To POD; or not to POD?

[Brandon.Wilkerson321]

I was wondering what method the majority of you used to record heavy guitars while using Pod Farm 2.

I have the Pod ux1 with all the stock settings
An Ibanez RG3EX1
Also a Spider 3 30 watt. With a sampson C01U usb studio condenser

My main question would be, should I try micing the amp as opposed to using the pod, which one will give me a cleaner recording sound. And if I should use the pod, are there any pre-sets that you've made with the stock settings that sound good that you could link me a download to

ALSO, should I record clean through the pod and reamp in my recording program or record the distorted sound and mix better.

 

[oroinvictus]

A sampson C01U and a 30-watt combo amp is not gonna cut it at all, obviously the POD will give you a much cleaner recording tone. Record the raw DI (direct input) track, monitor your recording input so you can record a clean track and listen to a distorted tone at the same time (this is usually done the same way in most DAWs), edit your DI tracks and then you have clean, flawless DIs you can reamp (with a real amp or faux-reamping with pod farm) at any time. It might sound a little tricky at first but it's really quite easy and it is absolutely crucial to get the highest quality source sounds.

 

[Brandon.Wilkerson321]

How would I go about reamping my line 6 to my computer?

 

[Brandon.Wilkerson321]

And what DI boxes would you recommend?

 

[oroinvictus]

Physical reamping is a fairly in-depth process and requires more hardware than you have. I have a Radial J42 DI box and Pro RMP Reamp box that I mainly use with a MOTU 8pre interface for reamping. To 'faux-reamp' with pod farm, you simply open your pre-edited DI tracks in your DAW and apply pod farm as a VST and load up your tone. You can still record direct input with your UX1, I use a MOTU Zbox in conjunction when I record on the go with my own UX1.

 

[Gujukal]

Line6 Spider is an aweful amp, u should not even consider to mic that shit. Almost any amp sim will sound 100 times better.

 

[Brandon.Wilkerson321]

I actually like my tone alot, but that possibly won't translate to a recording as well and I understand that.
And yeah, I know how to reamp using pod as a vst.
Let's say that I don't get a DI box (soon) and I just record clean into my computer and reamp with Pod, how much difference is that going to make as opposed to recording with the distortion, if any at all.

Also as previously stated, do any of you have any stock presets for pod I can use to achieve this sort of tone


I know the quality won't be that great but anything would be awesome.

 

[oroinvictus]

A tone like that is not hard to achieve on your own. If you're really desperate for the 'sturgis pod-style' sound, do some searching (use the search function) around this forum for "the patch". That will get you to a decent starting point. If you record a clean signal and 'reamp' with pod farm later, you have a huge amount of flexibility; you can use any amp sim you want and dial in individual amp and cabinet settings (obviously this applies to physical reamping too, you can dial in amp settings and adjust mic positioning while your clean-recorded and edited DI is reamped back into an amp and cab) whereas if you straight-up record your combo amp (which as gujukal said you should not even consider) you wouldn't be able to make any changes to your tone afterward other than EQing the hell out of it. Remember that the individual guitar tone is only one part of the equation - the guitar, its build type, strings & pickups, your playing, cable quality, proper grounding, amp settings, amp sim/real amp, monitoring speakers etc. is all going to make a difference in tone. The tones that you hear in final mixes have gone through a lot of pre and post-processing and editing, like surgical/color EQ, saturation etc. and are also backed up by other elements of the mix - case in point, the bass guitar. A good bass tone is 50% of a good guitar tone! Record your guitars dry and monitor your pod farm plug-in so you can hear your distorted tone. Try to get the base pod farm tone as close to what you're striving for as possible. That should get you going in a good direction!

 

[3tuxedo]

Don't think that a preset will make Podfarm sound great. Without the right EQing outside of Podfarm, mastering, and bass tone, it will not sound like that. You need to spend lots of time in it and messing with EQ to make it sound awesome.

 

[Brandon.Wilkerson321]

You're absolutely right, I was just hoping that someone might post a tone with more of what I need rather than what I don't.
Another question, is it common to put 2 eq's on multiple instruments?