Line 6 Spider 112 > Reviews (4)

INTRO
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A couple of years ago I went amp shopping. Or more specifically I went into a guitar shop and just started playing some amps. I spotted a lovely little amp as soon as I walked into the shop and for some reason it caught my attention. I read the label; "Line6 Spider 112 - WAS £280, NOW £230"

A bargain, I thought.

So I asked to play it. He kindly plugged me in, brought me a guitar and a stool and away I went. I fell in love with it within 10 minutes. I tried all the settings and was amazed at what I could get out of it. Not long after another clerk walked over to me, "Sorry mate, that price tag is wrong." Bugger! I knew it was too good to be true, "It's actually only £200 now." BANG! Down went the deposit, "I'll be back next week to pick it up."

And to this day I still get sexually aroused every time I crank that thing up. What the hell is wrong with me?

EFFECTS (FX)
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This is probably the most amazing feature of the Spider112. It actually emulates other amp models. A tweak here and a turn there and before you know it you have a Marshallcoming out of a 50 watt 12inch speaker. It does have its own default amp settings. Such as 'clean', 'twang', 'blues', 'retro', 'crunch' and 'insane'. All of which can be tweaked using the controls and the EQ to get the desired sound you want. Once done the custom sound can be saved into the amps memory bank (only a maximum of 4 I'm afraid).

Other amp effects include 'chorus', 'delay', 'flange', 'tremolo', 'ping pong', tape echo' and 'reverb'. Again, this all adds to the complexity of the amp, giving its user a vast range of sounds, effects, amp models and even guitarist custom sounds.

HOWEVER...
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Despite the praises and showering of more praise that I am lavishing upon this amp, I have discovered a couple of....well let's not call them bad points. Let's call them.....not-so-good points.

Firstly the volume knob is somewhat twitchy. Instead of a gradual increase/decrease in volume when turning the knob it kind of jumps. I can go from "turn that racket down" to "what the hell am I playing?" within a nano-millimetre. It's kind of like the musical equivalent of the knob on the shower.

The only other thing to note is that if you are planning on using this for jamming with other people and possibly for gigging you will have no doubt chosen the Spider 112 as it eliminates the need for several effects pedals (i.e. clean, heavy distortion etc.). And unfortunately the amp itself does not come with a footswitch (certainly not when I bought it anyway) and it may set you back another £50 (mine was £70). You can get different ones though. I have the FB4 which is the basic 4-button footswitch. You can also get ones that store 8 sounds and 16 I believe. Some even come with a volume switch and wah pedal.

OVERALL
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This is an absolute gem. The price is cheap (largely due to the Spider 2 112 being released) and it sounds amazing. It eliminates the need for enough footswitches to put NASA to shame and yet despite its size (barely a foot high) it packs a mean wallop. Also it's loud.