Lately, I've been doing the occasional fill-in gig with various cover bands. Well, sometimes these venues aren't exactly the Ritz-Carlton, if you get my drift, and I've been getting more and more apprehensive about having my "flagship" Vetta amp around various yay-hoos with their drunken antics. And that's just the band! 
Seriously, I had a situation the other night where some idiot was sloshing his draft of bud all around my gear while he was trying to drunkenly get my attention during a song (seems to happen all the time). This was a venue without a raised stage, so these cretins think that the stage area is "open season" for idiocy.
Anyway, I've recently been thinking about this problem, so I came to the conclusion that I needed to risk something a little less expensive on these outings into moron-ville.
Enter the SpiderII. Now, I play a Vetta, but I already HAVE the original SpiderI 2x10, and it's okay for practicing, but at gig volume, it sounds like @ss. Literally, with all of the farting and whatnot. But recently, a few times that I've gone into GC, I played around with the SpiderII combos, just for kicks. Well, they sounded pretty freakin' good!
So last night, for the first time, I got to REALLY crank one of the heads, and it sounded GREAT! I mean, not just good: GREAT! It has 12 very well selected amp models, and a reasonable amount of FX choices, AND is compatable with my FBV.
Well, I ended up talking the sales guy into selling me the floor model for dirt. Let's just say it was, "Let me make a trip to the ATM." money.
I got this beast home, plugged it into my g-flex cabs and it freaking SMOKED! This thing is PAINFULLY loud at only 9 or 10 o-clock, and the tones are really amazing for such a cheap amp. Heck, with some tweaking, they're pretty amazing period! Surprisingly, the default settings are pretty good, too, although I had to roll off a little on the highs for some of the more "heavy" settings.
I deliberately cranked it to "Ouch, that hurts!" volume so that I could hear the real tonal character of this thing, and it held up completely!
Now, I'm not replacing my Vetta anytime soon... obviously I can coax better tones out of the Vetta than I EVER could with the spider. It's just that now I have a great sounding amp that i can take to the more unsavory gigs, and if some idiot spills a beer on it, at worst, i'm out a few hundred bucks, instead of a couple grand. bottom line is that the SpiderII head is one HELLUVA bang for the buck.
Seriously, I had a situation the other night where some idiot was sloshing his draft of bud all around my gear while he was trying to drunkenly get my attention during a song (seems to happen all the time). This was a venue without a raised stage, so these cretins think that the stage area is "open season" for idiocy.
Anyway, I've recently been thinking about this problem, so I came to the conclusion that I needed to risk something a little less expensive on these outings into moron-ville.
Enter the SpiderII. Now, I play a Vetta, but I already HAVE the original SpiderI 2x10, and it's okay for practicing, but at gig volume, it sounds like @ss. Literally, with all of the farting and whatnot. But recently, a few times that I've gone into GC, I played around with the SpiderII combos, just for kicks. Well, they sounded pretty freakin' good!
So last night, for the first time, I got to REALLY crank one of the heads, and it sounded GREAT! I mean, not just good: GREAT! It has 12 very well selected amp models, and a reasonable amount of FX choices, AND is compatable with my FBV.
Well, I ended up talking the sales guy into selling me the floor model for dirt. Let's just say it was, "Let me make a trip to the ATM." money.
I got this beast home, plugged it into my g-flex cabs and it freaking SMOKED! This thing is PAINFULLY loud at only 9 or 10 o-clock, and the tones are really amazing for such a cheap amp. Heck, with some tweaking, they're pretty amazing period! Surprisingly, the default settings are pretty good, too, although I had to roll off a little on the highs for some of the more "heavy" settings.
I deliberately cranked it to "Ouch, that hurts!" volume so that I could hear the real tonal character of this thing, and it held up completely!
Now, I'm not replacing my Vetta anytime soon... obviously I can coax better tones out of the Vetta than I EVER could with the spider. It's just that now I have a great sounding amp that i can take to the more unsavory gigs, and if some idiot spills a beer on it, at worst, i'm out a few hundred bucks, instead of a couple grand. bottom line is that the SpiderII head is one HELLUVA bang for the buck.
