Review of the Line 6 Floor Pod

12 Oct 2009

Features of the Line 6 Floor Pod

This new incarnation of lovely Pod technology is housed in a durable-looking plastic case. The three chunky footswitches occupy the lower half and the control knobs sit on the upper half. Between the two is a sturdy metal bar that prevents your Doctor Martens from squishing the knobs.
The controls are topped with the standard silver Line 6 knobs and run in an arc from right to left:

Amp Model - This selects the amp model in use from a bank of 12 (turning it fully counter-clockwise turns off the amp model selector and allows you to page through sixty factory presets). The amp model selector has six labels; Clean, Class A, Classic, Hi Gain, Treadplate and Insane. Each has a red and a green light setting. Let's take a look through them one by one.

Clean red - Line 6 hybrid of valve and solid state sound. This has an almost glassy tone;

Clean green - Based on a 1965 Fender Twin Reverb. There's an excellent brittle-edged quality to this voice;

Class A red - Based on a Vox AC30. Engage your neck humbucker and wallow in Classic Rock Heaven;

Class A green - Based on a Budda Twinmaster. A heavier and more complex rock sound. Deeply satisfying;

Classic red - 1968 Marshal Plexi. Another drool-worthy classic rock selection. There's a lovely sense of air and space no matter how hard you drive the channel;

Classic green - A reproduction of a Fuzz Face pedal run directly into a PA stack. Break out your Telecaster and play "Satisfaction";
Hi Gain red - Based on a Marshall JCM800. An excellent clear and heavy sound with great definition and top-end;

Hi Gain green - A Line 6 original valve-sound emulation. There's a great depth of tone here that progresses towards the menacing as you crank up the drive;

Treadplate red - Mesa Boogie Dual Rectifier. A huge brooding overdrive for the heaviest of heavy rock;

Treadplate green - Added depth and Balls with more eq available for extra bottom-end;

Insane red - A Line 6 invention. Overdrive Lunacy;

Insane green - Based on a Soldano this is extreme overdrive with a touch more soul than the red setting.

The next control is the Drive and Compressor (holding down the Alt button engages the second function). Next along are the Bass / Mid and the Treble / Presence.
Then there are two knobs to control the Smart FX. The first rotary is 'off' when turned fully counter-clockwise. Turn it slightly to the right and the Chorus/Flange light activates. Turning the knob further increases the intensity of the effect until you reach 10 o'clock where the effect switches to Phaser. This in turn increases in intensity until you reach 2 o'clock where the Tremolo is activated, increasing in intensity for the rest of the knob's sweep.

The next knob in the Smart Control FX section works in a similar way but activates Delay, Tape Echo and Sweep Echo. All delay settings are set to time by the Tap button in the centre of the unit.
Then comes the Channel Volume / Noise Gate. The Volume control is used to balance settings that you save.
The front edge of the unit contains the usual "back panel" features. These include the input and output (this can be configured for stereo output and can also be tailored for direct inject to board or output to guitar amplifier). There's a small Master Volume control to set the overall level of the outputs. There's a headphone output (please always turn the Master Volume to zero before connecting headphones, then work back up from zero to get the appropriate listening level), the power in from the supplied adaptor (don't use anything else) and an input for CD or MP3 player.
In the centre of the unit is an LCD display flanked by two soft-touch buttons. One is the save button (hold to activate alternatives on main control knobs), the other is the tap function to set delays (hold to activate tuner).
The first two footswitches page up and down the presets. The third footswitch bypasses all amp models and effects. Hold down the bypass footswitch and the functions of all the footswitches change. Footswitch 1 toggles on or off the gain boost and footswitch 2 and 3 toggle on or off the modulation or delay effect within a preset.
The expression pedal on the right of the unit can be toggled to act as a wah-wah or a volume pedal.
There are 60 presets and 4 additional blank spaces for your own. However you can write over any preset so you could end up with 64 completely custom voices. Many of the factory presets are too mad to be of any real use but I managed to find some really nice usable tones, notable 1-High Gain Basics, 8-Clean King Flanger, 12-Classic Phaser, 17-Clean Verb, 24-Bring on the Dawn, 35-Hairy Treadplate, 46-Clean Flange, 47-Rockin' Lead and 55-Wide Open Spaces.

Overall Impressions of the Line 6 Floor Pod

As ever with Line 6 products I am mightily impressed by the sheer scope of resources there are in this little unit to assist the creative musician. It will take you months to explore the full range of sounds and effects available. But I feel the unit is worth its price-tag simply on the strength of the amp models alone. If you play a wide scope of musical styles the convenience of owning a good amp modeller is a matter of common sense, the addition of the versatile Smart FX functionality makes the Line 6 Floor Pod an absolute bargain. 

Review of the Line 6 Floor Pod by The Man in the Jar