Vox Tonelab SE and Line 6 POD XT Live

Few months ago I saw Pat Travers with the ToneLab SE (plugged into a Marshall JCM800's Return socket for his backline) on a small pub gig. He got really great sounds out of it.

One caveat - in the chat between songs he did apologise saying something about the footswitch buttons not being totally reliable. Cheap enough to have another as back-up though?

 

Scott, between this and the whole Hamer thing, I'm starting to wonder if you've been replaced by a pod person.



--chiba

 

Scott,

When I was just jamming in the evenings at the local taverns in town I used to use an Allen Class Act head that I ran into a homemade isocabinet that contained a vintage 30. In the cabinet was a shure microphone that ran over to my eon G2 powered speaker. It was a gas to use because like you said you can run the volume anywhere you want for stage presence and loop it to the PA for balancing out front. It made life easy.

toneseeker

 

I have the XT Live coming as well, supposedly end of this week, but we'll see.

I'm intrigued that you can use it as a stand-alone efffects unit, it includes the new Line6 effects pack which has some cool modulators and faux-synth stuff.
I also love the fact that it has the Variax input, as soon as the dust settles I am picking up the Variax Acoustic, (I'm just waiting a bit to see if they issue a 2nd model and revamp the pricing structure)

I use the XT for in the home-family sleeping stuff, so I sold the bean and will install this beneath my computer.

The pricepoint of the Live unit is incredibly attractive, now we'll see if it delivers

 

About 5 years ago I was sent to purgatory when I joined a band that gigged 4 nights a week. The caveat: everyone had to go direct. No amps, no real drums....you get the picture. At that time I did A/B shootouts with everything available at the time. The winner (for me) then and now was/is the BOSS GT-5. Better than the GT-3, or GT-6. All my gear buddies laughed, as I was the guy who had D*mbles, T*Wrecks, Bogners, Egnaters (the list is endless). I setup the P.A. system and my amps facing me, and tweaked the patches as close as possible. To this day I often get better results recording and live with this pedal vs. a real amp. Than a few months ago I decided to see if the VOX Tonelab would be an improvement. For some reason I could not get it to sound anywhere near as good as the GT-5. I wanted to like the VOX, but I could never get the sounds to be as amp-like as the BOSS. I'm starting to think the one I got at GC was broken? Particularly with overdriven settings, it just couldn't get there with a Strat. I have to agree though that just having my guitar and the little gig-bag for the GT-5 and my mic stand was the bomb for setup and tear down. That being said, I'm really enjoying playing through an amp again - TopHat Ambassador 50 with some killer pedals. In any event I will give the VOX another try, but I encourage you to check out a GT-5. They are plentiful and cheap, and I have not had a single problem after almost 1000 + gigs!

 

Scott,

So are you using this only for stand alone acoustic gigs with the Variax Acoustic, or for full band electric gigs?

Also, can you individually pick and turn on/off individual effects at will or do you have to pre-program them ahead of time?

Kyle

 

I'm using a POD XT Pro version 2.0 live and it works really great. I mainly use it for fly away gigs and tours plugged in the return of whatever rented amp I get. I think Scott is heading towards a simpler, lighter and easily replaceable pro-sounding rig, which i think it's a cool thing to do.
obviously a great tube amp is the best, but in today's state of things with the airlines and such, it's almost impossible to fly with a tube backline anymore.

 

I just got back to gigging again after a 4 year (work related) break. I picked up a used Flextone III, Seymour Duncan Pickup Booster (killer with a Strat) and a new L6 Shortboard. I've got $580 total in this rig and get some great tones with it. I've said this many times, it's not the be all/end all but it does everything I need it to do. I don't think there's a gig I couldn't do with this rig.

 

JPenn,

How does your Flex III react to the duncan boost?
I had a Flex III for about a month and got rid of it because it would not react well to pedals at all (among other things).

Kyle

 

Anyone tried the Atomic Reactor amp w/one of these? I'd love to hear whether they can add back some of the dynamics that seem to be lacking w/the L6 amps.

A Variax--XT Live--Atomic Reactor sounds like an incredibly fun toy!

 

Boy, some timing!!

Last week I was doing some deep (as deep as it gets) editing with my little Pandora PX4, in an attempt to have something for one of our singers to play guitar through, direct to board, in our rehearsal studio. I'd been using my PODxt. I was really, really impressed with some of the tones I was able to get. So much so, that in a fit of yet more downsizing, I sold my XT/floorboard, and ordered a little Korg AX10G which is essentially the Pandora with a few less features, but channel switching and exp pedal. I figured it would work fine..... I got it yesterday, took a couple of hours to dial in some 'decent' sounds, and brought it to rehearsal last night.

It was a total bomb. The tones did NOT cut it and it had a LOT of digital hiss/noise. My band members told me to bring the POD back...

So....... I will return the AX10G and will get whatever will work, now with a blank slate. Theres the xt live, TL SE, and way expensive but with lots of features I probably don't need - the GNX4 (or the cheaper earlier models). I like the idea of the XT Live except I'd have to bend over to redial in patches live vs. touching the 'bean' on my music stand. But I know that Scott knows tone and we understand one another. So........... I'm NOT near anything (except MF) where I can try and swap.

I've always liked sounds I got putting my POD into a Stewart power amp to one of my cabs, but sometimes I need a little preamp boost before the power amp. Sounds like the EON might be the ticket.

MMMmmmmmm

jon

 

I can see how the reactor could be pretty cool, I had real good results going:

Guitar>TIM (on all the time)>podXT>Mesa 20/20>2 1x12 Mesa cabs

the TIM and the EL-84's really seemed to help with the dynamics
(the TIM worked this magic in front of a Duoverb also, I hated the amp until I put the TIM in front of it)

 

Say, I'm curious:

Have any of you POD/ToneLab users ever tried running your guitar through your pedals and then into the modeler? To use them just for the amp/cab sims and nothing else?

I know it seems a waste to not use the effects, but I've always wondered if you could get decent tones that way (and not fret about letting your favorite effects boxes get dusty.)

 

I'm using the Dual Recto model thru the 4x12 Greenback cab and keep the gain less than half, that seems to be the trick with the L6 amps is keep the gain backed off. It doesn't lose the gain as much as it opens up the tone. The SD pedal I'm using more for the switch on it than the boost. I kick it on when I need my Strat to gain a bridge hum.

I used a 1st gen Flextone Duo for a lot of years so I'm pretty comfortable with the amps. If I hadn't spent as much time with the Duo I might not be as happy with the Flex III.

Another thing with the III that I like is the ability to switch around the cabinet models. The default cab for the Rectos is a Mesa 4x12 with 30's. I don't dig it too much, it sounds too metal for what I do. But when switched over to the GB's it gets a nice Marshall-type crunch goin that works for my classic rock/ blues rock band.

 

I've used a number of lead pedals in front of my xt including the V-stack classic and tweedie, AC booster and COT50. It generally does not work as simply/reliably as into the front of an amp and requires eq tweaking on the pedal and the pod, but sometimes it works really well. Nothing is simple.........

jon