Spider V: The next generation of awfulness.

Line 6 amps have merit. Maybe not for you (or me), but for some people. Not everyone needs or wants tubes, etc. My pal has one of those Fender G-DEC amps. I love messing with that thing, it sounds great for what it is: an inexpensive route to pro-like tones.

The Spider series of amps help propel Line 6 to the largest market share of any amp manufacturer. 38% of the overall market, which is huge, as of a couple of years ago. The Spider series was an enormous wakeup call to the rest of the industry. Fender was forced to overhaul its DEC series and turn it into the Mustang, which is essentially a lock-step copy of the Spider series. Modeling amps have taken over the entry-level altogether, and some have leaked over into beginner-pro applications.

The wider frequency response of the new cabinets (with the added tweeter) allows acoustic players to sound good (most good acoustic amps offer closed-back ported LF enclosures and one or two other speakers for mids and HF), allows MP3s to sound less muffled and allowed entry level players to become comfortable with wider-range speaker cabinets in general. I guarantee you'll see this on a lot of new amps going forward.
 
My point wasn’t that the amps are bad. Just that the toanz in that video are inexplicably awful.
 
My point wasn’t that the amps are bad. Just that the toanz in that video are inexplicably awful.

I have no idea about the amps; I've yet to hear them in person (and I'm not in a hurry to do so). I just got the impression from the thread title:
Spider V: The next generation of awfulness. That it was the just-released amps you were bashing.
The toanz in that video are unwonderful, but there are possible explicablenations. One, maybe he's wearing some resonating bits in his earlobes that are affecting his aural perception?
 
In fairness to Line 6, the amp sounds much better with the gain at reasonable levels:
 
Here's the thing.
If I was going to get back into the Line 6 stable, I probably would have jumped at the Firehawk 1500.
From a standpoint of modeler->FRFR with enough headroom to make it work, this would have been the one.

I still don't think Line 6 has really evolved the models since the Pod XT series. There's something "off" in their coding that ported over to the HD series and I assume keep going forward.
(Have to assume because I stopped at the HD 500 because I couldn't get it hashed out.)

Yamaha's THR models are better than Line 6, Heck, Even Marshall has some better sounding models in the CODE series, but the speaker in those isn't very good. (UI is awesome though)
I gave up on Fractal as the cost vs sound quality was misaligned. Too much $$ for what's there. Plus the complexity was getting to me.

Then with the Tech 21 guys and Wampler/Keeley doing terrific work, going into this type of world isn't worth the effort.

Right now, my rig has been RK5 (for fender clean and boost), Wampler PDD (for marshal tones) and different OD's for taste. (bouncing between Tumnus, Screamer, and Fender YJM (DOD 250 variant))
I can run that into almost anything with enough headroom and get what I want tonally.

The rest of the pedals are for fun or specific sounds that I want.
 
I still don't think Line 6 has really evolved the models since the Pod XT series. There's something "off" in their coding that ported over to the HD series and I assume keep going forward.

What’s missing is the staticy attack noise of power amp gain and/or speaker distortion. I can get a realistic filthy attack from Garageband. But not from a Line 6 amps. I know that some people consider that extra bit of static a bad thing, but it’s still obviously wrong when it isn’t there.

And their models are, musically, very dated. How about some decent models of the amps that have been catching on for the last six years? Start with Matamp, since they outright ignore people who try to order amps from outside the UK. Orange, Sound City, and Supro would also be good starts. Or some weird stuff, like modeling little practice amps with damaged speakers like some Chicago blues players used.
 
What’s missing is the staticy attack noise of power amp gain and/or speaker distortion. I can get a realistic filthy attack from Garageband. But not from a Line 6 amps. I know that some people consider that extra bit of static a bad thing, but it’s still obviously wrong when it isn’t there.

And their models are, musically, very dated. How about some decent models of the amps that have been catching on for the last six years? Start with Matamp, since they outright ignore people who try to order amps from outside the UK. Orange, Sound City, and Supro would also be good starts. Or some weird stuff, like modeling little practice amps with damaged speakers like some Chicago blues players used.

I can't put my finger on it. You are right about that it's something in the attack. But it's something else too.
I don't want to use words that might let them think that I'm quoting from some old discussion, so let me try this.

To me, the line 6 problem comes in when I try to vary my picking style within a song. I can get the soft parts fine, I can get the harder parts fine, But the transition is lacking. The sound of a build up. That slow increase that brings in tension. Trying to put it into words is almost impossible to me. It feels less gradual. Almost as if we are just ticking off increments of change in a very linear (digital) fashion.
 
Here's the thing.
If I was going to get back into the Line 6 stable, I probably would have jumped at the Firehawk 1500.
From a standpoint of modeler->FRFR with enough headroom to make it work, this would have been the one.

I still don't think Line 6 has really evolved the models since the Pod XT series. There's something "off" in their coding that ported over to the HD series and I assume keep going forward.
(Have to assume because I stopped at the HD 500 because I couldn't get it hashed out.)

Yamaha's THR models are better than Line 6, Heck, Even Marshall has some better sounding models in the CODE series, but the speaker in those isn't very good. (UI is awesome though)
I gave up on Fractal as the cost vs sound quality was misaligned. Too much $$ for what's there. Plus the complexity was getting to me.

Then with the Tech 21 guys and Wampler/Keeley doing terrific work, going into this type of world isn't worth the effort.

Right now, my rig has been RK5 (for fender clean and boost), Wampler PDD (for marshal tones) and different OD's for taste. (bouncing between Tumnus, Screamer, and Fender YJM (DOD 250 variant))
I can run that into almost anything with enough headroom and get what I want tonally.

The rest of the pedals are for fun or specific sounds that I want.

Wait... You don't use the rk5 distortion? I love the way it sounds.
 
In a couple of ways, this is an interesting forum. One is that there's almost no mention of modeling/modelers/modeling guitars, etc., and no separate forum for any of that. Even MLP, that bastion of tradition, now has a separate area for modeling. And the attitudes and comments coming in about modeling in general sound on this board sound as if they were from 2005. That's not meant to be insulting; it's just a bit surprising.

I've got 15 tube amps between what I have in storage and what I've got in the den, and I love 'em to death. But I've also got an older Axe FX Ultra, a borrowed Helix (I'll soon have my own), and some HD and HD500 gear, some Pod XTs and a Bass Pod XT. I've been using the HD500 with a Two-Notes Torpedo C.A.B. (turn off the cabs on the HD500 and use the C.A.B.'s IRs, and the C.A.B. also has some amazing sims of tube power amps, including EL84, EL34, KT88, 6L6 and the like.

The use of IRs has changed a lot more than just amps and cabs -- Pete Thorn pulled a (free) IR of a Taylor 314ce being miked with a Shoeps off the internet and ran his Takamine (which has a good piezo setup) through the Helix with the IR in place, set to 100% wet, and what comes out the other end is an acoustic, miked in air. He's been using it when working live with Chris Cornell, and it's stunningly good (needless to say, I hunted the IR down, bolted it in and tried it with my old Variax Acoustic 700, and it was amazing).

jp_nyc is pretty much correct that a lot of Line 6's amp models are based on older amps -- they actually have the amps used sitting on display in the back in Calabasas. If you like, they'll fire them up and you can listen to the actual amp compared to the model, and Line 6 has done a pretty good job with them. Same deal with the guitars used for the Variax models. There's really no reason to add or swap out the current set for new ones; we're at a point where, with a lot of the current modelers, you can profile any amp you like and plug that in. But with a lot of them, modern amps are modifications of circuits found in even older amps. And so you can make modifications of the older models on the XT with the editors available and get pretty much the same thing. There doesn't seem to be anyone here chiming in so far who has experience using the various editors on the current modelers. A lot of the "complaints" are about things that are easily tweaked and saved to the units.

The fact is, the models have become SO good on the new modelers that I think we're mostly going to see advances coming in the realm of the user interface on these units. Here, the Helix is leading the way, with a really big screen usable for any kind of editing you need to do, routing options that encompass almost anything, two-stage switching that includes contextual color surrounds, contextually responsive LED "scribble strips," and multiple sounds/scenes within a single preset -- no delay or loss of time-based "tails" while one preset is moved out of a DSP and another one loaded up. There are four FX loops on the Helix. There's the ability to output to mixer and local monitors differentially. So much more.

I'm originally a keyboard player; a Hammond B3, Fender Rhodes 88 and (when I could get it) a grand piano. Over time, keyboard had its own "modeling wars" and there were those who said no electronic gizmo could ever fill in for a Real Grand Piano. My current Korg Kronos will not only let me choose the nationality (Japanese, German, etc.) of the grand piano I'm going to play, but will also allow me to choose how far I'd like the lid open. Those wars are long gone and people are now writing and performing whole movie scores on a single keyboard (oh yeah, mine also has a 16-track sequencer built in). We're WAY down that road with modelers for guitars. There will always be those who argue over whether some tiny corksniffing intangible is *quite* right in the oboe tracks, or if there's the sound of spit dripping in the right kind of wood bore that no one would ever hear unless they had golden ears. But that wrestling match is over, and people are now simply being creative.
 
The fact is, the models have become SO good on the new modelers that I think we're mostly going to see advances coming in the realm of the user interface on these units.

That has to be the best thing about the most recent generation of modeling units. Since the dawn of amp modeling everything has been skeumorphic; aping existing amps and pedals. Rather than make the interfaces of third and fourth generation modeling amps good the engineers just tacked on bad software UIs that edited amp settings over USB. The software has been almost universally bad. Vast tracts of screen real estate are wasted on literal presentations of amps and pedals some players have never used. Aside from one or two iPhone apps this nonsense even carries over to the mobile world, where there’s never enough space to do it well. Thankfully Line 6 and Peavey are FINALLY breaking away from this crap design. Hopefully in five years nobody will make you use a mouse or touchscreen to turn a virtual knob on a small flat representation of a 3D guitar amp. Or design an amp that’s not really usable without plugging it into a computer and dumping the stock presets. And so on.
 
My point wasn’t that the amps are bad. Just that the toanz in that video are inexplicably awful.

No, the amps are bad. Spyders are Line6's budget, entry-level series designed to appeal to those with less exposure to equipment. You can't save new players from wanting to have too much gain and effects on tap. The tones and sturdiness are a fraction of what they engineered into the Flextone, Duotone, AxSys, DT, etc. How are they relative to other entry-level amps? Truth be told, we could make the same comments about bad tone around dozens, if not hundreds of entry-level amps by tones of companies.

I have to add the caveat, I've always found Line6's products lacking, both in tones/dynamics and build quality.

Now, my Yamaha DG Stomp? I liked it so much I ended up seeking out a replacement for one I shouldn't have sold. Despite Yamaha's claims, the DG-/AG-/UD-series, followed by the Magicstomp, are still the core software of the THR amps. It always responded more like an amp to me and less like a recording (I can say the same for my Menatone KarKrash...despite not being tube or digital).
 
In a couple of ways, this is an interesting forum. One is that there's almost no mention of modeling/modelers/modeling guitars, etc., and no separate forum for any of that. Even MLP, that bastion of tradition, now has a separate area for modeling. And the attitudes and comments coming in about modeling in general sound on this board sound as if they were from 2005. That's not meant to be insulting; it's just a bit surprising.

I've got 15 tube amps between what
.

I think we have a pretty good sized contingent of folks here on the forum that use HD500's, a couple of AxeFX and some Roland floor units as well. I personally have had several Line 6 products and I generally don't get along with them. I do use Positive Grid's Bias Desktop plugin for ProTools recording quite a bit. I'd love to try their head version. Live I am kind of old school though with a Suhr Badger 30 and a 1971 Deluxe Reverb for most gigs and a solid state DV Mark Jazz amp for my Jazz stuff.

I was at the LA amp show this afternoon and after playing through a couple of Red Plate, Bogner and Milkman amps my buddy and I went to Line 6 and had then demo (with me playing through it) a Helix system and I was kind of underwhelmed. I really wanted to dig it but it still doesn't do anything for me.

If I were doing lots of fly gigs or backline something like an Axe fx or the Kemper would be worth considering.


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I think that part of the problem with digital modeling is that they all hire the same guy to make presets and this is that guy:

derp.jpg


If you throw out the presets and go about programming some with your ears instead of your eyes you end up with some good sounds.
 
I think we have a pretty good sized contingent of folks here on the forum that use HD500's, a couple of AxeFX and some Roland floor units as well. I personally have had several Line 6 products and I generally don't get along with them. I do use Positive Grid's Bias Desktop plugin for ProTools recording quite a bit. I'd love to try their head version. Live I am kind of old school though with a Suhr Badger 30 and a 1971 Deluxe Reverb for most gigs and a solid state DV Mark Jazz amp for my Jazz stuff.

I was at the LA amp show this afternoon and after playing through a couple of Red Plate, Bogner and Milkman amps my buddy and I went to Line 6 and had then demo (with me playing through it) a Helix system and I was kind of underwhelmed. I really wanted to dig it but it still doesn't do anything for me.

I was at the LA Amp show yesterday as well, but I had to make a fast tour through and leave. The RedPlates have been seriously good amps for several years now; they've got a good formula for the whole line, but I was especially impressed with some of the little open back 1x12s. I didn't bother with the Line 6 folks, so I have no idea what they were doing. I don't think I've ever heard a demo they've done (including some in-store things) that was worthwhile. But there are other folks who've figured out how to get the most out of them, and those are your best resource. As GilmourD puts it, "throw out the presets..." and spend a little time programming your own. It's also worthwhile to look at how folks like Glen DeLaune are crafting their patches. Even if you need to modify them to suit your ears, they WAY they're constructing these things is informative.
 
I was at the LA Amp show yesterday as well, but I had to make a fast tour through and leave. The RedPlates have been seriously good amps for several years now; they've got a good formula for the whole line, but I was especially impressed with some of the little open back 1x12s. I didn't bother with the Line 6 folks, so I have no idea what they were doing. I don't think I've ever heard a demo they've done (including some in-store things) that was worthwhile. But there are other folks who've figured out how to get the most out of them, and those are your best resource. As GilmourD puts it, "throw out the presets..." and spend a little time programming your own. It's also worthwhile to look at how folks like Glen DeLaune are crafting their patches. Even if you need to modify them to suit your ears, they WAY they're constructing these things is informative.
The amp I would trade my Suhr Badger 30 for would be a 1x12 combo version of the Redplate Magica. That sucker would really reduce the amount of crap I drag to gigs and it does an even better job of what I'm trying to get from the Badger (which is a great sounding amp to start with). I usually don't go for channel switching amps but for my rock gigs it would be the perfect amp.
 
Love my M13, love my UX2 and associated software. The HD500X is too much work for me to get a good sound...I end up getting distracted and/or frustrated futzing with knobs instead of playing the guitar. I view the Helix as having the same problem though I can't say for sure. For my modest needs, most of the new Line6 stuff just over-complicates things and gets in the way of making music. Yet I still find myself lusting after a Helix. Gonna resist though.
 
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