Line 6 LowDown LD300 Pro Combo Bass Amp
Line 6 LowDown LD300 Pro
The ultimate bass combo for professionals who like to have fun
By Lonnie Rohrbaugh
The ultimate bass combo for professionals who like to have fun
With the LowDown LD300 Pro Combo bass amp and its little brothers the LD175 and LD150, Line 6 has hit on the perfect combination of bold power, easy portability, a broad palette of high-quality tonal options, and pure juvenile fun. The serious adult side of your brain will be knocked out by the LowDown’s functional features—a tight and brawny 15" speaker, an HF horn, four channels with one-touch scene storage, an adjustable vintage studio compressor model, headphone and CD/DVD jacks, a tuner, and an XLR direct out with POD-based cab modeling. Meanwhile the non-serious, childlike part of your brain will go bananas with the sub-octave, envelope filter, and chorus effects; five bass amp models and a bass synth; and 300 foundation-cracking watts of sonic power.
Hand me that ’fridge
One of the great vicissitudes of being a bass player is hauling around a refrigerator-sized cab in order to be heard above the many apparently stone-deaf guitar players and drummers who plague our nation's nightclubs. Maybe Harry, the hairball, string-breaking, volume freak doesn't mind dragging around amps that are bigger than his car, but I do. So I was very, very happy to grab the LowDown's spring-loaded recessed bar handles and discover that I could pick it up with less effort than lifting my eight-year-old daughter.
Line 6 LowDown LD150
Line 6 LowDown LD150
At only 21"W x 26-3/4"H x 14-1/2"D, and less than 75 lbs. the LowDown is no problem for one guy to handle by himself. Its dense carpet covering and heavy mesh grille mean you don't have to worry about dings.
Richter rocker
Though it has a very unassuming stage presence visually, the LowDown is a sonic monster—a veritable behemoth of the auditory underworld. At half volume, this thing set all my basement windows to rattling. Its 300 watts drive that big ol' 15-incher like Barry Bonds smacking a baseball over the fence.
If you're looking for a secret weapon to spring on that obnoxiously too-loud drummer, the LowDown won't let you down. He may snigger at the size of it when you set it on the stage, but he'll soon wonder why he can't seem to play as loud as normal. And five-string basses are no problem; this thing blasts out frequencies so low you hear 'em with your teeth. Its octave effect will go you one better by generating a note a full octave below your bass's lowest note. The high end is also well taken care of; the mutable tweeter has no trouble keeping up with that big 15, letting you slap and pound at the same time.
Line 6 LowDown LD175
Line 6 LowDown LD175
Channel cat
The LowDown's 4-band EQ is the most lively I've encountered on any bass amp, and they're obviously tonally specific to the amp model you select. Start by just choosing the Clean setting on the model selector and you can generate a huge range of very usable sounds by tweaking these four knobs alone. To save your tweaks, you just push one of the four self-illuminated channel buttons and hold it down for a few seconds.
The EQ is not all that's saved, every setting on the whole amp except the master volume is stored in your channel and one push brings it all back to life. A channel volume lets you set your levels in advance as well. Pick up a Line 6 FBV Shortboard and it will add an additional 32 channels, all controlled with your feet, FX on/off, wah, deep switch, comp, volume pedal, and more.
