[shemuggah]

hello. i figured i'd post it here since some of them are pretty basic questions. i've been playing guitar for about 6 or 7 years, but simply out of a schecter plugged through a peavey 5150. moved in with some buddies, in an apartment. jamming just aint the same, because the 5150 is extremely bassy even and low volumes. and the tone simply thins out when its so quiet.

my buddy has a line 6 spider III i think? one of the spiders. its a cool little amp. i've never been much for digital amps because i feel at higher volumes the tone gets buried by everything especially tube amps. but its nice for bedroom jamming. anyways after viewing some a buncha youtube videos, and listening to some sound clips on here (travis[kirkpetrucci] from threat signal in particular) i want to get into mixing my own stuff onto a computer.

basically, i'd like to get to know how to use my buddys POD XT live, and figure out how people get all these tone patches. anyone know of a good how-to guide on how to really get this thing going? alot of the guides go right over my head because i'm not very good with all these fancy buttons and wires and plugs. also i'm after a good set of headphones. i have some decent sony ones that are really comfertable but after plugging it into my buddys line 6 spider, the tone sounded terrible. is there some good ones were the tone will come through just as crisp as it would coming out of the speakers? basically i'm setting up for alot of bedroom jamming. i'd like to get this line 6 set up, plugged into my comp, with headphones on, and playing straight into some good mixing program. any help would be appreciated.

[VA-Exception]

If by patches you mean other tone presets, then download a bit of kit called line6 edit from the line6 website along with the appropriate drivers for your OS, connect your pod to your computer,open it up and then have a fiddle with the various tone presets via your computer. Only you will be able to define what tone is 'crisp' so just have a play around, chances are if your new to it then it might take some getting used to but the rewards are awesome. Pod's are powerful tools.

As for headphones i recommend Bose around-ear headphones. They are a bit pricey but well worth it, about £70. Great Acoustic equalisation and bass resonance

[KholdStare]

My first post around here, but what the hell... been lurking around for a while

When you say you want to get into recording, do you mean full-fledged songs?
You're going to need a DAW like Cubase or Protools or whatever to do all the
sequencing and mixing. Another thing, amps rarely sound good through headphones
by themselves, so if you want to jam in your own privacy, you'll just have to
settle for that type of sound. Of course when you start recording, mixing and
double tracking, things will start to sound much better

Also, for headphones... I wouldn't recommend Bose unfortunately, they're too
overpriced and more for the consumer, than mixing and whatnot.
I highly recommend AKG K240ST headphones, they're the standard monitoring
headphones, and you see them in MANY professional studios, AND they're relatively cheap
If you intend to monitor in loud environments such as next to a loud amp, you
could get the AKG K271, the K240's isolated brother

Good luck man, and I'd love to answer any more questions you may have

[JBroll]

I wouldn't recommend Cubase or Protools right off the bat, for price and learning curve reasons. But you're right, there's a huge difference between a sound that's good on its own and a sound that's good in a mix, and learning that is very important.

Jeff