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Spider Valve MKII 112 with FBV Express MKII - Gigging Ability


Goochster
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Hi all

 

I have a Spider Valve MKII 112 and FBV MKII Express which I've owned for 3-4 years. I used to use them both quite a lot at home but found the amp ridiculously loud so bought a UX1 with Pod Farm 2 which I now use 95% of the time through some desktop monitors.

 

I'm now in a situation where I'm expecting to start gigging in the next few of months. Nothing huge just a few pub gigs playing a wide range of rock and pop covers from the 60's to present day. I took the SV MKII and FBV MKII to my first band practise a few days ago and to be honest I struggled to dial in any decent clean or crunch tones. Besides that I found that on one occasion in the middle of a song I accidentally pressed two pedals at once on the FBV MKII and somehow activated the looper which completely messed up my tone until I managed to switch it off!

 

I've since played around trying to dial in some clean and crunch tones with mixed success.

 

My question is. Realistically is this amp going to be usable as a regular gigging amp? For the gigging musicians out there, how do you organize and store your tones in the amp? Do you just dial in and save your different tones, clean, crunch, distorted, effects etc... and then create a different bank for each song you're going to play, making sure your tones have a similar volume? That way giving you a maximum of 4 different tones for each song. Or is there a better way of organizing your tones? Also is there a way of disabling the looper?

 

I'm just a bit worried that there's just too much that can go wrong with this amp in a live situation and maybe I should revert to a standard 2 channel amp and some pedals.

 

I really would appreciate some advice from gigging musicians that have used this or a similar set up.

 

Thanks in advance for any help.  :)

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Hey Man,

 

Not really regular gigging but..............

 

We play mostly covers and over the years I've used a variety of MFX and I've found that unless the song needs extra modulation (phaser/flanger or some Edge delay etc) I can usually get by without a massive amount of presets. Rock/Metal -> rhythm patch in the middle, one down is clean/less crunch, one up is lead boost (sometimes cocked wah), next bank for country same set up just less distortion on all, next bank is usually a clean with progressive modulations. ETC....

 

While I don't have your amp I've done the 2 button/pedals setup and found myself tap dancing at times. That can have its own set of fun if you forget to stomp what needs to be stomped on/off.

 

Love the big LED screen on the FBV too so I know where I am at -> helps when the beer goggles are on :)

 

-B

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Thanks for your feedback BillBee

 

I think I'm just trying to eliminate any potential disasters in a live situation but I suppose any piece of kit can can fail on you! It seems quite fiddly trying to dial tones into this amp and then get each tone in each bank to the same volume. I just though pedals might be a bit easier to control.

 

Maybe If I upgraded to the FBV MK II Shortboard, would that make life any easier?

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I here ya - think of what could break and what is the minimum amount of equipment you could survive with. You can drive yourself nuts thinking about it but it never hurts. For example if the amp dies (not likely but it happens) can you route a backup MFX to the board?

 

Pedals vs MFX - it comes down to personal preference. Both have their own pain in the @ss issues at times. 

 

I have the MKI Shortboard so I can't say what you can gain by going to the MKII. Someone here will probably pop by and tell you.

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O'Yeah even if you can score a used MKI shortboard (you can always use it later on a Pod bean, Pro (Xt and up) and what ever else takes it.

 

The Express is ok but the shortboard really gives control and flexibility. You can always pop by your local music store and try it out.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Goochster,

   I've been gigging steadily most weekends for the past two years with a SV MkII 212 Bogner playing a variety of cover styles that keep the crowd dancing/rocking and the club owners happy with the take. I quickly upgraded from the Express pedal to the Shortboard for two reasons: There is no real work around to accidentally engaging the looper on the Express (old forums have many stories about it), and there is much better control options on the Shortboard.

 

   The Shortboard's Function1 button can be programmed as a volume boost for the patch you are currently using. I use it to pump up the volume for solos. This saves a patch in your bank. Program a bank of 4 patches that cover a genre of music. You will have less banks, less stress when a song is called out that is not in the set list, and virtually no tap dancing. Also, if you want to accept a bit of tapping, you can individually tap off effects for certain tunes. Rarely, the looper will engage and the Function2 button will start blinking. You will see it quickly and can easily tap it off. When programming sounds, they should all have near the same volume (Level control is part of the patch). That way, you only need to set your Master Volume and Presence at the gig.  -Napy

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  • 3 weeks later...
  • 3 weeks later...
  • 2 months later...

I too gig regularly with a JTV into a Spider Valve with a shortboard. Took a bit of fiddling to to make sure all my patches were at the same level, but I arrived at some tones I liked and pretty much normalised them by ear. I too punch delay,phase etc from assigned buttons on the board. As with anything the more you use it the easier it gets!!

 

Well most things anyways!!!

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  • 2 months later...

Hello,

 

I regularly gig (well, at least once a month) and have no issues with the banks/tones. Yes, I am using the FBV Shortboard and that is a must if you are concerned about switching and volume levels. I use no other external pedals and have a nice acoustic/clean channel in bank one into my distorted rhythm channel on bank two and then into a lead channel that I have dialed in slightly louder than the rhythm on channel 3 so I never have to mess with the volume pedal at all. Fairly straightforward once you get all your tones set....I use most of the standard preset sounds but am starting to do some knob twiddling to dial in exactly what I am hearing in my head! :-)

 

You can also attach the shortboard to your PC and download custom/re-arrange the tones with the Line 6 software.......but that is step two!

 

Good luck!

 

Joe V.

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  • 5 months later...

As to the old forums concerning looper issues...can they be accessed? I just got a Mk 2 112 Spidervalve and after setting up 3 preset channels and when switching with my FBV Express Mk 2 pedal...the looper feature just comes on...not sure if I accidently hit another pedal at the same time or not??

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As to the old forums concerning looper issues...can they be accessed? I just got a Mk 2 112 Spidervalve and after setting up 3 preset channels and when switching with my FBV Express Mk 2 pedal...the looper feature just comes on...not sure if I accidently hit another pedal at the same time or not??

Just answered you here:

http://line6.com/support/topic/15222-loop-problems-spidervalve-112/?do=findComment&comment=111548

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  • 1 year later...

I recently got hold of a SpiderIV 75 with the Fbv express II.

 

I spent a bit of time getting my sounds straight and assigning to each A, B, C and D channel.

Seemed quite fiddly getting the volumes to be level.

But I was happy - ready to take it to gig.

 

During its first use - in our final rehearsal, I managed to set the looper off TWICE with my clumsy feet.

The first time, I managed to record a bunch of silence first, then some clean and then some distortion,

sounded awful of course, and i had to switch the amp off - mid song - to stop it.

 

When it happened again, later on the evening, the Spider was doomed. I used a different amp for the

gig, putting keyboards through the spider!

 

Just to confirm? There's no way of disabling the looper for a patch?

 

I managed to disable the volume pedal by setting the min volume to 100% - is that the accepted

procedure.

 

I did like some of the sounds the amp was making, but too scared of it going "self aware" when I'm playing live.

 

Cheers

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