Musician Gear & Tech Discussion

A lot of tube snobs don't give Line6 a chance. Yea, the Spiders aren't the greatest amps out there, but they make for a good practice amp. The Flextone, Spider Valve, and Vetta's are great gig-worthy amps.

I used to use a Carvin Legacy but recently sold it and ended up buying a Line6 Vetta II. I couldn't be happier with the Vetta. It sounds amazing at low volume and cranked. I played my Vetta alongside a Dual Recto., Peavey Valve King, and Peavey 6505 and had no problem keeping up.

When I saw Steve Vai back in September, the guitarist in the opening act was using a Line6 Flextone III combo and had no problem cutting through the mix. Not only that, he had a pretty sick rhythm and lead tone dialed in.

Line6 makes some great stuff. I'm a Marshall kool-aid drinker for sure, but I do like Line 6's modeling tech.
I use a Spider 3 120 for jaming with friends because it has all the FX I could want and killer overdrive all in one amp. It sounds killer, is loud and cuts.

I also use a fully loaded POD-XT and POD-X3 along side mic'd Marshalls when recording and had people think the Marshall was the Line 6 track.

You have to understand how to tweak the tone - it's not supposed to sound like the amp it's modeling when standing in front of the speaker.
It's modeling the sound of the amp mic'd in a studio environment.
Once you approach it like that, you can tweak a sound that sounds like you want standing in front of the speaker.

If you guys listen to the new Spider-Valve cranked, you would be surprised.

Im a tube head but its all in the tone you want. If you can get it with a Line 6, then go with it. I dont know if this is true but I read where Kurt Cobain was using distortion pedals in front of crown power amps when Nirvana first hit the road. SO just use whatever it takes to chase the tone in your head. Follow the tone and you will be all right.

Kramer, whoever is singing Limelight on your samples did a great job. I may have to pull that song out of the closet and start playing it again.

I found that limelight track on guitarbt.com (I think), it had the vocals, keys, bass, and drums, everything except guitars. So I just added the guitar lines (screwed up end of solo and never got back to re-recording it). I don't know who did the vocals on it.

Regarding the Line 6 stuff-

I did sell my spider III 75, I realized it had a MAJOR issue.

And that is...

It's loaded with presets, which isn't so much the problem, it's that you can dial in any preset (I was using a clean tone I made on it) and if you want to override the preset, just turn any knob, and the amp kicks in the knob settings, over-riding the preset.

Well. when you are playing at inhuman decibels, the vibration would trigger the knob sensitivity and sometimes I'd be playing and BAM suddenly I'm all phasered, delayed, reverbed out the wazoo because the knob positions which get moved around a bit from carrying the amp here and there are all over the place.

It happens to me a lot during practice and once playing live. It sucks to have to screw up 3+ measures of a song to bend over and reset a preset on the amp.

I'm picking up a peavey 120W keyboard amp to compliment my GNX better, cleaner, etc. Got 3 channels, and XLR inputs so I can mix a mic in with no breakup. Seems like a perfect solution for me.

The Spider series is more geared to the metal crowd. It's a gain monster.
You can easily switch/use the multiple user preset banks, but you need the FVB shortboard to do so.

If you wanted more cleans and still use Line 6, I would go with a Flextone.

I agree, it's not the amp for everybody.

I still will only gig with my Marshalls, but I do love the direction Line 6 is taking tone modeling.

Well. when you are playing at inhuman decibels, the vibration would trigger the knob sensitivity and sometimes I'd be playing and BAM suddenly I'm all phasered, delayed, reverbed out the wazoo because the knob positions which get moved around a bit from carrying the amp here and there are all over the place.

It happens to me a lot during practice and once playing live. It sucks to have to screw up 3+ measures of a song to bend over and reset a preset on the amp.

That was a problem with the Vetta combos as well since the knobs are flat on the top of the amp instead of on the front panel of the amp. Line6 switched knobs to compensate for that issue.

I also use a fully loaded POD-XT and POD-X3 along side mic'd Marshalls when recording and had people think the Marshall was the Line 6 track.

You have to understand how to tweak the tone - it's not supposed to sound like the amp it's modeling when standing in front of the speaker.
It's modeling the sound of the amp mic'd in a studio environment.
Once you approach it like that, you can tweak a sound that sounds like you want standing in front of the speaker.

I've been using a PodXT for recording for the past two years, I recently bought all of the models packs for extra versatility. If you take the time to tweak a Pod and can make use of the parametric EQ, it's possible to dial in some really nice tones. I've tricked a few people in the past with my PodXT.

I guess I'm a tube snob, but a few nights ago I heard a guy in a local band using a Pod pedalboard type unit, didn't get to talk to him so I'm not sure of the details, but he was running a line signal straight into the PA and it just didn't sound good. Strangely enough he's the only one I didn't meet, drummer played in a previous band with me, bass player moved here from New Orleans after Katrina, guitar player was eating dinner during break so I left him alone. Oh, he played a Line6 guitar too...

Everything sounded...canned for lack of a better term. Clean didn't have any real presence, blues lead setting was ok but nothing special, no bottom end on anything, probably explains why he didn't try for any low notes in his leads, I guess I'm just too jaded, I'll keep my tube amps. I didn't hear anything that made me want to hear another one at all. Same as the Line6 amps I mentioned in my other post, nothing that made me want to run to the music store and try one out...digital...sterile...lifeless...no bottom end...same as I had with my solid state amps long ago, which is why I never played low notes in leads, they just turned to mush.

If they work for you, go for it, it's your sound, not mine, and it's not my place to tell you how to get your sound. But for me, I still haven't heard anything to make me want to hear one again, much less try one myself. I'll keep lugging around my heavy Super Reverb and MX tube rig...

I guess I'm a tube snob, but a few nights ago I heard a guy in a local band using a Pod pedalboard type unit, didn't get to talk to him so I'm not sure of the details, but he was running a line signal straight into the PA and it just didn't sound good. Strangely enough he's the only one I didn't meet, drummer played in a previous band with me, bass player moved here from New Orleans after Katrina, guitar player was eating dinner during break so I left him alone. Oh, he played a Line6 guitar too...

A lot of people that use a Pod direct to the board don't realise that their patches aren't going to sound the same as when they're plugged into an amp. A good majority of the time, when people use a Pod direct to the board they tweaked their patches using an amp instead of running through a PA or using headphones to create/adjust patches. That usually results in a thin, harsh sound with little to no low end.