review
Line 6 Pocket POD
When I first saw the new Pocket POD and how small it was, I couldn’t help but think of a gadget I had back in the early 1980’s called the Rockman. Guitar players who were around back then will remember that the Rockman was a compact headphone guitar amplifier created by Tom Scholz, the guitarist from the band Boston (who also had a Masters degree in engineering!) When you plugged your guitar into the Rockman and played, you essentially had the guitar sound of the band Boston coming through your headphones. This was way before amp modeling and was very cool at the time. Still, it was limited to a couple of tones and effects that you couldn’t tweak.
The Pocket POD is also a portable headphone guitar amp (plus a performance and recording device), except this one is designed for the 21st Century and has more features and tones than you would expect to fit in such a small package. And instead of sounding like one band, it comes with tones programmed by several different bands (and enough others to sound like just about any band.)
The Hardware
The Pocket POD might fit in your pocket, but it would be a tight fit. It will, however, fit nicely in many guitar cases. It is about a quarter of the size of my PODxt. This makes it a very portable rig for practicing, yet still powerful enough for recording or going direct to a PA. It comes with a clip on the bottom so you can clip it to an amp handle, music stand, belt, or your guitar strap. Although clipping it to your belt or guitar strap pretty much make the controls unusable since they are awkward to see or access.
The control section has a nice backlit LCD display that automatically turns off after a few seconds of inactivity to conserve battery power. There is no on/off switch. Plugging in your guitar activates it — just like many stompboxes. Of course, leaving your guitar plugged in will also drain the batteries — just like a stompbox. Navigation of the presets and user banks is handled by a wheel, which you push up, down, left, or right. If you’ve ever used an iPOD, the experience is similar. There are four multi-function knobs and two multi-function buttons. The front has a USB port to access the downloadable editor software (a must for any serious tweaking.) The back has a row of jacks. They are 9-volt adapter, CD/MP3 in, headphone/direct out mini jack, 1/4” guitar in, and 1/4” amp out (which can also be set to direct mode for PA or recording use.)
The Software
The Pocket POD has 32 amp models, 16 cab models, and 16 effects. The amp models run the gamut from clean to high gain, and cover pretty much everything from jazz to metal. I think by now, most guitarists have probably heard a Line 6 product, so the Pocket POD will not be much of a surprise tone-wise. Line 6 modeling software is very mature, the amp models all sound very good, and you should have no problem finding a number of tones you like for most styles of music. Some of the high gain models were a bit noisy, but activating the very smooth noise gate kept hiss to a minimum.
The effects are single effects (tremolo, two choruses, two flangers, rotary speaker, delay) and dual effects combinations which pair the single effects with delay. There is also a delay and volume swell combination. The effects are all good sounding and fairly warm, although the flanger was a bit thin and had a pronounced filter quality to it that is not part of a standard flanger effect. And there is no phaser — one of my personal favorites. Overall, the most common effects are here and they sound good.
Presets
The Pocket Pod comes with over 300 factory presets, many of which were created by popular bands and studio musicians such as P.O.D., Maroon 6, Bumblefoot, and others. Plus 124 user presets that you can tweak and save. Presets are divided into three groups: User, Band, and Style. User presets are the ones you can tweak and save. Band presets are one created by musicians. Band presets can be tweaked, but they can’t be saved in their current location. They can, however, be copied to a user location, then tweaked and saved. The same holds true for Style presets, which include categories such as clean, crunch, heavy, effected, and song. I found the Style and User presets much more engaging than the Band presets, which had a few inspiring gems, but far too many generic sounding tones for my taste. Many sounded like they simply renamed a standard preset.
In Use
The Pocket POD itself is basically a preset player, and navigating presets is fairly straightforward. You can tweak tones and save them using hardware alone, but due to the limited number of controls, it requires a bit of finger gymnastics, as some actions require you to hold a button (or two) while you turn knobs. And the effects only have a single knob to tweak their settings. If you plan to do any serious editing, you need to download the free editing software from the Line 6 website.
I put the Pocket Pod to the test as a live tool at a morning church service. I programmed five tones and placed them in consecutive order in the User bank. I then stepped through them using the scroll wheel. Since the Pocket Pod is so small, I clipped it to my music stand and set the Amp Out jack to Direct Mode and ran it into a direct box, which was fed into the PA. It worked fine, although changing presets with my left hand was a bit awkward after 30 years of using my feet to change tones. While I think the PODxt Live is a much better choice for live playing, the Pocket POD can suffice in a pinch.
The Pocket POD can also be used as a recording tool using Direct Mode. All the amps and effects are there for the picking with no miking hassles. That is, as long as you have an audio interface. The USB port on the POD is for use with the editing software only. You can’t use it to record audio. This is probably not a big deal for most users who already have an audio interface, but it is worth noting.
I should also mention that the Pocket POD includes a nice tuner with arrows that show you which direction to tune (when flat, the arrows point right, and when sharp, the arrows point left.) Since the Pocket Pod will fit in many guitar cases, it could also replace your tuner.
Editing Software
The downloadable Vyzex editing software gives you single screen access to tweak user presets. You get much greater control over effects settings and easier access to everything. It also allows you to save individual presets or whole sets of presets. Clicking a button brings up a list all 31 banks of user presets, making it easy to select one without all the button pushing. Unfortunately, you can only display the User presets in list form, not the Band or Style presets. You can select a Band or Style presets on the Pocket POD and then load it into a User slot for editing, but you have to do it one at a time.
Using the software to create presets is a breeze, making the editor software essential in my opinion. The hardware knobs are best left to minor tweaks. However, loading and saving presets using the editor software is not intuitive, and definitely requires reading the pdf manuals that come with it. Once you learn how it works though, the process of working with presets is fairly straightforward.
Documentation
The included booklet covers the basics of how the Pocket POD works using the absolute minimum number of words and fewest illustrations possible. While this allows Line 6 to jam five different language versions into one tiny little booklet, it left me scratching my head on certain things. Like setting the Amp Out to Direct Mode, which required a few attempts to get it to work. Fortunately there is a downloadable pdf reference manual at the Line 6 website which goes into much more detail than the booklet.
Final Thoughts
Good things really do come in small packages and the Pocket POD is proof. Line 6 managed to pack a lot cool stuff into this little rig. Its small size does have its drawbacks, though. Editing tones is not as easy as it is on its larger siblings due to the limited number of controls, but the downloadable editing software makes this point almost mute. And clicking through banks of presets using a tiny wheel is no joy either. Still the Pocket POD offers huge bang for the buck and may just be the ultimate guitar case gadget.
Reader Comments
Better Guitar encourages your input. Agree with this review? Think I’m crazy? If you have used a Pocket POD, email me your comments and I’ll post them below. The more opinions we have available, the better our buying decisions will be.
Jim
I have owned a Pocket POD for over a year. I also own a Pandora PX4. I find that the Pandora is much more versatile and easier to program than the Pocket POD. Plus, with the PX4, you also have the 32-second looping function to work out improvisation over chord progressions and imported audio. So, as someone who owns both, I find myself using the PX4 over the Pocket POD with very few exceptions. The Pocket POD is a nice little unit, but you should make sure to try the PX4 (now the PX5) first. You could probably find a used PX4 on eBay pretty cheap these days.
Jim Hickey
I own a Pocket Pod and use it every day for my guitar and bass lessons. I have found it to be very reliable as I have had no problems over the last few months of heavy use in an education setting. I haven't used it live in performance but I have tested it plugged into a PA and it sounded killer. It sounds real good out of the box. I haven't tweaked any of the presets because it came with useable and well-balanced tones for my needs. I will be putting some better bass sounds together, however, because those are pretty bad.
stats
- • Over 300 custom presets dialed in by popular bands like Maroon 5, P.O.D., 311, and more
- • 32 classic and modern amp models
- • 16 cab models
- • 16 effects models
- • 124 user preset slots
- • Built-in tuner
- • Battery powered
- • Downloadable editing software
Positives
- Great sounding amp and effects models; built-in tuner; compact size; works well for practice and recording; excellent value.
Negatives
- Limited number of physical controls makes editing via hardware somewhat awkward; clicking through banks of presets with tiny wheel is tedious; editing software only shows User presets in list view, not Band or Style presets; requires AAA batteries.
Rating
- Performance: 8
- Sound Quality: 9
- Construction: 9
- Overall: 8.7
Ratings Key
- 0 = Worthless
- 10 = Excellent
Approximate Street Price
- $129
Available At Guitar Center
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Line 6 Pocket POD Guitar Multi Effects Processor Standard
Company
- Line 6
Sound Samples
- Click here to listen to Pocket POD sound samples at the Line 6 website.