[tacman7]

I use an 1820m also and I love patchmix. Took some time though.

It basically allows you to do anything you want to but you have to understand it first.

Lots of ways to do things. Just have to try them and see if it works for you.

What I was doing:

I used to use an outboard guitar modeling processor like pod. In that situation I plugged the guitar straight into the computer. But that can mean the front mix/line inputs or an external mic or guitar or tube preamp, lots of choices but get your guitar in there plain.

Setup an asio send in patchmix where the guitar comes in and a bus in Cubase to receive it. This strip in patchmix would be muted, you don't want to hear plain guitar.

Then you connect the pod, so you need an output going to where you plug a guitar in and the stereo out going to line ins on the back of the 1820m or use S/Pdif.
Once again you setup the Asio sends /VSTconnections for the I/O.

It helps if you use descriptive naming in patchmix and VSTconnections for each strip/bus to help you keep things straight. A written plan wouldn't hurt either. I make up flow charts in Visio to map my setup.

So you have a track recording the plain guitar sending it's output to the pod and your listening to the pod in patch mix where it comes in. You have a send on that strip so you can record the output of the pod later.

When you record dry, you can do a lot of takes in a loop and cut up the tracks and use parts from different takes to make a good solo. When done before modeling it's impossible to tell that it wasn't done in one take.