just picked up a Line 6 Flextone and am quite surprised!!

welshboyo

Just picked up a Line 6 Flextone - the original Mark 1 with no midi/USB etc.

Bought as a rehearsal/grab'n'go type thing to save carting the Bogner and its personal Eco System around.

Need a bit of time to get used to the amp models etc but I must say that within 10 minutes of me setting it up at last nights rehearsal, it sounded great and bloody loud too!!

Not expecting it to outshine anything valve, but credit where credit is due and for the money you can now pick these up, its a little bit of a no brainer..

Anybody else like these or is it more a case of an accident waiting to happen :-)

guitarfishbay

I used a Flextone 2 XL 2x12 combo for a long time, and it served me well.  It was loud enough, covered a lot of ground tonally, and was totally reliable.  On paper it could be all anyone ever needs but that isn't how GAS or the minds of guitarists work is it!

randomhandclaps

I used to have one of the Vox AD120VTXs for precisely the same reasons.  I sold it to fund another amp but wish I didn't as for that purpose it was great.  I even did a couple of gigs with it and no complaints.

roundthebend

What's it like at low volume for home practise?

welshboyo

roundthebend said:

What's it like at low volume for home practise?

don't know yet as I've left at our rehearsal space (Drummer's massive country house!!), seemed to be OK when we had a tea break and I had a chance to faff about with it at what would be home levels.

roundthebend

Cheers.

chrispy108

I've always liked them when in shops.

I might keep an eye out for a cheap Flextone 3, some great models on it.

ICBM

The Flextones and Duoverbs seem reliable. I think I've only had one unrepairable Flextone (I'm pretty sure it was a II) and nothing else from this series with any major issues. Avoid the Spiders though.

I must admit I find the tone, or possibly the dynamics, of all of them hard to deal with in a band situation - but I'd use one if I had to. Better than no amp...

Cirrus

I used a flextone 3 xl for a few years, mainly for recording and band practices but did do a couple of gigs with them. Some of the models are very useable, I seem to remember getting good results mix and matching the cabinet simulations. I remember the actual combo cab rattled a lot if you put too much bass through it and the open back was very open, so trying to emulate a loud 4x12 would only get you so far. But use a twin or ac30 model and it was reasonably convincing "good tone" even if it might not have stood up to a real example sat beside it. Agree about the line 6 feel/dynamics, but I borrowed a mate's pod 2 one day to record thinking it'd be as good as my flextone direct and was pretty horrified by how flat and scratchy the pod sounded in comparison!

axisus

I have a flextone 3 and I have always thought that it had some decent sounds in there. I still have it but it's just under the keys as a keyboard amp these days. I'll probably flog it as some point and get a small keyboard amp. It's good though, just not required for guitars at the moment.

Ianpdq

I thought the flextone had problems with the ribbon connections like the jam ?

Cirrus

I sold mine to a dude a few years ago, met him in the car park of the venue he was playing a gig at. He took it off my hands and put it straight on stage to sound check, there's confidence! When I told him I was selling it to help pay for an AC30 he thought I was totally mad.

guitarfishbay

Cirrus said:

I sold mine to a dude a few years ago, met him in the car park of the venue he was playing a gig at. He took it off my hands and put it straight on stage to sound check, there's confidence! When I told him I was selling it to help pay for an AC30 he thought I was totally mad.

I sold a guy my old AC30 and he thought I was mad for using amps in the first place.  He said all I needed was a Boss GT6 straight to the mixing desk and I'd never need another amp again.  He only bought my amp as he thought he could flip it for profit.

fastboy

When I first starting playing guitar again about 7 years ago after a massive break I bought a flextone as well as it was just around the time modelling was getting going ans in theory that all sounded great.

The flextone did sound good but I could never use it with a band as I literally had it running flat out and it wasn't loud enough (5 piece band, very loud drummer!)

If it had been loud enough I might have kept it but I went straight back to valve amps after that.

gubble

I had a Mk1 Flextone - awesome amp for my home use and ocassional gig scenario back then.

It kept resorting to factory settings every so often - but that's not really a problem especially at home.

The guy i bought my Fender Twin Reverb from was selling it as he had a Mk3 Flextone he prefered to use for gigs !

ICBM

gubble said:

I had a Mk1 Flextone - awesome amp for my home use and ocassional gig scenario back then.

It kept resorting to factory settings every so often - but that's not really a problem especially at home.

I know a chap with a couple of Spiders which do that. Most annoying.

Interestingly they do a particular job very well - he uses them for playing live solo guitar with backing tracks through a small PA. Since the amp lacks dynamics, and in many ways sounds like a recording of a guitar sound, it sits perfectly in the mix against the recorded instruments... the exact opposite of why they don't work well with a full live band. By comparison a real amp is far too dynamic and sensitive - either too quiet or overpowering, with almost nothing in between. Horses for courses and all that.

welshboyo

Well, it won't replace the Shiva for gigs, but in a rehearsal situation, it'll do just fine.

A read of the manual has actually helped as the tone controls for each model react differently so that will help for setting it up for next rehearsal..thinking of just using the Brit Blues which is based on a JTM45 (which I had for a while and got used to dialling in) with various levels of gain and just leave it at that..

Thanks all again for your valuable inputs and it sounds like I could have done a lot worse for the money I paid for it...and I nealy bought a Spider (which the same guy was selling)..glad I didn't!!

ICBM

Doesn't matter now, but there's another reason the Spider is much less good than the Flextone - no FX loop. This might not sound like a big deal since both have effects onboard, but it means that you can't use the Spider as a preamp or a power amp if you need to patch something together in a backup situation. It's just a much less well-engineered amp overall.

You bought the right one .

ThePrettyDamned

There is a flextone 2 with footswitch at the local gas emporium used for about 170 quid I think.  Looks nice, and apparently it sounds nice.

That's a fairly cheap amp if it has just one good sound in it, really.

Fretwired

I still have a Flextone II which I bought new the week they were launched and the floorboard. I happened to be in Coda in Stevenage and one of the assistants gave me a demo - and I walked out with it. Not used it in years though.