Gear Review: Line 6 Toneport UX2

I've had this for almost a year now, got down to using it only a few months back and truly realised its brilliance a few weeks back.

This isn't really a review, but what the hell..

The Line 6 Toneport UX2 is a recording console which doubles up as an external soundcard. Plug it into your USB, plug your bass/guitar/mic into the console, choose your patch and bombs away. You get your studio quality recordings, no latency, no feedback, no issues. The best thing I realised about this is that you don't even need an amp or your pedals to use this. The hardware comes bundled with Line 6 Gearbox, where you can choose your amps, cabs, pedals, effects, whatever you want, tweak around based on your guitar settings until you get the tone you want, and record. You can even download cabs, amps, patches etc online after registering on the Line 6 website, though I wouldn't recommend the patches. Every patch differs from guitar to guitar, and you'll be hard pressed to find a good patch online that suits specifically your guitar.

For those of you who actually use Line 6 processors/pedals like POD XT, Bass POD etc, it’s even easier. You can directly export your patch from your POD XT or whatever equipment you have and directly get the same tone on your recordings.

The funda of this is simple. After setting your patch on Gearbox, jus open your Ableton/Cubase/Acid Pro or whatever software you use, choose the input as your UX2 and record. There's no extra setting or long winded process to set up your recordings software. Very simple to use, great piece of equipment and pretty cheap too. Well, I got mine second hand, for bout 5k but I think a new one costs bout 8k from the US of A. In any case, a great deal.

The body is made of hard plastic and is pretty light. Looks pretty sturdy but wouldn't survive too much rough handling. Don't think that would matter in any case. You're not going to be taking this gigging. Runs on power from the USB hub, so you don't have any power cords plugged in anywhere. One cable to connect UX2 to the comp, another to connect UX2 to the guitar. That’s it.

I have 2 sets of recordings for you to gauge the recording quality. The Fall Of Reason recordings were done first, when Kapil (the guy who sold the console to me, guitarist of Fall Of Reason) was jus figuring everything out. Then came the MaelstroM recordings, when we'd pretty much figured it all out. Fall Of Reason is a 4 piece progressive death / thrash metal band from Chennai, India. Maelstrom is a technical death metal band also from Chennai, India. There’s an obvious difference in the recordings, an improvement that only experience can give you.

All in all, great piece of equipment. Studio recordings at your fingertips. Essential for every musician and upcoming band. And not jus if you're a musician. Hell, I use the external soundcard to watch movies and listen to music too!!

Technical features of this USB studio recording interface are as follows.
**Sample rate conversion: 16 and 24 bit at 44.1, 48 and 96 kHz
**Gearbox amp and effects modeling software for Guitar, Bass and Vocals includes:
**23 guitar/bass amp models with 29 cabinet models
**6 vocal mic preamps for amazing, studio-quality tracks
**29 stompbox and studio effect models, including Overdrive, Delay, Reverb, Wah, Flanger, Chorus, and more
**2 XLR inputs with mic preamps and +48V phantom power
**2 Guitar/Bass Inputs – use the Pad input for guitars and basses with high level pickup outputs, or the normal input
**Dual analog VU meters
**Line 6’s exclusive low-latency ToneDirect monitoring
**Works with leading recording software on Mac® and Windows®
**Includes Ableton Live Lite - Line 6 Edition recording software

I wish you a Happy Recording and a Merry New Console!!