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Joined:
September 2004
Posts: 1180
Location: Vermont USA | Hi anyone familiar with the Line 6 pocket Pod or the Korg Pandora PX4D.
Thanks Pauly |
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Joined:
January 2002
Posts: 14127
Location: 6 String Ranch | nope |
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Joined:
May 2009
Posts: 325
Location: Utica, NY | I have the Pandora and as a cheap, compact practice tool I like it a lot. I don't use it as much anymore but when we used to travel away for weekend jobs I'd have this and my laptop and was a great combo for headphone practice and play-alongs. It has built in rhythms, a tuner, is pretty tweak-able (although I never bothered). I believe that it has a pitch/time shiftable phrase trainer but would have to consult the manual because I have never used that either.
Really, all I wanted was a small unit that I could play through headphones and pump in an outside source and that's what I have. The sounds are 90% useless for my liking but I can call up a couple decent distorted sounds and a couple clean sounds and that's all I really need. More often than not these gadgets have far too many options to be practical anyway. I use it with both electric guitar and bass.
If you can find one cheap I think you might like it. |
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Joined:
May 2009
Posts: 325
Location: Utica, NY | I gotta tell you, I had not heard of the Pocket Pod but after some quick searching I am intrigued... |
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Joined:
October 2005
Posts: 4075
Location: Utah | I've got the Pandora PX4. It's the electric guitar version, not the acoustic version, and it is not the latest iteration (which has twice the memory).
It is superb considering the price. I use it numerous ways. First, it is a travel headphone amp. It is stereo and has some nice stereo effects such as chorus and reverb. So through headphones it sounds really nice and lively. Second, I have gigged with it. The emulations of different amps are quite good really. The church band played a variety of sounds, so one song would be old tube distortion, the next high gain transistor amp sound. The Pandora allows you to use pre-programmed sounds (which are pretty good), plus you can tweak those or make up your own and then store those. So I would store the different sounds in sequence so it was simple to go from one tone to the next from song to song. Just plug it into the stereo or mono PA and you're good to go. Finally, I use it for recording. Putting a mic in front of an amp is better, except for the neighbor's barking dogs, kids yelling outside, and the tv on downstairs. So many times I just plug into the Pandora and then plug that into my interface box.
It does not have a fake digital dead sound like some amps do with their emulations. It's really pretty good. For acoustic guitar it works fine by just deselecting any amp emulations and using it as a clean headphone amp. You can add in reverb or chorus etc if you want.
It has an aux in mini-plug so you can plug your MP3 into it and jam along. The weak point in the technology, at least in the older version I have, is the recorder. Mine does up to 32 seconds of fairly poor recording. You can loop it, and change the speed without changing pitch, to either learn a tough passage from your MP3 or to jam along with a chord progression you record from your guitar. If you want a gizmo to slow down recordings to learn them, the Pandora will do it but with fairly poor fidelity.
The drummer is ok, not great. The tempo, meter, and style can be selected. For jamming it is usable, but honestly I never mess with it. It would not be suitable for any kind of professional live performance or recording application.
Battery life is 15 hours approximately, using 4 rechargeable AAA alkaline batteries.
If you get one used, be sure that it comes with the factory standard clip for your guitar strap. It is really handy to clip it on and be able to walk around. |
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Joined:
September 2004
Posts: 1180
Location: Vermont USA | Well I am going to try and find a pocket POD to try. That seems to be the better choice.
Pauly |
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Joined:
May 2009
Posts: 325
Location: Utica, NY | Originally posted by Paulcc1:
Well I am going to try and find a pocket POD to try. That seems to be the better choice.
Pauly Please let us/me know wht you think as I am very interested. |
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Joined:
September 2004
Posts: 1180
Location: Vermont USA | My plan is to see what it will do electric and acoustic. As I am a little crazy and love to color my sound at times, could prove to be fun.
Pauly |
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Joined:
May 2009
Posts: 325
Location: Utica, NY | Originally posted by nervous:
I have the Pandora and as a cheap, compact practice tool I like it a lot. I don't use it as much anymore but when we used to travel away for weekend jobs I'd have this and my laptop and was a great combo for headphone practice and play-alongs. It has built in rhythms, a tuner, is pretty tweak-able (although I never bothered). I believe that it has a pitch/time shiftable phrase trainer but would have to consult the manual because I have never used that either.
Really, all I wanted was a small unit that I could play through headphones and pump in an outside source and that's what I have. The sounds are 90% useless for my liking but I can call up a couple decent distorted sounds and a couple clean sounds and that's all I really need. More often than not these gadgets have far too many options to be practical anyway. I use it with both electric guitar and bass.
If you can find one cheap I think you might like it. In the last couple weeks I was able to find a Line 6 Pocket Pod and was able to compare it to the Korg PX4D that I currently own. Having heard the clips online and reading the reviews I was ready to fall in love with the Pocket Pod. That just didn't happen. First impression out of the box was that while very slick and shiny there were things immediately noticeable that didn't build my confidence in it's quality. First the control pots were very 'stiff' and difficult to operate. Small and slippery did not help their cause. The 4-way selector also had a poor feel and was sloppy. I didn't love getting around to find sounds. There is only a 1/8" headphone jack and no power switch. The sounds were OK but often (to my ears) just a different fuzzy variation to the same theme.
The Korg on the other hand does have a power switch, a full size headphone jack and a better build quality throughout. Controls feel better in use and there are more of them to make use more intuitive. The sounds are OK and are very tweak-able. It's smaller footprint is also a nice thing for me. The front-side inputs and outputs are also better to me. Combine that with the Korg's built in learning tools and it makes this the winner in my house. The Korg is also holding it's value very nicely I found.
That said I returned the Pod immediately and put the Korg back into use. |
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Pocket POD