Learn Guitar – From Guitar Hero to Real Guitar With Inexpensive GuitarPort Online Package From Line6

2010 March 10
by


I just spent the day in tonal heaven. My Line 6 GuitarPort Online bundle just arrived today - approximately one week after ordering. This may be the ideal tool for raising your musical encounter from the toy world of Guitar Hero the game, to being a real guitar hero in your own right.

So what is the Line 6 GuitarPort Online bundle, you question? It is a merger of hardware, software, and online benefit, that bring together into a complete guitar culture, routine, and recording system. The current price of entry to this soup-to-nuts system is less than $30.00 US!

In order to gain an appreciative of all that is built-in, let's talk about each element of the system separately. We'll start with the hardware. Built-in in the box is the Line 6 TonePort DI Silver. This is a small, soundly built metal unit events about 6"x4"x2", sitting comfortably on your desktop. The front panel has a 1/4" jack for plugging in your guitar, bass or other instrument, a Pad switch for lowering the gain (excellent for instruments with active or other high output pickups), and a volume control for the direct monitoring function. The rear panel has a USB jack for connecting to your pad, a 1/4" stereo headphone jack, a 1/4" DI Out jack, and a pair of 1/4" Analog outputs. This is, in essence, a 1 in, 2 out pad audio interface, particularly tailored to be well-located for guitarists and bassists.

The software consists of GearBox and Line 6 Monkey. Monkey is a handy helpfulness that connects to Line 6's servers, and provides a centralized interface to check all aspects of the system for doable software and firmware updates, and simplify the upgrade administer.

GearBox is where the rubber hits the road. This is a honestly full-featured 'amp sim', that contains models of most classic amps and FX you might care to name. These are all rendered as quite influential emulations of the probable Marshalls, tweed and blackface Fenders, Mesas, Voxes, Soldanos, Jazz Choruses, etc. Also built-in are Bass amp sims like both SVT and B-15 from Ampeg, Eden, GK, etc. Also built-in are emulations of API, Neve, and other preamps, as well as a number of Line 6 models.

GearBox also includes all the speaker cabinet models that one would expect to mix and match with the above amps, in configurations from 1x6 owing to several 4x12's. Also built-in are a full array of modeled microphones such as Shure SM57, Sennheiser 421, Neumann U67, EV RE-20, AKG D112, and Telefunken U-47.

GearBox also has a full complement of stompbox effect emulations. Built-in in these are a gate, volume pedal, wah pedal, distortions, fuzzes, and overdrives, compressors and de-essors, equalizers, chorus, flanger, univibe, tremolo, phaser, Leslie, delays, echos, and reverbs.

Also built-in is an right, full-function chromatic tuner.

GearBox can be used either as a standalone application, or as a VST plugin within a host application such as Logic, Sonar, Pro Tools, Cubase, or other DAW. In the standalone application, one could listen to their routine owing to headphones, or even run the main stereo output from the TonePort DI-S to a fantastic PA system for concert applications.

The third element of GuitarPort Online bundle is the hosted benefit. The $29.95 early cost includes a three months subscription to GuitarPort Online. This is an Internet benefit tailored as a tool for guitar players to learn new songs and nail not only the performances, but also the tones of scads of fantastic guitar songs. Built-in are patches for your GearBox, right Tablature of the guitar parts of the tunes, and full recordings of the tunes -- in variations of complete preparations, the complete arrangement minus the lead/main guitars (where you play these parts in real time), complete arrangement minus bass, and complete arrangement minus all guitars.These preparations are all faithful performances of the original hits -- and some, such as a number of Jimi Hendrix tunes, are really from the original performers!

The following are some of the wonderful culture assets controlled in the online element:

You get full culture for over 400 songs. GuitarPort Online teaches you both music theory and hot songs in genres from blues to jazz to metal to classic rock and modern rock. GuitarPort has hundreds of right guitar and bass tabs for songs by top artists such as All American Rubbish, Allman Brothers, BB King, The Beatles, Chuck Berry, Black Sabbath, Johnny Cash, Coldplay, Alice Cooper, Creedence Clearwater Rekindling, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, Al diMeola, Fall Out Boy, Grateful Dead, Jimi Hendrix, Eric Johnson, King Cherry, Kiss, Albert Lee, Linkin Park, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Bob Marley, Modest Mouse, Motley Crue, Muddy Waters, Pantera, Pink Floyd, P.O.D., Ramones, Rush, Joe Satriani, Scorpions, Soundgarden, System Of A Down, Joe Walsh, Steve Vai, Stevie Ray Vaughan, and ZZ Top.

Fully-Bent Songs to Play Along With. These aren't cheesy-sounding, inaccurate, freebie MIDI jam tracks. You can listen to and play along with the full arrangement, or with lead guitar, rhythm guitar, bass, or all guitars indifferent. Your guitar playing is involuntarily mixed with the band, allowing you to replace your pet guitar heroes on their greatest hits.

Culture on specific topics -- such as chord progressions, blues solos, etc. Some of these are master culture taught by chart-topping guitarists.

Awe-inspiring Guitar Tones. When you choose a song on GuitarPort Online, it involuntarily loads a recording of the song, right tabs for all guitar parts and the guitar tones the perfectly match the recording. The modeling software mimics your pet artists' amps and stompbox and studio things, so when you are culture and playing your pet songs, you can sound exactly like the recording.

GuitarPort Online plugs right into GearBox, such that one navigates and operates the online part from right within GearBox. This forms a rationalized interface for browsing the catalog of songs, tabs, and tones. Indeed, the online element can even switch patches for you on the glide!

Taken as a whole, this system provides all a guitarist or bassist might need or want to learn and go the most vital pieces in the guitar repertoire -- sweetly, harmonically, and tonally. Each of the pieces also form a solid donation in their respective category. Contracted, Line 6 likely is donation this bundle in order to addict people to the GuitarPort Online benefit, which after the three month trial period (should you choose to continue it), will continue to cost you $7.99 per month. But, not long ago, one would likely expect to pay $100-$200 for an interface of this capability, and a further $50-100 for such a competent amp sim program. As a $30 complete hardware, software, and Internet benefit bundle, this may be the best deal of the year for guitarists and bassists!

For an even more impressive value, the TonePort DI can be used as a dongle to unlock a copy of Line 6's POD Farm (for a restricted time), which is an even more wide-ranging amp sim, allowing for two complete analogous chains of FX, amps, speakers, and mics.

All told, the GuitarPort Online package forms a complete and wide-ranging system of hardware, software, and culture. Its content will have you playing and sounding like your pet artists, no matter your current encounter level. And with such a low price of entry, it forms an indomitable value.

Note: the author Joe Bear has no financial relationship to Line 6, and is not compensated in any way by Line 6 for this review.

Author: Joe Bear
Shape up Source: EzineArticles.com
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