Liberation

You know how it is with the digital effects unit out there- they don't sound appealing plugged into a guitar amp. It gets more repulsive if your amp is a small, practice unit. However, for that same amount of money, you can invest in studio monitors which were conceived to manifest clarity & detail. So that's the story yesterday, I went down to the City Music year end sale to purchase the Kurzweil KS-40A; $95 for a pair of no-nonsense sonic liberation. My Line6 Pocket POD sounds superb through these, you'd do well to at least check them out at City Music, there are many monitors to consider for some worthy prices. 

The chemistry with these monitors is that they possess drivers which are not instrument-biased. This means, the drivers are there to bona fide manifest whatever's plugged into them; the reason they sound superb with television, computers, music players, etc. Your digital effects units would highly likely contain amp & cab emulation patches which require a good source of voicing manifestation which is the specialization of these monitors. Just look at it this way- plugging in amp simulation into an amp- that's not quite a successful formula especially when it involves an overlap of inputs.

Smash POD gate screamer

I still get much enjoyment over a simple set up as seen above. I also get very inspired listening to tone generated by non-guitar specific drivers, the reason I love the X-mini speaker so much. This had been my set up since Monday (17/1):

• Guitar: SMASH S2 Lite
• LINE6: Pocket POD Express
• Beta Aivin: NS100 Noise Gate
• Ibanez: TS7

Silent performers (part 2)

It's inevitable that we addicts, have this urge to just grind/shred late at night without shattering the night's tranquility, of course. We are also cultured & educated enough to be mindful of others hence my set up above. The tone coming out of the headphones may not be pristine but it keeps me going.

My Edwards is plugged into the TS7 & Pocket POD which has a ready headphones output. Peace prevails...

pocketPOD + Mini Twin

Connected my pocketPOD to the Mini Twin today & that's the set up I maintained throughout the day. The PP managed to manifest itself well through the amp's very small speakers which goes to show that this device overpowers the amps it's attached to- which ever speaker/ amp hosting the PP would sound like the PP...

Simple enjoyment

I've been playing with the above set-up for nearly a week. It's amp-free, totally devoid of any tube-enhancing ear candy but more importantly, it remains attractive. There are many ways to acquire a favoured tone, it's just that some people think certain employments are more righteous than the rest.

The double

There are FX units out there capable of producing a doubling effect where the output generated gets doubled either in unison or in actave displacement. Some of us get inspired to play by hearing such technolgy in use. I was moved to experiment on this doubling effect by plugging my hollow-bodied Ibanez AF105 into my Pocket POD. The driven output volume was tweaked to match the guitar's inherent acoustic volume; this effect alone is enough to trigger some ideas & make me play differently in terms of technique & notes selection.