Line 6 GuitarPort

Very easy to use,just plug in,install and download drivers,takes a bit of tweaking in sound options on your DAW to get it working but definitely very simple and user friendly

Clean sounds are amazing
Rythm Distortion is very good but takes a lot of tweaking
Lead Tones are very very dodgy,takes ages to find the right sound

Very reliable product but Line6 aren't very reliable to buy products from

Their site is good but misses a lot of the small details such as how it would be better to buy their higher up models and get all the add-on packs preloaded

"Thank you for buying a guitarport now please spend another 100 euro buying model add-on packs we were to scabby to include with your purchase.......oh and don't forget to pay your monthly fee to USE the guitarport online software,yes we like to inform all our customers of the small print before they buy our products"

This would have been a much better slogan to have put on the front of the box,least then I would have known what I was in for

Don't get me wrong its a good product but the whole online thing is Bulls**t!!!!!!!!
the money grabbing bosses should be taken out into a field and bet with a stick,
Your better off buying one of the toneports or the pedalboards,don't buy into the lies that the front of the box feeds,I'd return it but its passed its return period

Install the software, plug the thing in and you are away!
If you have problems with this, then get geek squad to install your printer!

Firstly, choose your amps carefully! Not really being a gear head I found the array of options both bewildering and confusing! However, after searching through the (free) user/Line 6 tones on-line (and finding out what my favourite guitarists used on-stage) I began to find my favourite amps. But that aint all! There is also a wide variety of cabinets and 4 microphone settings to play around with (before you even look at the effects) which all do exactly what you'd expect.
Minus points, they can't make a bad guitar sound good. Also though you have to remember that pickups do exactly that (they 'pick up') so it's a good idea to get your guitar as far away from the computer monitor as possible (even on a laptop TFT), oh, and make sure your guitar is adequately earthed too!

It's not broke yet, and all the cables are standard size so you can replace them cheaply too!

Line 6 Monkey - well named as whenever I need to update the GuitarPort/GearBox software the Monkey will install a new copy of itself to Windows ALONGSIDE all the others (every few updates I have a big 'Download the latest version then uninstall eveything before reinstalling the latest drivers' party to stop my 'uninstall software' menu being full of the bloody Line 6 Monkey!

I use this as a guitar practice/recording set-up and frankly can't see myself ever messing around with mic's, amplifiers and the need for silent recording environments again. What you might lose in 'genuine tone' can be more than fully offset with ease of recoring, being able to clean up/dirty the track with VST in your recording software and the fact that now there is a plugin, you don't even need to re-record if you suddenly decide that it would have sounded better through the '91 JCM 900.
Great!

I use this as a headphone amp and sounds pretty good thru phones. For practicing with rifftracker and subscription it really can't be beat.It is a little noisey. i have had had some problems upgrading software, But did get it fixed.

For a headphone practice amp sounds pretty good.

Held up

Online support is a joke a big waste. Live support is good as long as it is on California time. You can't email that easy with your problem.

As a headphone jam amp this is really fun.

I've got the GuitarPort straight out of the box. No subscription/updates, so I don't use it to it's full advantage. However, what I've heard I like. It's quite simple to install/open/change/edit/play.

The sound quality is terrific on some, and decent on others. No bad patches. I will say that there is a little his from time to time with certain settings. Even with the noise learner, or whatever it's called, it doesn't take all of it out. The clean channels are amazing, but the distortions need a little tweaking. But again, I'm sure there are cool downloads for it that I'm not aware of.

Sucks for acoustic... but then again, it wasn't made for that.

Very reliable... now. When I first got it, I had the same problems as a few other reviewers had. My computer just couldn't find the darn thing. After I reinstalled it once, it never happened again.

Come on... I'm an aspiring musician. I'll figure it out on my own. :)

I play comtemporary Christian music, and our sounds range from clean, slight distortion, to heavy distortion. It helps me with all of it. I use a free recording program and it picks up the guitarport since it's USB and I get to make rough copies fairly easy with decent sound. I'd recommend it to anyone who just wants to jam out and have fun. As far as recording, you'd have to REALLY get the setting right.

Play on a Parker Fly Classic, Yamaha Pacifica, Dillion Prototype, and Ibanez SA

If you can habdle Ipod with your computer,
you can also use this easily.

Most first-time buyer expect it's reviews in terms of it's reality.
It's like powdered milk comparing with real fresh milk.
Someone can say that powdered milk is not so bad compared with real milk, and someone can't.
I can say this is definately NO more than powdered milk cause i know the taste of real fresh milk.
Don't even expect real Mesa or Marshall.
But it's not really bad as a powdered milk.
If you have decent monitoring system rather than cheap computer desktop speaker,the sound can be huge improved.

No prooblem. seems to be matched well with other recording software or hardware.

I'm not using guitar port online.

Overall,this is nice product providing large field of usablity at low cost.
Amp modeler,Audio interface,effect at one time for the money.

The Gearbox software is easy to use and very intuitive. As a first-timer I had no problems doing exactly what I wanted to do. And for your downloadable songs from GuitarPort online it will switch to the proper patches on the fly, which is absolutely awesome. I have no major complaints about the Gearbox software. It's easy to set up whatever modelling you want, whichever effects and edit them with ease. Even calibration for hum-cancelling is a breeze.

The worst part about the GuitarPort is the poor management software and the way in which it is upgraded. By management software I am referring to Line 6 Monkey and not Gearbox. So here's the deal, you install the software off your CD. Then you need to start up Line 6 Monkey, which searches for updates while it's starting. It finds an update, downloads, forces you to quit Line 6 Monkey, installs the software, then automatically starts with the new version. It did this SIX TIMES. ONE patch, please!

Upon loading Line 6 Monkey I had to download and update everything individually - drivers, Gearbox software, GuitarPort firmware. It's good that it shows you there is an update available and what version you are at, but it's a little too much work when updating software should be a breeze at this point.

I have been using the GuitarPort with a Fender American Standard Strat and a BJ Rich Ironbird with DiMarzio X2N and Air Norton pickups.

I'm having a little trouble getting the exact metal tone I'm looking for, but I have found some really good tones that I've been using for a bit. There's a downloadable metal pack as well as a few others that give you a large amount of additional options and effects to play around with.

The sound is excellent. The software does a very good job of cancelling extra noise and you'll be surprised by just how quiet everything is except what you're actually playing. It's stunning, really. And if you aren't playing anything it's dead silent. I only had a problem with a lot of noise on the patch for "Sharp-Dressed Man" which was easily fixable by reducing the amount of drive and it still retained the gain I needed. Overall the software is very quiet even when using single coils. I was absolutely blown away by the patch for Cliffs of Dover. It's dead on, no joke. Sounds absolutely amazing.

I don't know yet. Considering it doesn't actually do anything except sit there on my desk, I hope I don't have any problems with it.

This is by far the best guitar-related purchase I have made. I am REPLACING a Marshall DSL401 combo with this since I really only need something to practice with at home. There are a plethora of different sound combinations you can get out of this. The software is really easy to use, and GuitarPort online is really good. Lots of great songs to choose from and learn how to play, as well as some originals, some jam tracks to help you with your playing, and a whole bunch of lessons as well, some from Line 6 staff and some from famous guitarists.

I can be cheap sometimes and I wish ALL you had to pay for was the GuitarPort itself, but if you want GuitarPro Online it's 80 dollars a year, and you will need RiffTracks software if you want to record, supposedly. I don't see what's stopping me from plugging the audio out of the GuitarPort to the line in on my sound card and just recording directly, though. I'll have to try it sometime with a freeware software recorder and hopefully avoid paying the 100 bucks for RiffTracks.

If you're on the fence about this product, just get it already. It's cheap and awesome.

I got ther version with the Riff Tracker software. Overall it is very intuitive to use and I have used it to record a few songs.

The guitarport does a really good job with high gain sounds. There are a few good clean sounds to be found with it too. I mainly got this with the intention of recording demos on the computer and it does a really good job of that. It is also really easy to record two tracks over each other (but using different pickups). After the volume levels are appropriately adjusted, the resulting sound sounds very close to professional level recordings. The instant drummer doesn't record sound as good on recordings. It doesn't have as much low end kick or high highs as I would like. But if you don't want the instant drummer in your recordings you can very easily turn it off.

I don't like the effects as much and tend to prefer stompboxes over them.

I have had no installation issues, and have not had any problems in the 6 months or so that I have owned it.

This is an excellent piece of gear if you want to get into home recording. I also have gotten additional instant drummer sessions for a larger variety of drum beats for the stuff I have recorded (you can listen to them online and get ones that fit the genre of music you play). The sessions that come with the Riff Tracker software tend to be somewhat limited in their usefullness.

Super easy to use. All the Morons who have trouble with this are just that ... Morons. Hey if you are one of the "computer challanged" then hey!! Dont buy an emulator that is designed only to be used on the computer. Go out and get yourself a nice rack and amp's and stick with waht you "can" do. Better keep the rack REAL simple though cause if working this was hard for you Id hate to see you work a rack of effects.

Does alot of sounds and does them pretty good. for 50.00 you cant go wrong for playing around.

Yuppers

seems ok so far

For the money and as a tool it's far undervalued and very capable.

The guitar port is very simple to use. The intalation was a snap and I was instantly pleased with my purchace. It sounds even better with the free upgrades. I have had the guitar port for about 2 years now and it keeps me playing.

The sound quality is great, especially with headphones.It may not sound exactly like a Marshall plexi or a fender deluxe reverb, but it is close enough. The effects are of a very high quality and the overall sound is very powerfull. I use the guitar port with a Gibson Les Paul standard and it sounds killer.

2 years and not a single problem yet and I use it often.

Don't know, havn't needed it.

I would have to say that this is simply a great product. I have been playing guitar for 25 years, some of those professionaly and I am somewhat of a tone snob. I own a Marshall JTM45 amp and a Fender deluxe reverb (pre CBS)and I can tell you the guitar port is an amazing deal. It's sounds are truely inspired and it never gets old. If it cost twice as much, it wouls still be a great deal

Couldn't be easier. Just follow directions and there should be NO problems whatsoever. I've been recording with DAWs for nearly a decade and this is as easy to install and use as any other hardware/software tool.

I don't know where to begin. I guess I'll start by bashing the so-called purists and self-proclaimed tone experts.

For starters, I HIGHLY doubt that, of the 100 plus reviews submitted for this product, any reviewers have ACTUALLY played through more than two or three of these amp/cab models. Unless you've worked in major recording studios that happened to have a large variety of these models, then you are simply spewing smoke.

Perhaps the most absurd thing of all are people mentioning the GuitarPort in the same sentence as "playing live". Or those that are hooking the output to an amplifier!

This gadget was NOT designed to be amplified. It is designed for the signal to be kept in the digital domain. Please read the last sentence and re-read it various times. If you "get" what I am saying, and will use it in that manner, then you will find the GuitarPort to be a VERY useful tool and will MORE than appreciate its sound quality.

I use the GuitarPort with a Carvin Bolt SSH guitar in the following configuration:

- The GP is pluggeg into a 750MHZ P3 with 550 Meg RAM via USB.
- My soundcard is the superb sounding Gina 24/96. One pair of
outputs of the Gina are sent to the GP(via a 2 1/4" to single mini
converter cable).
- The stereo outputs of the GP are then sent to a Mackie 16VLZ
via an RCA to 1/4" converter cables.
- The mixdown of the Mackie is sent to a Pentium 4 2.8GHZ Win XP
running Sonar Studio, Soundforge and numerous plug-ins.

With that setup I am able to record highly convincing guitar tracks. By convincing I mean that they sound like a real guitar; PERIOD. I could care less if it sounded like my Twin or Marshall or any other combo.

The bottom line is that, in a mix, the recorded tracks sound GREAT.
For anyone to say that the models offer no crunch, or that the tones are thin, is a head-shaker.

I am able to emulate/approximate THREE guitar tones: Hackett, Pettruci and Gilmour. The latter requires some creative post processing in Sonar to get that WIDE Gilmour sound. But for a DAW system which cost me less than $3K(software and hardware) I am more than happy with the results.

I'll give the GP an easy TEN for Sound Quality. If you know what you are doing and work CAREFULY and METHODICALLY within the digital domain you should be able to record professional sounding guitar tracks.

I can't see this thing breaking apart, unless its stomped on.

PLEASE UNDERSTAND...........This is NOT a unit to take to live gigs. It's not intended for that.

Haven't needed support and can't even imagine why I would. This thing is as intuitive as any other device in my studio

I've been playing piano/keyboards for over 30 years and began playing guitar about 15 years ago. My style of music is an eclectic mix of symphonic electronic and progressive rock. Imagine Vangelis and Camel with some Hackett thrown in. I am currently recording a CD which I hope to release within the next year and a half.

I have nothing but praise for the GuitarPort. It's extremely easy to use and sounds fantastic. But, learn how to work it and learn its limitations. For instance, do not expect to bring the GP and your laptop to your band's practice and expect it to sound like your "real" amp rig. C'mon! When I hear those comments they make me cringe.

Use the GP as it was extended to be used and you will love it!