Line 6 AM4 Amp Modeler

I downloaded the manual from a site and even if I hadn't done that, it still would be easy as pie to use. Just like most DSP systems you just dial in what you want, hold the appropriate button, and BAM! You're all set.

This unit sounds amazing!! Other people may bash and trash, but perhaps they had a bad unit, didn't hook it up correctly, or have crazy expectations about the sound.

My set up is as follows: Modified Epi SG with GFS Mean 90's--Bad Horsie Wah--Morley Volume Pedal--Korg Tuner--Line 6 AM4--Boss Digital Delay--Boss Stereo Chorus--BBE Sonic Maximizer--DOD rackmount graphic eq--Randall Pro-Tube 1000.

I tried the AM4 in the effects loop first, since it is a preamp and I initially wanted it to bypass the amp's own preamp. This sounded fine on the clean tone settings, but didn't give enough 'umph' on the heavier distorted tones. So instead, I just ran it through the chain on my pedal board and, 'voila' the sounds are there.

Essentially I am now able to have 4 amps in one (5 counting the Randall itself). I have a "Twin Reverb" for cleans, "Matchless Chieftain" for dirty sounds, a "JCM 800" for rhythm, and a "SLO 100" for my leads.

Of the amp names are in parenthesis because they are trademarked and Line 6 just modeled the sounds after them, but because that's exactly what they did, modeled the sounds after them. If you expect to hear sounds come out that are exactly the same as that particular amp, then go out and buy that amp. These are modeled after them, quite well mind you, I believe a faithful model; at least 85% correct on most.

I personally never like Line 6 amps. I've been playing now for almost 20 years and they always sounded very dry to me. But in front of a reliable tube amp (like my Randall) the AM4 sounds warm and natural. No need for distortion pedals; the sounds are transparent.

So, bottom line... Great pedal. If you are thinking about getting one, use a tube amp to warm it up. If you don't have one, buy a tube preamp (Presonus has a good one) that way it warms your tone.

Btw, the only reason why I gave the pedal a '9' not a '10' was because as I said before; it's about a 85% faithful recreation.

Built like a tank. The rhythm guitar player in my band has a Line 6 Flextone (old one) and it's still holding steady. Small things have broken but it keeps on ticking.

I expect the same out of this pedal. Nice metal casing.

Never had to deal with them.

I really, really, like this pedal. I am so stoked about the sounds I get. 4 amps in one! The possibilities of sound are endless. Just like Conan searching for the "riddle of steel," us guitarists are searching for the "riddle of tone." I have yet to find it, but this pedal has gotten me a step closer.

The only thing about this pedal which I need to warn a perspective buyer about is this; get the Line 6 power adapter! Since the AM4 is no longer made, chances are you will be buying it used. Which means that the power adapter may not be included. If that's the case, your OneSpot or an old Boss adapter won't cut it. The inner pin is larger, the milliamps are greater to power it, and the polarity is opposite. So do yourself a favor and locate the Line 6 adapter.

Fairly easy to get started. Mine didn't come with a manual even though I purchased it new! Fairly intuitive; just dial in the cleverly disguised amp name and set your volume, gain, and eq. just like an amp. It is very tricky getting the volumes level with different presets and some knobs don't work with all amp models (for example, if the amp doesn't have a gain knob, then the gain knob won't work on that model. Would've been nice to have the manual to know that!)

Does not emulate a tube sound very well. Everything sounds a little too compressed to my ears, however in a live situation after going through an amp, amp mic and PA, who is really going to be able to tell? Has a decent noise gate but it has a tendency to choke the tone.

This is why I am posting. I owned mine for 2 years and used it about 20-30 times only in my home and the darn thing up and died on me! I took it to a Line 6 repairman who told me that the board was fried and that replacement parts are not available!! The damn thing was never left plugged in when I wasn't using it and I always used a surge protector. I have since spoken to various dealers who told me that Line 6 has a lot of unreliable junk on the market and good luck getting anyone at Line 6 to speak to you, let alone help you out. I couldn't even get a response to e-mails, phone calls, message board posts. This is officially my first and last Line 6 product. I hope all of you out there have better luck!

Non-existent. They don't stand behind their products!

Fun while it lasted but oh, too brief!

so easy to use! i got it from a shop were it had no users guide just the pedal and worked it out straight away. sick as pedal

safe sound much better than my eboss that i was using on my pevey amp just has a more metal sorta sound that i love playing with. also the clean tons are awsome nice bare clean tones are what i need and it gives it.

speacially through a gibson les pual awsome guitar just hard to get good tones out of and this pedal gives them!!

glad i bought it the day i was going on tour as a backup and ended up using the thing the whole tour

i havnt broken it yet! so it must be sturdy in the moment u know u stamp on that box and its still all fine

havnt seen anything been looking for the users guide on the net but cant find anything

i love this pedal it is the most sick pedal ever and i love it to bits!!

also how i got it cheap was amazing as iv been looking on the net for one for ages and they are about 150 quid most times!!

just an awsome pedal get one!!

Easy, no cryptic numbers and symbols, no multifunctional knobs/switches where you have to be in "1 of up to 1000" preset banks, etc....each knob has a single function....easy to get a good sound, not much harder to get a great sound...this is as much up to the experience and EARS of the player, not as much the pedal...

Sound quality is great...the models are very very accurate...you will have to tweak them for your setup, but the pedal gives you 4 easy spots to save them once you do. This thing does depend on what you put it through...example....the 4X10 fender bassman model is awesome and a fav of mine...however, you cannot put it through a 1X8 behringer amp with 5 watts and have anything...if you are a goofy kid with a cheap guitar and amp that your parents bought you, stay off of here until you know what you are playing and what you are playing through. Likewise, the Soldano, boogie, and matchless settings are awesome....but, if you don't have a big enough speaker for the lows of the boogie, or a smooth enough speaker for the upper mids of the matchless, you are wasting your time with this. I have mine in the effects loop of a Traynor YCV-40 with an eminence redcoat governer replacing the stock celestion...hmmm maybe I should'nt give out the details of my sound?

Great, built like a tank, all metal, solid knobs and switches

Downloaded the instructions in .pdf format

I play all kinds of music...I need a thin crispy fender tone sometimes, I need a warm 3d fender tone sometimes, I need a crunchy barely breaking organic tone sometimes, and I need a heavy scooped distortion tone sometimes...hey, those are my 4 presets on this pedal...left to right...clean and thin,clean and warm, mildy crunchy but smooth, and recto scooped thunder...awesome pedal!

This unit is very easy to use. It's dials are straight forward=drive, bass, mid, treble, volume. Since this is a digital unit which saves your sound, to make a change after a save you have to move a knob to get into the edit mode. The only drawback to this unit is that if you don't write down the settings, you have no reference to what each sound settings are. WRITE YOUR SETTINGS DOWN-simple. Once you make a change, hold down the switch of the preset you are changing for a few seconds and it's saved.

Sound quality is excellent. If you understand what this pedal is supposed to do and how to set it up, you can get some amazing sounds out of this. Time for the rant.
THIS IS A PREAMP MODELER. IF YOU PLUG ONE PREAMP INTO ANOTHER PREAMP, GUESS WHAT? SOUNDS LIKE CRAP. TOO MANY GAIN STAGES, TOO MANY TONE CONTROLS INTERACTING. IF YOU PLUGGED A MESA PREAMP STRAIGHT INTO A FENDER TWIN, IT'S GOING TO SOUND AWFUL. THINK ABOUT IT.
THERE IS NO SPEAKER SIM. IT NEEDS TO GO INTO A POWER AMP AND INTO A CABINET. IT'S A PREAMP FOR GOD'S SAKE. THINK ABOUT IT BEFORE YOU TRASH IT. IF YOU CAN'T GET A GREAT SOUND OUT OF THIS PEDAL, IT'S NOT THE PEDALS FAULT.
There are a few ways to use this pedal. Plug it into a effects return, bypassing your amps preamp. Or plug it into an amp that is extremely neutral. I do not recommend plugging this straight into an amps input-to many gain stages and the amps tone controls will color the sound too much.
I plug this into a Acoustic 134, which is an incredibly warm, neutral SS head. this works because there is no gain in the amp, just volume, bass and treble controls. It will never distort on it's own. Sounds amazing.
Rant 2.
PEOPLE....GO GOOGLE FLETCHER/MUNSON EFFECT. THERE IS AN INCREDIBLE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN GETTING A KILLER SOUND AT LOW VOLUME AND AT LIVE VOLUME. ONCE YOU GET LOUD ENOUGH TO PLAY WITH YOUR BAND, THE LOWS AND HIGHS WILL BE EXAGGERATED-ICEPICK HIGHS, FARTING LOWS....WITH ANY PREAMP. YOU NEED TO ADJUST YOUR SOUND-TURN DOWN THE HIGHS AND LOWS, TURN UP THE MIDS AND GUESS WHAT? IT SOUNDS GREAT. DON'T BLAME THE PEDAL BECAUSE YOU DIDN'T KNOW THIS. SERIOUSLY....YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO KNOW THIS STUFF AS A GIGGING GUITARIST.
ALSO, WHAT SPEAKERS ARE YOU PLAYING THROUGH? 2X12" OPEN BACK? 4/12" CLOSED CAB? DIFFERENT CABS MAKE A HUGE DIFFERENCE TO THE TONE. IF YOU SET THE TONE FOR YOUR 2/12" OPEN BACK CAB AND PLUG IT INTO A 4/12" CLOSED CAB, YOU'LL NEED TO TWEAK THE SOUND TO COMPENSATE. AGAIN, YOU SHOULD HAVE A CLUE.
LASTLY, GIGO....GARBAGE IN GARBAGE OUT. IT WILL NOT MAKE YOUR RX10 SOUND LIKE A LES PAUL NOR MAKE YOUR CRATE 15 WATT 1/10" SOUND LIKE A MESA BOOGIE WITH A 4/12". GROW UP.
Sorry for the caps, but man, I can't stand people trashing things they don't know how to use.
Notice I didn't say anything about the amp models themselves. Different people like different amps, so there's no need to state opinions. Do all the models sound like their real life counterparts? How the hell should I know? I don't have or have not played through all the different amps modeled. Do the models sound good? Yes. They are all capable of producing good sounds.
I play in two bands-a hardcore band (fullon massive distortion) and a alternative band (everything from pristine clean to fullon distortion) and this does all the tones I need very, very well.
For $100 it's the best pedal I've ever bought. You find something that can do what this does, with 4 presets, ease of use and quality of sounds and then you can do a realistic comparison.

It's very solid, seems to be built like a tank. No one should gig without a backup, though. You never know what might happen.
Yeah, the paint chips easily....who cares? Doesn't effect the tone.
The switches are very solid and seems to be able to handle normal gigging abuse.

Line6 discontinued this a long time ago. I think it's because it would eat into the market for PODS.
There is no info on their site for this pedal so screw them.

It's a great pedal. If you have a clue how to use it, and you can find one, buy it.
If you are going plug this into a piece of crap or expect it to sound exactly like your $2000 tube amp, pass on it.
The only thing I wish it had was some way to indicate what the settings were for each preset. BUT, it's only $100....

Very Very very easy to use!!! Push the button, Make your ajustments, Push the button once again and here you go!!!!!

For now I'm playing in a Metal band, so I need a good punchin' distortion sound, at the same time We've got some clean tone songs, so I need some bright clean tone too... I like some Old Nazareth style things, so I need some light Overdrive... you know, I can make all thouse sounds with this thing... Also I use Chorus(boss Ce-5) before AM-4 and Eq(boss Eq-20) after it... so there's no problem fo me to get the sound of my dream :))

Gy guitars: Gibson Flyin' V 67(For Dist and overdrive sounds)
Kramer exlorer(damn koreyan copy, but I've changed the pickups, now it's equped with Seymors)
Crafter electro-acoustic(Sounds pretty good)

Oh... one more thing, I've changed the Operational amplifier in output circus OPA 2134 RULE !!!! :)))))

Well... it wasn't new, when I get it.. so i was afraid of some mulfunctions or something like that... and I was right... one day it just didn't sounded right... so I've changed all of the aluminium capasitors in it(Hey this thing was 6 years old, thouse capasitors work for 4-5 years :))) ). so now everything is back to normal
So i can rely on that thing. Big, stong piece of metal :))

Nope, nerev dealt withe the company... Oh.. sorry I've asked Line 6 about using that thing with amps... I've waited for 4 hours and get my answer! wery fast rof Email question i guess :))

"I've made a several modifications myself!" :))) No realy Everything by my own hands :)))

So if you do not afraid of experiments, go ahead and use this thing! but remember, this is not an amp, it only can make your guitar sound similar... Use other stompboxes to make your own sound!!! I'm using that thing and counting money for the recto... but for nowdays I'm almost happy!
my chain:
guitar->Ce-5->AM-4->eq-20->Amp

Very Very very easy to use!!! Push the button, Make your ajustments, Push the button once again and here you go!!!!!

For now I'm playing in a Metal band, so I need a good punchin' distortion sound, at the same time We've got some clean tone songs, so I need some bright clean tone too... I like some Old Nazareth style things, so I need some light Overdrive... you know, I can make all thouse sounds with this thing... Also I use Chorus(boss Ce-5) before AM-4 and Eq(boss Eq-20) after it... so there's no problem fo me to get the sound of my dream :))

Gy guitars: Gibson Flyin' V 67(For Dist and overdrive sounds)
Kramer exlorer(damn koreyan copy, but I've changed the pickups, now it's equped with Seymors)
Crafter electro-acoustic(Sounds pretty good)

Oh... one more thing, I've changed the Operational amplifier in output circus OPA 2134 RULE !!!! :)))))

Well... it wasn't new, when I get it.. so i was afraid of some mulfunctions or something like that... and I was right... one day it just didn't sounded right... so I've changed all of the aluminium capasitors in it(Hey this thing was 6 years old, thouse capasitors work for 4-5 years :))) ). so now everything is back to normal
So i can rely on that thing. Big, stong piece of metal :))

Nope, nerev dealt withe the company... Oh.. sorry I've asked Line 6 about using that thing with amps... I've waited for 4 hours and get my answer! wery fast rof Email question i guess :))

"I've made a several modifications myself!" :))) No realy Everything by my own hands :)))

So if you do not afraid of experiments, go ahead and use this thing! but remember, this is not an amp, it only can make your guitar sound similar... Use other stompboxes to make your own sound!!! I'm using that thing and counting money for the recto... but for nowdays I'm almost happy!
my chain:
guitar->Ce-5->AM-4->eq-20->Amp

Plan on spending a few hours to learn how it works and tweak sounds to your liking. Be patient and open-minded, and it will pay off. Be sure to read the manual. Control knobs all do different things for different amp models, e.g., on the tiny tweed, some of the knobs do nothing at all because a tweed champ that it is modeled after has no tone controls.

I sold my Fulltone Fulldrive II a few months after I bought this pedal. The Fulldrive is a GREAT pedal, but the AM4 is so much more versatile. I am a tube/analog snob, but this pedal has caused me to break my all-analog signal path rule for the first time in 30 years of playing.

Use with a good tube amp. It will vary in quality depending on the amp you use. I have a 1960 Gibson GA-18 amp at home, and the pedal does not work as well with it as with the Fenders I gig with. My current signal chain at gigs is a Silvertone/Danelectro 1457 guitar, boss tu-1 tuner, Boss graphic EQ, AM4, Digitech Bad Monkey, amp (silver Fender Super Reverb or Silver Bassman head/1x12 cab).

I like garage punk and 60s British Invasion, so my sounds tend to run clean to crunchy. I use several amps on my presets, including AC30, Blackface Deluxe, Tweed Deluxe, and Matchless Chief. The AC30 is the one I use most. It can be a little short on low end depending on the amp, but a graphic EQ pedal before the AM4 helps a lot.

None of the models are perfect, but a lot of them sound very close. Some models don???t sound like the amp they claim to be modeling but they still sound great. I find the Matchless Chief model to sound more like a Twin Reverb than the Blackface Twin setting. Again, keeping an open mind is key.

Some of the cleaner amps don???t sound very good if you set the gain too high. Using the Bad Monkey after the AM4 seems to work well for getting higher gain sounds from the AC30 preset.

Built like a tank, but definitely carry a backup pedal for gigs. I recommend the Digitech Bad Monkey. It costs $40 from Zzounds brand new, and is like a Tubescreamer but with much better control over EQ.

I???ve had two major issues. It flies through batteries (5 hours on 4 Duracells). And it had one software meltdown at a practice ??? all of my presets suddenly became twice as loud, and the gate re-set itself so that I had to pound the strings to get any signal to pass through. I ended up having to re-set everything to original factory programming. But in the process of setting everything up again from scratch, I found even more and better sounds!

If you have the time and patience to find your sound, this really is a great and underrated pedal.

* How easy is it to get a good sound out of it? "Good" is a subjective word, but I'll say, it's not hard to get a "decent" sound. But "good" as in great, it was near impossible.

The Am4 has this digital tone to it that I could not dial out. It had this on every model so it wasn't really a setting or amp issue. I used for a few weeks through a Strat mainly in the bridge humbucker position through a Mesa Rectoverb. I tried to get the Recto AM4 setting to sound as close as possible to Channel 2 on the Rectoverb. I got close but there again was this "digital" tone. It sounded 2-dimensional; no depth to it. I tried to dial out the shrill upper-mids but then it sounded muddy. I had this problem on all the amp models. Also, the Vox model has no bass to it whatsoever. I've played a Vox AC30 and though it gets the essential "Vox" tone, it sounds pretty lifeless.

The other thing that bothered me about this pedal is the fact that it does not react like a tube amp. It's funny, the Tonelab actually does a good job with this. If you put for instance a booster pedal infront of the amp model, it should distort and overdrive nicely. It might be the fact that the AM4 has an input and output buffer that isn't designed to react like an amp. The Tonelab is desiged with a "valve reactor" circuit which makes it "feel" like you're playing through a tube amp on the models. Not so with the AM4. It sounds very bad if you set the amp model to clean and push it with an overdrive or booster pedal.

I've had the Tonelab SE before and the Amp models on that sounded a lot better. It had more of a 3-dimensional tone. Unfortunately, as compact and convenient this device is, it doesn't compare to the quality of the other single stomp effects I have.

I've been playing for a little over 10 years and have gone through a lot of gear. Don't buy this pedal. There's so much better stuff out there.

Pretty easy to use, I got the hang of it fast and it came without a manual

Ok, this effect was a major disappointment for me. I bought it because I loved the amp models in the podxt and wanted just them without the modulations and delays (I prefer other stomps for that) I was warned off this product a fair bit by people in the HC forums and such claiming it sounds "fake" and "ice-picky".

But hey, I thought, some people say the same thing about the POD, and that sounds awesome, Some people just dont know how to dial in their gear. It should be the prety much same inside right?

So I get it, and guess what? It sounds fake and icepicky. The cleans are good, you wont find antoher pedal that changes your clean sound to another amp this way, but the high gain models are seriously lacking.

Get a PODxt and floorboard or an XTLive, they sound great in front of an amp with the right amount of tweaking. This just doesent cut it for recording or live.