An ideal combination of modelling and volume
Written: Jul 22 '04 (Updated Sep 23 '07)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Big and brash, this is an excellent modeller and great for gigs
Cons: Not a perfect emulator.
The Bottom Line: The Line 6 Vetta II is a great amp and modeller and a better buy, even for the extra money, than the excellent Fender CyberTwin
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| buffoonery's Full Review: Line 6 Vetta II Stereo Guitar Cabinet 212 |
The Line 6 Vetta II Combo amplifier is an upgrade of Line 6’s well-known Vetta Combo. At 150W of power with 2x12’s and substantially upgraded software, it is more powerful in both power and modeling capability than the original Vetta and is more versatile than any other combo modeling amp on the market of which I am aware in this price range. I highly recommend this amp to anyone interested in having a combination of volume and modeling strength in one system. The Vetta II combo runs around $1,600 plus tax at the big box stores. I purchased my copy over eBay used for $1,350, shipping included, and consider that an excellent deal.
Very Important Note I: This is essentially the same review as the Line 6 Vetta II 300W Head review I have written. If you read this, you really don't need to read the other review if you're interested in buying the head.
Very Important Note II: If you already own a Vetta Combo or Head, you can download all of the new software contained on the Vetta II from Line 6's website.
I had been in the amp market for about six months and specifically wanted a modeling amp because I didn’t want to shell out for a bunch of Marshalls, Fenders, and Mesas just to get the variety of sound I like. Although I have a good guitar collection, my amps were weak—a 50’s Gibson Tweed, a 60’s Magnatone, and a 60’s Univox head and columns—and I wanted to get into the 21st Century. I looked at a lot of amps (I was also toying with Marshall and Mesa heads and 2x12 or 4x12 cabs), and it came down to a choice between the Fender CyberTwin (also an excellent amp) and the Vetta II. The Vetta II won out.
As noted, the Vetta II is powerful in both volume and effects. I haven’t been able to get it above 4 without blowing my family out of the house. It’s almost too much power because I can’t really crank it up to get the great overtones that an overloaded amp delivers. If I ever get around to gigging, I’m confident that this amp will easily deliver in a mid-sized club, much less your typical corner bar, church social, or your kid’s birthday party.
But, on the other hand you can get a boatload of volume with a Fender 150W 2x12 and not pay the extra $500-$700 for the modeling, or spend another $400 for a multi-effect box like the Boss GT-6 ($300 on eBay, where I got mine) and still save some money. So what do you get for the extra dough?.
What you get is an absolute sh*tload of flexibility and variety. This amp delivers an almost infinite number of tones. I can’t testify to the veracity of the modeling of anything remotely all of the amps, cabs, and boxes here. I can safely say that the Vetta II at least meets the 80/20 rule—good enough for government work, as they say—and the heck with the rest.
The Vetta II’s controls look like something out of Lt. Sulu’s navigation control board on the original Star Trek series (not the politically correct second edition, blecch). They are horizontal so you’ll be reaching on top of the amp. On the top left is the navigation board. A knob permits you to select from the Vetta’s 64 presets and the 64 user combos that are possible (the users sets are initially identical to the factory presets and you’ll overwrite them with your own sets). There are 16 banks with 4 channels in each bank. A “Favorite” button allows you to go straight to your preselected favorite channel. There is also a save button (you can only overwrite user files) and a tuner.
Below the navigation controls are the amp controls. These permit selection of one of 73 different amps and the desired drive, bass, mids, treble, presence and volumes that you want. Other buttons allow you to choose which amp you wish to modify, which brings us to a very important Vetta feature, viz, each factory or user preset allows you to combine any two amps and any two cabs that you desire, along with tweaking each amp to your heart’s desire, including pre- and post-amp effects. This is an extremely important feature (also present in the Digitech modeling stomp boxes and strikingly absent from the Boss ones) that essentially squares the number of possible tonal combinations. This means you can select, say, a 㥈 Fender Black Lux with a 4x12 Hiway cab and match it with a Mesa Boogie Dual Rectifier powering a 1x10 Gibson 㥄 Explorer speaker. Pretty weird, but possible.
This also means that the 64 factory presets are really 192 presets: 64 presets using the Amp 1 and Amp 2 combined, 64 with Amp 1 only, and 64 with Amp 2 only. This is important because the Amps are almost always different and the effects chains differ as well.
The two different amps effectively give you stereo capability. You can mix the amps anyway you want—combine them, pan one hard left, the other hard right, whatever, play with only one through both speakers. Plugs on the back allow you to drive a separate cab to get true stereo effect. This is especially important because a “Double Tracker” button allows you to get a slight delay that sounds like two guitars playing simultaneously, really cool in a gig situation.
You get 73 different amps and 28 different cabs. 29 of the amps are Vetta originals—some simulated specifically for the Vetta—and they’re pretty good, especially for metal/hard rock playing—while others are bizairre combinations that the Vetta engineers liked, say, the preamp and tone stack from a 㥂 Fender Tweed Bassman paired with a Bandmaster poweramp and transformer. The other usual suspects are a riot of Fenders, Marshalls, Gibsons, Mesas, Rolands, Vox’s, Bogners, etc. The cab models include anything from a 1x6x9 Supro to a bunch of 1x12’s, 2x12’s, and 4x12’s by Fender, Hiwatt, Marshall, Mesa, Line Six and the rest.
On the lower right are master reverb, bass, treble and volume knobs. On the upper right are controls that allow three pre-amp effects, plus post-amp tremelo, compression, reverb, delay, modulation, pitch shift, looping and eq.
How do you control the effects? Simple: hit “Stomp 1, 2, or 3” and the “Edit” button. This will bring up another display that shows you the effect selected. Knobs below allow you to change the type of effect you want: distortion, modulation, delay, dynamics, and synth/filter, then the particular stompbox you want. For example, there are 7 distortions, 15 modulations (flanger, a bunch of choruses, trem, etc.), 12 delays and echos, and 6 dynamics (compression and autoswell). The controls duplicate the controls on the box being modeled, e.g. an Ibanez Tube Screamer, a Boxx DM-2 Analog Delay, whatever, so you get drive, treble, bass, gain, etc. You can control timing either using the controls or the “Tap Tempo” button: just hit it twice, and you’ve got the speed you want.
As I said, you can use different effects on your different amp channels, then mix and match to get some really cool sounds. As a simple example, I use Amp 1 with just a one-time delay with autoswell and infinite repeat, play a single A Minor chord through it, then play a bunch of A Dorian scale runs through Amp 2 for practice, or whatever. Very cool.
A “Chain” control allows you to place whatever you want wherever you want it. You can put effects in series (in which box two modifies box one’s signal) or in parallel (in which each box works on a unmodified signal). A Loop control permits you to bring in boxes outside of the Vetta.
There is another boatload of post effects: Trem, EQ, 21 choruses, pans, rotary, flanges, etc., 14 delays, 16 reverbs, and 6 mic options. Mix and match to your heart’s content.
There’s a lot more. As I said, you can power external speakers using the Vetta II. There are a ton of hookups for MIDI and recording. There are jacks for Line 6’s Variax modeling guitar, including a power plug that will let the Vetta power the Variax (as well as amp setting specifically designed for the Variax’s acoustic varieties). You can even save your Variax and Vetta settings together. An FBX floorboard is available for separate purchase. This lets you perform most of the key functions remotely and is something I intend to buy in the near future. It runs around $250-$275 on eBay.
The foregoing will give you a reasonable idea of what this amp can do. The manual is clear and written rather conversationally. It includes descriptions of the controls and capabilities, gives modeling hints, and describes all the amps, cabs, and effects that were modeled. Naturally, there’s a lot I haven’t covered.
The thing may seem complicated but it isn’t. You can start goofing around with it after spending ten minutes with the manual.
The question remaining, therefore, is: do I buy it? I obviously like it. I looked hard at the Fender Cybertwin and, while that is a very fine amp (I’ll review it sometime), this is better.
Another question is: how about I use my current non-modelling amp and match it with a good effects box like a Digitech, Korg, or Boss? Well, in fact, I own a Boss GT-6 effects box already. That is a very fine box and has some effects that the Vetta doesn’t have. But compared one-on-one, the Vetta II is a better modeler than the GT-6. Its amp and cab offerings blow the GT-6 away and it has a far better selection of delays, reverbs, chorus, etc, besides being much easier to use. The GT-6 has a larger selection of distortion models (one of my beefs with the Vetta is that there are only 7 distortion boxes, but on the other hand the amp selections provide some SERIOUS hi-gain possibilities so this complaint doesn’t go very far) and a few more effects (e.g. an acoustic simulator and defretter) plus a wider selection of factory presets (many of which are designed to sell the box to teenagers and that you’d never use in a gig situation). Presented with the choice of spending $1000 on a good 2x12 and another $400 on the GT-6 against $1500-$1600 on the Vetta II, I’d go with the Vetta II.
Many purists are going to grouse that the Vetta II doesn’t deliver exactly the tones that they want out of their favorite Marshall head or Boss stomp box or whatever. They’re undoubtedly right: the Vetta isn’t perfect. But as I said earlier, it’s good enough for government work. In sum, the Vetta II is an extremely powerful, versatile modeling and gigging amp. It’s a blast to listen to and play with. It’s well worth the money.
Here are my other amplifier reviews:
Marshall Super 100 JH
Peavey Classic 30 Combo
Crate Power Block
Roland Micro Cube
Mesa 5:25 Express
Mesa Stiletto Ace
Fender Cyber Twin
Line 6 Vetta II Combo
Mesa 5:50 Express
Line 6 Spider III 75
Mesa Lone Star Combo
Vox Valvetronix AD60VT
Mesa Stiletto Deuce
Mesa Triple Rectifier Head
Fender DSP 65
Peavey Triple XXX Head
Fender Super Sonic 1x12 Combo
Hughes and Kettner Switchblade 50 Combo
Fender MH 500 Metalhead
64 Fender Vibroverb Custom Blackface
Mesa Dual Rectifier Roadster
Peavey Penta Head
Peavey JSX Joe Satriani Signature Head
Line 6 Spider II Head
Crate Acoustic CA30
Line 6 Flextone III Plus
And you may also be interested in a few books such as:
Hugo Pinksterboer – Tipbook Amplifiers and Effects
Ritchie Fliegler – Amps: The Other Half of Rock and Roll
Michael Ross – Getting Great Guitar Sounds: A Non-Technical Approach to Shaping Your Personal Sound
Recommended:
Yes
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