top of page

08.29.2018: 30 Minutes of Songwriting


Wintersun: The Forest Seasons

Today's soundtrack is Wintersun: The Forest Seasons, a beautifully atmospheric metal album.

This afternoon, I exchanged the Boss Katana Mini that I bought last week for a Line 6 Spider 15 modeling amp. I thought that the Katana's distortion and delay would be enough effects for a little practice amp; however, I found that though the distortion was great, I was disappointed with the limitations on the delay effect, especially because there was no reverb option.

Line 6 Pocket Pod

I set up the amp and am super impressed with everything about it. I loved most of the tones and amp models straight out of the box; those that I wasn't initially fond of were easy to set up to my liking and save. Line 6 has come a long way since the days of the Pocket Pod, one of my first guitar effects processors.

The amp has tons of options. There are four amp models: clean, crunch, metal, and insane. Each of them can be modified and saved for easy access - you can set each amp's volume, drive, and EQ; you can choose whether you want chorus/flange, phaser, or tremolo (and at which intensity), and you can choose whether you want sweep echo, tape echo, or reverb (and again, you can choose the intensity of each). There's a dual-purpose tap/tuner button that you can use to either set the speed of the delay (if selected) or to tune your guitar. One thing to note is that the tuner only works if you're in a standard tuning (E A D G B E); since I tune down to drop (B F# B E G# C#), I'm unable to use the tuner. Overall, though, I'm really impressed with this amp.

bottom of page