Hello Folks,
 
First and foremost, please forgive me, as I do not frequent these forums too often unless I have an issue that I can’t seem to figure out. I’ve done some forum searching, but I wasn’t able to find any helpful info so far.
 
I’m sure this issue has been beaten to death here, but I’m trying to figure out how to get POD Farm to work *correctly* with SONAR (or at all for that matter).
 
My setup:
 
I’ve got a PC with Windows 7 Pro x64, running SONAR Producer 8.5. Pod Farm version is 2.5 (I THINK…would have to double-check after work). My mobo has built-in sound which is disabled, and I’m using a POD HD Bean as my interface / soundcard. I’m also using ASIO4ALL drivers.
 
The problem I’m having is that more or less any distortion tones in POD Farm only seem to play clean. This is 100% the case with any downloaded ‘custom tone’. As for the presets, or new tones that I create, the distortion is there, but it is extremely weak sounding.
 
I have the same issue if I use POD Farm on its own. If I just use the program itself to jam, I get the same issues with distorted sounds…the presets just sound incredibly weak, or usually have no distortion at all. I’ve tried messing with the settings, applying updates, uninstall and reinstall, all to no avail.
 
On another note, I’m interesting in learning about Impulse Responses. I’ve read up about them and watched a ton of Youtube videos, and the tones that some are able to record, particularly for metal, are amazing. I’ve downloaded a couple different loaders, but every time I load any impulse it’s either zero distortion, or the lag is horrible (or both).  There was one set of impulses that were meant to emulate a bunch of Metallica tones. The videos that I watched with these sounded very close to the actual recordings, but when I loaded them into SONAR, again, either no distortion, or the tone was not even close to the 'song' it was intended to replicate. It's my assumption that there is likely just a bunch of user error on my part, so here I am :-)
 
I guess I’ve gone off on two separate tangents here, but any info is greatly appreciated! Thanks for reading,
 
Shaun

Hi Shaun,

Maybe you've already checked that but, just in case...

There's an input meter and a knob to adjust the incoming signal on the upper left-hand side of POD Farm's GUI, just above the gate section. If for some reason that knob is turned too low, you'd typically get a processed signal that doesn't sound as distorted or overdriven as you'd expect.

Sometimes it doesn't look like it's turned down all that much but, for example, if that knob is at 12 o'clock, you're effectively trimming 12 db's off your signal. Enough to make a patch sound weak. On the picture below as you see, my input gain is at 0 - no boost, no cut.





You may also want to make sure that the noise gate isn't set up so that it eats away your signal. Again, you may have already checked that, but it's worth mentioning.


That's the first thing I'd check.


As for impulses... These are meant to be used in conjunction w/ an amp sim. The impulses themselves are like snapshots of speaker and cabinets. You still need to feed them w/ something that sounds like an amplified signal. 


Typically, you'd place an amp sim like Pod Farm or Amplitube or Guitar Rig before the impulse loader and disable the cabinet emulation in the amp sim.


Let me know if that helps. :)

Rain,

Thanks for the reply. Yep, my input signal is at 0, and if I crank it all the way up to 18, it still doesnt sound like true distortion (though it overloads my speakers just a bit). 

I just tried numerous presets that I assume would be heavy distortion (Master of Puppets, 80's Metal Rhythm, Insane Scoop), all of which just sound terribly weak. I can go to Help --> Hardware and Driver Settings --> Inputs & Recording Tab --> Put a check in the "+18db" box, which does help, but overloads it. I've got both sliders on that same tab page at about 90%.

Is it possible that the ASIO4ALL driver is causing the problem?

I assume you're plugging your guitar into the POD which is USB'd to the computer. Hace you tried using the POD ASIO drivers instead? Then you can use the POD settings in Control Panel and the POD's ASIO driver settings to make sure the audio routing is correct. Since the POD lets you record dry or wet, with options to reamp etc. you might want to check this out if you haven't already. Some of these settings but not all are also available in Gearbox. I haven't used this in 64 bit yet so I don't know if all the Line 6 software works on 64 bit systems.
 
For what it's worth, have you tried running another amp modeler like Amplitube or Guitar Rig (whatever) to see if you get the same results? This may help you figure out if it's a routing/hardware problem or if it's only happening in Pod Farm.

You might also find help in the Line6 forums:
http://line6.com/support/community/support/pod_support/pod_hd

Why are you using ASIO4ALL rather than ASIO?

Hey guys, thanks for the replies.

Stoons - You are correct. Guitar into the POD, and the POD is USB into the PC.  I have tried Guitar Rig in the past, but never really liked the tones for recording (I usually prefer to record a dry sound / no effects). In any case, Guitar Rig's tones never seemed to lack distortion, at least not anything like POD Farm does.

Kev999 - It's been a while since I got this setup, so I don't remember specifically why I decided to use the ASIO4ALL...I recall having some kind of problem though and upon google searching I learned of ASIO4ALL and I must have learned somehow that it would fix my issue.  It may have been a sync / lag issue, or getting SONAR to recognize the POD...again I really don't recall though. 

I'm going to mess around with the drivers again since you brought it up. I'll try uninstalling ASIO4ALL and start fresh.  Again, many thanks!

Shaun

Okay, uninstalled ASIO4ALL, and I'm now just using the POD asio drivers. Still no luck though.

I went through about 50 of the "high gain" presets in POD Farm. Some of them actually DO play the distortion well, but it is laggy. 

I went ahead a created a new tone, chose a JCM-900 Amp (Brit Gain  J-900 Dist), but even if I turn the gain and the volume all the way up, there is zero distortion. Now if I hit the 'power button' on the amp while strumming, I can hear an audible difference in the tone, so there is something being processed, but definitely no distortion.

I don't care much for the Line 6 forums. They are impossible to navigate, and there are tons of threads regarding the same issue I have, and all the Line 6 folks just tell people to update Windows, then reinstall POD Farm...which is asinine. I've gotten more help here in 1 day than I ever got over there :-)

In order to hear the effects, you have to turn Input Echo on. Its the button on the track next to M S R. Sonar does not record the effected sound, just the sound of the guitar. If you're using the Pod Farm and want to preserve the effected sound on a track, you just need to Edit-Bounce to Track and a new track will be created with the effected sound. 

Dave is on to your problem.
1st you must use the most up to date ASIO drivers that can be found on the Pod Farm web site.
You mention a lag, that's your round trip latency.
You need to set your monitoring correctly.
It sounds like you are only hearing the unprocessed signal which means you have your signal path set wrong.

It sounds like you might just be recording and outputtng your dry signal.
 
This is how I do it.    I use Line 6 UX2 Audio interface for recording guitar, they are cheap at around $150 (obviously your POD HD will do the trick too).   I have a FF800 as my regular sound card but the Line 6 hardware is excellent for avoiding latency and monitoring your guitar work in real time.   I tried the other route using Input Echo but I don't like it, there is noticeable latency even at low settings.   I just never got good results that route either.   As a side note,  I put a compressor in front of my Line 6 to give it a little beef going in.   Makes a huge difference.   There is a recent thread on the Techniques forum about this topic.
 
Open Podfarm 2.5 in stand-alone mode.    Check your Podfarm Mixer to make sure you have your settings for Channel 1/2 Wet and Channel 3/4 Dry.  I always leave my stand-alone PodFarm instance running with my "Preset"  selected when recording in Sonar.   When I record in Sonar I always record two tracks, Track One is recording the Channel 1/2 Wet Stereo Signal from the Podfarm Mixer and Channel Two is recording the Channel 3/4 dry signal from the PodFarm Mixer.   Using this method allows you to hear the part and record it in realtime, and, also capture an identical dry track that you can tweak later by adding a PodFarm, or other VST instance, to change the amp, effects, effects settings,  etc.....    Usually I end up just using the wet recording but have the flexibility of using the dry signal recording to change things up if need be.
 
Hope this helps.