Behringer guitar link UCG102 & Kubuntu ?

[D. Michael McIntyre]

On Thursday 06 September 2007, Laurent Asorne wrote:

> Hi there! I'd like to buy the Guitar Link UCG102 from Behringer. With this
> USB-device, I can connect a guitar to the PC and record directly without
> any amps or mics. But I don't know if it is compatible with Kubuntu. It is
> not on any hardware compatibility list on the net and googling around did
> not find that either.

I can't find any Linux info either.

I'm looking at the manual.  It says it will plug and play on PC or Mac without 
installing a driver, though you should install the special driver for Windows 
for best results.  This makes it very likely that it will work as an audio 
device with the snd-usb-audio driver.

It sounds like half of the cool features described in the manual come directly 
from the bundled software, which is an amp modeling/effects deal.  You'd have 
to struggle to try to get this to work via WINE, and that's not a struggle 
I'd want to suffer myself.  I'd say it's rather unlikely to be a satisfying 
experience.

You might get by without the "stomp box" part of the software by plumbing the 
audio via JACK to something like JACK Rack, and thence to LADSPA effects 
plugins, but as far as I know, we have nothing like a guitar amp modeler for 
Linux, and you'd be dead in the water on that score.

Sounds like you might get some limited use out of it, but it sounds likely 
that you'd be disappointed with what use you could get out of it via Linux.

I'd suggest going with a dedicated amp modeling/effects box (like whatever the 
modern incarnation of the DigiTech RP-200 is), and hooking its audio to a PC 
soundcard through more conventional cables.  I have a setup like this, and it 
works well.
-- 
D. Michael McIntyre