You will, no doubt, have found the AMP MODELS control and the long list of preset tones in the Spider Jam.
Although the AMP MODELS switch is an immediate and satisfying way to call-up blistering tones, it is not really intended to work as a 'front line' control – it's more of a 'building block'. You might have noticed that there are substantial differences in the volumes of these settings. By default, the amp models have associated effects too, but you can turn these off under the SETTINGS/TONE menu.
The best way to access tones is to create you own custom tones and store them in the USER style bank. This way, you can make sure that changing from one tone to another and hitting that big power chord doesn't register on the Reichter scale at your national Earth Science Laboratory. It also means that you can set effects other than the default ones.
The 36 USER presets are arranged in 9 banks of 4 – 1A, 1B, 1C, 1D ... 9A, 9B, 9C, 9D. Some of these user presets have useful tones in them, some are not so essential. The first thing to do is to identify which ones you want to keep and move them down the 'back end' because it's best to have your most often used tones in the first bank – 1A, 1B, 1C, 1D – and then slightly less used ones in the second bank ... and so on. This is especially important if you have, or plan to buy, an FBV pedal. Of course, you also have to identify the ones you don't want to keep because you are going to overwrite these. I would suggest going backwards through the user styles and making a note of the expendable ones. Maybe change the first character of their names to ? or *.
To change a patch name, press the SAVE button, the first menu option is SAVE GUITAR TONE. Press the right arrow on the 4-way cursor control and scroll down to the patch you want to change. Press the right arrow again and turn the SELECT knob anti-clockwise until you come to ? or * and then press the down arrow (OK) to confirm.
Moving a tone is a similar process. Select the tone you want to move with the big SELECT knob. Press SAVE and SAVE GUITAR TONE. Scroll to the patch you are happy to overwrite and press the right arrow. This time, you will be offered the original tone name as the default and when you press down (OK), it will overwrite the unwanted tone. You can change the patch name before saving if you wish.
To exit the SAVE menu, press the SETTINGS/TONE button.
Having organised your user style banks, you are free to make and populate the 'front end' tone banks. You can always revert to the originals with a 'Factory Reset', available from the SAVE button menu but this will erase any custom settings or songs you have made.
When you make a custom tone, the name of the current tone is prefaced with an asterisk – meaning that some parameter has changed. This could be a major change like a different amp model or a minor change such as moving the treble control by one tiny degree.
Let's look at the amp models first. There are 12 to choose from and are described in detail in Appendix A of the Spider Jam User Manual so I won't repeat them all here. Remember that they are approximate amp styles and not the specific ones you get in some other products. It is also useful to know that the EQ controls – Bass, Middle and Treble – do not attempt to emulate the tone controls of specific amps exactly. The tone controls for all modelled amps are of the -15dB...0...+15dB types with the 12 o'clock position being flat where the original 'real' amps have simpler or more complex tone stacks.
Some of the original amps did not have 'Drive' controls. Their distortion levels were controlled by just turning up the single 'Volume' control. A 'Drive' control lets you create that sound at lower volume by saturating the preamp instead of the power amp. A real valve amp produces different types of distortion depending on whether the preamp, power amp or both are being overdriven. In addition to distortion, a valve amp will add a degree of compression which gives that sweet, singing sustain that is very difficult to emulate with any amount of modelling.
Then there is (or isn't in this case) speaker simulation. An 8" speaker in a Fender Champ sounds quite different from a 4 x 10" Jensen laden Fender Bassman or a 2 x 12" Vox AC30 stack with Celestion Greenback. If you want these kinds of subtleties, the Spider Jam is not going to give them but that's not what its all about. The amp models were chosen to give the correct 'feel' for different music styles and do so very well.
The Channel Volume control does not affect the tone of any amp model and is there to let you balance the volume of one custom tone with others so that all you tones are of a consistent level.
Effects fall into three main categories; Modulations, Echos and Reverberation.
The three modulation effects are Chorus/Flange, Phaser and Tremolo and the control knob increases the amount of effect. Unfortunately, there is no way to access separate 'Rate' and 'Depth' for these controls.
The Echos do have more control over effects. The three echo types change in 'number of repeats' as the knob is rotated clockwise. The rates of the repeats are controlled with the TAP button. There is no control over 'Depth' of echo, it is fixed.
Reverb is fairly subtle on the Spider Jam compared to say, a Fender spring reverb, which is deep and luscious but unless you are into '60s Surf music, should suit most purposes.
Less obvious effects built-into the Spider Jam are accessed by pressing the SETTINGS/TONE button once.
Not exactly an effect but he first option in the menu is GUITAR GATE/BOOST and pressing the right arrow gives the option of turning the noise gate on and off. This is especially useful for noisy, high-gain amp types or for single-coil pickups that hum. This setting is saved with custom tone patches.
The GUITAR BOOST option is like adding a distortion pedal in front of any amp and is also saved with any custom tone preset.
So, having tweaked some built-in preset to you liking or created a new one from scratch, you can save it into a USER tone bank. Give it a meaningful name – either by amp style, artist style or song title. Even though I play many different styles of music, I find that I never need more than about 12 tones – and many of those are fairly subtle variations.
