switching the active switch on the pod seems to have helped enough. i'm sort of being silly in looking for a crystal clear pick tone, because it's coming up against a wall of fuzz and i'm probably going to end up fuzzing it as well. that makes sense for the pod - it's designed to take a passive guitar in, so plugging an active bass into it is a very loud signal. that should have been obvious from the start.

it makes less sense to me from the mixer, though. the things i've read have suggested to me that the extra power from the active pickups should minimize that kind of noise because you don't need to turn the volume up as high. i mean, i get it - it's more power, and it's overdriving it. it should be connected to a di. but the gain is at 75% just to pick the signal up at a decent level. the only other approach would be to take it in at like 50% and floor it when it gets in, but then...

...well, maybe that's just it. maybe you'd have to turn the passive down so far to get the same results that you'd be losing it. maybe you still need the active low, but not as low, so you can get more of the performance.

i think i'm happy with the pod with the pad on through the pre-amp. i'm going to try mixing a bit of it and see if i can get it to sound right....