C. The Pod hd's eq Effects

I mainly use the Parametric and Mid-Focus EQ's, and occasionally use the Studio and Graphic EQ effects. It's a bit more difficult to tell exactly what the 4 Band Shift EQ is doing, but it seems to mildly duplicate the bass/mids/treble/presence controls on the amp. Making things more difficult, many parameters are expressed in terms of "%" rather than db, HZ, or normal Q coefficients like octave ranges. NO THANKS TO LINE 6, some community members have researched these EQ's and provided documentation of how they are actually operating, which I present below. Here are links to this stuff: EQ analysis video by Matt Mayfield and Thread on Parametric EQ Frequencies. BROKEN LINK Here's a new thread by pfSmith0 on the new Line 6 forum, who most graciously allowed me to host his beautiful images here. Check them out below (and click to magnify them). They're absolutely amazing.

With the EQ tools on the Pod, you can't really fine-tune the higher frequencies. You can boost or cut them as a whole, but not dial in or out small frequency ranges. The Parametric EQ's "highs" parameter is a shelf EQ starting at about 1.5kHZ. Setting its frequency parameter at 100% will only get you up to about 4.7 kHZ. The Studio EQ has 3, 5, and 8 kHZ settings for the high frequencies, but it does not have an adjustable Q. The Mid-Focus EQ's low-pass does extend almost all the way to 20 kHZ, but is very sensitive to the frequency control as shown below. Also, you can only cut, not boost. You'll likely have to do a combination the amp model's presence and treble controls, along with some combination of controls just mentioned to fine-tune your high end. Starting with a good cab/mic choice and cab DEP settings is absolutely essential.

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I. Graphic eq

This is the most straightforward of all the EQ's. You just adjust the gain on the 5 fixed bands, which are clearly denoted in HZ. One thing to be aware of is that this EQ is not tone-neutral at default settings - it seems to add a slight bright boost even when everything is at 0 db.

I like this mostly for pre-EQ'ing my tone before it hits the amp. I have good control over whether I want more upper or lower mids and can also balance the amount of thump vs. punch, which allows me to thicken the tone without making it muddy. It would also work well to provide final EQ to a clean tone; however, I usually don't use it post-amp on my high gain patches, because I don't have enough bands to fine-tune how I want, at least not for the brighter half of the spectrum. Sometimes I use it to balance the upper and lower mids and punch, though.

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II. Parametric eq

The best effect on the Pod HD IMO is the parametric EQ. My only regret is that Line 6 doesn't make a dual parametric EQ, that ditches the Lows/Highs parameters and instead gives you another set of Freq, Q, and Gain controls; so you'd get two EQ's in one effect block (and you use less DSP). Its biggest problem is that it measures frequency in terms of percentage, instead of HZ. Here is the best translation I've seen, done by community member alpernar. His results seem to agree with the video Matt made which I linked above. The results I got seem to be a little higher than them, but I trust their results over mine. 2 beats 1.

%	Freq (HZ)		%	Freq (HZ)
0%	50		55%	1150
5%	75		60%	1400
10%	105		65%	1670
15%	135		70%	2000
20%	175		75%	2300
25%	220		80%	2750
30%	315		85%	3150
35%	395		90%	3600
40%	540		95%	4000
45%	700		100%	4500

 

The gain seems to provide +12/-15db for the parametric band. As for the shelves, the low shelf has around +/-15 db of gain, with everything below 100 HZ flat and a slope from 100 HZ to 200 HZ. The high shelf has around +/-12 db of gain, with everything above 2 kHZ flat and a slope from 1 kHZ to 2 kHZ.

I'll almost always use 1-3 Parametric EQ's on all my patches. No other EQ controls allows you pinpoint exactly a certain frequency range to boost/cut. This can be useful to make the entire signal brighter or darker, add a slight or dramatic mids cut/boost, add a touch of presence, suck out a boomy or fizzy spot, etc.

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