I’ve spent a little more time with POD Farm, and I’m pleased with it. I got it via a free upgrade with my Line 6 Tone Port UX2. Most of my experience with guitar sound is from my Digitek 2101, which has a tube tube preamp followed by a digital signal processor. I would either record direct from the line outputs with it’s speaker simulator on, or run a solid-state power amp and mic the speaker.

With POD Farm includes amp, speaker cabinet, and room simulation (early reflections). In short, this gives you control over distortion (non-linear amplification) on both sides of the effects processing, allowing sounds that just aren’t possible with the 2101.

On the other hand, POD farm can’t match the flexibility and control of the 2101’s signal processing, which allows you to create completely novel effects. POD Farm’s effects are simulations of “classic” and popular discrete effects stomp boxes. What would be really cool is the ability to create your own models from scratch.

A minor annoyance with POD Farm is the blatant up-sell: it installs numerous patch (called “tones”) definitions that refer to device models you don’t own. This means that 70-80% of the factory presets you get can’t be played on a stock install of POD Farm. Fortunately, customized presets can be stored in directories on the file system, so as soon as I pick the factory presets I like, I can move them in my own directory and ditch the upsell/broken ones.