For those who don’t know, I am an avid Line 6 fan and user. My first foray with Line 6 gear came years ago when they released the Pod. I liked the Pod, but once I got introduced to Pro Tools, I found that amp sims were much easier to use. Not to mention, the technology wasn’t as good back then, as it is now. So, I ultimately sold the Pod.

Many years later, I purchased a Line 6 Variax guitar second hand. It’s the Variax 500 I believe. Now the guitar itself is marginal at best. The body is nice, and I like the shape and pickguard “ok”. I don’t mind the headstock shape either. But the nut is plastic, and the neck itself is pretty rotten. It really needs to have a new nut installed, as well as a good fret dressing. Then it would be just fine.

But we all know that you don’t buy a Line 6 guitar for the “tone of the wood”. It’s all about the guts, and this is where it really shines. It can pretty accurately replicate variations of the Tele, Strat, Les Paul, Gretcsh, but what I think is the coolest is that it can do a pretty good Banjo, Baritone, Acoustic, and Sitar! And what also makes it great is that if you buy the optional Workbench software, you can customize your own guitar. I have several that are tuned one whole octave up, a Nashville tuned guitar, Open G, etc.

I didn’t really get much satisfaction out of how the guitar sounded live though. Something about it was weird. It was very undefined in the mix. Hard to hear. Didn’t have much mojo at all, and it also sounded sorta out of phase. Using it for acoustic gigs was decent though, as you can go direct to the PA. If the guitar played a bit better, it would be a nice alternative to strumming a big acoustic.

But where the guitar is most useful is recording. For some reason, when you record with it, it doesn’t sound thin or out of phase. It actually does VERY well at tracking, and is quite believable too. So for this reason alone, I would suggest a Variax to any recording musician. I don’t think it matters what model you buy, but I would never spend $1200+ on their top of the line model. No way. Granted, wood can have an effect on yer tone, but this guitar’s whole gig is the electronics inside, by way of piezo saddles. Wood isn’t going to come in to play very much. However, I’m sure the guitar would play and feel a bit better though. But so will mine after I put about $100 in to having my luthier dial it in!

Next up was a Pod XTLive Floorboard, which I ran thru an Atomic Amp. The Atomic was designed for modeling units specifically. The speakers have a flat response, so that they can accurately reproduce the intended sounds for which they are modeling. It is the only way to go. However, there are many different routes you can take to achieve this approach. You can buy a power amp and run it to your own speaker cab, loaded with Neo speakers from Weber, or whatever. But the Atomic has a built in amp! And it also has plug and play templates that can house your Pod, Vox, Behringer, etc type of modeler.

I felt the Pod XT Live was outstanding. It especially shines if you purchase the add-on packs. I bought the Metal Shop and Collector Classic add-on packs, and they did not disappoint. I think the XTLive, which has been replaced now with the arguably better X3, is an outstanding unit for sure. My only problem with it, was that it required too much tweaking to get it to sound super good live. I know that many report great success with it, particularly when paired up with the Atomic. But either i’m tone deaf, or I’m a diva brat that is never satisfied, because I wasn’t into it at all. I’m sure it’s the later! So as it stands now, my XTLive is now in Poland, and my Atomic is for sale locally ($400, which is a STEAL). It’s too heavy to ship, so I have to unload it locally.

I was in at Guitar Center one day, and saw they had the new Line 6 Spider Valve in stock. So, I plugged into it, and new within 2 minutes that it was going home with me. It was exactly what I was looking for. Some people complain that when you scroll thru the presets, that they are punishingly loud. And they ARE. I think I may have squirted out a little nugget in the ol’ pants when going thru them for the first time. But that is the way it is. Once you get the amp home and learn how to combat this, it’s not a problem at all. The presets are outstanding, and the sound of the amp in general is just awesome. I have owned Marshall’s and Mesa’s, and this amp is my fave by far. It’s a 2x12, so it’s portable. It’s LOUD as can be, and has built in effects. I realized pretty quickly after purchasing it, that I really needed the optional pedalboard for it, so I bought that too. Money well spent! It made scrolling thru and saving presets so much easier. The amp is built like a tank, with exception to the caps that are on the knobs. They are very very thin and break easily. I have replaced mine already, since most of them cracked. I’ve found out that I’m not alone either.

My one and only complaint with the SV is that you can’t interface it with a PC and control your presets and sounds. This was one of the biggest selling points of the XTLive. You could experiment all day long with the sounds via your computer and a USB hook up to the XTLive. You could then save your sounds to a soundbank, arrange them how you wanted them inside your board, and back them up if you wanted. You can’t do this at all with the SV. It’s supposed to be have more like a traditional amp. At first I was VERY annoyed that you couldn’t do this. But now I’m used to it, and I can see now where it could be overkill for this amp. There are only about 8 different effects to choose from: Flanger/Chorus, Phaser, Tremolo, Reverb, Digital Delay, Tape Delay, and a Delay/Filter. With the XTLive, you had at least 30 to try and manage!

You can engage the built-in noise gate by pressing down and holding the save button on the floorboard. There is a way to do it on the amp itself, but I can’t remember how to. It works quite well at taming a noisy pre-amp, or 60 cycle hum from a strat or P90 PU. However, it will not get rid of 60 cycle hum completely.

The effects are quite strange to manage though. Thankfully they can be set to your tempo via Tap Tempo, both on the front of the amp, and the pedalboard. I find it to work very well. It only takes two taps to get it to sync. But sometimes it’s still not the RIGHT kind of delay sound that I want. I also accidentally discovered that you can control the volume of the effect if you first dial up the effect you want, let it sit for a minute, then ever so slowly adjust that same knob to the left or right as if you were controlling volume. But if you fall outside of the effects assigned “region”, it will then switch to the next effect. It sounds weird, but it’s actually quite a good idea. I would have preferred a seperate knob for controlling the volume/mix of the effect though.

For the most part, all of the effects are pretty common, and useful. I would have preferred that they left off the phaser in exchange for some sort of envelope filter/auto wah. I also think the Tremolo is good, but it’s not adjustable via Tap Tempo believe it or not

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