- Jul 3, 2014
- 114
- 9
- 18
Hi guys, as promised, here are ALL the patches Ive created throughout the two years of owning this unit. Nearly forty patches, range from clean, ambient, mid-gain to hi-gain lead and rhythm, are packed in the following link (all in one setlist file), along with the screenshots of the settings on each, so worry not if you dont own the same unit (mine is the desktop). You can also easily find a POD HD converter for converting these patches to your unit. Some demonstrations of my patches are also posted below.
https://copy.com/dPEXuotReb0Z
However, I found that the setlist file didnt actually save the amp parameters (the lower part, not the EQs) and the cab parameters. Thats not really a problem since I dont tweak them drastically most of the time, but the low cut knob in the cab section is left at around 200 hz. Please drag it down to the lowest so you have enough low end coming through.
Some of the patches might look similar to yours, since therere a few ones that were downloaded from Line6 site and tweaked from there. However those are really rare in my collection, most of the patches are created from the ground up.
Before I get into some tips, Id like to inform you the setup I use, so you have a good reference for adjusting the parameters on these patches for your own use. I use my Ibanez RG1527 with DiMarzio CL/LF pickups, theyre fairly high-output and EQ-wise pretty even, a bit compressed as well. Please feel free to adjust the input on the patches for ideal performance.
And for the following tips and tricks, Id like to give the credits to MeAmBobbo (Im not sure if hes an active member on this forum though). Ive learned a ton about this unit in his extremely informative and detailed POD HD tone guide. Most of the things Im gonna talk about are also covered in his guide, only that Ill pick some tips that seemed more important to me, as well as my tweaking habits. Im also gonna briefly talk about clean and mid-gain tones, which are not covered in his guide. Hopefully this is not a heavy reading while being pretty informative.
General Approach
My basic approach here is really nothing fancy and the same goes with analog gears as well: Choose the right amp with the right cab/mic combination. Get this step right, tweak the amp EQ and boost pedal (if any) and youre half way there.
On POD however, I like to insert a Mid Focus EQ after the amp with HP freq at around 30, just enough to roll off the muddy low-end, then go through each cab/mic combo. That way the ugly bottom end on some cab/mic will not negatively affect how you perceive the sound which might be usable.
Cleans
Now lets start with cleans. Generally I only use these amps and cab/mic combos for clean:
Blackface Dbl Nrm + 2x12 Blackface Dbl + 57 on Axis (occasionally 57 off Axis)
Class A-30 TB + 2x12 Phd Ported + 67 Condenser
Since therere no one absolute clean amp on POD HD (something like Shiva in Axe Fx), these combos are the best to start with. Use minimal preamp drive and maximal poweramp drive, and go from there. Generally these amps dont required much pre or post EQing to sound good, as long as youve settled down with the right amp EQ setting. Any tweaking on the poweramp sections would be up to taste most of the time. Id sometimes dial in more poweramp bias if more body and roundness is needed. Other than that, I generally would insert a compressor, noise gate (occasionally) and some other effects up to taste. A cool tip is that you may put a chorus or flanger in front the amp to thicken the sound. I dont have a strict rule for putting effects pre or post-amp on clean patches, nor is much EQing needed most of the time.
Ambient
Most of the time you dont need to hear the meat of these ambient padding sounds, and since youll likely use heavy effects with these, you probably dont need to use any amp. For these ambient sounds, Id put a compressor to even out the signal as well as a Mid Focus EQ to clean up the low end, just to make them more mix-ready. Other than that, any effects would be up to what youre going for. However, on some patches with heavy reverbs (sometime up to four), I like to leave the mix knobs on these reverbs at around 99%, just enough to let your first picking sound go through, otherwise itd often sound delayed in the performance which is not ideal.
Mid-gain
I really cant say much about mid-gain tones since I dont use them much, and I didnt really explore the dual cab combinations with mid-gain amps either. However this combo is by far the best Ive encountered and I know some of you are interested in too: Plexi Lead 100 Brt with two cabs - 4x12 Hiway + 57 on Axis and 4x12 XXL V-30 + 57 on Axis. Its also the setting on my patch no. 02A so you may discover by yourself.
Now its time to introduce a really useful tip since I use it with mid-gain patches as well as hi-gain ones: Using Mid Focus EQ right before the amp for ultimate control of the signal. I realized this is actually a bit similar to the concept behind Nollys signature boost pedal Focus, which gives you the overall control over the HP and LP amount and slope before it hits the amp, and will results in the amount of saturation with both high and low end. It also acts like an input trim, which allows you to dial in just the right amount of preamp gain without sacrificing the clarity or anything (and you may use this knob to adjust the gain youre getting from my patches on your guitar). I love to have it after the boost pedal too, so I can crank the output of the boost pedal to have enough color from it while remain fully controlled over the push of the signal with Mid Focus EQ.
Nonetheless, with 4x12 cabs, having another Mid Focus EQ at the end of the chain is also really helpful for controlling the rumbling low end (like I mentioned in my general approach) and high end sizzles, as well as the overall volume.
Hi-gain
Now lets move on to the hi-gain category. First Id like to start with some of the thoughts on several drive (boost) pedals, since we all know the boost plays a crucial role in the hi-gain guitar sound.
Tube Drive: Sounds really smooth and can be suited for lead patches or even tiny drive boost. The EQs are quite responsive.
Screamer: Sounds pretty much like what youd expect from it. I personally like Line 6 Drive over this one, as the Screamer sounds a bit too raw and aggressive for my taste.
Line 6 Drive: Probably absolute favorite on POD HD aside from Mid Focus EQ and is used almost over every hi-gain patch I created along with Mid Focus EQ. It provides quite some high end and just the right amount of grind, so works wonderfully as a boost. The mid knob acts more like a mid-frequency sweep than a gain knob, so its more or less similar to the Screamer. I like to have the mid at 40-45 on heavy rhythm patches, around 35 on leads.
And more on pedals before I get to the amps. I like using Hard Gate instead of Noise Gate, as it may kill the tone a little. With Hard Gate you can set the open and close threshold according to your setup and the purpose, i.e. you may want to set both threshold fairly high for tight palm-mute rhythm patch while leaving them quite low (and decay up high) on lead patch for less obvious effect.
Aside from Mid Focus EQ which Ive mentioned already, I also like to put a Parametric EQ either pre or post amp. Mostly of the time I put the Parametric EQ after the amp (and before the Mid Focus EQ) to simply cut off some muddiness around 300 to 400 hz and boost the high shelf a hair for some clarity and air. The effect is definitely not subtle even with really gentle cut and boost.
Now thats pretty much it for the pedals. For hi-gain guitars, the Holy Grail really is the dual cabs. It truly opens up a whole different level of tonal possibilities on the unit. Since therere so many usable combinations, Im not gonna go one by one on them. If youre interested in discovering some combos on your own, feel free to check out MeAmBobbos tone guide for detailed info. However I dont always go with the method of blending a bright cab with a dark one, which is recommended by MeAmBobbo. I sometimes like to find a certain cab/mic combo that works great on its own then find another combo that matches well. Personally I love the sound of 4x12 Uber and 4x12 XXL V-30 with either 57 on/off Axis or 409 Dynamic mics, so these combos appear a lot in my setlist.
Onto the amp setting. Though it might differ from patch to patch, I generally like to set the preamp gain fairly low, striking the balance between the right amount of saturation and punch. EQ-wise it certainly differs from amp to amp, but I love the Treadplate model (Dual Rectifier) because it has the EQs that are more responsive than some others.
I dont touch the amp parameters most of the time, even when I do, its a tiny tweak on the amount of poweramp drive and the bias amount. For the cab section, I generally dont touch anything since I use a post-amp Mid Focus EQ to control the low end, but occasionally Id lower the res level a tiny bit to get a little more clarity, or boost the decay a bit for more resonance of the cab (these are really subtle so dont expect to get a lot from them). And on some rhythms patches, Id even leave the early reflection at 0 and use a room reverb to (hopefully) get some realistic room sound, but thats subtle too.
TL;DR:
Use Line 6 Drive for boost.
Have two Mid Focus EQs one before one after the amp.
Use dual cabs! lol
So yeah this is pretty much all I have to say about this unit atm, hopefully its helpful to some of you and hope you guys will have some fun with the patches! Last but not least, please feel free to follow me on soundcloud or facebook for more music related updates. Cheers!
https://copy.com/dPEXuotReb0Z
However, I found that the setlist file didnt actually save the amp parameters (the lower part, not the EQs) and the cab parameters. Thats not really a problem since I dont tweak them drastically most of the time, but the low cut knob in the cab section is left at around 200 hz. Please drag it down to the lowest so you have enough low end coming through.
Some of the patches might look similar to yours, since therere a few ones that were downloaded from Line6 site and tweaked from there. However those are really rare in my collection, most of the patches are created from the ground up.
Before I get into some tips, Id like to inform you the setup I use, so you have a good reference for adjusting the parameters on these patches for your own use. I use my Ibanez RG1527 with DiMarzio CL/LF pickups, theyre fairly high-output and EQ-wise pretty even, a bit compressed as well. Please feel free to adjust the input on the patches for ideal performance.
And for the following tips and tricks, Id like to give the credits to MeAmBobbo (Im not sure if hes an active member on this forum though). Ive learned a ton about this unit in his extremely informative and detailed POD HD tone guide. Most of the things Im gonna talk about are also covered in his guide, only that Ill pick some tips that seemed more important to me, as well as my tweaking habits. Im also gonna briefly talk about clean and mid-gain tones, which are not covered in his guide. Hopefully this is not a heavy reading while being pretty informative.
General Approach
My basic approach here is really nothing fancy and the same goes with analog gears as well: Choose the right amp with the right cab/mic combination. Get this step right, tweak the amp EQ and boost pedal (if any) and youre half way there.
On POD however, I like to insert a Mid Focus EQ after the amp with HP freq at around 30, just enough to roll off the muddy low-end, then go through each cab/mic combo. That way the ugly bottom end on some cab/mic will not negatively affect how you perceive the sound which might be usable.
Cleans
Now lets start with cleans. Generally I only use these amps and cab/mic combos for clean:
Blackface Dbl Nrm + 2x12 Blackface Dbl + 57 on Axis (occasionally 57 off Axis)
Class A-30 TB + 2x12 Phd Ported + 67 Condenser
Since therere no one absolute clean amp on POD HD (something like Shiva in Axe Fx), these combos are the best to start with. Use minimal preamp drive and maximal poweramp drive, and go from there. Generally these amps dont required much pre or post EQing to sound good, as long as youve settled down with the right amp EQ setting. Any tweaking on the poweramp sections would be up to taste most of the time. Id sometimes dial in more poweramp bias if more body and roundness is needed. Other than that, I generally would insert a compressor, noise gate (occasionally) and some other effects up to taste. A cool tip is that you may put a chorus or flanger in front the amp to thicken the sound. I dont have a strict rule for putting effects pre or post-amp on clean patches, nor is much EQing needed most of the time.
Ambient
Most of the time you dont need to hear the meat of these ambient padding sounds, and since youll likely use heavy effects with these, you probably dont need to use any amp. For these ambient sounds, Id put a compressor to even out the signal as well as a Mid Focus EQ to clean up the low end, just to make them more mix-ready. Other than that, any effects would be up to what youre going for. However, on some patches with heavy reverbs (sometime up to four), I like to leave the mix knobs on these reverbs at around 99%, just enough to let your first picking sound go through, otherwise itd often sound delayed in the performance which is not ideal.
Mid-gain
I really cant say much about mid-gain tones since I dont use them much, and I didnt really explore the dual cab combinations with mid-gain amps either. However this combo is by far the best Ive encountered and I know some of you are interested in too: Plexi Lead 100 Brt with two cabs - 4x12 Hiway + 57 on Axis and 4x12 XXL V-30 + 57 on Axis. Its also the setting on my patch no. 02A so you may discover by yourself.
Now its time to introduce a really useful tip since I use it with mid-gain patches as well as hi-gain ones: Using Mid Focus EQ right before the amp for ultimate control of the signal. I realized this is actually a bit similar to the concept behind Nollys signature boost pedal Focus, which gives you the overall control over the HP and LP amount and slope before it hits the amp, and will results in the amount of saturation with both high and low end. It also acts like an input trim, which allows you to dial in just the right amount of preamp gain without sacrificing the clarity or anything (and you may use this knob to adjust the gain youre getting from my patches on your guitar). I love to have it after the boost pedal too, so I can crank the output of the boost pedal to have enough color from it while remain fully controlled over the push of the signal with Mid Focus EQ.
Nonetheless, with 4x12 cabs, having another Mid Focus EQ at the end of the chain is also really helpful for controlling the rumbling low end (like I mentioned in my general approach) and high end sizzles, as well as the overall volume.
Hi-gain
Now lets move on to the hi-gain category. First Id like to start with some of the thoughts on several drive (boost) pedals, since we all know the boost plays a crucial role in the hi-gain guitar sound.
Tube Drive: Sounds really smooth and can be suited for lead patches or even tiny drive boost. The EQs are quite responsive.
Screamer: Sounds pretty much like what youd expect from it. I personally like Line 6 Drive over this one, as the Screamer sounds a bit too raw and aggressive for my taste.
Line 6 Drive: Probably absolute favorite on POD HD aside from Mid Focus EQ and is used almost over every hi-gain patch I created along with Mid Focus EQ. It provides quite some high end and just the right amount of grind, so works wonderfully as a boost. The mid knob acts more like a mid-frequency sweep than a gain knob, so its more or less similar to the Screamer. I like to have the mid at 40-45 on heavy rhythm patches, around 35 on leads.
And more on pedals before I get to the amps. I like using Hard Gate instead of Noise Gate, as it may kill the tone a little. With Hard Gate you can set the open and close threshold according to your setup and the purpose, i.e. you may want to set both threshold fairly high for tight palm-mute rhythm patch while leaving them quite low (and decay up high) on lead patch for less obvious effect.
Aside from Mid Focus EQ which Ive mentioned already, I also like to put a Parametric EQ either pre or post amp. Mostly of the time I put the Parametric EQ after the amp (and before the Mid Focus EQ) to simply cut off some muddiness around 300 to 400 hz and boost the high shelf a hair for some clarity and air. The effect is definitely not subtle even with really gentle cut and boost.
Now thats pretty much it for the pedals. For hi-gain guitars, the Holy Grail really is the dual cabs. It truly opens up a whole different level of tonal possibilities on the unit. Since therere so many usable combinations, Im not gonna go one by one on them. If youre interested in discovering some combos on your own, feel free to check out MeAmBobbos tone guide for detailed info. However I dont always go with the method of blending a bright cab with a dark one, which is recommended by MeAmBobbo. I sometimes like to find a certain cab/mic combo that works great on its own then find another combo that matches well. Personally I love the sound of 4x12 Uber and 4x12 XXL V-30 with either 57 on/off Axis or 409 Dynamic mics, so these combos appear a lot in my setlist.
Onto the amp setting. Though it might differ from patch to patch, I generally like to set the preamp gain fairly low, striking the balance between the right amount of saturation and punch. EQ-wise it certainly differs from amp to amp, but I love the Treadplate model (Dual Rectifier) because it has the EQs that are more responsive than some others.
I dont touch the amp parameters most of the time, even when I do, its a tiny tweak on the amount of poweramp drive and the bias amount. For the cab section, I generally dont touch anything since I use a post-amp Mid Focus EQ to control the low end, but occasionally Id lower the res level a tiny bit to get a little more clarity, or boost the decay a bit for more resonance of the cab (these are really subtle so dont expect to get a lot from them). And on some rhythms patches, Id even leave the early reflection at 0 and use a room reverb to (hopefully) get some realistic room sound, but thats subtle too.
TL;DR:
Use Line 6 Drive for boost.
Have two Mid Focus EQs one before one after the amp.
Use dual cabs! lol
So yeah this is pretty much all I have to say about this unit atm, hopefully its helpful to some of you and hope you guys will have some fun with the patches! Last but not least, please feel free to follow me on soundcloud or facebook for more music related updates. Cheers!
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