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I am a (pretty) content owner of an Amplifi75. It fits my needs almost perfectly. What I really Miss is a Loop function.

But thats not really why I am posting. Amplifi seemed to be a very promising environment. But recently I got the Impression, that the Amplifi device are no priority amongst the Line6 People: nothing new, just toddling Like a lame Duck. :-(

Any opinion out there?

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Yeah, I don’t think Line 6 is going to give us any improvements in the future. It’s too bad, because the platform has a lot of potential, but it seems like they made some bad design choices early on and don’t want to take the time and effort to really fix them. Like choosing a really crappy Bluetooth implementation, not allowing for a direct connection for editing from a computer, and coming out with clunky software. My AMPLIFi 75 is usable now that I added a Shortboard and play music through a separate Bluetooth adapter plugged into the aux port, but any time I have to use the app for editing I find it incredibly frustrating.

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My AMPLIFi 75 is usable now that I added a Shortboard and play music through a separate Bluetooth adapter plugged into the aux port, but any time I have to use the app for editing I find it incredibly frustrating.

Out of curiosity: Do you have the latest firmware on your 75? Have you experienced bluetooth connection problems on more than one mobile device? Do you have the ability to test both the  iOS & Android versions of the Amplifi remote app?

 

I've  read through all the threads here and have seen a lot of complaints about bluetooth reliability and the contention (from Line 6) that firmware updates have improved the connectivity issue. Seems to me that most of the complaints were registered during the earlier days of Amplifi's existence.

 

I'm a latecomer to the Amplifi family, starting with a 30 last year at about this time. An odd combination of circumstances has led to the point that I now have a 30, a 150 and an FX-100. My experience in streaming audio files and controlling/editing presets via bluetooth has been virtually trouble-free on all three devices, regardless of whether I'm using my 3rd generation iPad or an Android phone to connect.

 

Have you talked with Line 6 tech support about your miserable history of connection unreliability? Clearly, you're not able to fully utilize the Amplifi to its fullest, and if that's been your experience the entire time you've owned it, you've been shortchanged. It doesn't cost anything to open a support ticket or start a dialog with them. You may be pleasantly surprised to see that they're willing to work with you to resolve your problem. No guarantees, but certainly worth a try.

 

(P.S. I would contact them directly - don't count on someone reading your post and reaching out to you...)

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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?

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Out of curiosity: Do you have the latest firmware on your 75? Have you experienced bluetooth connection problems on more than one mobile device? Do you have the ability to test both the  iOS & Android versions of the Amplifi remote app?

 

 

Don't have any Android devices, but the connectivity is bad for both my iPhone and iPad. The amp is running the latest firmware.

 

I guess I could open a support ticket, but I'm not sure what they can do about bluetooth working but just not very well. And even if the bluetooth connection was better, that would only address about 25% of my frustration with the Amplifi amp + app. The app really feels like software that was written to a spec but never given any real world user testing. Like cloph says above, navigation in the app itself is a total mess, and it is missing some key features. Examples:

 

a ) There's only half speed, no pitch change and no loop points in the music player. I'm sure that I'm not the only guitar player that uses variable speed and looping for practice. But since they aren't included I have to switch to another app to get them, but then I have to load the same song in two places to get the tone matching with the looping/speed.

 

b ) Storage on the amp vs storage in the cloud is a mess. There's no good way to organize My Tones or to transfer multiple presets or do a complete backup of my amp tones. If you edit a tone on your amp and go to save it, it asks if you want to save to my tones as well, and if you do it gives you multiple tones with the same name and no indication of which is the latest (unless you click through to the Details tab for each one).

 

c ) Editing amp tones is very slow due to sync. The amp/app don't keep track of when things changed, so each time you enter the app it has to resend the amp information which takes 10-15 seconds. A lot of the time when I'm editing tones I'm switching to a browser window to look up a player's rig to get info, and the delay each time I switch back is frustrating.

 

d ) No PC/Mac USB editor. I think this would help with the slow tone editing and would hopefully add a way to organize, backup, and manage presets better than the app. Plus I think a lot of us live in fear that a future iOS update will break the app and line6 will have abandoned updates. A computer based app would be much less likely to break and would give users the option to run it in a virtual machine if something did break so we could still use the amp.

 

In spite of all this, I've figured out workarounds to make it useable. I was thinking of returning it at one point, but overall it's still a pretty good value. I was looking into a standalone multiFX pedal with some sort of bluetooth speaker, but something like a Zoom G3 + iLoud combination would cost around $450 vs $250 for the Amplifi 75, and most of the other options wouldn't look good in a living room setting.

 

@cloph, maybe Lame Duck is a strong term for it, but it's really frustrating that the platform has so much potential, but Line 6 isn't giving it much attention.

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Don't have any Android devices, but the connectivity is bad for both my iPhone and iPad. The amp is running the latest firmware.

 

Bummer. I'm fortunate that my 3 Amplifi devices seem to work reasonable well with my iPad, my Android phone, and my buddy's Android phone & tablet. (I'm letting him use my FX-100...)

 

The app really feels like software that was written to a spec but never given any real world user testing. Like cloph says above, navigation in the app itself is a total mess, and it is missing some key features.

 

I find this to be a constant irritant, both with software and some websites. You get instructions to do something or try out a feature, and it doesn't work right or the link doesn't contain the information it's supposed to have. It seems as if they don't have anybody to test their work. Makes me crazy!

 

I agree about navigation being problematic. Especially when streaming audio via bluetooth while playing along. If you need to adjust the volume settings, you have to go back several screens. Arrrgh!

 

Examples:

 

a ) There's only half speed, no pitch change and no loop points in the music player. I'm sure that I'm not the only guitar player that uses variable speed and looping for practice. But since they aren't included I have to switch to another app to get them, but then I have to load the same song in two places to get the tone matching with the looping/speed.

 

 

I've been using Transcribe! for years to slow down and create practice  loops, so I continue to use it for those purposes and don't miss that functionality in the remote app. And I don't use tone-matching,

 

 

b ) Storage on the amp vs storage in the cloud is a mess. There's no good way to organize My Tones or to transfer multiple presets or do a complete backup of my amp tones. If you edit a tone on your amp and go to save it, it asks if you want to save to my tones as well, and if you do it gives you multiple tones with the same name and no indication of which is the latest (unless you click through to the Details tab for each one).

Have to agree that this isn't well-conceived or executed, and this is core functionality. 

 

 

c ) Editing amp tones is very slow due to sync. The amp/app don't keep track of when things changed, so each time you enter the app it has to resend the amp information which takes 10-15 seconds. A lot of the time when I'm editing tones I'm switching to a browser window to look up a player's rig to get info, and the delay each time I switch back is frustrating.

Ouch. You use more of the app features than I do. Easy to see why you're frustrated with this...

 

d ) No PC/Mac USB editor. I think this would help with the slow tone editing and would hopefully add a way to organize, backup, and manage presets better than the app. Plus I think a lot of us live in fear that a future iOS update will break the app and line6 will have abandoned updates. A computer based app would be much less likely to break and would give users the option to run it in a virtual machine if something did break so we could still use the amp.

 

This is HUGE! I'm afraid of updates of any kind -- app, operating system or Amplifi firmware... And it's not a chronic fear -- I've been using computer AT HOME since the mid 70s, and have participated in many beta programs over the years. Am a Windows Insider currently. But Line 6 scares the bejeebers our of me with this shaky Amplifi stuff. 

 

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Yes, Lame Duck is a good descriptor. This excuse of not what it was designed for is pitiful. The whole benefit of software based tone controls, amps, guitars, music instruments, etc - is that they are always being improved, constant innovation. That's what a true successful platform does. Otherwise, just buy a 1969 Fender amp and be done with it for 50 years. At least you know it will work reliably. 

 

Response to issues on the forums is the most pathetic I've ever seen (my day job is software, so I can tell you this is amateur hour here). In a day and age when the world is more and more dependent on software development, these guys are obviously hiring dregs of the universe in both software development, product support and company management. 

 

No inspiration here to buy anything from Line 6 every again. 

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  • 2 weeks later...

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.

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  • 6 months later...
On 2/7/2018 at 10:12 AM, drdaved said:

... not allowing for a direct connection for editing from a computer, and coming out with clunky software.

 

 

There are plenty of cool features but, the clunky software gets me too.  Not remembering the only amp I connect to every time is lame. Signing in repeatedly is lame.  Saving tones to the amp is inconsistent. The direct connection option for editing would be nice.  The lack of a Windows version of Amplifi baffles me.  We can use Windows PCs to flash an upgrade but that's it.

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  • 2 months later...

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