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Is anyone happy with their POD distortion?


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Whether you are modeling it or through an amp, do you use any of the distortions? It seems most use a stomp box distortion and use the PODs for the other FX. If you use the Line6 distortions, what are your preferences? If not, what is your chain like? I suppose this could also be a Helix thread. 

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Back when I was gigging a POD weekly, a I liked the edge of clean-edge of dirt tone...and the cleans...especially the AC30 model clean.

The distortion left much to be desired. Too compressed and not responsive dynamically like a smoking tube amp is.

The tweed Deluxe model was the exception. That one just ripped and felt just right. In fact, I bought a Lil Dawg 5e3 tweed Deluxe as a result.

The Marshall Bluesbreaker was ok....the Plexi was just awful.

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First of all, I'm a massive gain-head. I don't play a lot of medium or low gain sounds. 

I have an HD500X and I'm pretty happy with the sounds. I don't use any external pedals (except for looping).  I use it to go direct to the board and to some full range monitors when needed. 

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The distortions on Helix are all pretty good.  I'm not a big fuzz guy, but they're convincing enough for me to get a stoner rock vibe going.  My go-to is normally a tube screamer in front of a plexi or 800-style Marshall.

On the HD500 I think I may have switched to using a mid boost EQ with the level cranked to emulate a really flexible tube screamer.

On the 2.0 I just used the modern higain model with the delay effect and solo'd until everyone left the room.  Then I kept soloing, so it must have been doing something for me. ;)

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I use the HD500, I din't use heavy drive at all and I really had to spend some time tweakin' until the drive felt right, same with the fuzz. The amp drives can sound fantastic and be very responsive with some dialing. I think they do over-the-top pretty well, but subtle-ty isn't what their bank their reputation on ;)

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13 hours ago, anotherfreak said:

I use the HD500, I din't use heavy drive at all and I really had to spend some time tweakin' until the drive felt right, same with the fuzz. The amp drives can sound fantastic and be very responsive with some dialing. I think they do over-the-top pretty well, but subtle-ty isn't what their bank their reputation on ;)

I used the "Tube Preamp" on the HD500 for my Screamer.  It was the advice of a friend that used all Line 6 gear including the Variax.  I have found that with enough tweaking the HD500 is a pretty cool piece of hardware.  The Helix is a game changer.

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30 minutes ago, burningyen said:

I'm very happy with the dirtboxes in the Helix. The ones I use the most are the Big Muff, the Tube Driver, the OCD and the Klon, but I also really like the Fuzz Face.

With the new Helix, are they using real names now? If not, what are their code names for your list? I think in the past they called the Big Muss Pi or something like that. But I don't know the rest. 

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18 minutes ago, Ting Ho Dung said:

With the new Helix, are they using real names now? If not, what are their code names for your list? I think in the past they called the Big Muss Pi or something like that. But I don't know the rest. 

Triangle Fuzz = Big Muff

Valve Driver = Tube Driver

Compulsive Drive = OCD

Minotaur = Klon

Arbitrator Fuzz = Fuzz Face

The FX lists out there are out of date, since L6 keeps adding new FX, but this is a start:

http://line6.com/support/topic/14914-helix-amps-cabs-mics-and-effects/

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Just now, burningyen said:

Triangle Fuzz = Big Muff

Valve Driver = Tube Driver

Compulsive Drive = OCD

Minotaur = Klon

Arbitrator Fuzz = Fuzz Face

The FX lists out there are out of date, since L6 keeps adding new FX, but this is a start:

http://line6.com/support/topic/14914-helix-amps-cabs-mics-and-effects/

Cool. Thanks. I knew there was a list out there somewhere. 

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9 hours ago, burningyen said:

For this clip from last night I ran the Helix's Tube Driver into the Muff:

 

Anything else in the chain, amp, cab, reverb, delay? I updated my POD HD Pro X and the Pro X Editor yesterday. Talk about something that will take all the inspiration away.  I didn't feel like playing at all after that headache. Hopefully today I can delve into it. Got some other cool stuff that landed on my porch to check out too. Cool video, burningyen. Thanks.

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1 hour ago, Ting Ho Dung said:

Anything else in the chain, amp, cab, reverb, delay? I updated my POD HD Pro X and the Pro X Editor yesterday. Talk about something that will take all the inspiration away.  I didn't feel like playing at all after that headache. Hopefully today I can delve into it. Got some other cool stuff that landed on my porch to check out too. Cool video, burningyen. Thanks.

Yeah, after the dirtboxes I had: Hiwatt amp->AC30 cab and Leslie in parallel->EQ->Cave reverb.

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