Yeah I am nuts. . . .
As the lone guitar player in my band, I run two different (but similar) amps/cabs panned hard left & right. This gives a great double-tracked / dual guitar sound that really fills out the sound field. I also have a fair number of patches that fade between clean and dirty amp settings. When using patches that fade between amps, I don't get the double-tracked experience, which can be a quite noticeable change (even when using stereo cabs and the enhancer). I also want to get rid of the dropouts when switching patches and have a better spillover experience.
Why stop at one or two amps, when you can run four?
A couple of the suggestions above mentioned using an ABY box (or splitter), which is something I'm considering, but would rather minimize the amount of gear in my signal path, which is why I was hoping to use the digital out of the XL fed into the II.
Seems we think a bit alike. In my case the whole "double tracked" thing gets taken up a notch. Left side is JTV Variax modeled sound while right is JTV mag pickups. So now instead of slightly different amps with different cabs, I also have different sounding pickups in each side. Example, neck p90 on mags with neck mini hum on a semi hollow modeled guitar. Just sweetens the whole double track faking. One sid is delayed 8-20 ms depending on the patch.
My second Axe is still in Miami waiting for me to pass through and pick it up but I did some messing around with the second POD providing the amps sims. Of course it will be better with second Axe and having scenes set up on both. But adding more small differences in left and right tones makes the double tracking trick a bit better. Say 69 spring from POD on one side and studio reverb from Axe on the other. If I do a delay, I can put analog delay block on one side and tape or digital on the other. Again small differences added up makes a more wide or 3D doubling. You get a weird effect when using mags and models at same time panned hard left and right. On most patches the guitars sound wider or closer depending which strings you are playing. ON one patch for example if I oplay just a descending pentatonic scale, the two "guitars" sound closer on high e and b, then seems to get wider on g and d, then getting closer back on the a and low e. On other patches the high e and b sound "wider".
Because the PODs can change input routing on a patch by patch basis, there are other cool options available. I was messing with one sound that used the Echolution 2 to sort of simulate the "bubble" organ part common in reggae. When I was messing with it, I was traveling and only had POD desktop with me. I was able to have the Echolution generating the "bubble" while I just did the hits and the 2 and 4 or the ands depending on how you are counting. Sounded cool, but because it was just a POD both the guitar and "organ" had leslie effect and pitch effect.
One of the first patches I am going to try and program will be a combo organ and guitar type deal. With mag pickups on the neck for a fatter sound going into one POD/Axe combo. That combo will have HOG 2 in POD fx loop to get that hammondish deal going, then the Axe will have echolution 2 and mobius in loop to do the leslie and "bubble".
That leaves the other POD/Axe combo for straight guitar sound. Maybe a modeled strat position 2 with Phaser. Sounds cool in my head anyway.
The day I brought the HOg 2 home I messed with it a bit. Rig was not done yet and still is not complete. I didn't have the mobius or Big Sky or the switchblade GL to do the routing. No second Axe either. Used the second POD for the "organ". The "organ" can be improved a LOT, but was just doing a test.
Here is a clip I grabbed after messing around for like 20 minutes
So basically from POD X3 days I have been a huge fan of dual amp patches. Combining two amps to get a sound that just one may not give you. Since I got the JTVs I am a fan of having "dual guitar" sound. Now I will be able to have one guitar panned left into two amps while the other guitar is panned right into tow amps. Even if the two amps are set almost identical but with slight differences and different cabs. . . .
