Looking for the equivalent of . . .

Yeah, have to say I'm looking forward to the dual tone feature when I get myself one. Apparently it takes a while to mix and match amps that go well together, not as easy as Line 6 makes you believe the process is.
I imagine you can't use a vintage Marshall against an ENGL Powerball amp model perhaps, might be muddy, I imagine you tend to do things like pair together a Dual Rectifier on one side, and the Triple on the other side, to get it sounding tight and consistent, but I guess I can't be sure until I own the X3 myself. 

I see. Well, then I may just go through with it.

^Yeah, mainly what I'm wanting this for is that really dreamy ethereal quality that guitarists get through paring up different reverb effects with a volume pedal, haha. This thing seems to have all lf that and much, much more for me to experiment with. According to you guys, I can always put real pedals to it later on if I feel I can't get the sound I want out of it. For now, though, I know it will suit me just fine.

Thanks for the helpful insight, guys!

The wah is simply an ideal pedal to use externally because it can be combined with any amp setting, and it automatically deactivates when you're not using it (at least my Morley does). If for example you were using an external tube screamer stomp box with the X3, you would always have to switch it off/on when switching to/from clean/distorted settings in the X3. Which is something you'll want to avoid ... one of the nice things about integrated solutions like the X3 is that when you want to switch to another sound you only have to press one button.

^ I don't think that the X3 Live would be "fragile" on the road compared to tube amps ... rather the reverse. Tube amps are quite fragile actually, the tubes can break, fuses blow etc.. Plus when you use a tube amp, you always have to mike it properly, and setting up that microphone , making sure that it doesn't pickup noise etc. can be a real pain in the ... .

BTW: You can use any external effect with the X3 Live. Like any other serious modelling amp it has effect send/returns, and you can always use stomp boxes and wah pedals as you would with a tube amp (plug your guitar into the wah and connect the wah's output to the X3 Live). In fact, I would recommend using an external wah pedal, because that frees up the expression pedal of the X3 for other effects.


Edited by Mr ProgFreak - February 12 2009 at 01:18

So to answer the questions in your 3rd post, I'll be completely honest, and you should sell your amp on ebay, and with that money,  buy a Behringer Ultratone K18000F keyboard amp. These things run at 300 USD according to Musicians Friend, and it's a serious bargain for something that does that job far better than you expect at such a cheap price, and shouldn't take you long at all to get the money for it especially if you can sell the guitar amp.
It has a 12 inch speaker and 1 inch tweeter and weighs about 44 pounds, yet it packs 180 watts, which is what you want in a solid state amp because you need the headroom to be able to crank them without the sound clipping in that horrible way solid state amps do when you turn them up full.

Remember that you need 10 times the wattage to get double the volume (not taking into account other factors like speaker efficiency etc, this is purely about the wattage right now), so can get 50 per cent more volume from the K18000F. But.....my main point is, having 180 watts that you wont ever need to turn up to full is far superior to 30 watts, because you do not need to push the amp into the clipping red zone, which is what would cause your Randall to sound really crap even before it gets particularly loud.

Okay, we have that covered.
Now onto the next part.

Can you use a Line 6 X3 Live with real external effects pedals?
You bet you can. Fortunately, unlike the amp modeling units of years ago, the X3 Live can react very well if you put a good pedal in there.
Examples of pedals you would want to use with an X3, would be an effect not featured on the X3 (such as a pitch shifter) or perhaps you feel the inbuilt noise gate sucks (which I think does and so do many other high gain users) so you can attach your external noise gate pedal, like an ISP Decimator for eg.
That said, personally the only things I would attach to an X3 is an outboard noise gate (which is only really necessary for those who use really high gain, but otherwise non essential for many other guitarists and those with active pickups or a Variax) and pitch shifter.
Basically, everything else, Delay, chorus, overdrive pedals etc, it's all contained in the X3 already

The amp simulations.........well simply put, they will not compare with the real amp they are based off.
I'll explain this in a bit more depth.
The X3 Live can "sound" like a tube amp, but it doesn't "feel" exactly like one though.
What this mean is, you can record an X3 Live,  put it in a mix with other instruments, fine tune it a little with EQ-ing, and you will be able to fool people into believing it's the real deal. That is how good it's potential for recording is.
Some people on forum boards post up clips and say "it was recorded through X amp" and then later they admit it was actually done on the POD X3 Live, but no one could tell, because it quite simply sounded pretty much as good as a real amp that was recorded via a microphone. This is partly the reason why I'm buying one myself, because not only do you get such an incredible array of amp sims and effects, but it's simply one of the most powerful recording tools on the planet for recording guitar and when you factor all that in, you can see what great value for money the device is, despite what appears to be an initially moderate-high cost, you truly do get your moneys worth.

Where the Line 6 gear falls down, is when you play live and rehearse in a band.
This reveals the limitations of the amp simulations in trying to get that tube amp sound.
The amp models simply don't have the same amount of dynamics as a real tube amp, and certain other subtleties you get with tube amps, just aren't there with the Line 6 gear.
Even the most hardened Line 6 gear fanboy admit this too, to add weight. Nothing in the amp modeling range I've heard from Boss, Zoom, Line 6 or Korg sounds quite like a true tube amp.
For this reason, you simply wont be seeing many guys who can afford a good tube amp using a Line 6 POD on stage for their main tone.
I've talked to many guys, and I'm not talking about newbies, but guys that have been gigging for years, and they have tried both modeling and tube amps back to back, and what they found is that the tube amps simply cut through better and respond to pick attack and playing dynamics more.
But since I myself, and I imagine you, aren't on the biggest budget ever, I'd honestly sacrifice that bit of tube amp feel for something more versatile, something that doesn't need to have tubes changed which costs money and something that is far easier on the wallet.
Some guys I know are actually running their X3 Live into a tube power amp, through the speakers of their choice, and for them, it brings the tone closer to a tube amp and warms up the sound too.

And how does it tie into the Keyboard amp though, you must be wondering?
Basically, an X3 Live can be run into anything, a guitar amp, bass amp, keyboard amp, PA system, a home stereo system if you have the necessary connections, which makes it a versatile, whereas a guitar amp, well, it only does it's one thing.
Through the keyboard amp, you can turn on the cabinet simulations on the X3 Live and this is what makes the X3 Live able to run into anything, because you can simulate the sound of a guitar amp and speakers through anything you want.
All you need to do, is to plug the X3 Live into the keyboard amp, dial up a guitar amp simulation and speaker cabinet simulation, and compared to your Randall amp, you will be truly blown away by how much better it sounds.
I guarantee you will like the X3 Live because of how much of an improvement it will be over your current rig.

p0mt3 wrote: ^No, I completely understand. Some would probably say that it's better to have your equipment up to par before you upgrade your instrument, but I've always been one to bo a bit backwards. Hell, that 500 Dollar Jackson Dinky I have was the first guitar I ever bought.   Yeah, it has an effects loop, and it sounds okay I guess for the price, but the clean channel crackles alot, and when I run my guitar through my DODFX40B EQ, it crackles even worse on the clean channels, and overkills the hell out of my distortion tone.  Not sure if that's because my pedal has something wrong with it, or my guitar does, or it's my amp, but yeah . . . lol.

Hey, no bashing on your Jackson, it's a good guitar in all honesty, great for it's price as I've said.
Well, hold on a bit, I have my full reply in another browser tab almost ready.

Ahh okay.
I'm assuming no effects loop then, or am I wrong there? I was expecting you had something "a little more" than that, no offense intended btw by that, because I'm simply trying to see what you've got to work with right now and anyway, I know plenty of people that don't even own an amp at all but play guitar, so you're lucky I guess
If it is the case you have no effects loop, that means the 4 Cable Method is not available for you to use, since it needs an effects loop.
Well, since I know this much so far, that does help me to get around to answering your questions a bit better.

Edit: well,  I think you mean the RX30D, since the DX30 doesn't seem to exist.
I've also found out it has a series effects loop.
Although yeah, I used to use a RX 75( the same thing really, just a 75 watt model of your amp) for band rehearsal since at the time it was either that or a Marshall AVT 100 (which btw is a very crap amp for the price if you're wondering, could never get a decent tone out of it). It sounded fairly clear I guess, but the overall tone was not good enough for me to want to keep using it, no amount of EQ-ing, pedal boosting etc, could make it sound good, so I stopped using it entirely.


Edited by HughesJB4 - February 11 2009 at 22:22

rileydog22 wrote: HughesJB4 wrote: For the price, you will probably not be able to beat a Line 6 X3 Live. It's a recording interface solution, amp/cabinet and effect modeling unit. Seems to be 500 USD at Musicians Friend. The Toneworks is a complete turd compared to the Line 6 to be brutally honest. The Boss GT-10 is also around the same price as the X3, but the general consensus is that the high gain tones are nowhere near as good as the Line 6 stuff. Hey Mike, get off Harry's account!

Mike never mentions anything about the GT-10, if you've ever followed his posts:P
And unlike Mike, I would prefer a Fractal Audio Axe FX anyway;)