Firehawk with Spider III 75W

[Barracuda81]

Hi folks,

I purchased recently a Firehawk floorboard to replace my FBV II Shortboard on my Spider III 75W. I wanted to use the effects at home, in the band room  and for gigs. Im suprised by the sound quality of the firehawk in combination with my bose soundlink mini at home. But I'm a bit disappointed by the way it sounds on my Spider III in the band room - everthing sounds a bit muddy . I'm not sure if I have the right settings. Could anyone please send me the right out- and inputs of the devices and the best settings on the devices to have a clear sound.

Best regards,
Ralph

[silverhead]

The Firehawk FX and the FBV II Shortboard are entirely different beasts. The Firehawk is not a replacement for the FBV; it is a much more powerful and capable device. It generates sounds of its own, including amp, mic/cab, and FX modeling. The FBV does not produce or store its own sounds, it merely allows you to use your feet to select the sounds in the Spider amp.

 

The Firehawk FX sounds good with your Bose speakers because it’s designed to work best with speakers, not with a guitar amp.
 

The most likely reason that your Firehawk FX device sounds muddy with your Spider amp is that you have two amps and cab combinations in your signal chain. The Firehawk FX preset is probably using an amp and cab model which is then being fed into the input of your Spider amp, which adds its own amp model and cab sound. That almost never sounds good.

 

To use the Firehawk with your Spider amp will require you to learn what the Firehawk device is designed to do. Start by reading the manual if you haven’t done so already. You will need to learn how to build Firehawk presets that don’t include an amp/cab model. You will need to learn how to select FX in the Firehawk preset that can be used effectively with FX in any given Spider amp preset. You will probably also want to learn how to use the Firehawk FX mobile app.
 

All in all, there’s no simple answer to your question about ‘the best settings on the devices’. You have a learning curve ahead of you if you want to pursue using the Firehawk FX and the Spider amp together. It’s kinda like a square peg and a round hole. They’re just not designed to work well together.

 

 

[silverhead]

Your original question was about getting a good sound using the two devices, and that was the focus of my answer. I didn’t discuss what is perhaps the most important way in which the Firehawk device is NOT a replacement for your FBV device.

 

The FBV has one job: communicate with the Spider amp and allow you to control it using your feet. When you press a switch on the FBV it will send a control signal to the Spider amp which results in a change in the settings of the amp, e.g. a preset or channel change. Presumably, that’s an important part of what you want to replace, and what you want the Firehawk device to do. But the Firehawk is not capable of doing that. It does not communicate with the Spider amp and cannot control it any way. Any switches or buttons you push on the Firehawk will ONLY affect the audio signal that is sent through its outputs to the amp’s input jack. It will not affect any settings on the amp.

[Barracuda81]

Yeah, I know. I just were curious if it is possible to get a setup were I use the Spider III only as an amplifier without any effects. For instance, is it possible to use the line-out of the Firehawk and the line-in of the Spider III instead of the guitar jack? I want to do all the effects with the Firehawk and only use the Spider III as a loudspeaker.

[silverhead]

Yes you can do what you describe. Make sure your Firehawk preset does not use any mic/cab block. Check the specs for the Spider amp’s Line In jack and set the Firehawk output level accordingly (Instrument vs. Line level). 
 

As mentioned earlier, the Firehawk switches will not control the Spider amp in any way.

[psarkissian]

What silverhead said.