Music Thing: Line6 Toneport Range

Each week Tom Whitwell of Music Thing highlights the best of the new music gear that's coming out, as well as noteworthy vintage equipment:

Line6 certainly aren't shy of offending the pro-audio fraternity with the marketing hype for their new Toneport range of audio interfaces. "In minutes," their website blabbers, "You'll be creating sounds that typically take an entire studio, an expert engineer, and a huge hourly rate to pull off!" You can hear the forums fuming from here.

There's no shortage of interfaces to connect a PC/Mac to guitars, monitor speakers, and professional microphones that need phantom power (a 48v DC current passed down the microphone cable to power an on-board pre-amp). Apple never did get round to releasing their widely rumoured "Asteroid" box (unless you count that as the iControl), but Focusrite, Harmony Audio and many others produce workable boxes with various bells and whistles. So, what can Line6 bring?

Well, they�ve got a nice-looking design (if you like black plastic and VU meters) and their good-but-old-news guitar amp modelling algorithms are built in. New in the Toneport are emulations of some very, very expensive vintage studio gear. It�s one doing a passable digital emulation of a distorted Marshall guitar amp � quite another thing capturing the subtle sound colouration from a Neve 1073 pre-amp or a API - 550b equaliser. Aside from a few software plug-ins, the only other people doing this digitally are Focusrite (again), whose Liquid Channel is a $3,000 analog/digital hybrid which claims to model a whole range of vintage pre-amps and compressors.

The two toneport units will be launched in Winter 2005. The UX1 is $129 (no phantom power, no VU meters) and the UX2 is $199. Check out more here.

[Paul Miller @ Dec 19th 2005 1:05AM]

Oh yes... I'll be replacing my $5,000 worth of pro recording gear with this thing immediately.

[foxone @ Dec 19th 2005 1:05AM]

yeah, this thing should ROCK!....i'm sure it'll sound just as good the antares mic modeler... i'll forget having to actually have any technical skill, wont need Apogee converters, great river & chandler preamps and neumann, akg, shure & soundelux mics! what another awesome way to not have to pay for professional's services!

[Charles Vestal @ Dec 19th 2005 1:05AM]

it seems pretty clear that they're not going for people who already have 5k of equipment, but for people that want to sound like they have 5k equipment, but can't tell the difference between 5k and 1k and might as well just drop .2k and call it a day. k?

[Rick Gomez @ Dec 19th 2005 1:05AM]

Come on now... I can't understand why people bag on things like this. I've been playing for 28 years. I won't get this, but I'd have saved my paper oute money for months to get this when I was young! I had to pretend that my boss distortion pedal through my 5 watt Gorilla amp sound good!

Line 6 (and others) are putting out awesome tools for guitar players, who can't afford or can't justify the real stuff. So, Paul, I don't think they want you to sell you 5K in gear. The college student that can now pull off a nice quality demo from his dorm room is another story!

[wickedawesome @ Dec 19th 2005 1:05AM]

What I want to know is this: what can I duct-tape it to?

[Jeff Long @ Dec 19th 2005 1:05AM]

wicked: sooo duct tape to the top of your case... maybe get some spray paint involved.

[Gold_Hunter @ Dec 19th 2005 1:05AM]

Very nice-looking design

[goguletzzu @ Dec 19th 2005 1:05AM]

I think it's a piece of crap

[Andy @ Dec 19th 2005 1:05AM]

Line 6 makes pretty great stuff. Granted, it's all emulation, but they do a pretty damn fine job. The POD is a great product, and some of their Flextone stuff sounds pretty nice too.

[Fuzz @ Dec 19th 2005 1:05AM]

I love Line 6 products for the most part, not so on the guitars, but my friends line 6 amp is nice. Doesn't match my Marshall thou ;).

But the amp accually makes his squire guitar sound halfway decent.

[Richard @ Dec 19th 2005 1:05AM]

I wonder how this compares to Native Instruments or Amplitude? A mean basically it's the software that counts, the interface is pretty bog-standard these days.

[Paul Miller @ Dec 19th 2005 1:05AM]

It looks like a great product that will surely help many a musician... I merely take issue with the idea of "creating sounds that typically take an entire studio, an expert engineer, and a huge hourly rate to pull off!". I think that line should read more like "creating sounds that typically take an entire bedroom, you brothers buddy that owns a copy of Sonar, and a huge case of Mountain Dew to pull off!"

I'm just forum fuming, not trying to ruin anyone's day here.

[ryecob @ Dec 19th 2005 1:05AM]

i'm glad the designers resisted the urge to make the knobs glow like vacuum tubes.

[Andy @ Dec 19th 2005 1:05AM]

Understandable Paul, those are pretty wild claims, but I mean to an extent, yeah it's true. Line 6 does do a good job with emulation. It will never be the same thing, but their stuff is GREAT for the musician/hobbyist who doesn't have the cash to afford all of the real stuff. I think what Line 6 is doing is great.

[Peter Kirn @ Dec 19th 2005 1:05AM]

I think you'll get a better set of amp models with either NI Guitar Rig or Amplitude . . . BUT . . . that's going to set you back more in cash, and you don't have this nice software-hardware integrated solution. So I agree, for the price, this looks like a nice solution for an entry-level guitarist. Nice writeup, Tom!

[JJ @ Dec 19th 2005 1:05AM]

I own the Line6 GuitarPort which looks to be very, very similar to this (a device you plus your axe into, then it plugs into PC USB). Having played guitar a lot in high school and college, I hung it up for the most part since then. This thing has gotten my Les Paul out of the closet and back into my hands. I have created a number of virtual amps. They all sound better than the little mini-stack Crate I own. The noise reduction gates and other toys works really nice to clean up my sloppy style, and the noise my guitar puts off. I love the thing! I use it with my laptop and headphones, and jam hour for an hour after work every night. Sorry to sound like a salesman, but I cannot imagine a better practice amp than this.

Dis on this all you want, but I have loved mine from the day UPS delivered it, and it has really brought back the joy of guitar for me at an very, very reasonable price.

[lost.sync @ Dec 19th 2005 1:05AM]

i'd buy it. if it weren't so fugly.

and line6 stuff sounds pretty good. it's not the real thing, but it's not supposed to be. it's supposed to be the next best thing. and it is.

[pujutengineered @ Dec 19th 2005 1:05AM]

Looks cool..

[AkoraMusic.Com @ Dec 19th 2005 1:05AM]

I personally prefer the sound of a mic'ed cabinet. Digital In is extremely easy to deal with, but I think Mic'ed cabs just sound better. This is just one mans opinion though.

My band used a Line 6 pod to record our first EP and it had a decent sound. Afterwards, we fooled around with micing the cabs and we were much more pleased with that sound than the Line 6.

[John @ Dec 19th 2005 1:05AM]

I have been using a POD 2.0 for several years now and love it. I also own a guitar port have created some awesom guitar sounds by chaining the two together. While I agree that nothing beats a Marshal or Mesa Boogie stack, using a POD has given me far more flexiblity with my setup in terms of when and where I play. I have played for many years and frankly got tired of hauling around a truck load of equipment. I can use my POD for recording, direct input into a PA, and also hook it to my guitar power amp and two Marshal cabinents when I really want to crank up and jam. I also am not rich and can't afford to own a Marshal amp, Mesa Boogie amp, Fender amp, etc., all a once. Kudos to Line6 for producing great sounding equipment that you don't have to be millionare to own. This new thing will probably sound great.

[Jimmy Bear Pearson @ Dec 19th 2005 1:05AM]

No small box (at any price) will ever replace skilled, excellent studio people and racks of killer gear - ever.

With that said, I don't have the bucks for the boxes or the people. Yet, I love making music - so someone like me needs a way to record in a halfway decent way. Boxes like this make it possible for people like me to play and record and share. I'm thankful that things like this are available. I'd be interested to see how it compares to the other econo-boxes out there.

[Steven Kruyswijk @ Dec 19th 2005 1:05AM]

There is a hidden coolness here. This thing seems to have a PODxt DSP processor inside of it, seen as the effects are applied without asio/coreaudio latency.

From http://www.line6.com/toneport/overview.html:
"With Line 6�s exclusive ToneDirect� monitoring, you get fully processed audio in real time while you track! Far better than recording through plug-ins, it avoids the latency from your recording program and operating system. ToneDirect also easily beats analog direct monitoring options that force you to record guitar without hearing the amp model and effects, or struggle to get an inspired vocal with no reverb! With GearBox software and TonePort hardware, it�s easy to get amazing sounding recordings every time inspiration hits."

That is pretty cool when you think of it. It's like having a DSP powered input FX frontend for your rig, similar to TC's Powercore. The catch is that the FX don't work in mixing, although in theory it should be possible to make somekind of insert vst/au shell.

Another way to look at it: this is very probably a PODxt on the inside, without the preset/programming interface, without MIDI, but with mic preamp(s) and stereo line inputs. You can probably hook up a simple laptop over USB just as a fancy POD UI, and not have to worry about CPU cycles at all with regard to your tone.

It might just have to get me one of these :-) At this price it's actually pretty crazy good.

Props also to the industrial design team; the UX2 looks especially good I think.