Have you used a practice modelling/looping amp?

I am seriously considering buying a new practice amp with both amp modelling and looping facility.

Up until recently there seemed to be just one choice the LINE6 SPIDER JAM making life simple. I stumbled across the FENDER G DEC 3 FIFTEEN & THIRTY series about two weeks ago. I also came across an Ibanez one earlier this week also.

I have spent time on both respective websites and Youtube, which has been fun but I have failed to put light between the two of them. To all intents and purposes they seem pretty similar with the exception that the Fender G Dec has a USB connection to connect to your computer; enabling access to Fender Fuse; watching a demo of Fender Fuse on Youtube it didn't seem to do much other than control the settings and enable subsequent tones/downloads.

I would much appreciate anyones personal experience or knowledge on either of these or similar combo-amps to help my selection; especially if you have used the Fender Fuse or any of the Line6 download (Farm etc) functionalities

I've had my G-Dec 3 Thirty for a few months now and I love it. I can't comment on the others you mentioned because I've never tried them. I have limited patience when researching/trying out stuff and tend to be an impulse buyer.

I have no regrets for jumping at the G-Dec, it's just what I wanted. I like nothing better than playing along to the huge number of backing tracks for hours. The sound is excellent both for the guitar tones and the backing tracks. You can alter the speed/pitch of the backing tracks but to be honest the sound quality suffers. I don't see any benefit considering the number of tracks available in different keys and tempos. Maybe a more demanding player might I don't know. There are so many options for emulating other amps and all settings can be tweaked to fine tune it for your own preferences.

The USB connection is good in that you can tweak all the amp's settings on the computer (FUSE has had it's teething problems but it's now stable thanks to V2.01) rather than hunching over the amp all the time but altering stuff on the amp itself is a breeze - just make sure you put the amp on a stand or something to save your back!

The SD card gives you the ability to save all your preferences and move them on to another G-Dec or you can store stuff on the amp itself or a PC, it's your choice.

I now have a damn good sounding amp with loads of options that is perfect for me to play along to. I need look no further for a long time to come :D

I have a spider jam. It is a great learning tool. 12 amp models, ton's of presets (supposedly set up by professionally musicians), Backing tracks (drums), songs that you can adjust pitch and tempo then play lead over, built in tuner, 2 metrodomes, mini input jack for cd or streaming music from computer, analog preouts, extra input for another bass or guitar, mic input with effects, 75 watts of power with a 12'' celestion woofer, and many other features.

But what I like about the most is the the recording features, the backing tracks, and the FBV express pedal I bought recently. IE I can record some rhythm save then dub lead over top of it and now with the pedal I can do it hands free not having to mess with the puter for recording or get up and push buttons suits me fine. Also with the pedal I can set up user banks A B C D 1-9 and switch between presets. It also has a volume pedal with WAH (but I can't seem to get the wah to work) , tap tempo and a built in tuner. At first I thought all the backing tracks were a waste, but they are quality recorded by a real drummer Recently I have been recording rhythm over several of them and can really tell if I am in time with the drummer or not.

Far as sound quality hard to determine with my guitar. I can let you know more when I get my new one at the end of the month, but with my setup now, not terrible not that great but plenty of volume. I heard a demo with an XPT700 ( the one I'm buying) thru this amp it sounded pretty good.
As far as the download stuff I have no idea this thing has keep me plenty busy out of the box.

I hope this helps cheers,

Doug