While the Line 6 POD GO is great right out of the box, there are some simple things you can do to drastically improve the sounds and feel of the unit. Turning on the guitar pad in global settings, using a buffer before the guitar input, using custom impulse responses, putting a compressor at the end of your signal chain, and getting custom presets made by others can really take your sound and feel to a whole new level.
1. Turn Guitar Pad In On
If you are using a guitar with high output pickups, or you feel your amp in the POD Go distorts too quickly, you should turn on the guitar pad in global settings.
To access the global settings, click both page buttons at the same time, and then click the rightmost selector below the screen. On the lower left corner of the screen, you will find Guitar In Pad, and you can turn it on by rotating the selector below it.
Doing this will activate a -6dB pad on the guitar signal before it hits anything in your signal chain and makes sure that you can get the desired tones out of your rig no matter what kind of pickups you’re using.
2. Add A Buffer Before The Guitar Input
While Line 6 hasn’t officially said anything about this, a lot of POD GO users have speculated online that the input of the POD GO sucks out some of your guitar’s tone before hitting your signal chain. Basically, rumor has it that the input buffer on the unit is rather bad, and it removes some of the high end from your signal. I decided to find out whether the rumors were true and added a buffered tuner in front of the modeler. I used the Peterson Strobostomp HD tuner, which has a great buffer built in.
And… did it make a difference to my guitar tone? Well, personally I do hear a small difference, and I could also feel it while playing, but it’s something I only started paying attention to after I read about the so-called ‘issue’ online. Before that, I was happily enjoying my POD GO and its sounds without ever thinking something was ‘messing’ with my tone.
Note: For this one, I recommend you check the video at the top of this post so you can decide whether the (possible) differences are significant enough for to you to sway you one way or the other.
If you are using a POD GO Wireless, you most likely don’t need to have buffer. I’ve talked to many several Wireless users, who have haven’t experienced similar buffer issus as with their units.
3. Get Custom Impulse Responses (IR)
Any guitarist knows (or at least should know!) that your guitar speaker cabinet has a huge effect on your overall sound. And, while POD GO comes with a plethora of different cabinets and the ability to tweak them, many users (me included) find them OK at best.
(Editor’s note: the contents of this article were put together before the big update in November 2022 where Line 6 issued a massive overhaul to the whole Helix lineup and especially their IR engine. I am assuming some of those updates were later issued on the POD GO as well.)
I don’t know about you, but I personally don’t enjoy moving the microphone in front of the cabinet one centimeter at a time and trying to decide which adjustment sounds the best, even in a virtual setting.
Custom IRs made by professionals can provide you with great sounding ‘snapshots’ of different cabinets and simplify the tone creation process by taking out the guesswork and allowing you to focus on recording or playing live instead.
So, if you’re like me, and would like to spend more time playing with great guitar tones instead of tweaking, go grab an IR pack from your favorite creator or musician, drop those into your POD GO and you’re ready to… play.
4. Use A Compressor At The End Of Your Signal Chain
For the sake of transparency, I didn’t come up with this one: I saw Rhett Shull demonstrating this idea in one of his videos. I was very skeptical at first, but decided to give it a try and it was exactly what I was looking for!
I grew up playing transistor amps first, and then tube amps later, and this means all my references of how an amp – or a modeler – should feel come from those experiences. And that was my biggest gripe with the POD GO: I was missing the responsiveness and dynamics that I got used to with real amps.
The idea itself is simple: you take a compressor, maybe even a studio compressor, and use that for slight compression as the very last block of your signal chain. I’m using the LA Studio Comp and it just works! The dynamics and responsiveness I were missing are there all of a sudden!
Now, some people might argue that you should actually place the compressor before your delays and reverbs, but I think there’s two ways to think of the compressor. You can look at it as something that’s there just to even out the dynamics a bit, or, in the LA Studio Comp’s case, it’s almost a mastering tool adding some if its own character to the overall sound while making playing touch more dynamic and responsive. Give it a try and see what setup you like the best!
5. Get Presets Made By Others
This can be a huge timesaver, especially if you’re dealing with a complex amp you’ve never used before. Take something like the Mesa Mark IV for example, where tweaking the treble affects how the gain works, tweaking the gain affects how much low end you can have, and tweaking the bass limits how much presence you can have… I think you get the idea.
Instead, if you have a certain type of sound in mind, you can pay a few bucks and get a preset pack from someone who has that amp, and who has taken the time to really transfer their amp’s sounds into the POD GO preset. These presets usually come with a matching cabinet as well, so you could get the whole rig into your POD GO in minutes.
Don’t get me wrong, I love discovering and getting inspired by new sounds I come up with. But other people think differently, and – for example – a preset that was meant for a worship guitarist inspired me to write a jam track in the style of John Mayer. So, presets not only save you time in getting the tone you were after, but can sometimes make you write something you wouldn’t have ever come up with without them.
Is The Line 6 POD GO Good?
At this point your probably already know the answer. I liked the POD GO as soon as I got it, but the tips above took it to the next level. I used my POD GO in the studio and live on stage, and I liked it a lot. Come to think of it, writing this article has made me want to reacquire a POD GO again, just because it was simple enough, yet versatile enough to do everything I needed.
If you’re interested acquiring your own POD GO and supporting what I do, you can find affiliate links here:
►►Get Your POD GO At Thomann: https://thmn.to/thoprod/483547?offid=1&affid=394
►►Get Your POD GO At Sweetwater: https://www.sweetwater.sjv.io/5ga6do
►►Download My POD GO Acoustic Patch And The Jam Track: https://www.catpickstudios.com/
Leave a Reply