Owner's Manual

GETTING SET UP: SCENARIO TWO – POD PLAYS LIVE

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POD Output Level: A Word of Caution

POD’s Output Level control is setup with enough gain available to drive into

almost any piece of equipment. Consequently, it also has plenty of power available

to overdrive the input of your guitar amp, which you don’t want since it will add

extra distortion that will color the sound so you don’t hear the “true” POD tones.

So, set it pretty low at ﬁrst, then you can experiment with higher settings.

Tuning Your Ampliﬁer

When you’re having your POD “take over” another guitar ampliﬁer, it’s a good

idea to start off with that amp in neutral. What is “neutral,” you ask? Well, if you

only have one volume control on your amp, set it low enough to get a “clean”

tone; that ensures POD’s sounds come through as purely as possible. If you have a

master volume in addition to a volume control on the input, set them both so that

the ﬁrst volume doesn’t overdrive the master volume (so you’re getting a clean

tone). This will vary from amp to amp, but usually the input volume is going to be

less than the master volume to get a clean, non-distorted sound. If you have

passive tone controls, try setting your mid control at max, and your treble and bass

controls at zero (this is actually “ﬂat” equalization-wise on most amps). Active

tone controls may vary, but just be sure you’re not overdriving the amp so the

POD tone comes through without extra coloration. Once you get going, you can

tweak the ampliﬁer settings to suit your tastes. Try to set the POD Output Level

so you’re not overdriving the input of the amp, be sure the A.I.R. switch is in the

AMP position, and you should be in business!

If you have a guitar amp with an effect return or a jack that lets you connect

directly to the input to the power amp, you can plug POD’s output right into that

connection to bypass the tone controls of the amp and avoid their coloring POD’s

tones.