Throughout his career, Line 6 founder Marcus Ryle has rocked the industry, although he’s not exactly a household name. Prior to founding Line 6, Ryle ran Fast Forward Designs, a company whose name stayed in the background while it consulted on and designed some of the most influential products in the business, such as the Alesis ADAT (as well as accessories for the line including the BRC and numerous interfaces), various Alesis drum machines and more.

Line 6 unveiled its first lines of digital modeling guitar amplifiers in 1996. These were followed two years later by the enormously successful (and popular) Amp Farm plug-ins for Pro Tools users.

But also in 1998, to make sure that non-Pro Tools users could access amplifier modeling in an easy to use hardware format, Line 6 launched the POD. Revolutionizing guitar tone creation with its digital amp modeler, the POD quickly found its way into personal and professional studios. The first of its kind, the POD was affordable, and would go on to spawn multiple iterations, becoming a staple for guitarists in the studio or at home that continues to this day.