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MGR/Anonymous « Line 6 Spider II 212 150 Watt »
Published on 01/19/07 at 15:00Well, Im not actually a "real" guitarist, Im actually a Jazz Drummer and have been for the last 9 Years. Ive played in several bands and orchestras, and my last endevour I toured Ireland in the schools Swing Band playing drums (im 19)
In the last 2 or 3 years I have tried to put time aside for learning to play the guitar and bass, and more recently the harmonica! (very cool and quick to learn instrument, cheap too!)
Anyway, Im a bit of a collecter when it comes to anything music, anything old and cool intrests me, as well as new and modern.
Well, I managed to snap this baby up for 125 GBP off an online auction, and collecting the amp wasnt a problem, about 60 miles away and back, which is quite a fair way, but its no hassle when I wouldnt risk having it sent by delivery!
I bought this amp to replace my ageing marshall 8080 valvestate which at the minute is in pieces having some soldering work done to it in my garage
Oh, this amp is absoutly incredible. I dont know why I even bothered with the basic marshall when I could have bought one of these babys a long time ago.
Each amp setting, the twelve amp models its based on, from the humble ac30 to a mesa boogie!, its got them all. Although I mainly play blues and rock, this amp doe the job nicely.
Because the amp is so DIGITAL, it feels almost too perfect, theres no inacurasys in the sound, and theres lots of little quirks I love about it. For example, you can put it too a high gain amp like a mesa, and turn up the master to 1, and you can get some lovley little pinched harmonics squeeling, and I play an ordinary generic telecaster replica!.
I also love the fact you can save the volume and EQ settings AS WELL as effects on four sperate channels which can be selected by hand, or simply by using a plug in foot pedal lke the FB2 (which came with my amp)
The effects themselves are pretty nifty, I love the idea that the further you turn the knob on the effect,m the proresivly deeper / faster it gets, and also there is a tap tempo button for setting the delays. There is tremelo, chorus, phaser, flanger, tape echo, delay, and sweep delay (a bit like tape echo with a touch of flanger). Although the ability to edit these effects is fairly limited, who cares?, and BE HONEST, how often do we use effects other then wah wah and reverb, hmmm?
Speaking of reverb, the reverb on this amp is pretty amazing, and sounds very organic and rich, not tinny and fake.
OK, there are several things that frustrate me ever so slightly about the amp, and Ill be very honest with you about this.
If you intend to go about flciking through the amp models with the mster more then 4 or 5, you might risk damaging youre ears as the gain gets progressivly louder, for example, if the gain turned right up on a ac-30 sounds fairly crunchy with the channel volume half way, imagine what the mesa-boogie sounds like!, YES, ALOT of loud squeeling and feedback. Because the amp memorises the gain settings, its dosent changer for another amp, and boosts it too the equivlent if the gain knob was turned that far on the amp it was being moddled on. My advice is suss out what amps you want and effects, and save them on each channel, other then that, turn youre volume down on youre guitar before you go delving in and all is ok
The effects limitations might piss some people off, but they are there to be subtle like chorus and some mild delay. If you like Pink Floyd / Dave Gilmour, then you will LOVE this amp.
The other thing I dont like about this amp is the very last amp on the dial "Insane", it sounds like a frog farting.
The EQ settings can seem very subtle at times.
The only other thing I dont like about this amp, and some of the people have purchased it, is the ammount that they bitch about how cruddy it is. It isnt cruddy!!, if you want cruddy, but a marshall AVT (no offense AVT owners, but the amp has its arse kicked from every angle from the line 6)
The reason why I like this amp so much is the cheapness of it, its cheap!, and more importantly it does everything it says on the tin.
My rant is over haha
The construction of this amp is absoltuly lovley, everything says "quality" about it, the dials and buttons feel a tiny bit plasticy, but very smmooth and controlled and chunky.
The asthetics are amazingly pleasing to the eye, but its certainly built for the road.
im going to give this amp a 9.5 / 10 purley because I think there a .5 in improvemrnt to be made, but its one hell of a good amp for the money and if youre not an amp connosuir moaning about the lack of valves or "Tubes", then this one is for you.
This review was originally published on http://www.musicgearreview.com
In the last 2 or 3 years I have tried to put time aside for learning to play the guitar and bass, and more recently the harmonica! (very cool and quick to learn instrument, cheap too!)
Anyway, Im a bit of a collecter when it comes to anything music, anything old and cool intrests me, as well as new and modern.
Well, I managed to snap this baby up for 125 GBP off an online auction, and collecting the amp wasnt a problem, about 60 miles away and back, which is quite a fair way, but its no hassle when I wouldnt risk having it sent by delivery!
I bought this amp to replace my ageing marshall 8080 valvestate which at the minute is in pieces having some soldering work done to it in my garage
Oh, this amp is absoutly incredible. I dont know why I even bothered with the basic marshall when I could have bought one of these babys a long time ago.
Each amp setting, the twelve amp models its based on, from the humble ac30 to a mesa boogie!, its got them all. Although I mainly play blues and rock, this amp doe the job nicely.
Because the amp is so DIGITAL, it feels almost too perfect, theres no inacurasys in the sound, and theres lots of little quirks I love about it. For example, you can put it too a high gain amp like a mesa, and turn up the master to 1, and you can get some lovley little pinched harmonics squeeling, and I play an ordinary generic telecaster replica!.
I also love the fact you can save the volume and EQ settings AS WELL as effects on four sperate channels which can be selected by hand, or simply by using a plug in foot pedal lke the FB2 (which came with my amp)
The effects themselves are pretty nifty, I love the idea that the further you turn the knob on the effect,m the proresivly deeper / faster it gets, and also there is a tap tempo button for setting the delays. There is tremelo, chorus, phaser, flanger, tape echo, delay, and sweep delay (a bit like tape echo with a touch of flanger). Although the ability to edit these effects is fairly limited, who cares?, and BE HONEST, how often do we use effects other then wah wah and reverb, hmmm?
Speaking of reverb, the reverb on this amp is pretty amazing, and sounds very organic and rich, not tinny and fake.
OK, there are several things that frustrate me ever so slightly about the amp, and Ill be very honest with you about this.
If you intend to go about flciking through the amp models with the mster more then 4 or 5, you might risk damaging youre ears as the gain gets progressivly louder, for example, if the gain turned right up on a ac-30 sounds fairly crunchy with the channel volume half way, imagine what the mesa-boogie sounds like!, YES, ALOT of loud squeeling and feedback. Because the amp memorises the gain settings, its dosent changer for another amp, and boosts it too the equivlent if the gain knob was turned that far on the amp it was being moddled on. My advice is suss out what amps you want and effects, and save them on each channel, other then that, turn youre volume down on youre guitar before you go delving in and all is ok
The effects limitations might piss some people off, but they are there to be subtle like chorus and some mild delay. If you like Pink Floyd / Dave Gilmour, then you will LOVE this amp.
The other thing I dont like about this amp is the very last amp on the dial "Insane", it sounds like a frog farting.
The EQ settings can seem very subtle at times.
The only other thing I dont like about this amp, and some of the people have purchased it, is the ammount that they bitch about how cruddy it is. It isnt cruddy!!, if you want cruddy, but a marshall AVT (no offense AVT owners, but the amp has its arse kicked from every angle from the line 6)
The reason why I like this amp so much is the cheapness of it, its cheap!, and more importantly it does everything it says on the tin.
My rant is over haha
The construction of this amp is absoltuly lovley, everything says "quality" about it, the dials and buttons feel a tiny bit plasticy, but very smmooth and controlled and chunky.
The asthetics are amazingly pleasing to the eye, but its certainly built for the road.
im going to give this amp a 9.5 / 10 purley because I think there a .5 in improvemrnt to be made, but its one hell of a good amp for the money and if youre not an amp connosuir moaning about the lack of valves or "Tubes", then this one is for you.
This review was originally published on http://www.musicgearreview.com