Pod 2.0 vs Pod XT

[Tony Dingus]

Is there any difference in the amps and cab and eq ? I'm not interested in the effects.

Tony

[Tony Dingus]

bump.

Tony

[Jack Stoner]

I don't know much about the 2.0 but I know that it is less desireable for Pedal Steel Guitar. From older posts on here (do a search) it's more for distorted lead guitar.

Only one forum user, that I recall, has said they are happy with it for Steel all the others say the XT (or later) models work well with steel. I have used an XT for several years - for effects only - and it does a very good job.

[Dave Mudgett]

I'm probably the guy Jack's thinking about - for some time, I used the Pod 2 for pedal steel. It can be made to work, especially with an older, lower-wound single-coil pickup. But remember that when I started playing pedal steel, my tonal reference was a Franklin with the early hand-wound single-coil pickups straight into a real 1965 Fender Deluxe Reverb, which gave me the vibe of earlier recordings that were, for me, an important reference point - Lloyd Green on his old Sho Bud into a Fender tube amp especially.

I bought a Pod 2 for guitar not long after they came out - it's been over 10 years now - for guitar. I set it beside my '65 Deluxe and tweaked and tweaked for a very long time till they sounded very close to each other over a pretty wide range of parameters. The key was running it through a properly clean amp and disabling all the extra gain in the stock patches. I still use it for guitar plenty, and could use it for pedal steel if I needed to, but some time ago moved to an old Peavey Tubefex as the main line. I also have a Pod XT, but I still prefer the Pod 2 Deluxe Reverb emulation over the XT's, and I have tweaked around with both of them.

My main issue with the Pod 2 for pedal steel is that the Twin Reverb emulation has two disadvantages. First, it's too mid-scooped, even more than a real Twin Reverb (and that's very mid-scooped). That can be worked with if you know about it, but it would be better if it just was set up correctly. Second, it's noisier. I don't understand why they missed on that one, but these are real issues. It can be made to work, but they largely fixed those issues in the Pod XT.

I don't really like the heavily distorted sounds on either of them very much. Really high-gain emulations like the Mesa rectifier and so on aren't too bad if you like that kind of thing - there's not a lot of subtlety to those sounds, so they're not hard to emulate. But something that runs the fine line like a Plexi Marshall or a '59 Bassman? Forget it, not even close to my ears. I use these strictly for fairly clean blackface/silverface emulations.

There are some other differences. The Pod XT can be run without any emulations at all - i.e., effects-only, as Jack does. That is very useful for pedal steel - if you like the sound of the steel through the amp and just want effects, why mess with it?

It may sound strange, but I pretty much prefer the effects in the old Pod 2. The rotary (Leslie) emulation is, to my tastes, much better, and I prefer the reverb, which sounds like a pretty durned good spring reverb unit.

BTW - let's be careful to distinguish between two different variants of the Pod 2. There's the early version, which has a raised-white-lettering emblem, with the original DSP chip. Then there's the second version, which has a badge emblem and a new DSP chip. I would completely avoid the second version - the emulations are different (and nowhere near as good, IMO) and the reverb is (to me) completely unusable - very, very grainy, you can hear the time separation in the delays. By the time this second version came out, it was the 'low-cost' alternative to their flagship product. The first version was their flagship product when designed.

My take. Certainly easy to find a cheap Pod 2 these days if you want to try for yourself. But find the earlier version.

[Tony Dingus]

Thanks Jack and Dave. So the XT amp/cab/eq sounds better for steel than the 2.0 ? I've been using a Pod Pro for 2 years by-amping with my Nash 112 preamp. I'm using the Vox AC 30 with a 2-12 cab. It sounds fine but I don't like most of the reverbs , for recording anyway. I'm using a Lexicon MX200. I agree on the single coil pups working better with the 2.0 . I run a ZB student model with a single coil into my pod and loved it. I might have to get a Alumitone pup since they sound like a single coil. Thanks again guys, I appreciate your knowledge.

Tony

[Jack Stoner]

I've been using my POD XT direct, with a preamp program, for recording for the last year or so. However, I record dry and add whatever I want in Sonar.

[Larry Bressington]

The XT is still the best model out there, tonally and navigation!