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Line 6 TonePort UX1

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Line 6’s products are familiar to guitarists the world over. The company have spent years developing and refining their Pod range of outboard gear, and their GuitarPort system -- which features a USB interface and a set of software amplifiers and effects -- has proven to be a big success with computer musicians.

The UX1 takes its lead from the GuitarPort and offers guitar amp, bass amp and mic preamp emulations in software, and also features an audio interface that provides all the necessary connectivity.

The hardware looks rugged and strong but is actually made entirely of plastic. Along the front are the mic, instrument and headphone sockets – to the rear are the stereo line inputs, the stereo monitor input, the stereo analogue outputs and the USB port.

The two silvery controls on the top are for adjusting the mic gain and hardware output level. The setup process doesn’t throw up any surprises -- it’s just a case of installing the drivers and plugging in the hardware. You can then use the Line 6 ‘monkey’ utility to configure the hardware and search online for updates. The process is very quick and painless, so you’re ready to go within a couple of minutes.

The software element of the UX1 is called GearBox, and its GUI will be familiar to anyone who’s used a Line 6 product before. Trademark design clarity and cute graphics make for an intuitive interface that, although ridiculously easy to use, enables you to create complex tones.

What the UI displays depends on which input is active. The Source Select menu enables you to choose from microphone, instrument and various line input configurations. If you have two inputs running in parallel -- such as when you click the ‘mic and instrument’ option -- you can switch the interface between them using buttons at the top of the screen.

Clean sounds

Reassuringly, the guitar and bass amps/effects are lifted straight from the excellent PODxt and Bass PODxt. The 16 guitar amp and 24 cab models are very similar to those you’ll find in the GuitarPort, so all the big names are here. You’ll find Marshall, Fender, Mesa Boogie, Soldano, Matchless Chieftain and Gibson models, and the speaker configurations vary from tiny 1x6" examples to whopping 4x12" stacks.

Listening to the shimmering Fender Deluxe clean sounds is like drinking cream through your ears, and the bluesy crunch, warm saturation and heavy metal distortion tones (plus all those in between) are also very impressive.