cloph

The links in the FAQ unfortunately don't reach their target anymore, and furthermore the forum butchered all non-ascii characters, but here it is:

List of Amplifi ampmodels, cabs and effects with info what they're inspired by

Did you try to log out and log in again? Given the forum had lots of troubles lately, I just think that it cleared all its session cache/simply doesn't recognize you anymore. So if tone search/match doesn't work, try that.

(although "my tones" is stored on the phone/tablet, at least on Android)

the FBV3 doesn't have a tuner on its own/it just displays whatever characters the amp sends it to display...

At least with the Amplifi you'll get a display like 

I---- ** ----I    on pitch
I〉〉〉〉    ----I    way flat
I-〉〉〉    ----I    closer, but still flat
I--〉〉    ----I    getting there...
I---〉    ----I    almost, tiny bit flat
I----    〈---I    damn, you went to far and are now sharp
I----    〈〈〈-I    guess you're getting the idea by now :-))

when you're on pitch, and various >> or << on either side - the more brackets on the left, the further away you are from the target pitch (flat), as you approach the target, the number decreses, and if you see the ** then you hit the target, same with going sharp, the more and the further out they reach, the further away from target pitch. 

Edit (since the quote seems to not like my unicode variant, here in plain ascii):

I---- ** ----I    on pitch
I>>>>    ----I    way flat
I->>>    ----I    closer, but still flat
I-->>    ----I    getting there...
I--->    ----I    almost, tiny bit flat
I----    <---I    damn, you went to far and are now sharp
I----    <<<-I    guess you're getting the idea by now :-))

I'm not the original poster though, so not sure what arnyong will pick/did pick :-)

But yeah, I'm happy with it (except don't like that amplifi triggers on button release, not on button press)

Even if the Fender would support midi input, you wouldn't be able to use it directly - you would have to connect it to a computer via USB and use the "Line 6 FBV Control" software to configure what midi-events the button presses/expression pedal should generate. And you would then need to hook up your computer's midi-out to the target amp.

So answer to "can I control other midi devices with a FBV controller" is yes and no - you need a computer as middleman.

leading edge trailing edge has nothing to do with when the switch happens. it sends multiple *bytes* of data on each event (press, release,...) and in addition to that parity/checking bytes and keep-alive messages - so whether it decodes the individual bits on leading or trailing doesn't matter at all/is not the point. So on every time there is an event there are tons of 1 to 0 (and back) transitions.

More over not the point that changing the behavior would be hard because of that. It is a design decision, not a technical necessity. Line6 apparently choose to add a timer to watch for "press-and-hold" style input instead of switching immediately. 

There are thousands of tones, so display all would not be very helpful. In fact due to the way the storing of sounds works results in tens of duplicates of every tone, since anyone who tweaks the tone just a little bit or stores it to "my tones" will be listed as author of the tone, with no link/indication back on the original one. So if you then go and save your version of the tone to have it as favorite and just edit the volume to match your other tones, you have another duplicate....

Rather than displaying all, I wish for a more detailed search, i.e. explicit songtitle or artist, or explicit filter to exclude all without cabsimulation. Or a filter "only show tones based on amp xy". Or once you have a nice tone, having an easy way to "show more tones from this author" is missing..

Also there's no way to easily link a song's clean sound with its distortion/lead preset.

So not sure what you would do with a list of all tones, where let's say 500 would be Metallica tones, of which 400 are just minor modifications to 100 actually different tones.

My guess is that your actual question is a different one :-)

The Shortboard MKII is not an effects unit or amp. It is just a switching unit with no "brain" of its own.

So no, you can not control it using your phone, as there is nothing to control. You might be thinking of the Amplifi FX100 - that *is* an amp/effectsmodeling unit in a floorboard. And you can control that one using your phone (but you can store all your settings into the device, so when on a gig you don't need to use your phone at all). And you could hook up the FX100 directly to the mixing console or active speakers.

Cloph- As a network admin I work on everything from the backbone inet of my company all they down to the configuring how the electricity is designed for use in my data center.  Before I was a net admin I was a sys admin for over a decade. I am also very open to suggestion, if you know a way that works please share!

 

I tried using the usb cable to update the firmware, but it was painfully slow over 45 minutes and then it failed.  The only way I got the usb cable firmware upgrade to work was to use a mac we have in our office.  It was so much faster and I was able to update my g10 as well as my amplifi 150.[…]

Oh, sure, I didn't mean to diminish your knowledge and experience as an admin, just that consumer electronics, especially printer drivers and wireless stuff can be a pain in the arse. Glad to see you have it sorted out using windows 10 though.

updated my TT to 2.61 using the Line6 updater without any issue.

yes, Using Amp out cuts the Guitar sound from headphones as well.

Hmmmmm... I wonder if the Android version is similar to the iOS versions in that the latest may not be available to users who are not running the latest operating system.[…]

More likely that it is a staged rollout (default now for google playstore) - App developer can decide what percentage of installations should receive an update, and can then increase the percentage (or halt the rollout in case there are issues). So even if there is a new version out there, if you don't happen to be in the X-percent of the rollout, your device won't signal that there is an update/you won't see that at all. So there's nothing to worry about if you don't see the update right away, and with a non-telling changelog like "Bug fixes" you shouldn't expect groundbreaking changes anyway.

If they would have fixed the dreaded back/naviagtion behaviour they surely will mention in the changes section :-)

 

-Advanced Audio Distribution Profile(sink)

but then fails when trying to install 

[…]

 

Anyone ever get this working?

I'm a network administrator for large company and have never had this much issue ever installing a simple driver let alone connecting a bluetooth device.

 

Well, network admins don't tend to fiddle with consumer electronics in their dayjob, let alone with bluetooth, so I fully believe that it is the first time this caused issues for you :-) (but rest assured, bluetooth has always been a pain in getting it setup, only getting better with rise of Android and lately iphones also being able to use bluetooth).

First things first:

When you want to install it on windows, because you want to update the Firmware, then using bluetooth is the wrong way to go. You would use the USB-connection and the corresponding USB-driver from the software download page, and then use LIne 6 updater software to flash the firmware.

As phil_m mentioned: Only thing you can do via Bluetooth from PC is to stream audio via bluetooth - but current firmware also allows to use the Amplifi as USB-"Soundcard" when using USB, so you can play audio to the Amplifi using the USB connection (and more importantly also record from it). So depending on what you actually want to do, using USB-connection might be best way. Alternatively you can also use the Aux-IN to connect your PC to the amplifi.

Your log shows that the interesting component, then Audio sink fails to install, so without getting that fixed no cigar..

Not sure how you determined that you have the latest driver installed - did you actually check on dells website or did you just tell windows to look for updated driver? - In any case: your driver doesn't seem to support A2DP and hence no audio via bluetooth. So if you don't find updated driver on Dell's website, and not even on Intel's, then use a cable connection or use an external BT-dongle with proper drivers if you really want BT connection....

if pressing the bluetooth button doesn't do anything, and also it won't react to switching to different presets (i.e. you press tone button and it still only shows A), you should try a factory reset first, as described in the FAQ:  http://line6.com/support/page/kb/_/amplifi-products/ampl/amplifiseriesfaq (hold Tone and press the master volume knob at the same time while powering on)

For the Amplifi to show up in Line 6 updater, you need to install the driver - so if you didn't do that already, make sure you have it installed. Also try different USB ports on your PC

But if your Amplifi doesn't work properly before, I wouldn't suggest forcing a firmware update in that state.

pressing Tone and Tap while powering up should put it into update mode explicitly, but again: try to reset it first/get it working before attempting a forced firmware update.

I went with the FBV3  - got a good deal on a B-stock item - it is more versatile of the two, and even without colored led-rings works just fine. But a shame that they are so expensive :-/

Right now at Thomann the MK II is 173€, and the FBV3 is 196€ - so with less than 25€ difference I'd definitely go for the FBV3.. But of course depends on what deals you can get.

I just say it again: Complaining that the controlling app doesn't work properly is one thing (legitimate complaints, although there apparently are fewer issues with Android devices, and I for example don't have any issues with BT connectivity anymore). Complaints about the ergonomics of the controlling app is also understandable (and I am in that group, the app just would be so much better if the navigation would be fixed).

But what I absolutely don't understand is *demanding* that there be updates/additions to the modeling part of it and complaining that Line 6 is worthless because there are no new amps or effects added to the Amplifi.

Why would there be issues with a backing-track latency? Even if it would be 2 seconds behind, you wouldn't notice, since that offset is constant :-)

Different if your guitar was hooked up via bluetooth, there latency would be a problem. (If you hit your string, but the sound only comes after a delay)

It would be too easy to blame it on Line6 BT chip alone, there's always two ends to it, and not all devices following the standard. If both are too picky, then it can cause the issues (had problems with my old phone as well, but not just with the Amplifi, also with other devices it wouldn't want to connect from time to time) - thankfully no such issues anymore with my current phone (although that does have trouble connecting to the entertainment system of the car-sharing BMWs...)...

So bluetooth can be a pain in the arse, but at least some things can be improved with firmware updates (and there were some at least). But then comes a new power saving strategy on the devices and causes trouble again....  

Cannot tell for sure, but the Android app has a configuration section that allows you to pick separate devices for Media playback and amplifi control - I assume it would let you pick different amplifi devices as it does with media ones, but since I only own a single Amplifi, I cannot tell for sure, but it would be a pretty artificial limitation if you could only use a single one.

What won't work is switching presets at the same time with just one remote. You would have to switch presets on device A, then go to settings to connect to device B, and then change presets on device B (or save them to the first bank so you can switch with the buttons on the device itself).

It is not a change from 1 to 0 or 0 to 1 - that would be the case if it was a simple analogue switch. The FBV is a midi controller/sends control messages, and that consists of a series of bytes, not just a single state change, so it would be easy to already switch when the FBV sends "button down" message, and not wait until "button released" message.

But alas it would have to be changed in the Firmware of the Amp you have it connected to, as the board just sends those control messages.

What would be harder to do of course is to have the tap-and-hold behaviour, but I'd happily not have that if in exchange it would act on button press, not release (or hold could only work on the currently active preset)

In any case: While it could be easily changed, it cannot be changed by the user/Line 6 would have to provide updated Firmware for the Amps.

I'm thinking about building a little controller box that would act as a middleman between the two (and when FBV sends button press, my box would immediately send the button release event as well) - already ordered some RJ45 breakout sockets.. Hope my cheap logic analyzer will be capable enough to reverese-engineer the protocol...

If you didn't really like the app interface though, then I don't think you'll like it now. The general concept of dialing in tones/effects didn't really change. The App got more reliable, and there are some few new features around it, but dialing in tones (and storing them) can still be a little daunting.

Although once you have your 10 or so favorite go-to tones, then of course you just need to load it and there's no hassle anymore.

But wouldn't call the 75W version a bedroom amp, but for that price it's cheaper than the 30W one, so go for it. Unless you already got a stereo system where you could hook up the Amplifi TT or the FX100 to, then those are also worth looking into. (having a footcontroller is very nice to have, even just for being able to switch banks without touching the app and having a volume/expression pedal)

So you already got an amp for playing loud/that has a speaker -- if you're fine with playing with headphones or through your stereo system (or through your Katana mini), go with the FX100 - otherwise you might spend another 250$ for the FBV 3 :-) 

you don't need to play tracks using the Amplifi Remote. If you can have your footswitch control another music app on your ipad, just use that to play back the track.

I don't think there is a way to externally control the player within the Amplifi Remote.

not sure about the Spider's controls, but with Amplifi you configure the range of the pedal, so if you don't need it to go completely silent, you can set minimum volume to 50 and max to 100, and thus have the full travel of the pedal for those 50%, making it easier to control

I don't quite get why people are so upset about not getting *additional* features that wasn't part of the product to begin with. Sure it would be nice to have a looper, sure it would be nice to have updated effects, etc. - But those kind of things would all be bonus stuff, nothing I would expect or reason for calling it a lame duck. Buy gear what it can at the point of time you buy it, not what it might be capable of.

Bugfixes are another thing, and I guess I'm lucky that I don't have any bluetooth issues anymore with my current android phone and current firmware. The navigation in the app itself is a total mess though, and also tone search is useless due to the fact how cra..y the tone management is. No matter what it is that you want to change in a tone, you loose the info what/who it was based on, and to have it in your favorites in a tone you have to publish is, the end result is tons of almost same sounding tones, which you have to wade through to find one that is usable.

But thankfully once you have your tone matched as you want it, you don't have to go through his again..

So yes, Amplify does have annoyances, mainly in creating/finding tones and usage of the app in general, but all those are minor compared to its capabilities at its price point.

I really wish they'd opensource the amplifi app, so we could fix that thing, since they are not willing to do it, and it wouldn't really take much to make navigation consistent and saving tones less frustrating.

So nothing new = lame duck? Where do you get that attitude from? You wouldn't request a update to a fx loop if you bought an orange amp, or addition of reverb. You wouldn't expect a katana to get new voicings/features, so why for the amplifi?

you have to use a cable, it only accepts audio via bluetooth, but doesn't send it. (probably a good thing, as the delay, even when minimal, when using bluetooth transmission would be quite distracting when playing). 

If you want to have your phone connect to bluetooth headphones at the same time as being connected to change the fx100's settings: That is possible if the phone supports it, but has nothing to do with fx100 firmware/capabilities. That is all handled in your phone.

you have to use a cable, it only accepts audio via bluetooth, but doesn't send it. (probably a good thing, as the delay, even when minimal, when using bluetooth transmission would be quite distracting when playing)