Line 6 Review: Guitar Port

History:

Purchase: I bought this unit for $169.99US at Guitar Center. I had seen ads, articles, etc., Guitar World magazine supposedly has special features through it, the Guitar Port promised all kinds of goodies, plus the salesperson reminded me of their 30-day satisfaction guarantee, so I came back a few days later and picked it up. Then I returned it a week later, after I had finally connected through their online service.

What I Like About This Line 6 Guitar Port: The amp/cab modeling bit is pretty neat.

What I Do NOT Like About The Line 6 Guitar Port: The "tracks" are nothing more than drum loops and bass lines (for the most part, there are some actual songs you can play along with if you're REALLY REALLY REALLY into Jimi Hendrix), which ought to come free with the unit, but no, you have to pay 8 bucks a month to download them. And not just 8 bucks a month for a couple months until you have all you want, no, when you cancel the service you lose can't use your downloaded tracks anymore, so basically without the online service ALL you get is the amp/cab modeling. Complicated setup, I had to plug the guitar into the unit, connect the unit to the computer with a USB cable, connect the unit to the computer (again) with a stereo audio cable, and THEN connect the unit to my stereo (use as audio for my computer.) Why not just plug it in and have the sound come out the soundcard?

Line 6 Guitar Port Quality Rating: Plastic construction, volume knob, 1 LED light, non-slip rubber pad on the bottom, 1 mono guitar input (front), USB output (back), l/r RCA outputs (back), headphone/one-eighth-inch stereo output (back). Again, seems overly complicated. Would do just fine to have input, USB output, and do away with the 2 kinds of audio output (just have the audio come out of the soundcard through whatever source you obviously already use if you're buying music software/computer products). The non-slip rubber pad works just fine. The big black knob on the face of the unit acts as a volume control. Whoopety-doo! I've got volume control on the stero that I use for my computer audio, as well as 2 or 3 levels of volume control in the computer itself.

Review Summary: Gimmick. GEE-EYE-EM-EM-EYE-CEE-KAY gimmick! It looks real neat, it sounds pretty neat, but it doesn't do anything without the online service and it doesn't do very much even with it. Okay so it's got the amp modeling, but there's boxes that do that, there's software that does that, either of which is probably cheaper, and there's no reason you should need BOTH. Why the unit at all, you could plug into the sound card and have the software do all the modeling (it probably does anyway). To repeat it's a gimmick, and I was reeled in by it, but luckily Guitar Center has a satisfaction guarantee and I got my money back.

Rating of this Line 6 product: 1

This Line 6 Guitar Port Guitar Accessories Review Submitted By: Metal Fish

Review Date: 2002-07-24