The Line 6 Series amps are DSP digital emulations based on forty years of guitar amplifier design. Because of this you can immediately select sound at a hint of button. Plenty of the sounds in these amps have been recreated to sound like tones used in certain songs for what it’s worth. Line 6 had a number of popular guitarists create their own sounds using their amplifiers and store them in presets.

There are 2 basic kinds of Line 6 Spider III amps. The 1st type is found in the models seventy five, 120, 150 and HD150. These amps feature 12 basic amp models, 7 effects, headphone output, CD / MP3 input, inbuilt tuner, 250 artist’s presets, 150 song presets, and 36 user presets. The tune presets are based primarily on some of the most popular songs. The user presets are access through banks of 9 banks of four presets ( A, B, C, & D ). Some of the more popular presets are the ‘back in black’, ‘red house’, and ‘meshuggah’. There are many preferred guitarists who have made their own presets for this amp series. The track based presets are from the top 200 guitar rock songs of all time and are arranged into banks by genre.

The second type is composed of the amp models 15,30, & HD75 which feature four basic amp models, 6 effects, headphone / direct output, CD / MP3 jack, and four basic presets. These amps sound just as good as the first type without as many presets and effects.

More info on the effects : even though the Spider III series models seventy five, 120, 150, and HD150 have 7 different effects they can only playback 3 effects plus a noise gate concurrently. They’re controlled using 3 knobs : Smart FX A, Smart FX B, and Reverb. The Smart FX A knob selects the modulation based effects like chorus / flange, phase, and tremolo. Smart FX B selects delay type effects like echo, tape echo, and sweep echo. Thereis a dedicated reverb knob. On models fifteen, 30, and HD75 there are 6 basic aftermath of which two can be played back at the same time. They’re accessed thru two knobs : Smart FX A which controls the modulation based effects, ie. Chorus, phase, tremolo, and Smart FX B which controls the time based effects, like delay and reverb. Each of the effect knobs varies how intense the effect is from mild to extraordinarily powerful.

The noise gate is enabled / disabled by holding down the TAP button and then turning the reverb knob. If you go past 12 o’clock on the dial it’s enabled. The noise gate is used to turn off the output when you arenot playing your guitar. There doesn’t seem to be a technique to change the threshold but it seems to work just fine for most presets.

There are 3 optional foot controllers available but not every Spider III amp can use all three so check the amp specs. The footswitches connect to the amp thru an RJ-45 wire which is a cat five network wire like that found for connecting your PC to your cable modem for instance. If you want a longer cable than the one included then you can simply go purchase one. The footswitch comes with a cable. Note that the Line 6 Floor Board and FB4 foot controllers will not work with Spider III. Continue reading Line 6 Spider III

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