The Line 6 POD Studio UX2 recording interface combines the stunning sound of the POD Farm plug-in with a rock-solid and powerful USB interface. Line 6 versions of the immortal guitar, bass, and effects tones essential to the success of countless platinum-selling albums are now available for recording guitarists thanks to POD Studio UX2.
NOTE: As of April 2010, if you order this product, you'll automatically be upgraded to POD Farm 2.0.
In 1998, Line 6 released the Amp Farm amp modeling plug-in and forever changed the way guitarists record. Ten years and dozens of groundbreaking creations later, Line 6 continues the recording revolution with POD Farm.
POD Farm, the Premium Tone Plug-in
From dark and smoky American combos to blazing, gain-crazed English stacks, the sounds of hundreds of fully adjustable amps and cabs, plus studio-standard effects, stompboxes, and preamps are here for you to define your music and cement your place in history.
POD Farm plug-in features the sounds of the sought-after vintage essentials and must-have modern monsters necessary for a pro-sounding recording. It includes 18 immortal guitar amps (modeled after Fender, Deluxe Reverb, Marshall JCM-800, Vox AC-30 Top Boost, Mesa/Boogie Dual Rectifier, and more), 24 guitar cabs, 5 bass amps and 5 bass cabs, 29 essential stompbox and studio effects (modeled after EP-1 Tube Echoplex, Ibanez Tube Screamer, MXR Phase 90, LA-2A studio compression, and more) and 6 crucial mic preamps (modeled after Neve 1073, Avalon Vt737, API 512c, and more).
Drag-and-drop models into the signal flow, pre- or post-amplifier. The carousel-style gear browser, displaying each and every coveted model, provides an experience that's a dream come true. Creating classic tones or imaginative hybrids is incredibly fast and easy.
Fully adjustable, each model offers total tweak capability. Also, with hundreds of presets available, classic gear combinations can be chosen to provide timeless tones in an instant.
Plus, get your free FX Junkie model pack and add 35 more effect models including synths, filters, delays, and more to POD Farm.
POD Farm is Mac AU/RTAS/VST and Windows RTAS/VST compatible for seamless integration with all major recording software applications.
UX2, Low Noise for the Clear Recordings
The Line 6 UX2 recording interface boasts amazingly low noise for recording guitar, 12dB more dynamic range than similar interfaces, for clear and dynamic recordings. Plus, exclusive Line 6 ToneDirect monitoring virtually eliminates latency, allowing you to record with amp and effect modeling without sacrificing tone or feel.
Versatile and powerful, the UX2 interface boasts a comprehensive I/O featuring two 1/4-inch guitar inputs (normal or pad), two balanced XLR inputs with high-quality mic preamps, phantom power and trim knobs, a 1/4-inch stereo monitor input, two 1/4-inch line inputs, two balanced 1/4-inch line outputs, S/PDIF digital output, a 1/4-inch stereo headphone output with level control, and a pair of assignable VU meters for a truly pro recording experience.
Start Recording Guitar Licks Right Out of the Box
POD Studio UX2 includes POD Farm plug-in and award-winning Reason Adapted production software featuring a sought-after sequencer and tons of stunningly lifelike instruments. This collection of studio-standard hardware and software provides instant pro recording, right out of the box.
Public Service Announcement: Latency Kills
Recording with latency is like driving with your eyes closed. Line 6's ToneDirect monitoring allows you to record and monitor a fully processed tone while virtually eliminating latency and taking all the guesswork out of recording great-sounding tracks.
What's latency? Latency is the delay caused by the time it takes your guitar signal to travel all the way through your hardware interface, through your computer's processor, through your plug-in software, back through your hardware interface, and out of your speakers or headphones. This delay is heard in your monitoring signal and makes recording almost impossible. With a POD Studio UX2 interface, latency is something you'll never have to deal with.
Note:
All product names used herein are trademarks of their respective owners, which are in no way associated or affiliated with Line 6. These trademarks of other manufacturers are used solely to identify the products of those manufacturers whose tones and sounds were studied during Line 6's sound model development. Fender and Deluxe Reverb are registered trademarks of Fender Musical Instruments Corp. Marshall is a registered trademark of Marshall Amplification Plc. Vox is a registered trademark of Vox R&D Limited. Mesa/Boogie and Rectifier are registered trademarks of Mesa/Boogie Ltd. Ibanez is a registered trademark of Hoshino, Inc. Tube Screamer is a registered trademark of Hoshino Gakki Co. Ltd. MXR is a registered trademark of Dunlop Manufacturing, Inc. LA-2A is a registered trademark of Universal Audio Inc. Neve is a registered trademark of AMS Neve Limited. API is a registered trademark of API Innovation, Inc.
Allows 44.1/48 kHz 16-/24-bit recording (88.2/96 kHz with sample rate conversion)
Windows- and Mac-compatible
Compatible with USB 1.1 and 2.0
Provides low noise for recording guitar with 12dB more dynamic range than similar interfaces
ToneDirect monitoring virtually eliminates latency and allows you to record and monitor a fully processed tone
POD Farm plug-in
Provides 18 guitar amps, 24 guitar cabs, 5 bass amps and 5 bass cabs, 29 essential stompbox and studio effects and 6 mic preamps in Mac AU/RTAS/VST and Windows RTA /VST formats
64-bit compatible
Free FX Junkie model pack adds 35 more effect models including synths, filters, delays, and more
Reason Adapted production software included
Get better tones with this excellent combination of hardware and software. Order yours today.
SPECIFICATIONS
POD Studio UX2 with POD Farm
Inputs and Outputs 2-1/4" guitar inputs (normal or pad)
2 balanced XLR inputs with mic preamps
Phantom power and trim knobs
1/4" stereo monitor input
2-1/4" line inputs
2 balanced 1/4" line out
S/PDIF digital out
1/4" stereo headphone out with level control
Assignable VU meters
Custom Guitar's Friend Gold Coverage
Gold Coverage goes above and beyond the manufacturer's warranty to protect your gear from unexpected breakdowns, accidental damage from handling
and failures. This plan covers your product for one, two, three or up to five years from your date of purchase, costs just pennies per day and gives you a
complete "no-worry" solution for protecting your investment.
Gold Coverage Includes:
Unexpected and unintentional spills, drops and cracks
Normal wear and tear
Power surges
Dust, internal heat and humidity
Other plan features include:
For products over $200, No Lemon Policy applies. If it fails for the same defect 3 times, it is replaced on the 4th breakdown. (Does not apply to failures due to drops, spills, and cracks)
For products under $200 experiencing the above failures, a Custom Guitar's Friend gift card will be issued for the full price of the product + tax.
Shipping fees covered if required for repair or replacement
Plans are transferable in the event merchandise is sold
Plans are renewable on new gear
*Limitations and exclusions apply. See terms and conditions for program details
Term for New Gear begins on date of purchase but does not replace the store return policy or manufacturer coverage.
Displaying reviews 1-10
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Overall, I really can't recommend this product under any circumstances unless it were given to you as a gift.
1 The software is second rate compared to what else is available in a similar price range, think here of Guitar Rig LE with similarly priced sound cards.
2 The cracks and pops (sporadic) are part of the Line 6 buggy interface during recording and this has been proven repeatedly on both the Line 6 forums and various youtube videos. I've never had a sound card that performed this poorly and I have engineered recordings on several platforms. Dont believe the hype, please look elsewhere, this is one miserable product.
I have owned this unit for over a year so please pay attention carefully.
On the surface this looks like a great deal:
Software, hardware, and even recording software. Lets peer quickly into the abyss of the land of riddled me with bugs, dropouts, known bugs not fixed, user community complaints, and experienced professionals such as me who have simply tossed the unit out and taken the 200 dollar loss.
1 Software: very immature, unstable, and difficult to install. I am a former software engineer and recording engineer so its not like I am some noob. Reminds me of Windows 2x in the day and the interface even looks similar. One needs to install the software, and the monkey software, and then hunt around for latest driver updates...really bad user experience for all and the reviews here are mostly spot on with respect to the poor software implementation.
2 UX 2 Hardware: It works... sometimes! This is a well documented, bug ridden interface from both the hardware and software perspective. After months of tweaking I was able to get a modicum of stability for about 2 minutes or less of recording time before some crack, pop, hiss, or dropout (complete dropout) occurred and caused me to either perform a retake or miserable scrubbing of the wave file. Noise gates are defenseless against high output crackles.
3 Recording Software: You can get your guitar into the DAW Ableton Live, but the crippleware is so extreme it is not really worth your time. Only 2 VSTs, really? Thats not even a drum track. Cubase LE is bundled with other sounds cards and as restrictive as Steinberg is--a far cry from the ineptitude of the Ableton recording software.
Sound: The only reason this review gives the 2 rating is that sound for a teenager would be very respectable with amps turned to 10 drawing out all of the sound artifacts, hiss, crackles, and unexpected pops, and dropouts.
Please avoid this altogether.
This does not really work as a viable recording interface, but one can generate a demo song from the unit as long as you don't mind your demo being riddled with unexplained dropouts, crackling, and hisses. There is no remedy or bug fix when the hardware unit drops out with the USB interface.
This is a cheap interface, but its poor performance should remove most buyers save for the tone deaf metal heads where the hiss and distortion from amps might cover over the crackling, pops, and even the notorious sound dropouts.
Line 6 POD Studio UX2 with POD Farm
.As above.
I would not feel comfortable recommending the UX2 or any other line 6 product at this point. Before you buy the UX2 you must know that there is no guarantee that the product will work with your computer. I have a dual core intel processor with 4 gigs of ram and a large hard drive. I had to spend a 100 bucks to have my operating system reinstalled just to get the box to work correctly. Before this the audio would drop out every 1-2 seconds - totally useless. And here is my sticking point. Although I eventually was able to get the UX2 to work, LINE 6 HAS NO CUSTOMER SERVICE AT THIS POINT. Their idea of customer service is to refer you to thousands of blogs on their website in the hopes that somewhere someone with a similar problem has found the mysterious fix for it. There appears to be no way to contact a real person at line 6. I sold line 6 products for several years and specifically chose the UX2 because of my experience with the line. How totally disappointing. Again, after 3 weeks and a few bucks, I was able to get it to work.
Not for the tech beginner - Buy at your own risk...
All plastic
If you are able to make it work, its a great value.
Line 6 POD Studio UX2 with POD Farm
.Maybe this is just a bad UX2, but either way, it doesn't work on a Mac.
I bought the UX2 to have a studio when I visit my Parents. I've owned the UX1 toneport (the red model) for years and have been very happy with the sounds, and the recording software. My UX1 took 5 minutes to install on my pc, and although I don't need the extra inputs for the UX2, it's all they had at the place I was looking.
After spending 6 hrs, I've ran out of patience trying to install it on a mac. It's plugged in, the light for phantom power is on, it's licensed, all drivers and software are the newest downloads right from the site, the computer is licensed, but the pod farm software says the licenses are bad and won't even recognize the UX2.
0 because I can't use it.
Worthless because the software will not recognize the UX2 on a Mac.
Line 6 POD Studio UX2 with POD Farm
.For a home gear set-up, I'm running the UX2 thru a Mia i/o into Acid or Fruity Loops, then monitoring with a 400 watt PA. Holy bunny-nuggets!!! Didn't even change tones and just started wailing on a new tune, sonic city. Very, very jazzed. You still need a quality ad/da board to run the beast into
Line 6 POD Studio UX2 with POD Farm
.This device is so wonderful. POD Farm has all the amps and effects a recording artists needs.
If the unit was made of metal as opposed to plastic, I would give this product a full 10.
I was able to use a 15% savings on the POD UX2. For the savings and the money I saved, I'm very very happy.
Line 6 POD Studio UX2 with POD Farm
.I have owned my UX2 for about 3 years now, using it as my primary audio interface for my guitar, bass, and microphones. I am using Reason as my DAW, but have fed it into a few amps as well for jam sessions with friends with good results as well. I have not done any 'live' shows with this so cannot speak to whether it would be useful or sound convincing in an actual concert setting, but if you're doing shows like that you have probably invested much more than this in gear anyways.
Other than a slightly tricky installation of the Pod Farm software, which is a one-time deal so is not terribly painful, the software has been stable and reliable for me using very cheap PC laptops (probably slightly over the price of the UX2 itself), with no issues as to latency, drop-outs, pops, or other noise issues that I have seen others complain about. Perhaps this is a per-device issue that some are having, but I do not. I have studied audio engineering in college and have self-produced 5 albums between 1998 and 2005, so consider myself to have a decent ear for audio. I do not use the bundled DAW software, so cannot speak to its usefulness.
As for the sounds, I have a few go-to amp models that I tend to stick to, but this is mostly because I am going for a certain sound rather than a sonic smorgasbord. The pedal effects are convincing and mostly useful. Again, there are so many to choose from, and as I go for a certain sound, I find myself sticking to about a half dozen pedals, but it is very nice to have a stable of others to experiment with when you want to.
Having played guitar since the mid-80's, I am VERY happy with the sonic possibilities that this thing offers for the price of a single boutique pedal. I have literally been able to get rid of all other recording equipment and much of my guitar effects and amps, as this thing sounds good enough for me to use on a daily basis, has been rock stable for me in my experience with it.
Line 6 POD Studio UX2 with POD Farm
.I've had this for several years (it is red).
Easy to use hardware and software and decent tones with additional (pay for) tones.
Features I like:1/4" jack inputs.XLR inputsSPDIF outPlenty of outputs.Easy to understand software (POD FARM)Great selection of tones (included)Great selection of ADDITIONAL tones available (for a fee)Great set of FREE additional tones (accessible with GearBox. GearBox is free from the Line 6 website.)Near 0 latency.
These rating are for what I bought it for vs. what was advertised.
Hardware: Plastic housing that does not really fit in anywhere. (Mentioned in other reviews). It is sturdy enough to toss in my luggage (which I check) and take with me on trips. I've had it since 2007 (the red one) and it still works perfectly.
Software (POD Farm & GearBox): Easy to use and configure (If you have issues they forums are pretty helpful in resolving them).
Tones: They are good for an emulator. Not as great as real hardware or some other amplifier emulators. But for being able to sit and play and get soemthing close, it is awesome. I would not use it for professional recording.
I bought ALL the tones packs over the years when they were on special. For those who complain they found out they had to purchase them. I'd complain more about my first grade teacher that was supposed to teach me to read and comprehend. Might have been useful before purchasing something.
You get what you paid for.
Line 6 POD Studio UX2 with POD Farm
.I've owned this unit for a couple of years now. Prior, I owned a Pocket Pod that suddenly stopped turning on, and a few years before that had a Spider that had a left channel burn out before melting a pair of headphones. Avoid Line 6 at all costs.
The software itself is terrible. The unit is already satisfactory, making Pod Farm the deciding factor for the unit. Pod Farm has very many bugs. You can check out their support forum to see what to expect, but generally crashes, installation issues, and tones randomly failing to work across restarts. Support is terrible, their only response is to reinstall. Their dev team has had years to fix these issues but they have persisted from 1.0 to 2.5.
The unit is alright. It has good amounts of ports for the price. The unit is about as noisy as any other in its price range. The unit is pleasant to use.
The tones in Pod Farm are alright, nothing you can't get from free VST plugins. Additional tones are sold in addon packs, usually around $50 each.
Line 6 has terrible software. I have had crashes unplugging the unit and issues getting drivers installed correctly. If you own the unit, Monkey is apparently not required anymore to register your product. Also, the unit works as a dongle for some Line 6 products, like below.
Comes with a few demos of programs, which are crippled to the point of not using them. The only fully functional program that is included is Pod Farm. 2.5 was a free upgrade from the 1.0 that came with mine, which is a plus.
The unit itself is alright for the price. Line 6 generally has a bad track record of durability. The software is useless and buggy. If you are serious about recording, you are probably better off saving up for a better grade of hardware.
Line 6 POD Studio UX2 with POD Farm
.I bought this thing back in 2010 for use on my mid-2009 MacBook Pro running Snow Leopard. It did its job well enough for the price I guess. The occasional popping sounds were irritating but they'd usually go away once I unplugged/replugged the USB cable.
Fast forward to present day. I have since updated my computer to a modern Windows 8 x64 PC. Therein lies the problem. Line6 has no intention on updating the drivers and/or software to a version that will make the UX2 compatible with my current PC. Every time I use Gear Box the application and UX2 will freeze and eventually crash the computer. This is witnessed by the needles getting stuck at the 12 o clock position, LED lights flashing, and no sound being produced by the UX2. Usually unplugging/replugging rectifies this and then it doesn't happen again until the following day. I installed Pod Farm 2 last night to record some new song ideas and I was quickly punished for my heresy by having NO SOUND at all from my computer until I rebooted. Post reboot, I had to activate my UX2 with Pod Farm 2 which was shaky at best. Yet still even after successful activation I could not get Pod Farm 2 to produce any sound even though Gear Box and other PC operations produced sound just fine. I ended up recording nothing or even having a decent practice last night because I was fighting with my PC the whole time.
All my PC hardware drivers are up to date, as well as Line6 drivers/software versions. I work in IT Support on a daily basis and I have a pretty good knowledge of diagnosing hardware and software.
Line6 I am done with you. I am getting an AVID Eleven Rack to replace this sorry excuse for a USB interface.
Line 6 POD Studio UX2 with POD Farm
.I went ahead and bought this interface despite the number of negative reviews. I'm glad that I did. The software was extremely easy to install, the updates were seamless, and the quality is much better than anticipated. FYI I am using Windows 7 Ultimate and this interface works with ALL of my recording software.
The POD Farm interface is great! I love having the ability to scroll through all of the equipment and build my effects and amp sims. I even downloaded some of the user files from the website. I haven't tried to record vocals with it yet, but I wouldn't hesitate doing so.
The only gripe that I have is that some of the presets use virtual equipment that isn't supported on the UX2. There may be a way to get this functionality, but I haven't found it yet. I would be happy to answer any questions about it. Over the last 7 months I have recorded SEVERAL tracks with this machine and it has not let me down.
I can't really call the plastic construction a con because it stays on my desk. I don't think I would want to put it through the abuse that gigging would bring about, but I don't plan on using it for live sound. If you need a good audio interface with some great effects, buy this; period.
Line 6 POD Studio UX2 with POD Farm
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