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POD dumble simulator realistic?

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10/20/1999 4:37 AM

POD dumble simulator realistic?

I've been playing with a "pod" kidney shaped amp simulator, and there are a couple of presets that are supposed to emulate a dumble ods in clean, and overdriven modes. Has anyone who has heard a real dumble or dumble clone listened to the pod simulations? What did you think? I wouldn't expect them to be exact, based on the other simulations and amps I know, but are they close?

BTW, realistic dumble sounds or not, the pod is a great little unit for playing with headphones, and I would guess for some late night recording. Several things are not as flexible as on my roland gp-100 cosm amp simulator, but it has a very simple interface for selecting amp types, and effects, then emulating the speaker and mic effect to the tone, and trying to get the tone controls to mimic the actual amp type selected -- for example the tweed deluxe simulation is about a 6 or 7 out of 10 for realism, but only the treble tone control behaves like the single tweed deluxe tone control. the bass and mid are post eq tone controls and moving the treble knob actually affects the sound as if you were moving the tone control on a tweed deluxe.

10/20/1999 7:26 AM
GouxMan	I've played quite a few Dumble amps. I own a POD. I had no idea there was a Dumble simulation in it. That should tell you how off the mark it is. I enjoy the high gain simulations, and that is about it. The clean sounds and the effects are weak. It is great for recording direct if you need a high gain sound. GouxMan

10/20/1999 9:46 AM
Ted Matsumura	Did you get a pull out card in the back of the manual describing the presets? The Bank 8/B Boutique #1 is modelled (sic) after Dumble Overdrive Special Clean, and Boutique #3 8/C is modelled after Dumble Overdrive Special Drive. Other interesting presets are 9D - Soldano SLO, lots of various fenders and marshalls, and 8/D -- Buddha Twinmaster, lots of boogies and ac30 type presets.

10/20/1999 10:34 AM

Hi Ted,

A little off subject, but have you ever tried sticking a tube stage before the POD? I'm of the notion that putting a tube (at normally high voltages--not "starved")in the front or back end of these tube amp simulators aids the simulation to be more realistic. I have zero experience w/digital-based tube amp simulators, but I've taken output from the preamp section of a Marshall and put that into a SansAmp, and the sound was super fat and rich, and I've also recall reading(GP, I think it was) about how plugging the Roland amp simulator into a tube amp made the tube amp simulations more realistic, so I wondered if a more realistic result was the case in general when making this connection.

Dai Hirokawa

10/20/1999 5:35 PM

Hi Dai,
No, I haven't experimented with tube pre-amps only with the Pod. I have the ADA-MP1 which gives those '70/'80 crunch tones and uses 2 12AX7's, and I have an ART tube mic preamp which is a great gain device when using a mic.

The Roland GP-100 has 3 settings for output -- direct (no post post eq for specific amps, then tube amp preset (assumes rolloff on highs I think), then solid state amp. I've heard of folks having success with this directly into the PA or recorder (has -10/+4 options) or through sparkly clean amps (JC-120) or through tube amps, though I'd presume in a clean mode, since the unit has loads of it's own distortion character.

In addition, there are settings for type of cabinet (combo or stack) and whether to use speaker simulation or not.

Thanks,

Ted

10/20/1999 11:05 AM
Mikko	The best tone in POD IMHO is the POD Clean tone, when cranked up to distort. The best imitation is that of JCM800. -Mikko

10/20/1999 11:12 AM

Ted,

How do the simulations of the POD compare with your COSM preamp? Most of the POD sound samples I've heard are impressive (the models may not be exactly like the original but most models sound good), even samples from users' pages.

It would be interesting to have an amp simulator shotoout. I've been listening to some samples I've found on the net but a hands-on comparison would be much nicer.

The SansAmp samples I've heard (both from Tech 21 site and from users' pages) were miles behind the POD. Totally clean and boogie tones have some character and are usable, but they don't even come close to a tube amp. The Marshall sims are a joke. The Johnson samples I've found were OK but the quality of the samples (in Real Audio instead of .mp3) didn't help. The only COSM simulator samples I've found on the net were from a GX-700 user page and his taste for tones seemed questionable, so I can't do a fair comparison... I've not found samples for the Morley JD-10 and the Zoom 503, that are even more affordable than a POD.

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