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Line 6 Spider IV 75 Watt Amplifier with Effects
Our Price: £214.00 (subject to change)
- 75 Watt Combo AMp
- 16 evolved and tonally superior amp models deliver an exceptional playing experience
- 20 revamped Smart FX (4 at once)
- Built-in chromatic tuner
Excellent effects ampReview date: 2010-07-12 Rating: 10 out of 10I got this amp a couple of years ago, to play on my Epiphone Les Paul Standard. The sound is perfect, the clean is clean, the twang sounds twangy, the blues is bluesy, and so on, every effect setting is perfect. I'll never need another amp, it's perfect for recording with a headphone/output jack with perfect output sound quality. the inbuilt tuner is very handy and picks up each string without difficulty, it's very easy to use and easy to understand. The tap tempo button is also very easy to use and works perfectly. The ability to save your own pre-sets is an excellent feature, which I often use; You can save up to 36 of your own spread across 4 channels, 9 on each. The amp having over 400 pre-sets built in by professional musicians and bands is so much fun to play around on, you can play your favourite songs sounding exactly like the guitarist who plays it, thoroughly enjoyable. There's nothing about this amp I don't like, you can use effects pedals with it, record from it, use it as an amp for a mic if you want, plug your mp3 player into it and play along with stuff.
It's great, ignore the 2 star review, the person doesn't even own the amp. Recommended for everyone who wants a great sounding amp with a huge range of effects!
ReviewsVersatileReview date: 2010-01-03 Rating: 8 out of 10This is the first modelling amp I have owned since I have been using a Marshall 8080 valvestate for the last 15yrs. I bought this amp (75w)for the convienence of having so many sounds all contained in one box. I was not drawn to it because of the Artist presets- too gimmicky for my liking. The range of amp sounds are great and far reaching. Likewise the built in effects allow endless possibilities when creating your own sounds. I look forward to customising presets and saving them!
One draw back which may be my failing rather than the amp is the amopunt of sustain you can achieve, even when using full gain. I play heavy rock and strive to get get a low end crunch for rhythm- something in the vein of Jeff Loomis (Nevermore) would be perfect! Overall I am fairly happy with what sounds the Spider 4 provides for this. When playing lead though, string bends with vibrato seem to lack sufficient sustain. At this point I wonder whether this reveals the limitations of a modelling amp over a traditional valve or even tranny amp?
I hope to recitfy my only gripe with this amp once I get my head round altering presets, otherwise I would recommend this amp without a doubt!
Thought I had better state that since writing this review I have figured out how to save edited presets/sounds. Consequently my concern about lack of sustain has vanished. I have been able to adjust and create the rhythm sound I was after coupled with a lead sound with enough sustain for my liking.Dont, just dontReview date: 2009-12-29 Rating: 4 out of 10To be fair I don't own this amp, I own a Spider II cab and head, I tried this out at a guitar store and there's very little improvement. I thought I'd offer a little insight into why I don't like this amp. Firstly, if you're not familiar with amps, there are three different types; Tube amplifiers, Solid State (or SS amps) and modelling amps (Line 6). This particular amplifier has 300 preset tones dialed in by professional musicians ranging from Johnny Marr to Slipknot in an attempt to emulate their signature tones. Unfortunately most of the preset tones are only rough approximations. All standard features are here, Bass, Treble, Middle, Gain, plus some cheap built in effects that you don't necessarily find on Solid State amps.
However, here comes the rant. The overall quality of the tones the amp can produce are terrible. In fact I couldn't manage to dial in a tone I would be remotely satisfied playing live with. The Bass levels are overpowering, the Mid tones are non existent and the Treble cuts piercingly above everything else as soon as you take it past the 2 o'clock position. Everything is overkill, there is no subtlety to this amp whatsoever. Furthermore the tone ALWAYS sounds horribly muffled, as if there's a mattress stuffed in between the speaker and the speaker cloth.
Another problem with modelling amps is that they tend to pick up outside interference more than other amps, I've had many problems with my particular model (although I can't say it'll happen with this model, but I'm pretty sure it will) it also doesn't take kindly to any pedals you might want to add into the mix for live use, making them sound meaty and indistinguishable from each other.
It's clearly geared towards younger, novice guitarists which is obvious when you take into account the amount of distortion available (to cover up average guitar playing) but even the distortion lacks any type of character and ends up sounding static and lifeless. The whole premise of the amp is a bit annoying, you're basically paying money to sound like a cheap version of famous musicians (i'm pretty sure none of whom play or record through modelling amps) and punished if you want to add any outside effects to add some personality.
The amp can sound OK at bedroom volume, if it's just gonna be used in doors then get the 30 watt version and save some money, however when you start to push the volume up for a live performance all of the above problems start to emerge. If you really wanna nail that Slipknot tone, buy a Solid State and a decent pedal. For the record i'm in the process replacing my model with a tube amp.
Product Details/SpecificationsRecording label: LINE 6 Manufacturer: LINE 6EAN: 0614252006132Universal product code (UPC): 614252006132Brand: LINE 6
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