Kemper & Atomic Amplifire vs. 20 Year-Old Line 6 Pod - Has Amp Modelling Evolved?

Fretwired

monquixote

Yes, yes it has.

Boromedic

I was awaiting this thread appearing tonight, I've had a Pod XT Live and I replaced it with an Amplifire. Before I sold the Pod I spent some time with both and there's no way the Pod sounds better than it, especially not with the IR capabilities, Lee dialed in some crap tones on the AF and that video is a very poor representation of it. Let's see if it stays up in its current format, or if they issue an update, he actually looked a bit surprised through the video like he almost felt guilty for how poorly it sounded. Mine sounds class on clean and the Friedman/Marshall patches, not so keen on the higher gain SLO and Recto modelling but then I never use them so I'm not arsed.

The Kemper is of course in a class of it's own but seeing as Andertons is an Atomic dealer I can't see Tom King being overly impressed with that video and how it demos his product. Especially as Chappers and Lee raved over the AF on it's release. YMMV of course but I'm not having it personally.....!

professorben

AF does not come off well here. 

IM surprised how good the pod sounds tbh. 

Niallseroreilly

Not much difference at all.... be honest

digitalscream

While the POD wasn't remotely accurate for anything more than the Fender, I have to say that I actually preferred the sounds it was making to everything that came from the Amplifire.

Fretwired

I still use a POD 2 as its simple to use and if I have 15 minutes to noodle its great. I also take Lee's point about fiddling. However, none of them sounded great which I put down to a combination of the tweaking and the way it was recorded. That said, Lee would probably be similar to your average bedroom noodler who'd end up disappointed. There have been a fair few Amplifire's up for sale. Perhaps @Boromedic has taken the time to learn how to use the Amplifire and get great tones from it.

Bill Nelson still records and gigs occasionally with a POD 2 ... clearly modelling has come a long way at the expense of usability.  I've actually gone the other way .. amp and a pedal board.

And for any Be Bop fans here's Bill with a classic hit with his Gibson through a Pod 2 bean ...

Boromedic

The POD is definitely easier to dial in as it has less options to fiddle with as Lee said, and I was never disappointed with the XT Live, I could just hear a jump in quality due to 3rd party IR's in the Atomic and more eq options. I have it sounding great for my purposes and stuff like the Marshalls and the AC30 sound really good. I was lucky that Michael Britt did some amazing patches so I reverse engineered his and made a combo of his and my own which was invaluable, left on my own I probably would never have made them sound as good.

It's just as easy to make stuff sound bad as it is good, Lincoln Brewster had some amazing tones from his X3 Live and other guys gig with them still. Horses for courses really, I just think that video is rushed and flawed in some ways, no skin off my nose as I'm happy but I'm not so sure that Atomic will be overly pleased......

RandallFlagg

POD wins

monquixote

In other news a ford fiesta driven by Lewis Hamilton is faster than an F1 car driven by Lewis Hamilton's grandma.

dindude

Enjoyable vid, although too many variables to be accurate. However, they all sounded a bit shit (as in fine at best but not exactly making the hairs stand up on the back of my neck), Kemper sounded best not surprisingly, the POD sounded reasonably decent, the Amplifier sounded horrid, almost like they forgot to turn the cab sim on. 

Love the simpicisty of the POD, would love a version with the same simplicity but updated modelling.

digitalscream

dindude said:

Love the simpicisty of the POD, would love a version with the same simplicity but updated modelling.

Mooer has you covered there.

guitarfishbay

dindude said:

Love the simpicisty of the POD, would love a version with the same simplicity but updated modelling.

Isn't that basically what the Helix is? More modern UI, but looks pretty simple to use 

dindude

guitarfishbay said:

dindude said:

Love the simpicisty of the POD, would love a version with the same simplicity but updated modelling.

Isn't that basically what the Helix is?

Not at all. I mean exactly like the POD user interface - that's all I want as I'd use it for headphone practice late at night. The Helix has a billion options, albeit a very usable interface.

dindude

digitalscream said:

dindude said:

Love the simpicisty of the POD, would love a version with the same simplicity but updated modelling.

Mooer has you covered there.

How so, what have I missed?

digitalscream

dindude said:

digitalscream said:

dindude said:

Love the simpicisty of the POD, would love a version with the same simplicity but updated modelling.

Mooer has you covered there.

How so, what have I missed?

I suppose I should've been more explicit - their preamp pedals offer the simplicity of the original POD (admittedly without the effects), two channels each, with a bypass-able cab sim. They actually sound pretty good (not just "good for the price"), from what I've seen around YouTube.

monquixote

I've tried a POD against an Amplifire and a Helix against an Amplifire and the Amplifire is streets ahead of the POD and pretty much on par with the Helix in terms of amp modelling IMO, but the big difference is in how user friendly they are.

Both the POD and the Helix are a master class in plug and play where you can get an awesome sound in minutes even if you don't know what you are doing. The Amplifire is more like the Axe Ultra I had for a while but worse in that it's complex, unintuitive and not fun to program and you really need to know what you are doing or you can produce some very shit and artificial sounds.

With the Amplifire the default and even the Amp Factory patches are completely unusable and nearly everyone I know who uses one just downloads the M Britt patches and tweaks them to their satisfaction because getting a really good sound out of it is just not a fun thing to do.

With all that said the Amplifire is the absolute best sounding, compact, cheap solution to put a guitar direct to desk and play a gig. I never got so many compliments about my tone as when I was gigging with one, but I never changed my patches once I'd set it up, never once used it for "fun" outside of a gig and it went up for sale the week I left my band.

tone1

I wasn't aware that Ricky Tomlinson played guitar

John_P

^ wis.      I need to watch the andertons vid but if they are getting a worse sound from the AF compared to a pod then something is wrong - it would almost take a special effort to manage that.     I'm still half tempted to get another AF as the sounds for the size are excellent. 

sweepy

Do the same thing with a guitarist that can play, sorry Chappers,bloody terrible guitarist  imho

Dominic

tone1 said:

I wasn't aware that Ricky Tomlinson played guitar

I already did that joke a few weeks ago
strange similarity .............guitar my arse