Electric Penguinland

 Tux created by Larry Ewing lewing@isc.tamu.edu One of the cheapest and best known options for guitar multi-effects is the Line 6 pocket pod . It's been around for a while and I'm not going to review it, except to say it produces sounds and like any modeller it gives you the option of trying out different tones. What we're interested in here is that it can be tweaked from your computer via USB.

Connecting a guitar (or any electric instrument) to a computer is not as straightforward as you might hope, no matter what software you're running. While your soundcard probably has a stereo jack in and a guitar has a jack socket you probably realise that just plugging one into the other wont get you very far.