# Line 6 Pod for ambient vocals (feedback?)



## tuttermuts (Oct 23, 2015)

Hey guys

We're currently using a digitech vocal300 which does an "okay" job but the sounds are kinda cheezy at times, it tends to feedback quite easely and I'm looking for something a bit more in depth and proffesional so to speak. Also footswitch layout, the up/down selection is horrendous if you have mulitple patches to go through.

So I realised, hey most newer pod models (hd and whatnot) have a balanced xlr input. Maybe that could be an option? My question to you guys is, have any of you tried this? My main concern is, will it feedback easely? I noticed in the manual there's a noise gate and a "hard gate" (would that one help perhaps?)


Anyway any input would be welcome.


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## Audacis (Oct 23, 2015)

I'm using the Pod HD 500x and it's most likely a good option for vocals. Since it has routing for 2 inputs at once, you could even run your guitar through it while doing vocals too, if you don't mind sparing a few effects blocks for each.

It's got an entire bank of patches dedicated to stuff like bass, acoustic and vocals (and guitar/vox together), but you can customise the entire layout to suit whatever you want, so I guess it'd be worth a shot.

For ambient though, I imagine you'll want some delay/reverb, in which case, it's got you covered. The Octo and Particle verbs are pretty nutty, but you've also got the option of having harmonies and such with the pitch shifters. A combination of those will get you some out-there sounds.

The gates are pretty good too. The regular noise gate will most likely be your go-to for vocal stuff, since the hard gate can be pretty abrupt if you drop below the threshold. Hard gate does have separate open and close thresholds though, so I guess it could be combated by using a close threshold several dB below the open threshold.


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## BlueGrot (Oct 31, 2015)

The reason for feedback isn't the quality of the gear, but rather that you're feeding some sort of signal that is going to destroy your gain before feedback-threshold. If you have distortion on a vocal mic it's gonna pick it up really easily, and I'd strongly advise against doing this unless you have a competent tech. Atleast forget about bringing distorted vocals to your monitors.


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## GunpointMetal (Nov 3, 2015)

Just like any other effects device, you need to set it up with the volume/system you plan on using. That DigiTech can do a TON of stuff with little to no feedback if you build your own patches and cut a lot of the compression/gain effects back for live use.


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## tuttermuts (Nov 3, 2015)

GunpointMetal said:


> Just like any other effects device, you need to set it up with the volume/system you plan on using. That DigiTech can do a TON of stuff with little to no feedback if you build your own patches and cut a lot of the compression/gain effects back for live use.



Yeah I did build some patches from scratch, set all the gains/levels just the way they're needed to not feedback. And it'll hold up "ok". 

However, it still doesn't solve the footswitching problem.

Also (to the other reply) by "ambient" I don't necessarily mean to use distortion or amp sims... I mean ambient as in, lots of reverb, some octavers, volume swells, I guess you could almost say soundscapes. You get the idea.


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## BlueGrot (Nov 4, 2015)

Check your levels, don't compress.


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## mongey (Nov 4, 2015)

I've played with a few singers with floor effects units and they all have feedback issues 

biggest problem usually is singers don't know what they are doing and set everything up super wet 

one of them had a tc Helicon voice live 2 unit and that was by far the best effects I've heard out of the bunch


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## BlueGrot (Nov 4, 2015)

Which is again why you put dry in your monitors. I do FOH 3-5 times a week, times I've put vocal fx in the monitors? 3 or 4.


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## ZXIIIT (Nov 4, 2015)

Years ago, for my super short Industrial project, I used a Line6 Vetta II head for vocals and effects.

Worked well.


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## giantchris (Dec 15, 2015)

Could always use a Laptop/DAW/midi controller setup and just use plugins and toggle with the midi controller. You could probably use a MicroKorg or some sort of synth with a vocoder to do what you're asking too (like the Novation Ultranova or something). Otherwise I'd imagine the POD would work fine I used a lot of PODFARM 2.5 for the vocals on my last solo album and it sounded pretty great especially on the last track of the album. You can do some pretty cool panning delay on PODFARM. The prices on the POD X3's are way down and they do the same as PODFARM 2.5 I'd probably get one of those.


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## KingAenarion (Dec 23, 2015)

The TC-Helion stuff is really the way to go for live vocal processing. Seriously good stuff.


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