Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)I bought this for my Spider III 75, it helps a great deal. It works the second you plug it in, but the manual provides instructions for calibrating the volume pedal, which only takes about 30 sec (20 to figure out how, then 10 to do it lol). As far as the manual is concerned... its quite breif... its big only cuz its in like 12 different languages... but honesly, this device has all the instruction you need printed on it. Also, forgot the mention that the cable provided is 20ft long!
The one thing i was a little dissappointed with when i got it was that the wah funtion of the pedal seemed to be a little chunky... like there were only 3 or 4 degrees of tone i could get out of it. I passed it off as "Well i supposes if i want a good wah sound im going to have to get a seperate pedal". But the other day i noticed my pedal was getting kinda stiff and was squeaking, so i popped of the bottom panel and sprayed some WD-40 on the hinge for the pedal... Eureka! Not only did it fix the squeaking, but my wah sound is much fuller and satisfying.
UPDATE: I have had a couple of the LEDs for the tuner go out on me. The ones that do go out aren't 100% dead. Seems that some of the time they will light up. If you prefer specifics... my LED just sharp of In-tune is out about 90% of the time, the one just sharp of that one goes about about 1% of the time. It's annoying, and mildly dissappointing but I manage to deal with it provided the LED for In-Tune doesnt start going out regularly. I haven't bothered to see if this is mearly something a little soldering could fix or if the LED itself is actually dead now. At any rate it's not a huge concern as the Tuner display on the amp itself still works. But i should add that despite the short amount of time i have had this pedal (~8 months) it's had it's fair share of knocks, kicks and slaps. I chalk that up to unavoidable wear and tear, but its worth noting.
Another thing i should mention is to make sure you keep it clean. The electronics inside aren't 100% sealed from the outside. Dust and hair does accumulate inside and I found out the hard way that it will eventually start screwing with the circuitry inside and make the wah/volume pedal do some undesirable things. It's a quick and simple fix though, just open it up, blow out the dirt and close it back up.
If Amazon would allow it, I would probably change my rating to 4/5. But that would be a 4 with a 'Well yeah, I personally experienced some minor drawbacks. But yours could be perfectly fine!' I also feel i should say something about the cable (as someone else as pointed out it's very similar to most ethernet cables) as i have my own gripe with it. The connections for the cable have that little plastic tab that locks the cable in place and as is standard these days, the cable has a sleeve that protects this tab from breaking off. Now, when you plug this cable into the amp, the depression for the connection is quite tight and actually makes it rather difficult to push the tab down through the sleeve to disconnect the cable. I found myself snipping off the part of the sleeve that protects the tab just so it was easier to disconnect the cable.
So yeah. On a level of functionality and convinience its well above par. But on a technical level, its not without its faults. But they can certainly be overcome with a little effort.
Click Here to see more reviews about: Line 6 FBV-Express
