tonyf Posted January 27, 2011 Share Posted January 27, 2011 The covers band I'm in has had a short hiatus over the past couple of months so I've spent a lot of time using my Line6 Bass POD XT Live to practice with at home. I've been enjoying the "tweakery" I get with the Line6 apps being able to edit the tones via my Mac rather than being bent over it using the onboard controls. We've got the first gig of the year tomorrow night so I took it to rehearsal last night along with my head and basses so I could get used to using it "in the heat of the battle". Maybe it was the room, maybe it was me, maybe I'd not spent enough time doing my "tweakery" or the "tweakery" wasn't the correct "tweakery" but I just struggled all night and couldn't get a "core tone" I was comfortable with it. All my patches have been set up to use no amp modelling at all. I've got to the stage where I'm totally satisified with my core tone of bass into amp and want the XT Live just to give me basic some basic flavours, a flange or chorus, an auto-wah, a bit of distortion and perhaps a synth thing. I'm starting to think maybe the XT Live is a sledgehammer to crack a nut. As I want some basic colouring around my beloved core tone of my amp/basses, maybe I dont need a such a massively flexible amp modelling tool and I should just go back to using some high quality stomp boxes. Ideas? T Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
charic Posted January 27, 2011 Share Posted January 27, 2011 Isn't it better to have the possibilities there and not use them all? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xgsjx Posted January 27, 2011 Share Posted January 27, 2011 Depending on how good the XT Live is at "synth", you might be as well keeping it for synth sounds & maybe 1 or 2 other things that it does well. I've never used one tho. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EskimoBassist Posted January 27, 2011 Share Posted January 27, 2011 Problem is, buying singles is a slipperly, expensive and addictive slope. If only I had still been happy with my old Korg AX3000B perhaps I would have a car by now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tonyf Posted January 27, 2011 Author Share Posted January 27, 2011 [quote name='charic' post='1105037' date='Jan 27 2011, 01:33 PM']Isn't it better to have the possibilities there and not use them all?[/quote] In my case, I don't know. I've had a fair while now without any effects whatsoever and I think I realistically only need a few "flavours" to get me by, ie a good drive/distortion, a flange or chorus, an autowah and that'd probably do me. Having played with the XT Live for a while, I've found myself skimming through the vast percentage of presets thinking "where on earth would I ever use this in the set"? [quote name='EskimoBassist' post='1105108' date='Jan 27 2011, 02:34 PM']Problem is, buying singles is a slipperly, expensive and addictive slope. If only I had still been happy with my old Korg AX3000B perhaps I would have a car by now.[/quote] Flipping heck. PAS! lol Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phil.i.stein Posted January 27, 2011 Share Posted January 27, 2011 don't panic. i find that there is a massive difference between using fx at home and at volume. speakers being driven hard sound different than the home set-up (obviously). get down the practise room on your own and play at volume. save the settings. then play with everyone else, and tweak. save the settings. it's a matter of repetition and compromise, i'm afraid. a different room will also change your tone, so narrowing down the differences is the best you can do. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cheddatom Posted January 28, 2011 Share Posted January 28, 2011 (edited) Yeh, Phil is right. My mate had a similar problem with his Zoom B2.1U recently - he set up all his patches on headphones, and then wondered why they sounded so sh*t through an amp. Edited January 28, 2011 by cheddatom Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tonyf Posted January 31, 2011 Author Share Posted January 31, 2011 [quote name='phil.i.stein' post='1105314' date='Jan 27 2011, 05:42 PM']don't panic. i find that there is a massive difference between using fx at home and at volume. speakers being driven hard sound different than the home set-up (obviously). get down the practise room on your own and play at volume. save the settings. then play with everyone else, and tweak. save the settings. it's a matter of repetition and compromise, i'm afraid. a different room will also change your tone, so narrowing down the differences is the best you can do.[/quote] +1 I guess I realised this the other night when I used it in rehearsal. Like you and cheddatom have said, what sounds ok in one setting ain't always gonna sound the same in another. With this in mind, I set up my whole rig on Friday before the gig in the evening and spent sometime considerably editing the patches in situ. I also looked at the output levels of the XT Live in the send return unit. It was time well spent as it sounded MUCH MUCH better when I used it on the night. Guess it's about rolling up your sleeves and getting to know it inside out. I think I've always assumed that you can plug it in and get absolutely ideal sounds out of it. That ain't always the case and the bass and amp combinations all become variables in what you hear. I feel better having done the tweaking with the amp at volume and I'm a lot happier now. I still KNOW I'm using some signal processing as opposed to having nothing between bass and amp but ultimately, I guess it's about a bit of compromise with one's core tone in order to get the colours in the sonic palette and lets face it, 99.9% of people in the audience ain't that aware or more likely, that bothered. T Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tonyf Posted January 31, 2011 Author Share Posted January 31, 2011 Ummmmmm. Having looked at the Line6 website, just realised that if I'm after stompbox only type effects rather than amp and cab modelling as well, perhaps I should be looking at either the M9 or M13. These look to be exactly what I need. Flexible stompbox'ing fun with true bypass and some programmability. Plus looping. [url="http://line6.com/m9/"]http://line6.com/m9/[/url] T Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paul_5 Posted February 1, 2011 Share Posted February 1, 2011 (edited) I had the same problem with my Zoom 3000B - I spent ages setting everything up so that it sounded great into Cubase and headphones, then got to a gig and spent 20 minutes hastily resetting patches. Maybe things have moved on since 2003, but I've reverted back to single units that just make one sound (but do it really well). Granted I've not got the pallette of sounds to choose from, but I never used 70% of the zoom sounds (I used to play keyboards, and opted for bass instead - please don't try to make my bass sound like a cheap keyboard etc...). For me multi FX pedals are a good way to determine which effects you actually want to use. Then you can start GASing for 'real' pedals This never stops. [b]Edit for spelling.[/b] Edited February 1, 2011 by paul_5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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