Guitar Port

 Beginner Loves It
I have been playing for less than a year. This unit is great for a beginner because it does not require an investment in an amp and multiple effects pedals for the beginner to be able to sample some great tones. It sounds really good through the stereo (I alternate between a Gibson SG '61 and an Ibanez AFS75 Archtop). The basic lessons through the online service are good, and access to the service is very convenient over my home wireless network. The unit is extremely portable and extremely easy to set up and just play. I run a VAIO Notebook under Windows XP and had no problem with the initial install or the upgrade. I have kids and don't have a lot of room for gear so this works well for me. I can just tuck it away in a drawer when I'm done playing. I usually play though 'phones while the kids are sleeping. Overall, if I had purchased it (I got it as a gift) I would say it's the best investment I have made in guitar gear (aside, of course, from my beautiful SG).

 BEST GUITAR PRODUCT I'VE EVER BOUGHT
I have whole collection of Boss and DOD pedals, and this one little unit replaces them all and blows them away. The sound quality is amazing. With the click of your mouse, you can switch between sounding just like the Edge of U2, the brown sound of Van Halen, Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin, or even Spinal Tap and Hair Bands.

The amp simulations are wonderful, and all the reverb and delay and other effects are some of the best I have heard.

Finally, if you have a computer music studio program on your computer, like those by Magix or Cakewalk or any others, it works beautifully with them.

One of the most impressive features was the HUM REDUCER. The unique thing about this one was that it will actually learn the hum of each pickup of your guitar to eliminate it. Unbelieveable!

To me, this product is easily worth over $500, so the money I spent on it was just about the best hundred bucks for guitar equipment ever. You'll love it!

 Definitely worth the money
This is one very nice piece of device for your computer, especially if you are only looking for something to record instrumental guitar tracks in your computer. Given that you have the necessary software to record and create backing tracks in your computer, this is definitely a great substitute to buying a whole expensive rig and having tolerant neighbors and family members at home.

This may not sound like the real amplifiers and effects it emulates, like everybody is complaining about, but you could definitely get great tones from it. You choose from a variety of amplifier head and cabinet combinations, plus a pretty wide variety of stomp boxes and effects. All of these in front of your monitor and can be manipulated by clicking and dragging.

It is also educational for those with little or no experience in tweaking amps and effects parameters as well as mic choice and placement.

I did not sign up for Guitar Port Online, because of the bad reviews it had, but that is not what I paid this gadget for.

Overall, a very awesome piece of equipment, I just wish there was a way to plug a floorboard with this thing, to control the volume, wah as well as other effects.

 Fun and helpful
This thing kind of sucks you in. I purchased it last year and really liked it. Then I let the monthly subscription lapse during my move and after getting re-established I hooked it back up and found I couldn't play the stuff I'd downloaded. I was kind of put off by this, but recently hooked it back up and re-subscribed for the free 30 days thinking I'd use it for 30 then cancel. But honestly, I'm not so sure. For a modest $7.99 a month you have access to some seriously good lessons and grooves to practise to. For the working guitarist, I'm not sure of the value, but for an occasional player like myself (couple of times a week), the ability to automatically loop tracks, tablature that keeps up with the tracks, the ability to slow the track down and in some cases remove the guitars from the track is simply awesome and a lot cheaper than guitar lessons. I have a modeling amp (Fender Cyber-deluxe)and play throught that, but the Guitar Port amp settings can actually help you learn to dial in your amp too!

 Good practice / learning aid
I have played my guitar much more since buying the Guitarport. The sounds, effects and amp simulations available are great. No-one else has mentioned the play along features. You can play a CD or MP3 through the GP and select parts of the track to loop or play at half-speed. The online subscription is Ok for beginners due to the number of lessons, tones and articles available, but you may want to cancel it after a while as they don't get updated as often as one would hope. Someone else mentioned a hum caused by proximity to the computer monitor. Line6 have done their best with this unavoidable problem by including a NoiseGate and also a hum canceller.
All in all, excellent and well worth the money.

 Guitarport is not perfect, but great for what it is
Reading some of these reviews reveals to me how uneducated some folks are when writing reviews.

I've had Guitarport for almost 2 years and it's the best bang for my buck purchase I've ever made on musical equipment! I am a novice-to-intermediate player (learning on and off for 10 years). This thing is not for advanced gigging musicians. If you are that advanced, then you won't like the sounds as much. They are a simulation of the real thing, not the real thing. But it's close enough for me.

Anyone who is a beginner and want's to learn, this is a fabulous piece of equipment. It's way cheaper than buying amp(s), effects, and microphones. It's great for people like me who aren't experts at tweaking and tuning and amp for a particular sound. Load it up or set one and save it. You can get a wide variety of sounds from it and you can experiment with different effects without spending the cash. I like the headphone use too.

For recording - it's not really designed for it, but you can do it with other software/equipment.

It's flexible and upgradeable. I like the tuner, metronome, noise gate and the ability to save sound settings to use again later. You can add a midi controller pedal and control the wah and volume effects, as well as, trigger changes in amps, effects, etc. Add software and you can record music. Riffworks is supposed to be an easy to use guitar-centered recording software package. It's for laying down ideas, not putting out masterpieces.

And it's $99 for crying out loud! How many guitar effects do you see out there for less that does so much?!?

Guitarport Online - I think it's great for the beginner/intermediate player who want to learn more. You can play along with some classic songs with a backing band! I can play the role of Jimmy Page in a Zeppelin song. That's cool! There are lots of lessons available as well. Way cheaper than personal guitar lessons. Regarding access to songs without/after ending a subscription, it's not about greed. If you have read anything about the RIAA and digital music, you should know how paranoid they are about people freely copying and distributing music. When you subscribe, you are not BUYING the songs (that would cost much more), you are RENTING them. That's the only way most of these studio would allow this content to be available. If you really need to record it, get the software or use Audacity or hook up a tape recorder or something!

Bottom Line - this is an outstanding value for the beginner/intermediate player. It's fun. It's a lot of power in a small package. For the experienced player, if you like the sounds or are not too picky about them, it's great for you too (or look at POD XT, it works with the guitarport software too). It's not the end all, be all piece of equipment, but it's great for what it is.

 Just buy it!
I could not be happier with my Guitar Port.
By now, you probably know most of the features, so I won't bore
you with that. Let's just say, that since I bought the GP, I have not played through my amp since! The quality of the sound coming out of my little computer speakers has to be heard to be believed! (you need a decent set of computer speakers including subwoofer)

The thing I like about the GP the most, is the ability to save my "tones", so that I can pop in a Stevie Ray disc, go to my saved tones and select my "Stevie Ray Jon" tone, and start playing along with Stevie and sound just like him. To sum it up in one word....AWESOME!

 Me Likey Guitar Port
The GuitarPort was the perfect solution for me. After moving house, I had no place for a rack & cab setup... and *gasp* now I have neighbors! Now I can jam even at 3 AM. Most of the time I either use the headphones or PC speakers. But the RCA outs are good for hooking it up to a stereo and use that as a PA when you want to get loud.

An unexpected bonus was now I could record!!!!! LOL but I guess this was a major feature of the GuitarPort anyway, recording. I'm slow like that.

The GuitarPort works well even with very old legacy software (I'm using an old 1999 "free bundle ware" version of Cakewalk Express) and it still functions perfectly under WinXP. This, in conjunction with a neat freeware program called Audacity, and you have a cheap recording setup for PC. Apparently Line6 also has their own recording sofware called Rifftracker or something, but I've never used it since I'm cheap and got freeware stuff :)

The tones are killer. I've also been downloading tones for free from GuitarPort online. But if you want some tracks to jam to, you have to pay their monthly fee, but I've never paid for that service since I'm recording my own stuff.

Another a heads up, I poked around the Line6 website when I needed new XP drivers (after upgrading my PC from Win98, I'm old fashioned), and it said the latest software version was 2.5 (free download btw). So I installed it, and to my surprise I found that I now had 16 amp models and a startling 24 cab models. So the manufacturer press release which states "15 Killer Amp & 14 Cab Models" is either extremely modest or outdated. So it seems it pays off to visit the website once in a while to check for software updates.

 Ok for the money
I'm very fussy about tone so if you're not as picky, this review will not help, check out the others.
I'm using this for practice and recording with Cakewalk Guitar Pro Tracks 3. I've a decent computer and excellent speakers.
Despite the claim of one of the above reviewers, guitarport was designed with recording in mind. That is why it is part of the Rifftracker recording package by Line 6. On the Cakewalk web site guitarport is listed as one of the recommended interfaces for recording. The above reviewer should maybe deal with his own ignorance before describing others as uneducated.
There are many distortion settings in the form of amp types, cabinet types and pedals. However, if you've been playing a good guitar through a good amp then you wont be satisfied. They are not an effective simulation of the real thing as anyone with ears will notice. They are not even close.
None of the distortion settings even partially capture and reproduce the sound of a decent guitar. One of the clean tones however, is OK.
GuitarPort can be used with effects pedals so it's worth plugging in a decent distortion pedal and listening to what that gives you.
Some of the effects are sufficient, in paticular the delays. The chorus is a bit tinny but does the job, as with the phaser. The flanger however, is crap. A couple of the reverb effects do the job but aren't perfect.
I don't use the online facility as I never subsribe to something I can't cancel later. This aspect of Line 6 seems to be a bit of a scam and they should sort it out.
This is one of the cheapest interfaces on the market worth looking at. It's great for beginners, as a play around toy for a more serious guitarist or as a relatively cheap introduction to the world of digital recording, which is what it is to me.
If you're looking for a serious bit of quality recording equipment, have a good look around and be prepared to spend more money.
Saying that, it is good enough for the price but not the wonder that most people seem to think it is. If you have a decent amp guitarport will not replace it.

 Renewed my interest in the guitar
As a teenager I played the guitar all the time. I loved it! But as time goes on, you go to college, you get married, you have kids. Not so suddenly the guitar become not so important (after all I realize that I am not the next Eddie Van Halen now). But my wife (who never really has seen me play the guitar) bought me this for christmas... This is the most unbelievably coolest gift ever. I play it all the time. It is a perfect marrage of my time wasted on the computer and the past love of the guitar. I have played with this toy every day since christmas. I have even managed to impress my wife. If you love the guitar but don't have thousands of bucks to spend on equipement, and you have a decent computer, this is a MUST HAVE!!!!