Line 6 Pocket Pod

Reviews | Line 6 Pocket Pod
100
T
here’s a trend of late for
wanting big sounds from
small equipment. You can
more or less shove a whole
recording studio into a laptop these
days – the multitrack deck alone is now
the size of a hard drive. And now Line 6
would have us pack 32 guitar amps, 16
speaker cabinets and a bunch of effects
into our pocket. The Pocket Pod is
indeed diddy, looking rather like a
shrunken version of a Pod 2.0, and it’s
light at a mere 170g. It runs off AAA
cells and even sports a belt-clip at the
rear for attaching it to your trousers.
Perfectly formed
The promise is of titanic tone from
some 300-plus bundled confi gurations
organised by name of Rock star, song-
title and the like, plus the means to
create and store 124 of your own
confi gurations. This diminutive device
does boast an impressive number of
amp models, including classics from
Vox, Mesa Boogie, Marshall, Fender and
even the Roland JC-120 Jazz Chorus.
Cab models to match are similarly
numerous – for Marshall alone, you can
dial in digital equivalents of cabs with
Vintage 30s, Stock 70s and
Basketweave-type with Greenbacks.
Line 6 has proprietary AIR modelling
technology, which is claimed to
accurately capture the tone and feel of
cabs, mics and studio room
characteristics, by which you should be
able to dispense with real gear.
In amongst that lot you’ve such
processing as compression, chorus,
tremolo, fl anging, reverb and delay. In
fact it’s what you’d expect from a Pod
2.0 but in a smaller box and without
MIDI I/O, balanced outs or the means to
attach a fl oorboard.
But you wouldn’t want to attach a
fl oorboard because this Pod doesn’t
belong on stage. In fact, you wouldn’t
want to drop it on the fl oor. Construction
is reasonable but lightweight – and not
suited for the rigours of performance.
Actually using it is a faff. Its back-lit
LCD single-line display is more
informative than the two-digit LEDs of
other Pod-type offerings, but dialling
through the presets means much
prodding of a D-pad to navigate
categories and presets.
It
is organised, though. Patches for
numerous modern Rock tones are
labelled by song title, so you can leap in
and dial up the right settings for the
guitar part of a favourite track and jam.
It’s diffi cult to assess their realism
without getting hold of the original
instruments, but they sound passable
played with a humbucker-equipped
electric guitar.
Sounds are also organised by type
and if you’re halfway into Rock, you’ll
spend a lot of time with the overdrive
settings. Some are harsh and rattly, but
many are big and bad, emulating valve
amps on the verge of destruction.
There’s a noise gate – which you’ll need
– and bass, middle and treble can be
tweaked, although this means pressing
the Hold button in order to reassign the
knobs, which is irritating.
The Tremolo effect is noisy – you
can hear it oscillating away in the
background during quieter moments
– but the chorus is tasty and the
distortion possibilities are immense.
True tweak-heads have the means to
defi ne open or closed-back cab designs
from the front panel, while nerds can
perform deep editing by attaching the
Pocket Pod to computer via USB and
using Line 6’s freely downloadable
Vyzex editing software (or download
more than 5,000 ready-authored,
compatible presets). But perhaps that
goes too far. The Pocket Pod could be
seen as a bit of a toy, but it has some
graunchy sounds straight out of the box
and might fi nd favour in space-starved
project studios.
It’s fi ddly in operation and a bit
noisy, but is priced at what you’d expect
to pay for a decent tuner. Oh and it’s got
one of those built-in, too…
WHAT IS IT?
Portable guitar-amp
sim and FX
CONTACT
Who: Line 6
Tel:
[phone]
Web:
line6.com
HIGHLIGHTS
1 Pocket-sized, battery
or mains
2 More than 300 presets
ready for selection
3 Good overdrive capability
SPECS
Supplied presets:
more than 300
Amp models: 32
Cab models: 16
Speaker sim: AIR
modelling technology
Effects models: 16
Guitar in: quarter-inch jack
CD/MP3 in: stereo mini-jack
Phones out: stereo
mini-jack
Amp out: quarter-inch jack
Data connection: USB
Battery power: 4x AAA cells
Mains power: 9V DC (via
optional DC-1 adaptor, £14)
Dimensions:
127 x 89 x 51mm
Weight:
170g
Line 6 Pocket
Pod
| £81
A guitar amp stack and FX unit that fi ts in your
pocket.
Karl Foster plugs in and Rocks out
VERDICT
BUILD
VALUE
EASE OF USE
VERSATILITY
RESULTS
Diminutive, but big-sounding, the
Pocket Pod performs well with
overdrive-type sounds.
FMU192.rev_line6 100 14/8/07 4:22:12 pm