INTRODUCTION: FLEXTONE! MEET THE FLEXTONE....
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The Line 6 engineers also directed their caffeine-enhanced attention to a study of
guitar speaker cabinets, and the important part they play in communicating great
guitar tone.
Having sussed it all out, the Line 6 engineers were then able to apply their digital
expertise to develop software which simulates the tube and other circuitry’s signal
processing entirely within the digital domain. Cool, huh?
This revolutionary DSP (digital signal processing) software-based modeling
technology gives Line 6 the power to create super butt-kickin’ Digital Guitar
Amplifier Systems like the Flextone: value-packed amps with a whole new kind of
tonal flexibility.
AMP & CAB MODELS
This modeling know-how allowed Line 6 to create software Amp and Cab Models
modeled after a collection of amplifiers and speaker cabinets recognized by
guitarists the world over as true “tone classics.” We got these amps and cabs
together, cranked ’em up, and had a look at the electronic data generated by the
tubes, transformers, capacitors, plate and grid voltages, tone control curves – and
the whole mess of components and elements unique to each amplifier design. This
research led to the creation of Line 6’s software Amp and Cab Models. These
models were tweaked up through careful, scientific A/B comparisons to the gear
that inspired them, with an ear open for the effects of different volume levels and
settings of the originals’ tone and gain controls. The gain and equalization
characteristics of the modeled amps were carefully measured so that changes to
amp knobs on the models would mirror the effects of these changes on the
originals as closely as possible. We’re talkin’ major attention to detail here. Tone
control center frequencies, slopes, and cut/boost range were painstakingly
analyzed, and we also carefully attended to the effect of presence switches, “bright”
channels, and other model-specific factors. Not only that, but since these old amps
have highly interactive circuits, we paid careful attention to the way that the
setting of one knob changes the way that another knob on the amp behaves. All
in an effort to make our Amp and Cab Models as much like the amps and cabs we
modeled as possible.
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