which way to go...

Hi Everyone,

I recently had a bunch of gear stolen (from my church no less!) and I'm looking at ways to replace the sold items. I had a Boss Delay Pedal (dd-3), a boss tremolo pedal (TR-2), a Digitech Bad Monkey Over Drive, an old Boss DS-1 from 1979 (one of the earliest models), a Boss TU-2 tuner pedal that I used to supply power to all of my pedals as well as all of the little cables for connecting each pedal to the next.

I went into my local music store to check on replacement costs, and certainly wasn't excited by financial implications...

However, I also discovered that for pretty much the same price, I could buy a PodXT live - which has stomp box models of everything I could want and more. Plus, because of all of it's extra functions, I could trade in a few of the other pedals I have at home that I'm not using, which would make it cost even less than replacing my pedals directly.

I am currently running into a Fender HRDx most of the time (sometimes a Pro Jr.), and I likely wouldn't use the amp modelling function a lot in a live setting, since I like that amp - but I would use the effects in it all of the time. It seems to me that I would use the amp modelling stuff for recording though, so it would give me a bit more versatility in the studio (I currently use a behringer V-Amp 2 for a lot of home recording)...

So I'm wondering what might be the best way to go. To re-purchase my boss pedals, or to "upgrade" to the podxt live... I'm on a tight budget, so I can't look at getting "better" individual pedals than what I had before. The XT sounded great to my ears, but first impressions are sometimes decieving. I'd love to hear from people who have played with both types of set-ups.

Any experience, advice, etc would be very helpful.

Thanks!

Patrick

The budget constraints seem to already answer your question.

Digital Delays are always "fake" sounding in my book (compared to old tape delays), but most people use delay for it's spacey sound and NOT for a touch of that old rockabilly "slapback". The POD can do this equally or better than your old pedal.

ODs and Distortion pedals always sound bad to me UNLESS they are slightly pushing a TUBE AMP anyways. POD will have more distortion flavors than 2 pedals could have.

Tremolo is pretty much (more or less) uncomplicated, so pedal or POD could fit the bill.

So, in this scenario I would say go for the Pod thingy.

1. It's portable (1 unit instead of many).
2. Power supply issues are alot less than many pedals.
3. It's easier to keep on you so as to avoid another theft.

I hate using effects, I own them and sometimes have to use them for certain jobs, but in my book - simplify.

I know it's almost an "antique", but you can pick one up cheap and it has everything you need and then some - I recently purchased one because I started playing in a cover band and need something more than my blues set up of 'wah - OD - Trem'

I own an XT Live but I haven't even tried it yet for an effects only application through the front of my tube amps. Not sure why, maybe I should give it a shot. It's probably cause I have about 700 dollars in my little pedal board and I don't want to risk it getting beat out!

I tried the amp-modeled settings and they didn't work through my amp. They did sound pretty cool through the P.A. though.

The bonus of the XTL is that you get a great headphone practice amp recording toy thingamajig. It also sounds pretty darn cool through a home stereo or any kind of monitoring system and you don't have to crank it.

Here's the Line 6 forum link. A lot of these guys will be biased of course, but you'll probably get more responses from people who've spent time with the unit in that application.

http://www.line6.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi

I would think the church's insurance would cover the replacement cost.