Talk to me about the Flextone III...

[Hot _Grits]

I'm looking around for a backup amp and I've been offered one of these. I'm not one for modelling amps in general because of the feel, but for the price I'm looking at, it could be a great choice for rehearsal/parctice/backup.

So please give me your impressions. I'm interested in roadworthiness, quality of the models (esp clean and low gain tones), quality of the reverb/effects, clean headroom and overall volume and projection, and any other opinions/tips you have to offer.

If the amp can stay clean and punchy at decent volumes and has similar quality tones to the vetta series, I may well get it.

 

[the guy who invented fire]

Re: Talk to me about the Flextone III...

talk to me too...I want the scoop!!!

 

[Wattage]

Re: Talk to me about the Flextone III...

Seriously cool amps. I was thinking of grabbing one recently as well. Lots of options and really good sounds. Check with Institute of Noise on here he is a big time Line6 guy.

 

[JimiHWannaBe]

Re: Talk to me about the Flextone III...

if you could get a nice price on it i would go for it. having it as a backup amp would be nice because of the reliability plus you can really mess around with it and get some cool tones i bet.

 

[LucidInterval]

Re: Talk to me about the Flextone III...

Strange, I started reading up on these somewere around wed - friday.

 

[75lespaul]

Re: Talk to me about the Flextone III...

Here is A great, great Line 6 website. They have a forum just for the flextone.

http://www.instituteofnoise.com/L6/home.asp?pid=5

 

[Hot _Grits]

Re: Talk to me about the Flextone III...

Thanks, guys.

I tried one briefly this lunchtime, and to be honest, I really wasn't impressed. Overall, the midrange character of the amp was a bit nastier than I experienced with the Vetta, and the overall feel of the amp was pretty uninspiring. Now, I definitely didn't get to the bottom of every option you can tweak, but the dry clean sound really didn't work for me. The overall volume wasn't especially impressive. Seems like modelling amps really struggle to be punchy at ratings under 100 watts.

I also tried the tech21 trademark 60, and was pretty impressed. Much better feeling amp.

 

[InstituteOfNoise]

Re: Talk to me about the Flextone III...

It's all about dialing it in at the volume you'll be using it at. Also, if it's one that hasn't had the firmware upgrade from 1.0 to 1.1 it will sound a bit muddier. The new release is way way better. I've got a Flex III 1x12 as a backup and it sounds great!

 

[Hot _Grits]

Re: Talk to me about the Flextone III...

That's exactly what I did, institute. I didn't notice too much of a problem with muddiness. The issue seemed to be more with the brashness of the upper mids in most of the models. The bassman, twin, deluxe and ac30 models all sounded nowhere near as smooth and complex as the real deals. That combined with the fairly cold feel of the amp was enough to convince me to give modelling amps a couple more years development time.

It was interesting talking to the salesguys after trying it. They know me fairly well as one of their fussier shoppers, and were surprised I was even trying it out.

 

[Jonny R]

Re: Talk to me about the Flextone III...

Hey.

Where did you play the Trademark 60? I haven't noticed the Tech21 amps around...

 

[Hot _Grits]

Re: Talk to me about the Flextone III...

Rockshop has the 60 and the cool 60 watt satellite amp.

 

[InstituteOfNoise]

Re: Talk to me about the Flextone III...

While I have the Flex III just sitting at the house. I use my Vetta II HD or PODxt into stereo Atomic amps most of the time. I personally get closer to what I want to hear with these 2 setups.