First it was Blackstar, then Egnater and now this...
 

This morning I got my weekly ad from American Musical Supply and, usually, I'd immediately delete it. However, I actually read the ad today and saw this...

http://www.americanmusical.com/Item--i-BOS-JS8

...it is the Boss eBand JS8 and I feel that this may postpone my amp quest due to the fact that it may achieve the goal I've set for myself in my previous thread, 'Torn between Blackstar and Egnater....'

"I will be, primarily, playing at home still learning to become a better player..."

Obviously, it's not an amp but even with the orginal idea of getting an amp, I was planning to practice with the use of backing tracks.

Has anyone tried this product? If so, did you think the product was useful for playing through backing tracks?

It's going to sound like hard boiled shit.

If you want to play with backing tracks, get a POD to connect to your computer, or just get some decent speakers to play the tracks from your computer while you play along with the amp.

That unit only makes sense if you don't own a computer. It's just a backing track machine with a crappy amp simulator. If you own a computer you already have both of those things.

If that's all you need for practice, why not save a few bucks and just grab an interface? You can grab a Line 6 UX1 for under $150, which comes with amp modelling software that will allow you to record/practice through your PC.

+1

Thank you for the honest opinion, I really appreciate that! Couple of things though...

1) The speakers on the JS8 can't possibly be as bad as the speakers on my laptop (will be replaced sometime in 2013), thus I'd rather bypass the laptop by using the standalone unit.

2) I'm currently ampless other than the amp feature on my Rocksmith (Xbox) video game. Just need to have the ability to practice while my wife is watching TV.

1. That's ok, but do you really want to spend $350 just for the speakers? You can get some monitors to plug in for way less than that.

2. I suppose if you want to do backing tracks without plugging into a computer, it would be fine. Still, a POD is going to sound a lot better and will be a lot more flexible if you can just use the backing tracks from your computer. You can plug headphones into that rig and have a pretty nice tone going on.

I guess I'm just uninformed on how PODs operate (I'm old). I was under the impression that PODs/GT 10s/GT 100s would need an amp to operate.

They also have a headphones out and mp3 player in :)
If you dislike headphones you can always plug some pc speakers in there instead.
Also check out the boss micro br.
They seem very nice for peace and quiet practicing and recording and roc is right about the js8.too much coin for what it does.
You can easily slow down songs on your laptop as well and play along with a better unit.

i don't even want to know what made you think of that. :o

Good lord, $369? Why not go get a Zoom G3 or something. It's got a drum machine and a 40 second looper with overdub.

I can recommend the POD UX1 myself. It is a very handy piece of kit for less than $150. The POD Farm software it comes with is also very useful. In addition to instrument and headphone jacks it also has power Mic input in case you ever get a real microphone. That and some monitor speakers seems like a better way to spend your money.

Plus the Pod Farm interface is very cool looking and easy to work with.

or you can download backing tracks, burn them onto a cd and run it through your stereo. that is what i am doing at the moment.

^ that's even cheaper :eek:

Or you could kidnap Eric Clapton and force him to play backing tracks AND teach you guitar. 2 birds one stone.

Me and my buddies used to have an imaginary band called the Sassages (like 'sausages') where the lead player was a kidnapped Eric Clapton.

The amp sims are pretty good, too.




Lol. Sassages.

fender g-dec, those things are awesome

http://chicago.craigslist.org/sox/msg/3185211310.html

http://chicago.craigslist.org/wcl/msg/3159862275.html

Thank you for the suggestion but I don't gel with Fender products. :)



Since last night (and this morning) I've been reading up on the Line 6 POD's and I'm somewhat intrigued. However, I'm trying to figure out the advantages of the GX, UX1, UX2, and the POD HD. They seem to be the same (at least to me) with price being the only difference. Thoughts and suggestions are appreciated.

Quick answer is (and people please correct me where applicable) is that the POD HD is more of a 'floorboard' or pedal board that has lots of effects and amp simulators (sims) in it. It may have a USB or such to record out and it can be connected to a real amp.

The UX1/UX2 is like a big external sound card that attached to your PC. You use it instead of the computers sound card to convert and render audio signals. Like I said it has Mic in, instrument in, headphone out, mono out, etc.

The GX I believe is just a stripped down version of the UX. The UX2 has 2 mic ports instead of 1. If you never ever will have an external microphone the UX may be overkill. Both come with Pod Farm - which is the software you need to run it. Pod Farm also has effect and amp simulators that you can drag and drop to the floor and play through those either via headphones or computer monitors (speakers). I've never done the back track scenario but it would be hard to get that going. It does not have looping functions like the HD probably has and other products including Fender GDECs and Peavey Vypyrs and bunch of other things.


Here is a screenshot of my Pod Farm that I took recently. I have the tuner engaged.






Don't rule out something like a GDEC, Mustang or Peavey Vypyr. I owned a GDEC and thought it was a nice piece of kit.

My apologies but the POD HD I was speaking of is the desktop model...

http://line6.com/podhd/desktop/models.html

Unfortunately I would have to rule out the Fender as I'm looking for a unit that I can carry in my gig bag.