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 horrible sound Aug 13, 2010
This amp has bad sound. wish i bought a vox pathfinder for $20 more. theres one good thing, it has a line out so you can record song ideas to your computer.
1 of 1 found the following review helpful:
You can do better in a pawn shop Jul 09, 2010
For 70 bucks what do you expect, right? Well, not much. This amp is one of the most frustrating amps I've ever worked with. The amp has a clean channel and a distortion channel but what makes me furious is the fact you always have to toggle the switches yourself to get a true sound out of it. Say you turn the amp off while it was on clean and then you turn it back on and switch to some crunch or distortion. You are going to have preset effects attached to the channel. It's so absurd. The amp, after many adjustments, can get a somewhat true clean channel sound but it still has a slight hint of something being phoned in over the top of it. Probably one of the many useless presets it has. All of the effects sound phoned in on this thing. Nothing sounds true to pitch. IT all sounds like your guitar is being plugged into a toy and then filtered with some absurd, cheap affects.
I was pretty upset with it at first but then I thought to myself, it was only 70 bucks and I don't use it for gigs or anything like that so why cry about it. This amp is probably good for someone who just got into guitar, doesn't know if he wants to stick with it and or someone who wants to toggle in a clean channel manually every time and record with it via PC. There you can use software to mask the cheapness that comes from the amp itself. I've played for 17 years, 8 years of that professionally. This amp isn't worth much. To get any kind of "decent" crunch or distortion out of it you have to crank it up so loud all you hear is noise.
Save your 70 bucks and put it towards a decent Vox tube amp or a Marshal 10inch amp. Hell, you can buy a decent gigging Marshal amp for about 250 bucks.
 Review by an intermediate level guitarist ELEVEN! Jun 15, 2010
Now, I am not just some kid that just plays guitar because it's cool or 'cause he's forced to. I wanted to play guitar and know basic music theory and write music. I'm not just the average joe who knows nothing about guitar. That said.
This came with my electric guitar which I got after shopping around a bit. The amp is great for beginners, but if you're more intermediate like me you'll definitely want a new amp after a little while. The main feature I like is the aux input, that way you can play along to music on your MP3 player. (Such as backing tracks for practicing/improvising.) I mainly use the metal channel, it's more like a modern rock channel than metal, insane is most like the metal I've heard. It has a basic three band EQ, except, one thing: This amp goes to eleven! Yes! I counted and recounted and it does indeed go to eleven! The EQ, drive (Which seemingly does nothing.), chan vol, and assumedly the master volume (The 6 dot is interrupted by the Spider III logo.) all go to eleven!
The clean channel on this isn't the best, but it's certainly good for a tiny little starter practice amp like this. You can get surprisingly acoustic-sounding tones out of it if you turn the tone on the guitar all the way up and use the neck and bridge (I prefer dual humbucker guitars.) and turn treble up a bit and bass down a bit. It sounds pretty good, especially with some reverb.
CRUNCH
I'm not too sure. I keep my EQ on 11 bass, 4 mid, 7 treble and keep the tone on my guitar down and it doesn't sound good at all. Turn up the tone and roll back bass and it starts to get better.
METAL
This is a pretty good setting. This one is more of your modern rock tone than most metal I've heard. (Metallica not included.)
INSANE
With a bit of delay this is your solo channel basically. This sounds really good with delay, maybe some chorus/flanger and some whammy bar shredding.
EFFECTS
The effects on this amp are VERY basic. Well, compared to the Peavey. This only has six effects, the Peavey Vypyr has A LOT more.
CHORUS/FLANGER
This is what the name is, chorus. Turned up to max it can sound pretty cool. I don't know much about this effect, but it works.
PHASER
Sounds like your basic phaser. Although, with all the effects you don't really have much control. You can't set the various settings you'd have on a stomp-box type pedal, it's all predefined.
TREMOLO
This is as the name implies, tremolo. It works, turned up to max you get the same kind of tremolo as is in Breaking Benjamin's "I Will Not Bow", just flickering between raised volume and none. Turned just a bit past the "one" setting (There's just a line with a raising width, there's no numbers.) you get a nice sounding... swell I guess you'd call it.
SWEEP ECHO
This is the first effect on the second knob, this delay gives a wah effect to your sound when it echos.
TAPE ECHO (DELAY)
Here's your standard delay. Both delays use the "tap delay" button which you (obviously) use to set the delay time. It works, it's pretty basic, but it works.
REVERB
Of course, your reverb. Most people love reverb, but you get a more defined tone without it, so I switch back and forth every now and then. This is probably the best effect. I usually keep it at a quarter of the way up the line to half. At half you get your more obvious reverb, at a quarter you barely get any.
Overall, it all works fine. It's your basic modeling amp. For a beginner it's the only amp you'll need for years. For intermediate and on you'll definitely want a different amp. If you have the money get the Peavey Vypyr, it's the amp I want next and it's got A TON of settings. Lots more effects, including auto wah (!!!) and PLENTY of amp settings. Lots of clean and dirty channels there. Also, the Vypyr is actually cheaper on Amazon.
 Line 6 Spider III 15watt Mar 17, 2010
The first arrival of this thing and I thought, "Dang, I got ripped", but lo and behold! The power is there with the sound to match! In my generation (80's) wattage was equivalent to power and that beloved metallic sound (not to mention the weight). This amp has the volume beyond the weight and wattage not to mention a few multi-effects (combination of two at a time); and yes, the added effects sound good. The down side is that you are limited in control/parameters; self-contained effects usually do not have the extras like a pedal board or rack mount. You have the following effects: 1) chorus/flange, 2) phaser, 3) Tremlo, 4) sweep echo, 5) Tape echo, and 6) reverb. The extras to the list are Distortion Boost and Noise Gate. There are four channel presets: 1) Clean, 2) Crunch, 3) Metal, & 4) Insane all by a touch of a soft pushbutton. Each has a distinct tone and presence from the other. These channels/presets can be changed. Each channel/preset has an auto FX and tone set. You can disable that auto FX by just holding the INSANE channel button down before turning the amp on. The only thing I would've added to this amp would be an additional output jack (not just a TRS jack but a midi-out and/or the 3 prong~MIC output). If you're looking for an amp with volume, good sound, light weight, and is inexpensive (with the possibility of adding either the Spider III 30 or HD75 peddle later), this amp is for you.
Great amp Feb 09, 2010
I got this for my daughter for Christmas. She loves it. It sounds awesome (it will sound even better when her guitar playing improves a little more). This is a great practice amp, it has a crapload of effects. My son who only played guitar hero before is now learning the real thing because they love using this amp. I don't know a whole lot about amps because I don't play but my brother who has been playing for 15 yrs. says it's a really nice amp, especially for the price. It gets nice and loud inside the house too. Definitely worth the buy for me.
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