The "Digital Sounding" Problem with Multi-effects Units

[MadWerewolfBoy]

I've heard a fair share of complaints and analogue purists who would condemn multi-effects units for their seemingly digital-ish sounds.

Well, I happen to troll around the Line 6 Pod X3 forums to find out more on how I could make my pedal sound more raw and real (not that it sounded bad in the first place... just wanted better) and I sort of found this (@ work... what a slacker I am):

Line 6 Support : Pure magic: get rid of the fizz! ...

I'm starting to think that it is indeed true that this inherit upper fizz that plays a huge part in multi-effects sounding digital. I was just trying to EQ my pedal yesterday to remove this characteristic (which was quite subtle but still felt, through my flat-response head phones) and did ended EQ'ing (with the inbuilt post EQ), coincidentally, similar to those posted in that thread... The results were nothing short of great because now, when I feed my mp3 player some masterfully mixed songs (such as Nightwish's Poet and the Pendulum) into my X3's input and play my guitar with it, my overall output is comparable to the tracks' guitars.

We all know great EQ'ing will make a track stand out but few of us (at least us guitarists) have had the chance to get hands-on experience with parametric EQ'ing. I would highly suggest everyone to hear what multi-effects units sound like after post-EQ before commenting on the digital-ish sounds though!

Now... Time to hunt for a great Para EQ unit because the inbuilt one in my X# is quite limited... Anyone has any recommendations?

 

[Whitestrat]

I've done recordings thru a PODXTLive which I used to think is very digital. But after recording into a USB port, and having the file level matched, but not EQ-ed, the guitars actually DON'T sound digital to me at all! But that's direct to PC recording. Most of the time, we try to replicate what we hear on CDs, but we don't realise that the actual in-studio sound might not be like that at all. The quality of the mics, mixers and sound engineers all play a part in making the track sound fantastic.

I remember a movie on Def Leppard where they recorded their first album with Bob Rock (I think it was Pyromania). The pre-mix and post mix were so different, it was impossible to recognise the band if you knew how they sounded pre-mix...

 

[PatheinRaindropMoe]

its kinda like using a ge7 after metalzone...

try using a graphic eq if having difficulty to find parametric eq in the market.

I dont remember seeing much "new" produced para eq in recent years, other than morning dew or the bjf one.

Boss, korg used to have para eq, but its been discontinued.

 

[Xypher]

Nice info there.. I shall try it on my pod and see what its like, later or tmr morning.

Anyway, I am using my podxtlive throgh altec lansing desktop speakers.. Is it wise to spend $500 on a set of monitors or is it not worth it

Does playing guitar through the speakers damage the it? When i play with a higher gain and do chugga chugga palm mutes, the bass gets a little overwhelming for the speaker and the some kind of fuzz-out can be heard.

 

[MadWerewolfBoy]

do you have a separate subwoofer?

 

[Xypher]

Yea.. my desktop speakers have a subwoofer.

 

[lunarsoul]

Nice info there.. I shall try it on my pod and see what its like, later or tmr morning.

Anyway, I am using my podxtlive throgh altec lansing desktop speakers.. Is it wise to spend $500 on a set of monitors or is it not worth it

Does playing guitar through the speakers damage the it? When i play with a higher gain and do chugga chugga palm mutes, the bass gets a little overwhelming for the speaker and the some kind of fuzz-out can be heard.

A decent pair of monitors is definitely recommended if you wanna get the best results from your PODxt Live. Ordinary desktop PC speakers are not designed to handle that kind of high output distortion sound.

 

[MadWerewolfBoy]

I really doubt so... I think in this case, you have EQ'ed your sound wrongly. You may have EQ'ed your sound on an amp or speakers with lack of bass and as a result, over mixed your bass. What you should be hearing through your desktop speakers should be the exact same thing you're hearing from your favourite metal mp3 tracks (assuming you're playing the same thing)...

So maybe you could cut down on your bass on your pod, around the 100Hz and below frequency.

 

[Whitestrat]

Anyway, I am using my podxtlive throgh altec lansing desktop speakers.. Is it wise to spend $500 on a set of monitors or is it not worth it

My PC speakers are fine. But when I do my recording, I use headphones which are connected to my POD. It filters out external ambient noise.