P. Outside vs. Inside Mix

Don't expect to get a tone that sounds like you're in a full mix when you're not, especially for metal. A guitar tone sounds a lot beefier when a kick (bass) drum and bass guitar line is underneath it. And it sounds thicker and smoother in the top end when it is double-tracked. Next time you are listening to your favorite metal albums, see if you can find a spot where the guitar is playing by itself. It'll probably sound shockingly whimpy/muffled/etc.

Don't try to be something you can't be. Piling on the gain or cranking the bass won't make you sound like you're a full mix. Accept the somewhat gritty top-end and learn to love it. If you don't feel comfortable with your tone, record it double tracked with the parts panned hard left and right. If you can record bass and program drums, even better. Try to get as good of an idea as possible what it WILL sound like in a full mix.

There's a common trick on the Pod to set a delay effect with the delay time set as low as possible. I don't like this. It sounds like you're playing inside a McDonald's play place or in front of a giant wall or something. Yeah, it thickens the tone up a little. So does cranking the gain. I recommend doing neither. If you want to sound heavier, play in a full mix or just use your imagination. I know Petrucci sometimes uses the delay trick - well curse the gods - Petrucci is an idiot.

I break this rule myself way too often, and it always comes back to haunt me later on when I go to jam with someone or record a song. Funny thing is that once you are forced to make your tone slightly less heavy, I really like it. I guess it wears off over time.

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Q. Relying on Others' Patches

The Pod HD is only one part of a system that goes from your fingers to your ears. In between those parts of your body there is also a guitar, pickups, cables, speakers, and a listening environment (room). There may additionally be an actual amp and other effects processors. While the Pod HD is common to your gear and anyone else who makes a Pod HD patch, every other factor is probably different, including not only the ears of the person who built it but also his musical tastes.

This means it's highly unlikely for you to download someone else's patch and have it sound the same when you use it as it sounded to the creator. This doesn't mean the patch is unusable, only that it likely needs to be tweaked to fit your needs. I suggest reviewing the guitar setup and amp tone pages to understand where differences may have existed and how you can bridge any gaps.

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IX. TroubleShooting

• A. Too much noise
• B. Tone is fizzy
• C. Tone is harsh
• D. Tone has digital clipping
• E. Tone is muffled
• F. Distortion is muddy/fuzzy/farty
• G. Distortion is dirty/gritty
• H. Tone is thin
• I. Software Knobs move on their own
• J. I'm Getting DSP Limit Reached Errors

A. Too much noise

This section addresses a constantly-noisy signal, not noisy tone. For a noisy tone, see the next section.

First turn off all the amp models and effects in your signal chain, to see if your bypass signal sounds ok. This will tell you if you have possibly hooked the Pod up incorrectly. If so, see the setup page.

If the bypass is ok, toggle each effect in the chain on then back off, seeing if one makes it sound noisy. Once you've tested them individually, turn them on one at a time and try to determine which one pushes the sound over the edge. Usually this will be the amp model using a lot of distortion or a compressor or distortion effect. You may have an effect before this one that amplifies the signal strongly, causing it to distort/compress much more than you want. Also, sometimes you feed such a unit an unconventional signal (extremely bright or full of deep bass) and it reacts unexpectedly. See if the distortion/compression stages clean up if you turn off an effect or two before that one. Or dial back the distortion/compression. Compressors use "threshold" instead of "drive". Unlike "drive", "threshold" compresses less at higher settings.

You can mildly reduce noise by changing the input settings from their defaults, which pull in numerous inputs, some of which are likely unused. (see "input settings" section) Note: this setting is NOT necessarily global. Just because you changed it once doesn't mean that all your patches have unused inputs disabled.

I have heard reports that the effect loop on the Pod can cause tone suck or additional noise. I haven't experienced that, and I wouldn't know how to get around it other than to make sure you are gain staging everything correctly or simply put your effects in front/behind the pod rather than in its loop.

Finally, you might just have noisy pickups or a noisy cable, or be picking up some kind of ground hum. While this is less noticeable on a clean signal, when you compress/distort it, all that noise will be amplified. Try using a different guitar and cables to determine if they are the problem. You may want to get a hum eliminator.

You can also use the noise gate effects in the Pod. I recommend setting this as the first effect in your chain, and adjusting it so that it is just sensitive enough to get rid of the noise when your guitar is muted. Setting it too sensitive will cause it to kill sustaining notes unnaturally. Setting it even higher will make your tone sound thin (for the "Noise Gate", not "Hard Gate"). See the link for my favored method of dialing it in.

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B. Tone is fizzy/noisy

By "fizzy" I mean the tone has a "shhhh"/"sssss" type sound in the 3-5kHZ range. It isn't exactly musical. It's basically high-pitched noise that seems stuck in the tone. Unfortunately, the Pod HD has a few spots like this that stand out on the high gain amp models. They stand out much more when you are using the Pod's cab and mic modeling, running "direct", rather than to a real amp.

For "fizz" that seems more like excessive high-end, see the next section.

My first suspect would be the cab/mic choice. Mics other than the SM 57's tend to have more noise in the tone, particularly the ribbon and condensers. This can sound fizzy. Try switching mics, then cabs.

The Cab DEP's may also help. I find turning down Res. Level a little can often add more crispness and clarity to the tone.

One option is to use a parametric EQ effect with max Q to dial out the fizzy spot. See the "fizzy spots" section. Of course, don't confuse what I refer to as "fizzy spots" with the entire 3-5kHZ range, which I classify as "fizz" (see "EQ" section). By fizzy spots, I'm talking about very, very narrow frequency ranges that sound like noise whether you're playing power chords or single notes anywhere on the fretboard. Fizz, on the other hand, is a crucial part of a good guitar tone.

For running direct, while I prefer the SM 57 off axis mic, I can understand why some people would consider it too fizzy. The best advice I can give you is to use the SM 57 on axis instead - it has a very clean high end. If this has too much treble for your taste, dial it back with the amp's treble control or an EQ effect. Also, try to dial in bass and mids - this generally works better and results in a cleaner sound than trying to dial in treble with other mics. When you do that you are amplifying noise and will get a noisy, fizzy sound in the high end. I like the SM 57 on axis mic because it sounds the "cleanest" in the high end, in my opinion. However, I find the SM 57 off axis sounds more "natural", even if the highs are a bit noisy/fizzy. See mic selection.

Also, you may be using a ton of gain. This can make the tone sound fizzy. Try dialing it back a bit. You don't need a ton of gain to sound heavy. See the guitars in vs. outside a mix.

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C. Tone is harsh

"Harsh" is a bit generic. Here I'm talking about a tone that's extremely bright/trebly or has some midrange to treble frequency range that's so loud it gets to the point of hurting your ears when turned up loud. If instead you are getting a really nasty distortion tone, see the "gritty/dirty distortion tone" section below. Or even try the "digital clipping" section.

If you are running the Pod "direct" to full-range speakers, headphones, powered monitors, a mixer board, a PA, etc. (anything besides a dedicated guitar amp with guitar loudspeakers), your output mode should be "Studio/Direct" to engage cab+mic simulation (the only true speaker simulation), which severely rolls off the high end of the frequency spectrum. Without this the tone will be incredibly harsh in the very high-end frequencies. See "output modes" section.

I like the SM 57 on axis mic, but it can be a little harsh for certain cabs. The best way to dial it in is to use a Mid-Focus EQ. You can also use the "highs" parameter on a parametric EQ effect, or by setting the appropriate "high freq" and "high gain" on a studio EQ effect. Note that 100% "freq" on a parametric EQ is only like 4.5-5kHZ and "highs" affects all frequencies at about 1.5kHZ and above, whereas the Studio EQ will let you select all the way up to 3, 5, or 8 kHZ to start your cut. For more details on how the EQ effects work, see here.

Or use the SM 57 off axis (or another mic) instead.

While harshness is usually associated with too much high end, sometimes the tone can be described as harsh if it has too much upper mids, or some part of the frequency spectrum is out of balance with the rest of it. Try the technique described in the "fizzy spots" section of using a parametric EQ to cycle through the frequency range, trying to notice if any particular spot makes the tone much worse. Once you find it, you can dial it back and get a well-rounded tone.

Also, the Treadplate V-30 4x12 cab is by nature very bright and much louder than the other cab models. Keep that in mind when setting up your patches. See cab selection.

If you are running to an amp, make sure your amp/speaker isn't what is causing the signal to become too bright and harsh. For instance, I know the Peavey 5150 combo comes stock with a Sheffield speaker, which is much harsher than a Celestion Vintage 30 or similar speaker, which are often used for high gain tones. Many people even feel the Vintage 30 is a harsh speaker. So one option is to replace your speaker or cabinet. Trying to EQ around a harsh speaker can be very difficult or even futile. If you can close the back to your cab, that will get you a darker tone, but it will give you less volume. Sometimes even if you do all this, when you crank up the volume, the speaker distorts into mush, because it simply isn't designed to produce that kind of tone. Also, many amps, particularly 1x12's, are really bright directly in front the amp. You could try to use something like a Beam Blocker or Mitchell Donut (I recommend the Mitchell Donut, not the Beam Blocker) to even out the sound, or just stand slightly off center.

If you are plugging into your amp's guitar in jack, the amp's pre-amp may be amplifying some high frequencies more than the rest of the spectrum.

If you are driving your amp hard, it's power section might be clipping a bit, adding high-end distortion on top the tone. Also, your amp could have worn-out tubes.

Note: the full amps tend to have more bite than the pre-amp only models. If you are using full amp models, try using the pre-amp only ones (see full vs pre).

Similarly, the full amp models DEP's can have pretty strong effects on the tone. Try messing with the Master Volume and Bias parameters to see if they help dial out harshness.

Finally, see I tried all this and it doesn't sound good. You may have an unconventional rig or just different tastes, and you might want to try Studio/Direct output mode and cab+mic simulation.

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Date: 2016-01-03; view: 654