I bought this as a cheap entry to guitar modelling, and for this it does the job: very cheap, many effects and good configurability. It has a few drawbacks that spoiled the fun a little for me, though. I doubt it will replace my old Line6 X3 Live for my own requirements, for instance, or at least definitely not for everything.
Pros:
* Very cheap, I doubt you'll regret getting it even if it doesn't fit your needs 100%! (I definitely didn't)
* A lot of effects and presets, a ton for the price.
* Some of the clean/chorus presets are really gorgeous (leads and distortions not so much, see later).
* You can upload your own IR for the CAB section: it has less configuration options when you choose that, but that's still a cool thing that can be a game changer for some.
* It comes with its own rhythm patterns and a looper too: I haven't used either much, but I can definitely see the advantage of having them, especially in such a cheap device.
* The hardware buttons and knobs are easy to learn and use: modifying a preset on the fly is quite simple and fast.
Cons:
* There's no editor for Linux, only Mac and Windows. I know many won't care: I do, as I'm a Linux user, especially considering there isn't a mobile app either to compensate. I had to write my own open source editor (which you can find on GitHub, if you need it too), which I'll probably use to create my own mobile app to control it.
* Navigating presets is a chore when using just the buttons, as there's 200 of them and you can only go up/down. When at your laptop it's less of an issue, since the editor allows for selecting any with a click, but as I said I didn't have access to an editor until I coded my own. For playing live it could be a problem, unless you put your favourite presets very close to each other.
* While it's true you can get the audio on your laptop, that's only possible using the OTG interface (USB-C) and it comes with a bit of delay: not huge, but unfortunately very noticeable, which makes it hard to play and record. Better to rely on an external soundcard for that.
* There are many effects you can configure, but the order is fixed. It's weird the noise gate can only be set after amp/cab, for instance, and not directly on the guitar signal before anything else.
* There are a ton of presets, but most of them are quite underwhelming. Distorted sounds, for instance, are often muddy and noisy, and I still haven't found a lead sound I can safely say I like. If you want to play metal or hard rock, you'll have a hard time finding a good sound (I still haven't).
* This is not really the device's fault, but there really isn't much of a community around presets. With such a configurable device and an easy JSON based format (PHB), it's a pity you can find very few of them contributed by other people using it. I found a handful of free ones, and just two websites that sell some (I didn't buy any). Hopefully that will change in the future, since to my knowledge the preset format is the same for all DNAfx GiT devices.
Long story short, I don't regret getting this, since I've been having fun with it (especially trying to reverse engineer the USB protocol to write my own editor). I don't know how much I'll actually use it for playing, though, at least not until I can get some better sounds out of it.
)
)
){kind=logo}
