Mystery effects pedal?

March 3, 2005 8:30 PM

Awhile back I saw Grant Tennille (Trans Am, Idyll Swords, Black Taj, Jimi Hendrix Inexperience) play guitar through a big, red, kidney-shaped effects pedal. I'm a certified Music Junkie, but an Equipment Ignoramous. Any idea what it might be? He seemed to get a variety of sounds through it (echo, vibrato), and one of my mates commented that it was a popular pedal to have. Little did he know I was considering getting one for him as a gift, assuming it can be ID'd.
posted by jenleigh to Media & Arts (9 answers total)

Sounds like you're talking about either the POD or the PODxt from Line 6.
posted by mds35 at 8:52 PM on March 3, 2005

Hmm if it's a multi-function (and assuming not a very vintage or hard to find pedal) it sounds like a Line 6, pedal. Not that cheap either, ~300 he better be a good bud.
posted by stratastar at 8:53 PM on March 3, 2005

Sounds like a Line 6 Pod XT.

You might want to sneak a quick peek at his pedal board before you spring for it, though. The Pod is a 'modeling' effect (and a very good one, possibly the best around), meaning it applies a computerized digital patch to achieve its effects. If his pedal board is all old analog effects, played through a tube amp, he might be one of those 'Death before modeling' people. It's sort of like the whole Mac/PC schism - there's no right or wrong, but people get into holy wars about it.
posted by ikkyu2 at 8:54 PM on March 3, 2005

Now that that's solved, I have a related query, I saw Omar Rodriguez-Lobez's (from the Mars Volta) pedal board (board hah! it's a a carpet!) a couple years ago and I was wondering if anyone had a list or a picture of what he has. It looked like an effects nirvana.
posted by stratastar at 9:13 PM on March 3, 2005

Not that cheap either, ~300

I own a bass Pod which has a somewhat different set of features than the guitar model, but there are a ton of very good effects crammed into a very small package with the Pod. It's a lot of bang for the buck, but yeah, it might be a bit much to spend on buddy's b-day.
posted by wsg at 9:30 PM on March 3, 2005

I had a Bass POD purchased used...and I liked it, but that particular unit proved unreliable. Behringer makes similar units for both guitar & bass at substantially less cost than the Line6s.

One thing that drove me crazy with the modeling units is a dropout as you switch between effects. I get around this by using a MIDI-controlled mixer from Akai (long "out of print") with the 2-rack-space Behringer Bass V-Amp for sludge and EFX plus a JoeMeek preamp for the clean tone.

Agree with ikkyu2 -- it's definitely a choice to go with a modeling pedal instead of good old tube torturing. I would think that the Pods and their ilk are fun to mess with at home no matter what one's predilections are, but usability on a gig is another matter.
posted by omnidrew at 11:55 PM on March 3, 2005

my vote's for POD too
posted by soplerfo at 6:15 AM on March 4, 2005

Although better for more mainstream stuff, sometimes guitar geek is good for this kind of thing.
posted by miniape at 6:36 AM on March 4, 2005

Wonderful, thanks for your help guys. I'm 90% sure it's the POD XT. Two of my girlfriends said they'd pitch in for this (used/eBay) pedal so I think it's a go.
posted by jenleigh at 6:47 AM on March 4, 2005