Sonoma Wire Works - Support Forums

by **atalwar** » Thu Oct 30, 2008 4:28 am

i just activated the plugin.

there is headache and took me some time to figure out.

in Monkey you have to go to activate and type "refresh" without the quotes as activation key to activate it. (you do need a license for it though)

by **MediaTechGuy** » Thu Oct 30, 2008 5:26 am

Hey Atalwar,

Great tip! I did the same thing and now it is activated as a vsti plugin in Riffworks. When I purchased the Toneport Gold Bundle a few months ago it must have qualified me for the plugin license.

Thanks dude!

by **atalwar** » Thu Oct 30, 2008 5:52 am

Glad that it worked for you.

it does not work standalone for me ;(

i think podxt live is not supported in standalone but i can always use vst shell for it to run standalone so no biggie.

For what i have seen in it so far it is a very Major improvement in GUI and things compared to gearbox vst.

Host tempo sync. as well as ability to type in tempo in fx.

search in preset browser is blessing for me , dual setups, multiple preset locations. quite good.

Realtime patch changing is quite slow though.

one thing annoying is cab/amp.preset selection in dropdowns, you have to use mouse for it. i wish it was keyboard enabled too to use arrow keys, but perhaps in later versions.

by **cwight** » Thu Oct 30, 2008 6:44 am

Hi guys was the Podfarm free or did you have to pay? I got the gearbox plugin a few weeks ago free by paying my guitarport subscription for a year. I don't use the plugin but I thought that the Podfarm was a free upgrade for anyone with the gearboc plugin....

by **mickeymix** » Thu Oct 30, 2008 7:01 am

It's pretty cool.........I have TonePort UXII and was able to download the standalone for free with the latest Line 6 Monkey update........Wooo Hooooooo

by **MediaTechGuy** » Thu Oct 30, 2008 7:11 am

Colin,

I did not have to pay for PodFarm. I am not a guitarport subscriber myself, but I had the gearbox plugin that came with the toneport/guitarport gold bundle which I had previously purchased. The only thing I can suggest is for you to run the line 6 monkey and it should tell you if there are any upgrades available for your guitarport setup. After it installed the upgraded line 6 drivers and the monkey upgrade I went to the line 6 website and checked for any new additional downloads that were available. PodFarm 1.0 was listed. I installed that and followed Atalwar's plugin activation tip listed above.

by **cwight** » Thu Oct 30, 2008 7:44 am

Cool, thanks MTG: I'm in heaven, although at work at the moment, so it's gonna have to wait until I get home tonight (I'm gonna be up late). I've got a new guitar that I'm itching to play, and now Podfarm; can't wait to try the dual amp thing.....It's almost too much excitement in one day...

by **atalwar** » Thu Oct 30, 2008 8:26 am

You can find some nice Dual tone Patches for starters at benvesco's tonemonster blog. i.e to play around before making own.

http://benvesco.com/tonemonster/

~Amit

by **JouniL** » Thu Oct 30, 2008 10:23 am

I have a Toneport GX and I'm also a Guitarport subscriber. Used Monkey to upgrade drivers and download Pod Farm. No trouble at all, works like a charm. The GUI is like 1000 times better than Gearbox!

by **fooks** » Thu Oct 30, 2008 11:25 am

ok, pod farm looks really cool but what will happen to my gear box?

will it be separate? like amplitube?

open it and then play into rw?

lol, whats a plug-in vs vst?

i have pod farm for upgrade with the guitarport and up'd the drivers and monkey.

all the tone pre-sets i made will carry over?

i'm so confused, this is a good thing, right?

by **redbaron** » Thu Oct 30, 2008 11:48 am

...I second fooks in his confusion. Generally, I'm quite sceptical when a company that I bought a "full-featured" software from suddenly tells me that I have to buy this and then another "update" or "software pack" to make it "even more full-featured". My first reaction to that normally is: So if all this extra bling was available from the start, why didn't they give it to me right away?

That's why it needed a deep look at my bank account and the (then extremely favourable) currency exchange rates before I bought those Line6 model packs that were on discount a while ago. Though even at a discount, it didn't escape me that each of these software packages comes at a price that goes from 25% to 50% of the original price I paid for GuitarPort. In relation, I find that quite hefty.

Now, there's the POD Farm package out there that - as I understand it - was developed for a range of Line6 products that were not even available when I bought the 'Port a couple of years ago (Toneport, Pod, UX series). In order that I can use that software on my old hardware I'm asked to pay a sum that again adds another 25% to the "lifecycle cost" of my recording setup.

I know that this is turning into sth like a rant, but if I add up all the money that I paid for the GuitarPort + Riffworks package, including model packs and the ID sessions I bought, I find that without me really noticing an initial purchase of around 300 $ has turned into a package of at least twice that sum over the past 2 years or so. I'm not blaming anyone for that but myself, and yes, I do have fun with the extra stuff I bought. But working in the digital media industry myself, I can't help noticing that I seem to be the subject of a quite elaborate sales plan here...

OK, ultimately what I want to ask is, to quote fooks: "this is a good thing, right?"

Do I need POD Farm? I'm quite happy with the current Gearbox UI, and I haven't been working with VST plugins so far. Maybe it's just that I don't know what I'm missing, but... do I need this?

by **atalwar** » Thu Oct 30, 2008 12:45 pm

** Update - Pod Farm Does sound a Bit differnet , more or so better and has some kind of better feel to the tones. like tighter response and things. ***

Your Standalone Gearbox should co exist. They do for me.

All your existing tones will and should work . No Worries there.

Its just a new interface the underlying engine is the same (according to line 6 forum sources). The sounds and all will be the same.

If you don't need dual tone setup then frankly it might not be worth the upgrade cost.

But if you already have gearbox plugin gold or whatever they require as minimal this should be free for you.

And if not free perhaps more gearbox standalone users should unite and have line6 make it free for you guys.

if you ignore the looks then here are few things in this plugin that are better than the gearbox vst.

1. You can sync the effects to host tempo.
2. You can key in exact values for fx and delays
3. It got a preset browser where you can search your tones too, quite good but still not worth the money.
4.This is the biggie: you get dual tone functionality where you can have two complete rigs playing simultaneously in parallel where you can adjust their individual panning and levels.

I upgraded because i needed some amps and stuff for bass (the model pack) in my pod as well as i needed plugin functionality for reamping DI tracks .

The Conclusion : If you only use RW and you don't need dual rig functionality or vst, it's not worth more than $5.99 seriously.

I could live with the ugly looks of old line edit too as long it offered me the functionalities.

by **MediaTechGuy** » Thu Oct 30, 2008 1:04 pm

Excellent synopsis Atalwar.

If I might add, a vst is one type of plugin (there are others like RTAS and AU) that add additional functionality to an audio editing/recording application. For example, I find the equalizer section in Riffworks limited as compared to a really good Parametric EQ. It would be great if Riffworks allowed us to plugin an outboard parametric eq like the one made by PSP.

Ah yes, is does seem like line 6 is reinventing their own mousetrap, re-packaging and marketing it as new and improved. (Is Bill Gates their CEO?) You are so right that it is a sales plan.

Is it a good thing? Only time will tell. IMHO I think that it is. At the moment it did not cost me anymore $ and I have not lost my Gearbox functionality. Will we be told in the future that we need something new and improved again that they are currently marketing? Probably. I find the new interface much more friendlier than Gearbox. The dual-tone is a nice feature. My Gearbox still works and my own presets work the same in Pod Farm. I think that line6 is going to stop supporting Gearbox and there probably won't be anymore Gearbox upgrades.

by **atalwar** » Thu Oct 30, 2008 2:10 pm

Thanks MTG for correcting me, i should have used the term plug-in instead of vst.

>> does seem like line 6 is reinventing their own mousetrap, re-packaging and marketing it as new and improved. (Is Bill Gates their CEO?)

I think once a company is BIG, most of such decisions are made by underlying management for their wagers, while the CEO's are just playing golf or are cruising be it bill or larry.

to be honest, for hardware devices namely pod series (with their limitations and manufacturing costs etc) they are good bang for the buck as they are decent standalone products.

However, in software plugin or standalone section i think L6 gotta come up with some better ideas as they are not limited by those limitations of hardware devices.

everybody understands that They cannot make a quad core pod and sell for 399 buks as of today (unless they are sony, nintendo or microsoft), but they can surely make better sounding software to justify that kind of money , there being no hardware cost involved and their software not as much comparable to other similar software products in the market, surely smells to be just a Sales Gimmick.

by **JouniL** » Thu Oct 30, 2008 2:31 pm

Atalwar wrote: "Its just a new interface ..." hmmm

The way I see it the GUI is pretty much the most important part of any software. The GUI ENABLES you to use the underlying functionality of any software, basically, no software is better than it's GUI.

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