So I want to preface my (long but informative) review by stating that I’m incredibly fortunate, and after ~12 years have recently reached the near-virtuoso skill level of guitar playing (the kind where learning an A7X solo takes 30 minutes tops and Yngwie songs can be same-day tasks). I’m not stating to brag but rather try to provide a frame of reference and assurance to the reader that their review isn’t from some 16 year old kid or a guy who hasn’t gotten better in 20+ years. Nothing wrong with those things, but I can’t stand people basing choices on well written reviews that aren’t actually based on reality to someone who knows what they’re talking about.
Now line6 (and particular their Spider product line) have always had an abysmal reputation, and that’s for a good reason; a long history of cheap products at cheap prices loaded with cheap effects that sound - you guessed it: cheap. (FYI never trust a single product to provide you with every effect and think it’s going to sound high quality). While the Spider V Mkii line (not to be confused with the original Mk) are certainly not going to ever sound like a Telegun or a Diezel or a Marshall, they’ve made huge strides in regards to their price point and distinguished themselves from other low-tier amp makes (Crate etc) in ways that are not being acknowledged fairly.
The target audience for these amps are NOT for someone to use while performing on stage, or who has gained a deep and irrevocable addiction to tonality. But if you’re being honest about where you’re at and what your needs are, the v20/30 (if you can go any higher you’re better off with a different product at those prices) are basically among the best options at their price points atm. If you have to play through headphones a lot to avoid disturbing others, are within your first couple years and still exploring effects, chaining them, terminology, playing with your EQ knobs, etc, or you want to make acceptable recordings of your playing (not good, but passable to get points across and maybe impress your family and non musical friends/girlfriends if you know how to use it correctly), then this is a great choice for you (These amps come with a free copy of Cuebase, which is tricky to finagle but I’ve managed to get a couple remarkable recordings for free software and a dirt cheap amp).
I use it for playing through when everyone else starts going to bed, I’m obsessed and often play until about 4am with headphones on. I have to say they’ve come a LONG way in only one generation on this product line, and it’s so much better that they honestly should have given it it’s own name to avoid association with Spider’s reputation. If they make a similar jump again they’d really be the no-contest ruler of the budget amp market. You have to really master it to get a decent sound, but it exists.
THE APP CRASHING ISSUE IS RELATED TO THE DPI OF THE MOUSE PEOPLE ARE USING AND THEY JUST HAVENT FIGURED IT OUT. ALMOST ANY MOUSE (it crashes once it exceeds around 800dpi) WILL CAUSE CRASHING WHEN MOVING LEVEL SLIDERS OR DOUBLE-CLICKING ON PRESETS. USING A TRACKPAD WILL NEVER TRIGGER THIS ISSUE AND IF YOU CAN DROP YOUR DPI TO 600 OR LOWER YOU SHOULD NOT ENCOUNTER THIS ISSUE, I HAVE NOT HAD THIS PROBLEM ONCE SINCE THIS REALIZATION. A PRIME EXAMPLE OF CLICHE SPIDER QUALITY’S REPUTATION.
a few things I’ll say on getting a good sound from this amp:
Looking up presets on the cloud CAN be useful, though they’re at least 98% garbage, but you should only use them as a baseline and should continue improving them. If you make a good preset- share it for others. I have 5 stars on every preset I’ve shared and It feels good to give back.
-Never use “Classic” on the speaker settings under the Amp section. The Classic spider sound is horrid. Full range is about 1,615x better, and the first two (left-most two) mic options are USUALLY the best.
-Early Reflections recreates the effect of distance from the amp, 33% is a magic number when in doubt. Never leave at 0 or set near 100.
-Avoid Treadline or Line6 cabs, one of the 4 Marshall replicas at the bottom fit almost any sound.
-Set your Presence slightly below your Treble if you don’t know better, and never above it. don’t ignore it because you don’t know what it is (it’s effective “super treble” for the lamen.
-if this review is helpful to you, you’re not ready to turn on the 4 band EQ section. It’s really weirdly laid out and it can easily ruin an otherwise good sound.
-if you want a compressor (or for long sustained notes on distorted lead tones/heavy metal tones) don’t use the Compression section. While I general discourage maxing or minimizing ANYTHING, one exception is that the Red Compressor pedal with Sustain and Level both set to 100% is surprisingly consistent.
-don’t turn knobs on your amp for things like Reverb and Delay. They adjust all the individual facets at random and bizarre and undesirable intervals when you do. The app allows you to set these values individually. (General rule of thumb for these is mix should be 25-35% or close to it, pre-delay on the reverb settings will generate more of the reverb sound you expect as you turn it up, and decay is similar in effect to the Early Reflections setting. Reverb tone should generally be 40-60%, delay feedback should be under 50% for sure (never 0), using “note” lengths is simpler but it’s better to set it to “ms” and tweak it to the more exact number. The higher the ms, the longer they duration of your playing gets repeated back. The higher the mix, the more intense and drawn out these repeats occur. Use Medium Hall reverb and Analog Delay unless you know better. Always experiment but for a solid sound these WILL work)
-if you’re getting a lot of undesired passive noise don’t forget about the “gate” at the start of the chain. You higher the threshold slowly just until you no longer have an unpleasant hiss, as you overset it to a higher value than this it begins to kill your tone
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