Line 6 Pod GO User Review and Opinion

[StephenM]

Good stuff Warren... and believe me....I have and do battle with the guitar and the bass, and the drums...ha..ha... I have loved guitar and hated it... and I have put it down for long, long, long periods of time due to frustration and misunderstaning (and life too)...but in the end when I pick it up with absolutely no real agenda....except to play... it never disappoints me.... and I have no need to laugh at anyone because while I play what I know very well....all I have to do to remember how hard this is.... try and learn a new chord....oh my gosh....yes...its hard...

[WarpCanada]

Absolutely.

I started learning Piano at the tender age of 48 (2 years ago) and I have learned to be gentle with myself.  I try hard, but I also say "quitting is an option" (for today!) come back and try again later.....  That seems to keep me from burning out so far.

I've been on a burning tear to become a good pianist and a better guitarist and bass player.   I still am quite mediocre, I think, but I have a HUGE amount of fun.

If you are having FUN you doin it RIGHT!

[StephenM]

Absolutely.

I started learning Piano at the tender age of 48 (2 years ago) and I have learned to be gentle with myself.  I try hard, but I also say "quitting is an option" (for today!) come back and try again later.....  That seems to keep me from burning out so far.

I've been on a burning tear to become a good pianist and a better guitarist and bass player.   I still am quite mediocre, I think, but I have a HUGE amount of fun.

If you are having FUN you doin it RIGHT!

**************perfect response Warren

[WarpCanada]

After a couple months with the PodGO I still love it.  I want outboard pedals and a powerful multi effect unit and the reason I would still go with the PodGO is that it's not as complicated as the Helix, and it has more expression capability than the HX STOMP.   Although I'd be tempted to go for the HX STOMP XL, I still love the podGO.

[bruno]

Pre-Kemper, I used and tweaked the Br1600 effects all of the time. In fact, I bought a fender tube amp on the basis that I liked the clean tone in the BR more that the Marshall JMC 900 (true story - I still have both). I had a friend in the 90's who had a COSM rack unit made by Roland/Boss - I'm pretty sure that the 1600 simply ported the code over from this rack unit however I don't know for sure. The point is there is a long, long development history and pedegree with these effects, so not just developed for that machine. They are top notch effects normally and are very, very good.

My criticism with them is that they are showing their age. They are not very three-dimensional effects to my ears. But in a mix, you can't really tell. And anyway, if you listen to older music, the guitar tones are typically both brilliant and terrible. I can't say that I'm a big fan of 70's fuzzy transistor guitar amps, fizzy and tizzy tones, but still love and listen to the tunes and they fit like a glove. Who'd av thunk!

That said, pre-Kemper - I used pedals into the BR1600, to treated the BR1600 and some of the virtual effects as I would the physical equivalent, and added in pedals as and when I needed to, to sculpt a sound. I do the same with the Kemper, in fact the allows you to insert an effects loop as a virtual effect and so can place it where you like in the chain, which is something I wished they had done with the BR1600.

B

[WarpCanada]

Apropos of the whole digital modelling versus tube thing,  Rob Chapman, friend of the owner of the big UK music store Andertons, recently did a blindfold challenge with a bunch of tube and digital solid state amps, and he failed to recognize the Fender all-tube '68 reissue among the pile of tube amps, and what's even more interesting,  he picked the latest Fender "simulated tube" sound amp (tonemaster) and thought it was a tube amp. 

In that recent video the point was reinforced that guitarists HEAR with their EYES.  If they think it's a tube amp they are playing through, they hear the "pleasant warmth" of a tube. And the thing is in the tonemaster case,  a great deal of engineering effort went into reproducing the actual sound of a tube amp, a really great one (because not all all-tube hand wired amps sound as good as the really great ones, or so we believe).   Unlike a real tube amp, the tonemaster weighs less.  Unlike a real tube amp, the tonemaster is likely to sound exactly the same tomorrow, and next tuesday, when the humidity in the room changes, or the room temperature changes, that tonemaster will continue to produce a pleasant sound.   But us tube lovers gonna love our expensive, temperamental tube amps.   We not a rational bunch.  We love what we love.

This one filmed august 2020, is the one where Chappers and the Captain shoot out a boss katana (which chappers correctly identifies as digital) and a real all tube fender '68 reissue blackface, and a tonemaster that has all the aesthetics and controls identical to a tube amp, in a chassis and dress of a tube amp:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-LawwjvChY

Ten times out of ten if you can see the tubes glowing, you're going to feel you need to report it sounds good to you.

[Greeny]

It's an interesting subject. Is a Klon Centaur really worth $5,000 upwards? Of course not. It seems like Far East knock-offs have got so good lately that there's cheap stuff which is as good if not better than the originals. Just look at the Harley Benton guitars and Joyo pedals - superb quality and value.

The only time I've seen what quality and price can really get you is my step son's custom shop Strat. I was with him trying all the USA standards, and nothing came close. It's on another level of tone and quality.

Personally, I enjoy getting good sounds on the cheap.