plugging in an electric guitar and getting it to sound good!

Yea, you will never get a great sounding guitar running through the keyboard and using its built in effects. Do yourself a favor and buy a POD XT Live. It is a great unit that has a ton of support from its users. You can create your own patches and save them for others to download. Ive even uploaded a few of mine which turned out to be some of the most popular on the site.

It is the best guitar effects board out there and will server you well. You can run directly from that into your keyboard and get great sounding guitars. Also, dont underestimate some of the guitar sounds in the keyboard itself. I did a whole song based around the studio 12 string and you cannot tell the difference. Of course, this doesnt help for power chords and the such, but the studio 12 string and the one lead sound are decent enough to fool those listening.

It is called Michaels Lullaby and is the first song on my myspace page: www.myspace.com/myownworldlive

what he said,

although if you go for the pod X3 it can do vocals accoustic and bass too and also has a usb soundcard that will do 48k 24bit unlike the fantom.

They really are wonderful bits of kit for a guitarist and our studio would be lost without ours

The hard approach like the pod is usually a more comfortable one for a guitarist ....since they are the last to come into the technology age and like buttons switches and knobs..lol (yes i am guitarist too)

So if u have a pod its usefull all the time. standalone, while gigging or with friends and therefore offers best flexibility.

But if you need a DAW anyway and budget is tight then some DAW provide good guitar amp/speaker/effects emulation/modelling s/w which is pretty comprehensive and sound pretty darn good.
In the case of Sonar, they bundle Guitar Rig 3 into the Producer edition, which along with dimension pro and z3ta makes the higher priced version a bargains...

i had forgotten about guitar Rig actually :S

Thats brilliant software. and also a bit cheaper than buying a pod X3.

I Went with the line 6ux2 which is working out pretty good for me. One problem with this equipment however is that even though it has 5 inputs, pod farm only allows 1 signal to come in. I'm hoping to maybe bypass that in sonar or cubase which I should be getting soon. the ux2 also came with software for ableton live which so far seems pretty cool and relatively easy to use.

Does anyone know if its ok to plug the fantom and the line 6 ux2 interface into my computer at once?

yes you'll be fine. but you'll have to use the UX2 as your interface with your DAW and the fantom as a midi controller.

you cant have them using two interfaces at once im afraid.

but thats good as the UX2 will record at 48K

Thanks for the good advice everyone. I wanted to correct myself here. It is possible to have 2 inputs recording simultaneously with the pod studio ux2. Although I am very satisfied with this product, it sort of sounds fake to me. I guess its kind of obvious though. A digital version of a real amplifier will not sound the same. Also i find some of the distortions to be to kind of overwhelming. On the other hand I have not had enough time to explore the software in its entirety. for only a week and half of owning it i think its a great choice for someone in my situation.

hey scradge, what do you mean by 48k? Also couldnt i switch in the DAW which interface I wanted to use at a particular time. Thus having both plugged in to the computer and both options available in the DAW. Thanks again for all the help

"The hard approach like the pod is usually a more comfortable one for a guitarist ....since they are the last to come into the technology age and like buttons switches and knobs..lol (yes i am guitarist too)

So if u have a pod its usefull all the time. standalone, while gigging or with friends and therefore offers best flexibility.

But if you need a DAW anyway and budget is tight then some DAW provide good guitar amp/speaker/effects emulation/modelling s/w which is pretty comprehensive and sound pretty darn good.
In the case of Sonar, they bundle Guitar Rig 3 into the Producer edition, which along with dimension pro and z3ta makes the higher priced version a bargains... "

Agreed that there are cheaper, daw based solutions that will get you through... but the Pod series is really a marvel and it would be worth your while to invest in one. I think the beauty of the hardware approach, is that you get more than something to record with. You get the most versatile pedal board made. If you need a sound for a particular cover song... all you have to do is go on Line 6's site and download the patch. The community is incredible and makes the Pod units indispensable for both live and recording situations. I was first introduced to the Pod XT Live by Dennis De Young's guitarist. Said he loved the thing and has toured world wide with it. One of the best pieces of equipment he has ever owned. When I first got it home, I was amazed to know that I now owned every effects pedal and amp/ speaker combination ever made... and, if it wasnt there... I could design it myself.

Awesome, awesome piece of equipment that no guitarist or studio musician should be without.

*teaching mode on*

by 48kHz mean the samplerate of the audio.

When audio is recorded into a computer the interface takes a sample of the amplitude of the sound going in at set intervals.
1Hz means once per second

So 44.1K is 44100 times a second a sample is taken.
48KHz is 48000 times a second,
96K is 96000 times a second
and so forth

The higher the sample-rate the higher the quality of sound.

Bit depth is a bit more complicated to explain but is basically the quality in amplitude and how loud the recordings can be.

on the box it says compatible with 44.1, 48 and 96 kHz

Does that mean it depends on the audio input signals sample rate?

Scradge, you had previously said "thats good as the UX2 will record at 48K". Where you unaware that the ux2 is also 96k compatible? BTW what is the fantom's sample rate?

Scradge I hope you dont mind me asking all these questions, but I find it very interesting and helpful. Thanks again.

Hey its no problems mate. I lecture 6th formers im used to it.

if it will recordat 96K use that,
I wasnt aware that it did, I have a POD X3 which only goes up to 48k so i was thinking it would be the same

what DAW are you using?

the only reason being is when you mix down to CD you will need to convert to 44.1 using a dither plugin to avoid mixdown errors,
but recording at 96 KHz will allow you to work better with the hardware.

any questions e-mail me and ill send you my MSN, ill gladly explain anything you want.

Thanks Scradge i appreciate the offer. Do you teach music?

I should be getting sonar and cubase soon, but for now I'm working with ableton live lite (came with the ux2). btw the pod x3 looks awesome, I almost went for that option but I donnt need it because i wont be playing out live. Also, now that I've done all of the upgrades with pod farm and such (through the line 6 monkey program), I'm finding some really good tones! Awesome gear.

Im help teach music technology. basically i explain all the technical stuff like samplerates, mixing techniques, how synths work and stuff.
And my collegue prepares them for exams, makes sure that they understand what a note is (im not kidding we get students ALL the time expecting that they can do the course without being able to use a keyboard).

So he does the proper teaching and i do the "how does this work" supprt.

The pay is ---- but that UK education for you.

The modelling technology is pritty much the same through all the Line 6 range so you'll generally find that they will sound very similiar.
Your quite right though the UX2 is better for home recording than the X3 Live but the vocal effects on is are fantastic.

The new POD HD is even better.

It seems to me just use your effect boxes that you have. If you don't have any yet, I can see a Pod, but to drop that kind of change on a new guitar effect box seems $$$$$$. Or try a mic on your guitar amp, you might have to put the amp in a different room with the mic, but you will get your sound. Some amps do have a head Phone out try that, just be carful of the out put when you set it up. I have had no problem with just plugging in my guitar to the back of the FG, but I am using just a clean sound and I go back and add some reverb on the FG. When I want more then that I get my old peadles out.