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View Full Version : What do you think of Line 6 software?



Eric
November 6th, 2009, 05:35 PM
I recently bought the Line 6 Guitarport, because I couldn't figure out from their website what the difference was between Toneport, Guitarport, Pod Farm, Gearbox, Pod Studio, or anything else. Guitarport seemed to be what I wanted.

I previously downloaded/'purchased' Pod Farm when they had it for free (thanks to Robert's FYI), but was not able to use it until I had a Line 6 hardware device.

Now that I've installed all of the Line 6 software and updated everything twice, I finally have some working software. Pod Farm standalone and VST plugin both work, and Gearbox standalone works. Little did I realize that to get Gearbox as a VST plugin (which IMO should be free), it's more $$.

I'm starting to realize why you can't get the straight story from Line 6: their goal is to get you to buy all of their upgrades, but they don't want to tell you that the actual products don't come with any features. It's like they've taken GAS and turned it into a systematic marketing approach. Clever, but almost diametrically opposed to my views on vendor-user interactions.

So here's the question: 1) what do you think of all of this, and am I way off base in my assessment of Line 6, and 2) should I return the Guitarport? I just bought it, so I could still return it. If I want to use the free Pod Farm (which, admittedly is pretty cool), I have to have a Line 6 hardware device, so I'd need to eventually get a cheap UX1 or Guitarport interface off of Ebay.

The issue is that I've learned that what I paid for software-wise (i.e. Gearbox) is obsolete crap, so I'm paying $100 for a below-average USB 1.1 audio interface. I'm not sure if my own indignation is clouding my common sense, so I'm throwing out to all of you.

guitartango
November 6th, 2009, 05:56 PM
Eric

I think you are spot on with this, i only use my toneport for recording my amp with a mic. One of the biggest lacking features that you could only have one dist pedal so the extra (model) pedals i purchased were useless. I wanted to use the blue comp with the fuzz but no can do. Over a year later they come up with free pod farm but a little too late.

Robert
November 6th, 2009, 06:10 PM
I think you are off track. GearBox sounds great to me, and so does POD Farm. I have the Toneport interface, which is in my opinion very good as an audio guitar interface. I get great tones with my guitar straight into the Toneport. This rock solo video I made is using only Line 6 Pod Farm for the sounds, and the guitar is a cheap $400 Michael Kelly.

So getting good sounds out of a $99 audio interface via GearBox sounds very reasonable to me. I don't know of an amp that can give so many cool sounds for $99. Plus, you'd need a microphone and recording interface for that too... ;)

I don't know anything about GuitarPort, so are you saying it doesn't work with GearBox or Pod Farm? If so, just return it and get the Toneport GX or an older UX1 like I have and be a happy camper. :AOK

hH0pywS-UT8

hubberjub
November 7th, 2009, 12:48 AM
All the guitars on these were Guitar Port with Ampfarm.

http://www.box.net/shared/t691oqaf7j
http://www.box.net/shared/6bem2nmt2i
I've got a ton more if you need. I use it for demos. It wouldn't be my choice for a real studio recording though. By the way, I'm no Robert so please don't be too critical.

Eric
November 7th, 2009, 01:20 AM
I think you are off track. GearBox sounds great to me, and so does POD Farm. I have the Toneport interface, which is in my opinion very good as an audio guitar interface. I get great tones with my guitar straight into the Toneport. This rock solo video I made is using only Line 6 Pod Farm for the sounds, and the guitar is a cheap $400 Michael Kelly.

So getting good sounds out of a $99 audio interface via GearBox sounds very reasonable to me. I don't know of an amp that can give so many cool sounds for $99. Plus, you'd need a microphone and recording interface for that too... ;)

I don't know anything about GuitarPort, so are you saying it doesn't work with GearBox or Pod Farm? If so, just return it and get the Toneport GX or an older UX1 like I have and be a happy camper. :AOK

Apparently I was not clear initially (big surprise). I like Pod Farm, and I think it's worthwhile, and I really like the amp models. My main contention is that after Line 6 released Pod Farm as both a standalone and VST plugin, they had no business still packaging Gearbox with Guitarport (BTW, Guitarport is their low-level audio interface that they package with Gearbox -- seen here (http://gearmedia.ign.com/gear/image/article/588/588776/line-6-guitarport-rifftracker-20050217062446987-000.jpg)).

If this is the software meant to replace Gearbox, by still packaging Guitarport with Gearbox, they are just fishing for $$ from the end user for something that should be included in place of Gearbox in the first place. That annoys me.

The common consensus seems to be that it's worth the money and I should keep it, but I guess I just want some justice to be served, because I think that Line 6 is trying to rip off consumers for software that should be packaged with the product in the first place.