Q: How do I turn on/off the Flextone's Noise Gate?
A: On the original Flextone, just hold down the Tap Tempo button and rotate the Effects Select knob to Bypass to turn it off, or anything other than Bypass to turn it on. In firmware versions earlier than 1.4, the noise gate defaults to ON, 1.4 or later defaults to noise gate OFF. On the Flextone II, hold the tap tempo button and turn the REVERB button past 12 o'clock to turn the noise gate on, below 12 o'clock to turn it off.Q:
Q: When I'm using the Flextone with the controller, why can't I turn on (insert effect name here)?
A: Because the Flextone doesn't have as much raw processing power as the Vetta, it cannot run all of the different effects at the same time. You're limited to only one of the selections on the Effect Select knob per patch (Reverb is always available, though). If a patch is saved with, say, Delay/Flange 1 enabled, there's no way you can turn on a Rotary Speaker effect in that patch. You can, however, create an adjacent patch that is identical, except for the effects selection.
Q: Do I need the Line6 Floor Board (Flextone I and II) or FBV controller (Flextone III) to access the 36 channels of the Flextone Series?
A: Yes. The Line 6 controller will not only enable you to access all of the banks and channels in your Flextone amplifier, but the controller will also give you the ability to turn individual effects off and on, access the tuner and tap tempo functions, and includes a wah and volume pedal.
Q: How do I find out the software version of my Flextone?
A: In order to find out the software version of your Flextone, simply hold down the "C" button while you turn the amp on. If you continue to hold the "C" button down, you will notice that the "D" button will blink once or twice and then the "SAVE" button will blink a number of times. The number of times the "D" button blinks indicates the release number and the number of times the "SAVE" button blinks indicates the sub-release. For example, if the "D" button blinks once and the "SAVE" button blinks four times, this indicates software version 1.4.
Q: How do I find out the stored settings in a particular Flextone Patch?
A: To find out the stored settings in any given Flextone program, hold down the SAVE button while turning a knob. The Manual button will light until you reach the knobs stored setting, at which time the Manual light will turn off and the location of the knob will reflect it's stored setting. Hold down SAVE and TAP to view the secondary settings.
Q: Can I download tones to my Flextone?
A: If your amp is an original Flextone series, then Line 6 Edit software will not work, as there is no MIDI on these models. If it's a Flextone II or III series, you're in luck. You'll need a Mac or PC computer with a MIDI interface capable of handling large MIDI transfers. You can then download the tones from www.customtone.com to the amp, via the free Line 6 Edit software.
Q: Will my Flextone II/III plus power a 4x12 cabinet? If so, about how many watts would this be?
A:It's fine to connect a 4x12 cabinet to the Flextone II/III Plus, make sure the cab is set to "8 ohm mono ( Left only )" to protect your Flextone plus. The total watts connected in the manner will be about 50 watts per side 100 watts total. You can also use a Power amp and external cab with the Flextone II/III Plus by connecting from the XLR left mono line out to the power amp and on to the speaker cab.
Q: What are the differences between Flextone models?
A: The main differences between the Flextone, Flextone Plus and, Flextone XL lie mainly in the amplifiers' speaker configurations and wattage. The Classic Flextone comes with one 12 inch Celestion speaker along with one 75 watt amp to power it. The Flextone Plus also comes with one 12 inch Celestion speaker but has two 75 watt amps, one to power the existing speaker and one to power an extension cabinet through the Flextone's cabinet extension jack. Alone the amp will run at 75 watts. However, with the extension cabinet, the amp will run at 150 watts. The Flextone XL comes complete with two 12 inch Celestion speakers and two 75 watt power amps that put out a combined 150 watts of power.
The original Flextone HD has two channels of 150 watts each into a 4 ohm load and 100 watts into 8 ohms, but lower impedance loads should be avoided . The amplifier will drive a 16 ohm load, but will not be as loud as if it were driving an 8 ohm load. The Flextone II HD is 100 watts per side at 4, 8, or 16 (switchable) ohms.
The software within the Flextones are basically the same in each model as well as each generation. The main change is with the tones. At Line 6, we try to recreate as close as possible, the tone we are modeling to the original amp. As the modeling software for the POD and POD XT has become more accurate, these same characteristics have been passed along to our series of Flextone amps.
As well as tonal changes, we've also added some new modeling in the newer versions of the software. The original Flextone comes stock with 16 amp models while the Flextone II and III families come with 32. The Flextone II also has 36 user presets instead of 12, 15 mix and match Cabinet Models, MIDI In and Out and most knobs have a secondary function. Plus, the Flextone II Plus, XL and HD feature external speaker outs and XLR outputs that can be used to connect the amp directly to a mixer. See your user manual for more information.
Q: Can I use a MIDI controller with my Flextone amp?
A: The Flextone will respond to MIDI Program Change and MIDI Sysex messages when used with an external MIDI controller. For more details on how MIDI functions with your Flextone download the user manual.
Q: What upgrades are available for my Flextone amplifier?
A: Unfortunately, for Flextone I, II and II HD owners, Line 6 no longer has or produces EPROM upgrade chips. For Flextone III users, certain Flash Memory updates can be made via our Line 6 Monkey software with your computer through a USB to MIDI interface. After updating to 1.1, you may see different behavior in the effects on some Flextone III amps. Why only some? Flextone III had a minor change to its OTP (one time programmable) BIOS chip after several months in production (from version 1.00 to version 1.02. Nobody knows what happened to 1.01, and nobody likes to talk about it). This change affected the way some of the effects controls respond when an effect is loaded. None of the functionality was lost, and patches that you've stored are not changed. Flex III's behavior on recalling stored channels has not changed at all.
How can I tell if my amp is going to change behavior or not? If you power up holding down the 'B' channel select button, the LED on the 'B' button will blink to indicate the major revision (in this case, it will blink once) and the LED on the 'D' button will blink to indicate the sub-release (in this case either it will blink twice or it won't blink at all). If this indicates that you have 1.00, your amp's behavior will not change from what it has been. If it indicates 1.02, it will change be as follows:
The only change that you should see is that, on the affected (1.02 OTP) amps, when you first select an effect from edit mode (in other words, when you're first editing channel settings), its setting will reflect the current knob position, rather than an arbitrary default, and on two of the effects. You will also notice that the Tweak and 2nd Function controls are not reversed for the Chorus and Flanger effects. The changed control functions become Depth and Rate (Speed) instead of the previous Speed (Rate) and Depth/Feedback.