January 30, 2010
There are Two Standard Types of Spider III Amps : Type One and Type Two
The Line 6 Series amps are DSP digital emulations based upon forty years of guitar amplifier design. Due to this you can right away select sound at a touch of button. Lots of the sounds in these amps have been recreated to sound like tones utilized in certain songs in fact. Line six had a number of popular guitarists create their own sounds using their amplifiers and store them in presets.
There are 2 basic types of Line six Spider III amps. The 1st type is in the models 75, 120, 150 and HD150. These amps feature twelve basic amp models, seven effects, headphone output, CD / MP3 input, built in tuner, 250 artist’s presets, 150 song presets, and 36 user presets. The track 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 favored presets are the ‘back in black’, ‘red house’, and ‘meshuggah’. There are many popular guitarists who have created their own presets for this amp series. The track based presets are from the top 2 hundred guitar rock songs in history 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, six effects, headphone / direct output, CD / MP3 jack, and four basic presets. These amps sound as good as the first type without as many presets and effects.
More data on the effects : even though the Spider III series models 75, 120, 150, and HD150 have seven different effects they can only playback three effects and a noise gate simultaneously. Theyare controlled using three 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 15, thirty, and HD75 there are six basic aftermath of which two can be played back simultaneously. Theyare 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. Every one of the effect knobs varies how intense the effect is from mild to extremely forceful.
The noise gate is enabled / disabled by holding down the TAP button and then turning the reverb knob. If you go past twelve o’clock on the dial it’s enabled. The noise gate is used to turn off the output when you aren’t playing your guitar. There doesn’t appear to be a method to change the threshold but it appears to work just fine for most presets.
There are also three 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 through an RJ-45 cable which is a moggy 5 network cable like that found for connecting your personal computer to your wire modem for instance. If you need a longer wire than the one included then you can simply go purchase one. The footswitch incorporates a cable. Note that the Line six Floor Board and FB4 foot controllers will not work with Spider III. Continue reading Line 6 Spider III
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