700 Bass!
Replies
8
Views
905
Mincer
Mincer
NegativeEase
Sansamp Flu Rig V5 is the sh*t -It simplifies/solves so much perfectly
2 3
Replies
55
Views
2K
NegativeEase
NegativeEase
G
A comparison and review of 20 small/low-wattage/lunchbox amps
2
Replies
21
Views
2K
St_Genesius
St_Genesius
DrNewcenstein
Suggestions for USB-powered interface?
2 3
Replies
42
Views
6K
TwilightOdyssey
TwilightOdyssey
Woodman
Variation on the old "what should I buy" theme
Replies
8
Views
948
Boogie Bill
B
Back
Top