jbailes

I know this would be hush-hush from the factory, but with the IV having been out for a while now, has anyone heard of a V version in the planning stages or anything?

I certainly hope people find them useful. Maybe a little tweaking here and there. But as I said, there are some tones I couldn't quite nail because I couldn't scoop the mids out enough. I guess there's a certain degree of mids that are inherent to the makeup of the amp. Now if some company were to make a "Metallica Pedal" like digitech did with Hendrix, Clapton and Scott Ian, that would be one of the biggest selling pedals in history. They really did a good job on the Hendrix pedal, but I never tried the others. The tones were dead-on.

abionda, I recently uploaded some Metallica tones ranging from various parts of their career. They may not be the terror death ninja tones you're looking for, but some are pretty aggressive.

Thanks for spellin' it out for me, RC. I've just loaded on to customtone 13 new 'Tallica presets that I think are pretty true to form.

Thank you for the reply, but I don't know how to break into my bundle to get the individual tones. Would the be something covered in the spider IV basic user guide?

I've created quite an array of Metallica based presets that are as close to the original album tones that the spider IV will allow. I presently have them saved in a bundle in my hard drive. How can upload each preset to customtone so others can enjoy them to.? Thank you.

Maybe on the "Spider V" :)

Yeah. Over the weekend, I did a pretty thorough test drive between the 75, 120, and 150 combos (as much as you can minus the shortboard). And I think I'm just gonna stick with what I have.

I do have the shortboard, but I'm just not that impressed with the tonality of the various built-in wah sounds.

I'll tell ya what's hard, though, is trying to create a decent BLS sound. Zakk, while using a 6 string guitar, will take a .060 gauge low E string and take it down to C or B or even A where the string's just about flappin' in the wind! He must use really high action on his fiddles.

Using the edit software, can you change the order of the effects chain on the spider IV? I haven't even tried.

I believe fflbrgst and I are in full agreement when I say the matching floorboard is essential in unlocking the potential of the spider IV.

If you don't find the tone you want on the amp, then my suggestion would be to run the amp as clean as possible, and put a distortion pedal of your choice in front of it. There are very many to choose from, so you may have to spend some serious time on youtube. You may want to start with the MXR full bore distortion. It'll melt your face off! But on the other hand you can create some pretty brutal tones from the stock distortions on the amp.

Thanks guys, this certainly answers all my questions.

Volume aside, I understand that the 150 head is the only "HD" product in the spider IV line-up. What precisely does the HD mean, and would it be that much of an advantage over, say, the 120 or 150 combos in terms of sound quality? (bear in mind, I'm but a poor bedroom guitarist whose been playing for about 35 years and still have no skills whatsoever)

Back when I had mine, it was the 5150 II and I used a recto cab with it. I had absolutely no need for anything else.

Great input guys. I learned a lot. I think, however, since I'm just a mediocre bedroom guitarist, I'll go with the 120 in order to hear that stereo sound.

hahahahaha...you got that right, bud. I think Het field got his right arm chopped off and replaced it with a bionic arm! But most of my guitars have emgs, so that should help a lot.

My primary "template" was just listening to songs on my computer and playing along with them, and trying to adjust gain and tonality on the fly with the edit software.

fflbrgst, I'm sure I can speak for a lot of people when I say I'm sure glad you're around. You help keep us all in check.

Do you guys just read my posts so you can download my thumbnails?

Just wondering, for those of you who like to play along with your favorite cds or play covers, how "authentic" can you get your sound to that of a particular song or artist? Or do you just try to ballpark it. I just spent the last hour or so listening to 4 Metallica cds, all of which had very different tones, and some where quite convincing, almost to where I couldn't tell the difference between the cd and my guitar. But others, well, close but no cigar. Master of Puppets seems to have the same guitar tone throughout and is very aggressive. Had to go insane green w/ eq+boost and still wasn't scooped enough. There seems to be some mids in the amp that just can't quite get all the way out. Forgive me if I sound a little too OCD, I was just wondering if any others were going through the same thing.

Please disregard this post. I figured it out.

I'm assuming I'll need a special cable with a jack on each end of the cable. Is that correct?

That I didn't know. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I figure 120w is all anyone would need for playing out, right? I know a lot have the 150, either combo or half stack, but I just don't see needing that much volume in any situation. Besides, if I got the 150, it would be the head only, but another brand of 4x12.