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Stormleader « Great for beginners for bedroom playing, not so great for gigs. »
Published on 03/22/11 at 14:06The nightmare of every tube snob every born, the Line 6 Spider III. Just about every kid who has a Squire Strat and wants to play chugga-chugga-chugga-chugga has one of these things. I don't personally own one, but I have a good friend who does, so I have a decent amount of experience with it.
It has 12 amp models and 7 "Smart Control FX": Tape Echo, Sweep Echo, Standard Delay, Chorus/Flanger, Phaser, Tremolo, and Reverb. The one I will be reviewing today is the 75 Watt 1x12 model. Besides the control knobs for the effects, it has Drive, Bass, Mid, Treble, Preamp volume, and Master volume knobs. It can be controlled via an optional footswitch, of which there are several models of. There is also a speaker emulated lineheadphone out for quiet practice or recording, and a line-in if you want to jam along with a MP3 or CD Player
UTILIZATION
The basic idea of it all isn't very hard to grasp. Turn the amp model knob to what you want, then dial in the tones you desire from there. Saving presets is a little more in-depth, but Line 6's manuals are pretty good about explaining things well. Trying to fine-tune the effects is harder, because you only have one knob to control them. Selecting presets is also fairly simple, and is done by using 4 patch buttons (A, B, C, D) and a direction pad to change banks and sections.
SOUNDS
This is what really counts, right? Well, let me put it this way. If you are just starting out on guitar, or are looking for a practice amp, then this does OK in those roles. If you are looking to gig anytime soon, then please, for the sake of your audience's ears, please pass over this amp. It may sound OK at bedroom levels, but once you start cranking it the tone thins out quite a bit and you are left with a really tinny sounding amp that lacks low end and just general "oomph".
Not to mention that this amp negates the tonal differences between guitars. For example, if I play through this amp with my Warbeast NJ that is loaded with active EMG's, and then if I play through it again with a different guitar, there is very little difference in tone. I do believe that this is part of the design of the amp, because as I said earlier, there is all these kids who want to go "Chugga-chugga-chugga-chugga" using their Squier Strats and their uber-super-amazing Spider III. And to make that sound anywhere decent at bedroom levels there has to be quite a bit of compression and signal tweaking going on.
OVERALL OPINION
As I said earlier, if you are just starting out, or need a practice amp, then this amp may work OK for you. But there are still better amps in the price range than the Spider. The Vox Valvetronix amps are good for low gain stuff, and the Roland Cubes do higher-gain rock and metal decently well, and both of those amps seem to be built better than the Spider III's.
So overall, not only are there amps that sound better for the money, but they are built tougher as well. I highly suggest that if you really need an amp that has effects built in, that you take a look at what Roland and Vox has to offer.
It has 12 amp models and 7 "Smart Control FX": Tape Echo, Sweep Echo, Standard Delay, Chorus/Flanger, Phaser, Tremolo, and Reverb. The one I will be reviewing today is the 75 Watt 1x12 model. Besides the control knobs for the effects, it has Drive, Bass, Mid, Treble, Preamp volume, and Master volume knobs. It can be controlled via an optional footswitch, of which there are several models of. There is also a speaker emulated lineheadphone out for quiet practice or recording, and a line-in if you want to jam along with a MP3 or CD Player
UTILIZATION
The basic idea of it all isn't very hard to grasp. Turn the amp model knob to what you want, then dial in the tones you desire from there. Saving presets is a little more in-depth, but Line 6's manuals are pretty good about explaining things well. Trying to fine-tune the effects is harder, because you only have one knob to control them. Selecting presets is also fairly simple, and is done by using 4 patch buttons (A, B, C, D) and a direction pad to change banks and sections.
SOUNDS
This is what really counts, right? Well, let me put it this way. If you are just starting out on guitar, or are looking for a practice amp, then this does OK in those roles. If you are looking to gig anytime soon, then please, for the sake of your audience's ears, please pass over this amp. It may sound OK at bedroom levels, but once you start cranking it the tone thins out quite a bit and you are left with a really tinny sounding amp that lacks low end and just general "oomph".
Not to mention that this amp negates the tonal differences between guitars. For example, if I play through this amp with my Warbeast NJ that is loaded with active EMG's, and then if I play through it again with a different guitar, there is very little difference in tone. I do believe that this is part of the design of the amp, because as I said earlier, there is all these kids who want to go "Chugga-chugga-chugga-chugga" using their Squier Strats and their uber-super-amazing Spider III. And to make that sound anywhere decent at bedroom levels there has to be quite a bit of compression and signal tweaking going on.
OVERALL OPINION
As I said earlier, if you are just starting out, or need a practice amp, then this amp may work OK for you. But there are still better amps in the price range than the Spider. The Vox Valvetronix amps are good for low gain stuff, and the Roland Cubes do higher-gain rock and metal decently well, and both of those amps seem to be built better than the Spider III's.
So overall, not only are there amps that sound better for the money, but they are built tougher as well. I highly suggest that if you really need an amp that has effects built in, that you take a look at what Roland and Vox has to offer.