Looking for opinions for those using a Guitar POD XT with your Bass

Going back to the Pod 2.0 days, and I assume much hasn't changed as far as compatibility with the two, but the patches are NOT meant for bass at all and sound rather poopy. However, with some tweaking, you can get some fairly decent sounds out of it.

 

I'd be more likely to recommend the regular PODxt with bass than I would the Bass PODxt for guitar.

 

I have an original POD that is my music interface for my computer. When I record guitar, I use its many emulations. It is also cool for sounding like you are playing through a wall of Marshalls at low volumes. For bass and vocals, I just use the Tube Preamp emulation--that's what it is there for. I haven't used the new POD, but I would be shocked if they got rid of that.

I also had a bass POD at one time. It wasn't near as useful for guitar as the regular POD was for bass. So I stuck with the regular POD. Again, I would expect similar results from the new models.

 

I don't use the amp simulations. I use the Tube Preamp simulation, EQ flat (I do that from the bass), add a little reverb or chorus if I'm feelin' freaky. That's about it. Sounds great to me. You can, of course, use the guitar amp sims with the bass, they don't have the frequency limitations you would find with a real amp. However, you will find the EQ centers to be quite strange for a bass. Play around and have fun; I'm sure you find something to your liking.

 

i record a les paul and an sg thru a bass pod all the time. a lot of the models won't be useful but some of them sound fantastic, like the hiwatt models. i don't think the hiwatt models on the bass pod xt are actually bass amps anyway, i think they are the "townshend/entwistle" era hiwatt amps, which i believe were guitar amps. but i'm not 100% positive about that. the marshall model works fine as well. if all fails you could just use the tube preamp setting with some eq'ing and effects and you can surely get a good sound.

go to your local guitar center or equivalent and play around with the bass pod using a guitar. because as with everything, YMMV.

 

I have the guitar pod 2.0 and have tried using it for bass. As a main direct box for recording bass, I don't like it and you'd be better off spending money on a used tube pre-amp or sans amp bass driver --IMHO. Even the pre-amp in a mackie is better, I think.

On the other hand, I have used it to good effect with my rickenbacker by running the neck pickup into a mic'd amp and the treble into any number of the guitar amps for distortion.

Hope that helps.

 

I just got a PODxt for guitar and running my basses through it actually sounds pretty good. The factory presets are poopy, but then again, factory presets on any bit of musical gear are usually poopy. Like others have mentioned, for bass I use the tube preamp model and go from there. The amp model-specific EQ's are, of course, based on guitar amps (and so they may or may not be suitable for bass depending on the tone you're after), but there's an additional, separate, 4-band semi-parametric EQ in the unit that really helps to dial in a sound.