D. Tone has digital clipping

Below are step-by-step instructions to determine the exact source of the clipping and eliminate it. For more info on the types of clipping that can occur in the Pod, see the "clipping" section. This covers every area where the tone may be clipping, including input clipping, digital signal clipping, effect clipping, "digital clipping" on "full" amp models, and clipping external devices. Additionally, you may want to read the gain staging or the elusive clean tone sections

. Note, it might not sound like digital clipping if you are using a guitar amp and speaker cab, rather than running "direct". If something isn't right with your tone, you may want to give this section a read just to make sure this isn't your issue.

1. Start by verifying all your cables and guitar electronics are not an issue. Plug them into something else and verify you get a solid, clean tone from them - no pops, cracks, grit, or filtering in the tone. once this is verified, only plug in one cable from guitar to pod guitar input. Use headphones to monitor the output. Keep the big knob labeled "Master" on the Pod at around 20-40% - most headphones will be plenty loud at this volume. If you have high ohm headphones, you may want to turn them up a bit more. Just don't push them to the point where they might be distorting as well. Finally, verify you are using the correct power supply - using the wrong one might get you a signal, but it can be all messed up tone-wise. This eliminates false positives for the tests below.

2. Verify you do not have input clipping. Set the pod's signal chain to have all null effect blocks and "no amp" selected. Verify the mixer levels are 0 db and panned hard left/right for each channel. Set your pickup selector to your bridge pickup (unless you have a louder one) and strum the guitar about as loud as you'd want to play it. Lower the guitar's volume knob and try again. Repeat. See if reducing the guitar output level cleans up the signal.

   • If the clipping doesn't clean up and you are 100% sure the issue isn't your guitar's electronics or your cables and you're not driving the headphones too hard, something is wrong with the Pod. Try a factory reset, then re-update the firmware and try again. If the issue persists, there may be a physical issue with the Pod or with the power supply. Test with another power supply if possible. If that's the issue, replace the power supply. Otherwise, you probably have to have your Pod serviced.

   • If the clipping cleaned up as you lowered the guitar volume knob, you were overloading the pod's A/D converter. The best way to clean this up is to lower your pickups. You can also try using the pad switch, but i find it doesn't do very much and changes the tone in a bad way IMO. You can also change the input impedance settings to lower values, but this will likely change the tone, perhaps in a way you do not like. The final option is to get some kind of pedal that will allow you to lower the signal level before reaching the Pod. Any other tweaks in the Pod will do absolutely nothing to dial out input clipping. Tweaks such as changing Input 2 to Variax happen after the A/D converter, after the tone has reached clipping.

   • If you are using external effects in the Pod's effects loop, you should test whether you are overloading the effects loop return A/D converter the same way. While the Pod's software does provide receive level controls, I do not know if this control an analog attenuator that buffers the signal before reaching the A/D converter or if it is a digital algorithm implemented afterwards. If the latter, the clipping will be in the signal before reaching it, and the clipping cannot be dialed out at that point. The best way to eliminate this is to lower the final output of the last effect in the external chain.

3. Verify you are not clipping external gear. If you have effects in your effects loop, try to send a rather weak signal back to the Pod by lowering the output of your last external effect to verify that you're not clipping the effects loop return input on the Pod. Then lower the effects loop send level on the Pod and see if any clipping present cleans up - this would indicate you were previously clipping external effects. Also try testing each external effect one at a time. This issue might be one of the external effects clipping another one, which has nothing to do with the Pod.

   • If you are connecting the Pod to a real amp using a 1/4" unbalanced cable and are running to the front input of the amp, you will likely get clipping unless you set the line/amp switch to amp and are conservative with the "Master" knob. If you are running into the amp's effects loop return/power amp in, you can give it more juice, but you can still clip a buffer for such inputs. If the tone becomes nasty when you move from the headphones to the real amp, try dialing back the Master knob to see if the tone improves. Same goes for running to a PA/mixer using XLR outputs.

   • If you are connecting to a DAW digitally (SPDIF, AES, USB), verify in your audio interface that the levels are not clipping the DAW. SPDIF has send level controls in the system menu. For USB, there is a control panel for the Pod HD driver you can pull up in your computer to adjust the USB volume. I think the default is +18 db which seems ridiculous - turn the boost off. Generally if your Pod isn't clipping, your DAW shouldn't either - they should have a matching digital signal resolution. Don't worry about sending the DAW a super strong signal - even if it's quite weak you're not losing any precision since it's a digital floating-point, signal. Boosting inside the DAW is the same thing as boosting inside the Pod.

4. Start adding stuff to your signal chain while verifying you are not exceeding the Pod's internal digital resolution. Anything in the signal chain that affects volume has the potential to push the signal's amplitude beyond the precision of the Pod's digital circuitry. I believe this is 24 bits, which is quite large. The two obvious ones are the Amp/Channel Volume (Volume Knob) and the Mixer levels. But many other things will boost the signal as well. Delays and Reverbs can add a little volume. The Mid-Focus EQ's default settings heavily boost the signal, and any of the EQ's can boost the signal with certain settings.

The Pod uses digital algorithms and a digital signal. Unlike analog circuits, where you want to gain stage each piece to near clipping to get the best signal-to-noise ratio, the Pod can convert from low to high and high to low signal levels without losing precision or adding noise. So it's best to keep the signal level conservative, far away from digital clipping.

5. Be aware that certain effects in the Pod will clip even if you aren't clipping the overall signal level. The Parametric EQ is particularly troublesome here. Try toggling effects on and off and see if the tone improves and if the problem is related to overall signal level or a particular effect.

• Maximize the tone for analog outputs, if applicable.

  • You want the signal to be as loud as possible at the end of the signal chain (without clipping as mentioned above), before it is converted from digital to analog, in order to get the best signal-to-noise ratio. But if the patch has a Parametric EQ behind the amp, this means you have to keep the amp volume knob conservative to avoid clipping it. I do one of two things to work around this issue. For a mono single-amp tone, I put all my post-amp effects after the amp but before the Mixer. I use the Mixer to boost the signal level and pan to center for that channel, and I mute the other one. If I want a stereo tone or dual amp tone where that option isn't available, I try to put a Studio or Mid-Focus EQ as the last effect in my chain and boost with the Gain parameter (this has no effect on how much EQ'ing is happening). I get as close to clipping as possible, and I test it with a few different guitars and style of play to make sure no aggressive playing or certain notes don't push it into clipping.

  • You want the Master knob to be set as high as possible to achieve the best signal-to-noise ratio, but you have to balance this against clipping an external device. Follow the same guidelines as above - you definitely want to be below clipping but try to get it as high as possible.

• Certain full amp models model crossover distortion in their power section such as the Blackface Dbl, AC15, and AC30 models - it sounds similar to digital clipping. I find the best way to dial this back without altering tone is to use the DEP (deep editing parameters). Turn Master down and Bias X up. Other methods to reduce the clipping is to reduce the amp Drive parameter, change Input 2 to Variax (or Mic or some other null input), or put a Studio EQ in front the amp model and turn down the Gain parameter. See here for more details.

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