I Am In Love...

[ryhamilt]

My Amplifi 150 just arrived today.  I had pre-ordered through Sweetwater...apparently MF and GC had exclusive rights to the first batch.  But anyway…this thing is amazing!  Right out of the box, the four presets sounded great….especially the clean sounds.  But then, playing around with the app and a few tone matches (Cliffs of Dover was almost spot on…and Van Halen's Unchained was not too shabby either)…I played for over an hour and didn't even realize it.  

 

For those slamming this product cause it's not what you imagined…well…I think you owe it to yourself to try it out and remember that playing guitar is supposed to be fun.  Will it replace my Orange or Vox?  No…I love those amps.  But this amp really fills a whole other spectrum.  The sound through those 5 speakers is just phenomenal.  

 

And yes, I wish it had an XLR out, but I experimented with it and used the headphones out into my Roland BA-330.  Sounded great.  Yes, it cuts off the speakers (which is to be expected), but at least I can still use it at church, which is where I do most of my playing.

 

I see this amp getting a lot of playing time….

 

And now I just have to get this off my chest.  I first came to this SUPPORT forum to get an idea of the product and hopefully hear from users of the product before mine arrived.  What I found was 95% of the posts were from people who had never tried it and wanted to complain about it.  "It isn't loud enough!  Line 6 lied in their advertising!  Pssh…it's only a toy for beginners…not us REAL, professional musicians."  Ugh.  Yes, I realize it's the internet…and a forum on the internet.  You have every right to voice your opinion.  But do so, and then please move on.  Let the support forums be support forums.  If you own the product or have tried it and have complaints, suggestions, etc., then by all means, voice your concerns/opinions.  But don't bash a product without first trying it.  

 

My 2¢.

[joec63]

That's funny that you pulled up Cliffs. :)  I've been jamming that one and SRV since I got it last weekend. I'm using the tone "Cliffs of Dover" with the Solo Head instead of the plexi. Just turned the Presence all the way down, Treble to about half, and backed the gain off a little. Think it's sounds closer to the track. IMO anyway.  Enjoy your Amplifi!

[charlyg]

Yes, it seems us owners like it a lot better than the whiners. I mean that term in the best possible way......

[AndrewH13]

Agree ryhamilt. So much negativity from LIne 6 owners who don't want the product, haven't heard it and never want to! I know the build up caught people's attention, but If it doesn't fit your needs, move on. Line 6 now have 2 Tone products, one top quality (500X) and one with superb ease of use. With Yamaha's backing, I see both being developed and marketed further. I own a Variax JTV59 as well, and really enjoy both.

[ryhamilt]

I tell you, the more I mess with this amp, the more impressed I am.  I tried some more experimentation today.  Plugged my guitar into a Voodoo Labs Amp Selector…output A to Amplifi…output B to my HD300, which I then plugged into the 1/8" aux input (via adapter) in the back of the Amplifi.  Holy cow….two amp modelers in one!  I can dial in a clean or acoustic-type setting on the Amplifi and then have a nice dirty setting on the HD300 (or vice versa)…run both at the same time, or switch back forth…or, well, I can really do whatever I want.  With this set-up, I could have a plethora (Jefe, what is a plethora?) of effects going.    

 

I haven't tried it yet, but I'd like to set-up similar amp models (with no effects) on both the HD300 and the Amplifi and do an A/B comparison.

 

Now, I'll be honest, I'm not the smartest when it comes to power consumption and amps and blah blah blah.  Any chance that the above set-up will hurt the Amplifi?  I'm not turning it up past halfway.  I don't want to risk killing the amp just to play around.  Thoughts?

[charlyg]

That's what I was going to do with the HD bean. but ended up selling it do to a great deal on an Eleven Rack. I want to figure out how to adapt the FBV jack to straight midi. It seems that Line 6 is using some parts of a midi impelmentatin with their floorboards.I just need verification, or a pinout. Then I will have AmpliFi, Eleven Rack, JamUp/Bias(iPad), 5 iStomps,  with an FCB1010 controlling it all. The 5 iStomps would be in the FX loop of the 11R.

 

May not be possible, but I've got the hardware to give it a try.

[sandman27959]

After owning my 75 for a couple of weeks, I thought I'd share what I've settled on for now. It helps me to understand the amp a little more if I think of it in configurations. I find that I tend to use the amp in one of these three configurations so far.

 

a. Bluetooth speaker and portable full-range cabled playback system. Even the haters can't deny that it sounds pretty damn good as a powered stereo speaker. I've used it to enhance my TV audio for movies and XBox games too. I almost always have a use for a great sounding, adequately powered, fairly loud playback speaker for something, and this one fills the bill nicely.

 

b. Nice-looking, great sounding practice amp. While none of us early adopters are exactly sure what kind of black magic DSP or voodoo speaker routing is taking place inside the box, my experience is that it sounds pretty good - even at low volumes. For me, after everything else is said and done it's really about how the thing sounds. For practice I don't have to spend any time hooking up cables or effects. I just plug in one cable and grab my phone in case I want to play along with a track or enter edit mode.

 

c. Small/informal gig mode. I have a Pod HD bean, and I use an adapter to go from the outputs of the bean into the aux in of the Amplifi. This way I can use the HD tones I've spent a lot of time and effort tweaking with a powered FRFR cabinet (the Amplifi). This sounds surprisingly good with the bean in "studio/direct" mode, gives me true stereo effects (where they exist) and allows me to use all of the switching capability of the HD bean. In a perfect world the Amplifi would have HD capability and have multiple banks of presets I could switch through, but hopefully that stuff will someday be a reality through firmware updates. Well, that AND a dedicated direct out. Then you'd have a serious gigging amp.

 

So far I'm enjoying owning it. It's not the answer to everything, but I do find myself playing more because I don't have to hook a lot of stuff up. Just plug in one cable and go. I tend to view anything that gets me playing more as a good thing.

[samsgs]

Anyone figured how to control effects with footboards?  Cool amp, would be better if you could store more presets and control effects.

[samsgs]

Loving the 150 so far.

[Beelzebean]

I'm not exactly hating, but I am fairly underwhelmed with my amplifi 75, tone match for me is garbage at least at the moment I get mostly the same tone suggestions no matter the genre it's always left of the dial, southern fried rock, or Bakersfield swing, and if you scroll down for more they just get worse, I'm fairly new to guitar and certainly have no clue about effects and amps and the like yet have published a couple of tones just because they were clearly better. I had assumed that for songs like enter sandman and killing in the name, that loads of people play would have fairly good tone matches, I found vague approximations. I can get better tone matches fiddling about for two minutes with my Marshall MG15 fx. Plus the four preloaded tones I thought were a bit rubbish especially the ambient delay tone, who is going to use that? It is a very good Bluetooth speaker though

[charlyg]

We need to CHANGE and rename those metadata returns. Tweaked Southern Rock will get you a LOT of songs, but then rename it and upload. It is up to us to get this thing rolling. Start with getting them in the ballpark, then the next guy may d/l your tone, tweak it, and re-upload, or even use it on a song with similar tones and upload that one.

 

I have also noticed there are a ton of Soldano 100 amps used with lead type tones. Change the amp to Marshall or Fender, tweak it to taste, and re-upload......

 

The more we use what's there and don't tweak and re-upload, the longer it will take for us to have a great library.

[AndrewH13]

Can we see the Tones database anywhere online (like other Effects Units) or only when Searching in-App?

[charlyg]

It would be my guess you could look at the Pod Farm  product guide or the Pod Farm portion of CustomTones.

 

Or do you mean see all the amps and effects. Yes as  you choose each icon, you can click on the upper left portion of the bottom half where it lists the effect or amp and it will take you to the list/icons of available patches in that category.

 

Clear as mud?

[AndrewH13]

I meant the list of 6000-7000 Custom Tones, and the new ones as they are added?

[charlyg]

That should be the Pod Farm portion of Custom Tones. I haven't checked to see how many there are.

[charlyg]

I noticed some Johnny Winter coming back with a Soldano? Today, I'm gonna get closer and reupload to a few of his tunes. Soldano? Johnny Winter?

[AParedes]

Hi All,

  I wanted to give a little clarification on why you may see some of the same amp models used more that others:  Line 6 used to have an online magazine called "Guitarport Online", which had a limited amp model set (~20) and we had A LOT of tones for GPO... which may explain why you are seeing the Soldano and Bassman more than models that would have been included in the "model packs" (i.e. high gain, collector classic, etc.)  A lot of people worked on getting the classic guitar sounds redialed for AMPLIFi prior to release, and while there were close to 7000 tones when AMPLIFi was released there is still a lot of work to be done and the community can help with this. Here are a few pointers for people looking to add to the tone library:

 

Research

  It is helpful to know as much as you can about the guitarist and rig used prior to authoring a tone.  Information such as guitar (and pickups), pedal(s), amp(s), cabinets (size and speaker type), and microphone(s) used will get you close before needing to adjust anything.  

 

Research Resources I use:

www.guitargeek.com - an excellent source for accurate information on well-known guitar rigs

 

http://www.soundonsound.com - contains accurate information on well-known recording sessions, sometimes lists the amps/mics used.

 

Artist & fan websites often have detailed data as to what was used in a specific era, such as:

 

Alex Lifeson: http://rush.wikia.com/wiki/Alex_Lifeson_equipment

 

David Gilmour: http://www.gilmourish.com/?page_id=16

 

Edge delays: http://www.amnesta.net/edge_delay/

 

Guitar Tone (Mitch Gallegher): a great resource for all things guitar tone-related, including a number of legendary rigs.

 

Analog Man’s Guide to Vintage Effects (Tom Hughes):  a great resource for vintage pedal info and finding substitutes when needed. 

 

Creating the Tone

 

The instrument: I always try to use a similar instrument/pickup configuration as the original artist on the recording.

 

Initial Setup Recommendations:

 

* Set the guitar output (white volume) on the hardware to 40%, then balance the tone against the song.   Enabling the “soundcheck†feature in the iOS settings may help keep output levels similar between songs. 

 

Clean amps (Fender-style): Bass at 5, Mid at 6, Treble at 8, Presence at 5, gain at 5. I'll start here and adjust the gain to the level on the recording.

 

Mid-gain amps (Marshall Style): all tone knobs set to 10 and the gain set to 5.  I'll start here and adjust the gain to the level on the recording.

 

High-gain amp (Mesa-style): All tone knobs at 7, gain set to 4 (due to the way the EQ interactivity works these amps do not often respond well to controls set at 10).  Adjust the gain to the level on the recording.

 

Experiment with mic and the placement (if you cannot find the mic that was used): I usually go through the different mic options and find the option that sounds closest without altering the initial EQ setting, then move the microphone near/far to find the best placement.  Once I have the best mic/placement I begin altering the tone knobs in 10% increments to match the recorded tone as closely as possible.  Finding a section with only the guitar playing will help determine which controls should be altered.  Looping software can be beneficial here, I go from a computer into the 3.5mm jack in the back of the amp so I am hearing the tone through the same source as the audio. 

 

Adding Effects: I tend to add in the same effects in the same order as the artist used, substituting as needed - the Analog Man book is a great reference for this.

 

Setting the tap tempo and note values: I usually set the tempo to the song for the time-based effects, which is often easier than setting the hz or ms. 

 

Pre vs. Post effects: If an effect is not shown on a player’s pedal board but you can hear it on the recording (i.e. reverb or delay), it was most likely added after the amp and should be placed after the amp modeling. Keep in mind post effects often come out in stereo.

 

Volume pedals:  Volume pedals at the beginning of the chain effect the volume and gain level, volume pedals after the amp modeling effect only the overall output level. 

 

Setting a noise gate (when working on a mid or high-gain tone): The decay level of “zero†will ensure the gate closes as quickly as possible.  I usually set the gate threshold to ensure there is no noise when the guitar volume is turned off.

 

Naming the tone: Using the full/correct name of the song ensures it gets pulled up correctly, completing all the meta-data (song, guitarist, instrument info) helps as well.  I tend to use the "auto-fill" feature to avoid key-stroking when possible.

 

Listening: listen to your preset both with the track and without, at low and high volumes.  You'll want your preset to work well in all situations.  When in doubt, less is more...

 

Finalizing: Come back and listen to your tone another day before publishing.  You'll be surprised how fresh ears can provide a fresh perspective.

 

Hope this helps!

[archtopeddy]

Thank you Andy for this info. Very useful indeed!!

[andrelau]

Thanks a lot ! very interesting post. 

[charlyg]

Can this forum make a stickie? Wow, awesome post Andy!

[jeffois77]

Agreed, this amp has breathed new life into my playing - I'm back with my band in the last 3 weeks, we've already written 7 song ideas, things are coming along quite nicely.  I haven't played this much in almost 10 years...actually excited to come home and write with this thing....haven't even tweaked the tones that much, however the Avenged Sevenfold tone is a little outrageous....chose a couple amps and their baseline sound is spot on.

 

I've been micing it so far, but I just got a stereo connection, about to try the headphone out jack as I type this...