Line 6 DL4 Delay Modeler

This pedal is EASY to get great sounds from. The controls are very straight forward and the manual is easy to read (it's downloadable from Line 6's website). Editing patches consists of dialing in a sound you like and holding down a button for 3-4 seconds. To the people who continually whine about the number of presets: use an optional expression pedal. This allows you to store two presets per switch (although they have to be the same sound model). As you rock the expression pedal it will morph between your settings (which can be a really cool sound in and of itself). So you really have SIX settings within this pedal. And there is such a wide range of sounds, even within a certain model, that you can really have two entirely different sounds within one bank.

Unfortunately I've never had the opportunity to use many of the pedals that the dl4 emulates. That being said, most of the sounds have their own characteristics and really stand apart. I don't use a stereo setup, however, if I did, I'm sure it would sound great. My use of delays runs the gamut: from slap-back to reverse to long digital delays. One of the really cool features on this pedal is the auto-volume setting. This allows you to hit the strings but hear no attack. You can get cool synth-like sounds this way (the old way of doing this involved using a delay and using your volume knob or volume pedal). Plus you have much more freedom of the hands/foot. As far as the looper is concerned, it's pretty cool. However, I have been using the Boomerang for almost a couple years and it still beats this thing. As far as sound coloration is concerned, I haven't heard any change using this pedal. It does have an optional true bypass which I don't use (this cuts off the tails of the delay when you switch it off).

Seems reliable. I've had it for a week. I'm not concerned in the least about it breaking.

I emailed customer support and they answered the next day in a very friendly and humorous manner.

Here's my main gripe: I was stoked when I heard that this pedal had a tap tempo switch, much to my dismay when I brought it home, there's no dotted 8th note setting! (this is the U2/Edge sound) It has everything but within the "rhythmic setting". You can use the tap tempo for every other setting, however, it's 1/4 notes by default. I've been using the Boss DD-5 with the tempo pedal and it looks like I'll continue to do so. There are pros and cons to this: the Boss pedal's rhythm is set only after 4 taps; the dl4 only takes 2 taps. The Boss pedal's rhythm can be set while the pedal is off; the dl4 must be switched on and then set. There is a way to achieve dotted 8th notes on the dl4: you must tap "ONE-e-and-UH" (hitting it on "ONE" and "UH"). That's pretty lame, but sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do. That'll take practice to do in a live situation.
I have one other thing you might want to consider: the dl4 is BIG (a bit over the length of 3 boss pedals put side by side). With the expression pedal in tow it takes up quite a bit of real estate. Just something to be aware of. If anyone has any questions I'd be more than happy to reply (or if anyone's figured out a better secret to the elusive dotted 8th note setting, let me know).

I've never heard such a bunch of uninformed bitching in my life. A lot of the reviews critiquing the preset use on the DL4 are just plain wrong. RTFM morons! (Read the F&*#!ng Manual!) Yes, there are only three presets. (Maybe you have another stomp box with more?)

First of all, you CAN program each preset to select a different emulation mode so you don't have to bend over to change modes every time (RTFM). Second, if you use the expression pedal, you can set up an alteration of each of these three programs and "morph" to that secondary program (RTFM). This yields an effective total of six programs for live performance. You don't want an expression pedal? Boo Hoo.

The thing is easy to setup, use, and toy with. RTFM.

Sound quality is excellent. No noise to speak of.

Who can tell? Looks good so far. As others have correctly said, built like a tank.

A lot of players seem to want Eventide Harmonizer capabilities from a $199.00 stomp box. Bunch of wankers! I paid over $320.00 for a new Roland SDE-1000 over ten years ago (a lot of money then). I paid almost $1,500 for my Lexicon pcm-42 so I could do loop tuning. I paid close to $800.00 for my Oberheim Echoplex... And on and on... I just can't believe that people could find a bad thing to say about this stomp box. For about $200 you get an absolutely enormous number of capabilities (multiple delay emulations, reverse delay, auto-volume swell delays, etc.), excellent sound quality, a decent measure of performance programability, and a decent looping tool with 28 seconds of delay. Could it do more? Of course. Would I design it differently? Probably. Is anyone else making a tool of this quality for this money? Absolutely not.

I've only tried this thing out in the music store, and want to report
why I didn't instantaneously whip out my credit card: 3 presets.
Period. Ok, I'll elaborate. Another guy, a few posts below
this one, had similar concerns. You can't change the model type with
your foot, and you can only store three sounds. The problem I have
is I don't like to bend down and putz around during a show. I have this rack mount thing from 10 years ago, that has 128 factory presets and 128 user locations, and it only cost about $250 then. (I don't
use this rack thing in my setup now, it's the only thing left from my old rack [yuck] setup, and is now used for vocals at rehearsal).

Now, we don't need 512 settings, but 3 or 4 of each model would be
nice. I'm sure line 6 would say something about the cost of memory
etc. needed to implement this, but the way microprocessors are embeded in every thing now, it's really no excuse. I'd bet that most of their
"cost" is on the software/engineering side, not the hardware.

On the other hand, it is nice to have plain old on/off like a regular
stomp box. The matrix thing of banks and locations is annoying when
playing live.

It could be do-able with 4 buttons but one of them would have to
be overloaded, and maybe an 2 letter LED to indicate which model
you were on (eg MM for memory man, etc). Not to get into the
engineering here, but even if it had 10 presets I would have whipped
out the card. It's frustrating because it has 16 models but you'd
only be able to use three on a gig with being Mr. Ben Dover. Have I made my point??? Ok, Enough on this.

Not going to give numerical ratings yet since I haven't bought the
thing yet... But the sound IS great, give the echoplex model "The
Lemon Song" test. Passed with flying colors.

Built sturdy.

I'm a flextone owner, and the support is great for technical questions. Took a bit long to get my firmware upgrade for the amp,
then they sent me the pod chip, and it got all confused.

Accessibility is very important to me when performing, great tone
is a given. Ideally, I'd like to have about 5 background echo sounds,
e.g. slapbacks, tape reverb type settings for normal playing and maybe
5 spacey or special sounds, nothing too complicated. Ok, how bout one
more design suggestion that would fit in the same box: Add a small
LED that goes from 1 to 10. Make the first button scroll down, the second go up, the third commit to the program change, and the 4th tap tempo. Hold the third down for three seconds to save at selected LED
location. Simple! The same could be said for the Mod box that they are coming out with, though phase, cho, flange & univibe would adequate, I'd whip out the plastic for that, but still like my
switch design better.

Now with the distortion you really only need four sounds, but my
requirement for that is that multiple programs (at least two) can be loaded at the same time. Anyone who's tried it knows having two dists series is the smoothest sound. The trick is the first one
in the chain is set at a lower gain setting then the 2nd.

It is not as simple as your average delay pedal, but the manual is excellent. I have had no trouble setting up and saving sounds. You can use it without the manual, but it does have some "hidden" functions, such as "soft" bypass, that you wouldn't know about otherwise.

I'm using the DL4 at the end of an effects chain, before the amp, with a Gretsch Country Gentalman. Effects are DynaComp>WhammyII>Colorsound Supa Tone Bender>Chandler Tube Driver>Boss PH1 phase shifter>Morley PWA wha>Boss DD5 delay>DL4>1967 Super Reverb. The DL4 is very quiet, and it integrated easily with everything else. I like the tape echo simulations, the Memory Man, and the loop function the most. I just bought the pedal yesterday, so I have yet to take it to practice, but I'm looking forward to it. "Oh no, another pedal!"

Seeing as I have had it two days, it seems to be holding up well;) It seems very sturdy, and the knobs are firm, not loose like others have reported. I don't take back up pedals to gigs, but I may keep the DD5 on the board for a while yet.

My only dealings with Line 6 folks was at Winter NAMM 99. They had prototypes of the Modeler pedals on hand, and I've been salivating ever since. The people at the Line 6 booth seemed intelligent and genuinely interested in what they were doing.

The band I play in is sort of a spacey/folk/pop sound. We like to think of it as somewhere between early Neil Young and Brian Eno. I generally use delay as an ambient effect, and this pedal fits right in. Now that I have presets, I may use delay more, a bit of "Echoplex" here and there, maybe a little slapback. I also do alot of loop based guitar playing at home, and hopefully live soon also, and the 14 second looper is excellent. Took me a little bit of time to grok it, but not too much. It is not the simplest of pedals, and is probably overkill for many people, but it feels perfect to me. Just the right amount of features and knobs. The sounds are excellent, and I was able to clone the sound of my Roland RE301 Space Echo. Great sound, but a beast to have to lug around. The DL4 doesn't seem to affect the sound much in bypass. I have it set up for "soft" bypass, so the delays fade out. My only real compaint is that it would be nice to know where the knobs are set for the preset sounds. A diagram in the otherwise excellent manual would be helpful.

There seems to be more to the hidden function section than the company leads you to believe. I wish that the owner's man. had more detail as to the advanced uses of this unit. The owners guide is really geared towards the lowist common denominator.

The 24 bit sound Quality is clean and powerful. My big problem with the unit is the mechanical sound of the stomp buttons. I play Japanese Shakuhachi through a mixer then left ch into a digitec efx unit and the right ch. through another digitec unit. I then take the L/R line out of these efx's and input them into the L/R of the DL4.
Then I take the DL4 stereo out into a stereo amp. As I create loops the sound moves around the room as is very meditative. But soon as I press one of the stomp buttons the acoustic click is audible and is picked up by the mic and this sound enters the loop chain.
My partner plays Quartz Crystal Bowls and we will very soon try the unit on these.

Since the A C adapter is optional. I had to put an order in for it. So at the moment I have to deal with battery power. I seem to drain the batts. pretty fast. I have about 3 extra pack in my gig bag. The unit so far seems to be very trust worthy.

The customer support team - responded to questions that I had via e mail.

My group "Life In Balance" is a program of sound therapy. Our focus is to enhance the listener's own healing abilities. I was looking for a device that would effectively create loops at 58 cycles per minute- to help slow the heart rate down. I'm very happy with the DL4 and with Line6. The people at our sessions all agree of the effectiveness
of this unit also. I'm thinking of getting another unit so that I can chain them in together.
My wish list would be: MIDI clocking. quieter mechanics. more storage space for edits. A separate on/off switch.
I build my sound around the boxes that I choose. I'm very glad that I picked the DL4 as my creative partner in this on going musical journey.

Remembering what the parameters of the 'tweak' and 'tweez' knobs will take a little time, but with the amazing range of sounds to be conjured, it's worth the little bit of time it takes to learn.

Very quiet, except when by design; great simulations of analog classics, only some of which I've heard enough to comment on directly (that's one of the appeals, I guess; you have better than decent simulations of stuff that's out of reach because of rarity and/or price). The analog delay is very close but noticeably inaccurate. That is not a bad thing; it just makes it different. The 'sweep echo' and 'dynamic delay' are my early favorites. I tried it on vocals, too, and it works beautifully. Again, no noise! I love it.

Definitely well constructed; I'm not very concerned about the knobs.

I have a bevy of effects pedals, with a nice mix of vintage and vintage-style new school effects, and this pedal fits in beautifully. I was wondering when someone would come out with a digital delay that was as good in its type as something like the Way Huge Aqua Puss analog delay is in its, and this is it. (By the way, the guy who made the Way Huge pedals had a big role in this pedal, apparently) I am wowed by the discrete stereo in: extra flexibility. I think that the effort to do good simulations and to mae a good basic digital delay was obviously painstaking and very successful. I would buy it again in a heartbeat. I have a DOD DFX94 and a Boss DD-5 that have been pretty much put out of business (pretty much, but not completely). I particularly love the Multihead (Roland Space Echo) setting. It takes a little getting used to, as any pedal with this much flexibility usually does, but there's nothing that I would complain about. It's what, maybe double your standard high-quality digital delay? With 20x the functionality, and 5x better sound in the core functionality, it's worth it.

Very easy to use, just wish that it was faster to save a preset. It acts nearly like a normal stomp box except that you must hold the button for 3 sec. to save your new preset. It also turns off the previous delay if you turn on one of the other two. They did a great job on making the expression pedal easy to use though. Plug in, set the heal down sound, move to toe down, set toe down sound, hold the button to save.

I can't tell the difference between this thing and analog pedals. It emulates perfectly.

I've already played live with it. No problems, but I do reccomend you buy a power adapter because it eats batteries. It loses reliability points with me only because of the lack of coming with a power supply. Dead batteries really suck.

You can't buy their expression pedal yet when it says in the manual you can buy it online. They need to ship the pedals and power supplies. Otherwise, they were helpful in telling me how to hook their boxes up in stereo on their amps. For those wondering, I bought an Ernie Ball Volume pedal as an expression pedal. Very heavy duty and works great.

This is the best delay on the market. I look foward to buying their MM-4 when it comes out. The expression pedal is a must have though to make it substantially different from other delays. It also takes getting used to programming the presets, but it can be done effectively live.

At first glance it looks stomp-box simple, however there's a little more to it than meets the eye and a good reading of the instruction manual is in order prior to successful first-time operation. The manual itself covers both the Delay and Modulation pedals. It is well written, relatively thorough, and easy to understand. It is also quite interesting to read as it describes in detail the different delay effects which the DL-4 simulates and gives a brief history of each effect. The first thing that may not be obvious is that the three stomp switches need to be "programmed" with a preset before they can be used. The instruction book says that they come with factory presets, but this was not the case with mine. For those sick and tired of programming rack-mount or multi-effects units, don't worry about the DL-4. It's easy. Just select a delay model (there are 15), turn the knobs until you get the sound you're after, and then hold down any one of the three stomp switches for three seconds. That's it. You just programmed a bank. The only thing that can get confusing is trying to remember what functions the "Tweak" and Tweez" knobs control for each different delay effect. The reason these two knobs have generic names is because they are assigned different functions depending on the delay model. For example, on the Tube Echoplex model they control the amount of tape wow and flutter and the tube gain, while with the standard digital delay they adjust bass and treble response. You may need to keep the manual on hand until you are familiar with each mode. While I think the DL-4 is easier to use compared to even the simplest digital multi-effects processors, there is room for improvement. When you rotate the model selctor to a new delay model it comes up to a factory preset sound and the current position of the knobs is irrelevant. It would make more sense if the newly selected model would instantly conform to the current knob settings. Instead you must rotate each knob slightly and the unit will suddenly "recognize" where the knobs are set and then adjust the sound accordingly. Also, if you work hard to get a sound you like you MUST save it to one of the DL-4's three memory banks, otherwise you will have to get on the floor and re-do all of your settings. Remember, the stomp switches don't just turn the effect on and off, they are recalling a delay setting from the memory. I should also mention the tap tempo switch, which is the fourth stompswitch. How did I ever get along without one of these!? Two taps on this switch will adjust the time of the delay repeats on the fly, and there's even a blinking red LED to give you a visual indication of how fast or slow your delay repeats are set. Very handy.

OK, here's the most important category. How accurate are the DL-4's delays? I have experience with three of the vintage delays that this unit emulates: The Electro-Harmonix Deluxe Memory Man ("Analog Delay w/ mod"), the Boss DM-2 ("Analog Delay"), and the solid state Echoplex ("Tape Echo"). For the Memory Man model I did extensive A/B comparisons and found that, with the modulation turned off completely, the DL-4 was about a 98% exact copy of the real thing. The real Memory Man was just a *little* thicker sounding, but I only came to this conclusion after A LOT of very careful listening in a quite room. Given that the DL-4's model is dead quite and has up to 2.5 seconds of delay, compared to the Mem. Man's inherent noise (even when bypassed) and limited 550ms delay times, I'd say that this is a more than fair trade off. Again, the only way I could tell a difference was through extensive A/B comparison, otherwise I would probably guess that it was exactly the same pedal. I sold my Boss DM-2 a few months ago, so I couldn't do an exact comparison, but to the best of my recollections (I owned the pedal for almsot two years) the "Analog Delay" model sounds dead on with exactly the same kind of muddy, dirty repeats that my DM-2 had! I also had the fortune of playing through a mid-70's Echoplex (solid-state version) about 1/2 hour before testing out the DL-4's "Tape Echo" simulation. Again, if it isn't *exactly* like the real thing, then it must be so close that you can't tell without a side-by-side test. This delay mode has the same cloudy, ethereal quality that the real Echoplexes have. Through my pre-CBS Fender amp it sounds exactly like the delay that can be heard on Eric Johnson's recordings or in either of his instructional videos. This one is my main delay sound. Also of note is are the true reverse delay and the "Lo Res Delay" which is supposed to simulate the sound of an early 70's digital delay and lets you adjust the resolution from 24 bits all the way down to 4 bits for some neat techno/dance type textures. On a final note, I should say that what the unit sounds like when it's NOT on should be as important as when it is on. The DL-4 has true bypass switching and does not affect the tone when bypassed (thank you!!). However, you can turn the true bypass function off, so that your delays trail off naturally. A very cool feature, and fortunately the signal in the non-true-bypass mode is not seriously degraded.

This thing really eats batteries. The four C's that came with it lasted about 4 hours. Definitely invest in the AC adaptor and you won't have to worry about it. Construction throughout seems very sturdy, maybe even overkill.

You can download manuals off of the Line 6 website. Every manufacturer should be doing this by now. Thank you Line 6!

I'll give this a 10 because it's one of those things that I wish I had thought of. It's easily the bst delay on the market right now, digital or analog. It has so many useful features and recreates the delay sounds that most guitarists want: analog delay, tape delay, digital delay, plus it throws in a few new twists such as the Reverse and Lo Res setting. I'm definitely not a digital knid of guy, prefering analog almost all of the time. However, there are some things that I think digital can excell at, such as sampling and delay. As such, this is the only digital effect that I use or probably will use. My other effects include Fulltone, Mesa/Boogie, and a Sweet Sound Ultra-Vibe. The DL-4 takes it's place among these other high-end pedals and does it's job outstandingly well. If the price of this unit is out of your reach, but you still want a good analog delay simulation, check out the Ibanez Tone-Lock Delay/Echo. It will do an amazingly realistic simulation of an analog delay pedal (sounds just like the "Analog Delay" model on the DL-4) plus it has a standard digital delay mode and costs less than $100. This would be my second choice for a versatile modern delay with vintage sound capabilities and I think it would work as a great back-up for DL-4 users, or when you just want a smaller box to carry around.

Um ... like turn it on and it makes good sounds. Editing is incredibly easy -- knob twiddling encouraged. The manual is nice, especially how it goes into each "model", complete with a picture of its vintage equivalent and sometimes a musical reference -- not totally necessary, but it shows they have put some thought into the product. My only complaint is that their explanation on the use of the expression pedal (not included) is a bit short. My biggest complaint is that more presets are not available and that you cannot change the "model" with a switch. Perhaps this is just not possible -who knows.

I use it with an American Strat, a Jazzmaster reissue, and a late 60's Fender Dual Showman. A Fulltone Fulldrive2 overdrive pedal, Boss DD5, Boss DD3, and Boss Pn-2 Pan/Tremolo complete the f/x setup. This thing is very quiet. The sounds are absolutely amazing, I know no other way to put it other than that. I played this thing and almost hugged the guy in the music store -- I had my wallet out and was salavating all over the counter. more on this is ...

It is, indeed, built like a tank. Some others have complained that the knobs wobble, but I believe that this is by design -- most things that are design well to be moved in the same motions over and over again have "play" in them. If I'm right - nice going. Big metal switches=good. Metal chasis=good. Runs just fine off of my Pedal Power power supply. Recessed knobs=good. Back-up - do you have "back-ups" for $250 stomp boxes?h

Haven't talked to them nor do i plan to.

The answer to my prayers -- a 24 bit, totally quiet stomp box with more versatility than any I've ever seen. I play sort of spacey indie rock a la Mogwai, Built to Spill, Red Stars Theory, Tristeza - so perhaps you can see why I am so elated. I plan to use the thing live and in the studio on guitar, keys, samples, vox - you name it. I have owned both the echoplex and a roland space echo and love them dearly, but neither are what you would call quiet, reliable, versitile, or "stompable". This thing DOES sound like all those vintage beauties from the other decades - maybe not "exactly" for those of you audiophile freaks who claim that you can hear hummingbirds sneeze, but the rest of us humans will hear some amazing stuff. Get the expression pedal, especially if you are going to use it live - it's worth it. I do not work for this company and I don't normally even review stuff -- it is just a killer product.

It just arrived today and tight out of the box amazing tones I haven't edited too much yet. Great manual , very informative!!

Wow loop heaven for less than a cheap strat copy!!!

Too soon to tell but it seems sturdy and well made!!!

Awesome product though I think everyone will want one!!
I bought it on October 2 and have waited 2 months for it to be delivered in Canada! I am not disappointed one bit!!!!!!
Wow hail line 6!!!!!!!!!