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It's a guitarist's tool, but GearBox is great for vocals

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Line 6 have been key players in the guitar amp/effects emulation field for over eight years now. Their first product, the Pod, set the ball rolling, and since its launch we’ve seen a steady stream of both software and hardware releases based on similar technology.

Line 6’s products have succeeded for two main reasons: they sound great and they’re very easy to use. Previously, we’ve reviewed their GuitarPort and TonePort offerings (both hardware/software combinations), but it’s a comprehensive plug-in solution that many people have been waiting for. Happily, we’ve now got it in the shape of GearBox Plug-in.

GearBox Plug-in comes in Silver and Gold versions – it’s the latter that we’re looking at here. This features 78 guitar amp models, 28 bass amp models, six mic preamp models and 80 effect modules. The Silver Bundle offers significantly fewer models but costs almost £200 less.

Installation is a quick and simple process. Bung in the CD, load the drivers, plug in the supplied hardware and you’re ready to go. Well, almost - to use the GearBox as a plug-in, you have to activate it online using the Line 6 Monkey utility software. Fortunately, this takes no time at all.

Plug it in

Both versions of GearBox Plug-In ship with a USB audio interface known as TonePort DI. The unit’s metal chassis is very solid and it’s certainly a stylish looking thing. Your guitar plugs into the front, while the back side houses the outputs. There are two analogue outs, a DI out and a headphone socket, all of which are presented on 1/4-inch TRS jacks.

Your monitoring level is set using the large rotary control that sits on the front of the interface. This has a good, positive feel and is accompanied by a pad switch that provides several dB of cut should your guitar’s pickups prove to be too hot.

Although the TonePort DI has to be connected to your PC in order for the plug-in to function, you don’t have to use it as the input source. This isn’t to suggest that it gives poor quality results - in fact, the opposite is true - but those who work at a more professional level may prefer to make use of their existing audio hardware.

As well as operating as a plug-in, the GearBox software can also be used standalone, which many will find desirable for live performance. In this mode, the interface offers an audio player (complete with half-speed mode), the Tone Locker (used to store and organise sounds), access to the GuitarPort Online features, a tuner (one of the most useable we’ve come across) and a metronome with a programmable pattern matrix.

Open the throttle

Sadly, the features just mentioned are omitted when you fire up the GearBox plug-in, which is designed primarily for tone creation. To that end, you get amp, cab and effects emulations. The GUI will look very familiar if you’ve used any Line 6 products before and makes GearBox a breeze to use. Amp and cabinet models are selected from drop-down lists in the top half of the interface.