Line 6 DL4 Delay Modeler

Fairly simple to get a good sound from. Easy to edit patches and program on the fly. There are a lot of settings on here that somewhat useless IMHO. I really only use the Analog Delay and Digital Delay settings.

Well, it certainly doesn't sound like what it says it models. I used to have a Deluxe Memory Man, as well as a DD-6 and an Ibanez AD-9 delay. Those took up a hell of a lot more space on my board, hence the reason for the switch. However, I very much so enjoyed the sound of those 3 pedals in comparison to this green machine.

This pedal seems to add white noise to the signal, as well as sucking some tone and coloring the sound in a not-so musical way. The other delays were noisy, but in a non-harsh sorta low-fi way that was more musical.
Here is my current setup:
Telecaster Deluxe/Jazzmaster -> TU2 -> Homemade Orange Squeezer Clone -> SD-1 (modded) -> Homemade DOD-250 Overdrive (modded) -> Turbo Rat -> EH Smallstone -> CS-2 Chorus (Vibe Modded) -> TR-2 Tremolo (Modded)-> DL4 -> Silverface Twin Reverb

So I have a somewhat elaborate setup...And I have made some of my own pedals and tweaked things to my liking. However, I do use all of these pedals in a given night, and do notice even the slightest change to the sound setup when I add or remove something. The DL4 seems to thin out the sound slightly when added to the chain.

I haven't had any issues with it since I purchased it a year back. It hasn't given me any of the problems people are listing on here. I've heard horror stories from friends, but perhaps the new generation of these pedals have the kinks worked out of them. Who knows. I'm using the Line6 Power supply on this pedal. Haven't had any "wink outs" or power fluxes. No issues at all.

Never delt with.

I play in an indie rock / low-fi style band. It matches what I'm looking for... ALMOST. It sounds as though if it had just a bit more development, they would have really nailed it. Some of the modes are just too similar sounding to each-other. I really think they could have worked longer on the analog delay mode, so that the decays would become more and more washed out over time, like the good-old bucket brigade chips in the analog delays (like Memory Man). It still seems a bit too bright to me on most settings. Instead of giving the option of tweaking and tweezing treble and bass, they should have set these to match the pedals they were modeling, and given other options like Decay Tone.
If it gets stolen or breaks, I won't be buying another. I'll probably get another Memory Man Deluxe.
It doesn't help make music, it just gets in the way of being creative. It just doesn't have the vibe I'm looking for.

Pretty easy to use. Manual is very instructive but I found it easy to use even without it. When you found the delays you like you learn what the Tweak and Tweez buttons does. Easy to program new settings, easy to use the tap to change speed. I even use the expression pedal that can be used with any of the knobs like changing speed repeats etc, even that one is easy to use. Once you get the hang of it you will have a good time.

It sounds really good. A lot of nice delays in the same pedal is really cool and that was the reason I bought it.

But I kind of feel a volume drop when I switch it on and on some of the delays. It adds a litte bit of treble when switched on, at least on some of the effects. A little bit anoying but it??s nothing I hear when using it in a band situation.

No way, the quality of this pedal sucks big time. A friend of mine bought it for me in the N.Y. and it didn??t work when I got it. Had to struggle with a service guy in N.Y. who took his time and first sent me the wrong pedal. When I finally got my pedal almost a year later it worked fine in 5 months when I got the circuit board replaced. Now it just went dead again. I think it??s something with the power but I really have no clue. After checking support pages, speaking with friends, checking forums I realized this is a piece of crappy quality. I??ve only used it at home, fixed in my pedal board and would never rely on it without a backup. It??s pity since it sound so good.

Got answer pretty fast but it was nothing that really helped me. I sent it to a service center and almost didn??t get it back. I called up the support (not Line 6 themselves) and they were very helpful and called the service dude and asked him what the heck he was doing. I hope they cut that guy off.

I play soul- blues- country-inspired music and I mainly use the delay for soloing. I??ve been playing for 20 years in groups but I mainly play acoustic guitar now and doesn??t do any electric guitar gig that often. I reallt like this pedal but the quality sucks. I would like to have one better working but I won??t buy another one if they can??t fix mine or if they would charge me a lot of money to fix it. It??s a really versatile pedal and the money would be well spent if it was reliable.

definitely easy... but i've been using it for years now... maybe 5 by now.

i have two of the original pedals... use both for my gigs... have for years now.. and the sound doesnt seem to be so bad because i am just using the looping effect on it and as long as the signal i put in doesnt have too much distortion on it, the quality of sound of the loops are great.

BUT... i recently had to purchase a new pedal only because one of them was misplaced on my travels.... and... was a big disappointment when i
got the new one.

i had just an hour until soundcheck... so i thought buying a new one would be no risk....??but as soon as i took it out of the box and
plugged it in... there was a big white noise in the background.
i used only batteries... put in another set of batteries.. checked all the cables... and at first i didnt think that sound was coming from the new line 6... i was testing out all my other stuff.. and finally.. isolating the new line 6... by itself with my instrument plugged into it... that was the only pedal the made this white noise...

unfortunately.. was too late to exchange it at the store.. and it really was shitty to have to build loops with white noise that grew with each new loop. really crap.

i am sure there is a big difference between something made in a sweatshop and something made by people who are part of a union.

NOT THE NEW ONES:

my old ones... those i have not yet ever had problems with.

but for spending 260 euros... (that is more US dollars...)
to get a piece of shyyyte... was quite a disappointment.
you would think that there would at least be some quality control
on something that makes such a messy sound while it was just in bypass mode...

i am just taking this pedal back and getting my money back....
and wait for my misplaced one to get delivered back to me.

then i am going to research some other easy to use and more reliable, better made loooping pedal.. and start getting used to using something new so that the day when my line 6 pedals die.. i will already be prepared to use something else... or maybe i will not see the day they die because my loss of faith in line 6 products will guide me to other company's pedals.

works great for what i do.
am only using one function of the pedal for what i do... and
so i know i can find many other pedals that do the same thing.

or.. if anyone has one of the old american-made ones... i'd rather buy that.

Fairly easy, if in doubt check manual or experiment

Nice range of delays and 14 sec sampler, Very nice sounding pro pedal.

Heres where this get a sour rating from me. I was so delicate with this and it never left my house once. Right after my warranty expired this pedal died. The DL-4 was not built to last, i wish i read the reviews here before I bought this junk. I own many pedals for over 20 years and they still work great. This barley made it after 1 year and for the price of almost 300 with the power pack (sold seprately) I would say its not worth the dissapointment. This pedal is a risk and a gamble, sure it sounds great but why take that chance. Not woth the hassel. If you do, most definatly get the insurance and when or if it craps out get a boss.

Answered my question on the forum quickly but was only a superficial answer, a bandaid on a major wound. I'm going to try and call but I don't have the patience to deal with customer service, this shyte should still be working for the price damnit. I will no longer purchase Line 6 pedals. Not after this. Line 6 should address this issue and extend the miserly 1 year warranty. I contacted the 3rd party repair place and its gonna cost $75 just for the tech to look at it for up to an hour if he can repair it in the time if more serious can probably cost much more if the board is fried and not worth it.

A really good sounding delay pedal with many features and perfect for my style of playing only when it was WORKING!!!!! It feels so solidly made on the outside but made with egg shells and glass on the inside. ALL dissatisfied DL4 owners should complain to the better business bureau for Line 6 making a lamely built product thats flawed. Thats how I feel.

Very easy to use.

This delay pedal sounds incredable, add's load's of unique dirt to your sound that you won't get anywhere els.

Ive had mine for 2 month's, bought it brand new and it still work's fine, although the power supply is very sensative, any change in the supply itself, and it will shut off, not good if your using it for gigging. I use it in my home studio to run my synth's, and other gear through. It's a great pedal for that type of use, but woudn't buy one used.

never dealt with them.

I give it a 7 because you get some heafty unique delay effect's out of this thing, but that crap power supply issue knock's it down a good bit. Shame really, could have been a classic, im shure the rack version will.

I thought it was easy to use in conjunction with the manual. After playing with it for an hour, I had 3 usable delays programmed in. Haven't messed with the looper yet.

Sound quality is poor and 'somewhat' close to the effects they claim to model. I A/B'd it up to my deluxe memory man and there was no comparison. I'm not a fan of multi-effects units, but I need different delays, I thought this would do the job. To me the sacrifice in the authenticity of the target modeled effect was worth the convienence of having 3 delays in one pedal for live gigs. So yeah, it colors your sound alot and isn't very authentic, but it does 3 pedals plus a looper in the space of 2. It's the only non-true bypass pedal in my rig and you sure can tell unfortunately. My chain is Les Paul Standards>Ernie Ball Volume>Vox Wah>True Grit Overdrive>Voodoo Lab Sparkle Drive>DL4>Matchless Clubman 35.

I just picked up a new exchange at Guitar Center. The first one let me down both of the 2 times I gigged with it. At home while programming it, no problem. The odd thing is that both times it crapped out, it didn't fail until about 2 or more hours into the gig. Both times I ended up bypassing the delay completely so I could finish the gig without anymore embarassing moments. When trying to find the problem, I accidentally jiggled the input cable and it intermittently would come back on. Thinking it was a cable, I rewired my entire pedal board in George L's, worked great at home. Next gig, same problem occured after a few hours of playing. (I do have the correct Line 6 power supply for it.) so yeah, I'm hoping I had a bad connector on the input or something. If this one fails on me, this will be my first and last Line 6 purchase. If any other owners know of an easy fix for my problem, feel free to correspond.

Haven't yet dealt with them. Guitar Center exchanged it for me with no issues.

BAD:
-Colors the sound and sucks tone
-Does not accurately reproduce the vintage pedals it claims to model.
-Failed on both gigs I used it on.

GOOD:
-Has some cool unique delay sounds.
-Can store 3 delays plus have a looper in the space of 2 pedals.

RECOMMENDATIONS:
-If you have a way to isolate the pedal such as as a switchable effects loop, do it. Anything you can do remove it from the chain when you aren't using it would help your tone. Unfortunately my amp doesn't have a switchable loop, and I'm not buying another pedal to save this one from itself.

This is an update to a very old review, so some ratings have changed. Anyhow . . .

I had an easy time dialing up sounds on my DL4, but I thought of it as a digital device, with presets, rather than as a big green pedal. It's clear that a lot of users expect the DL4 to act more like a normal pedal, where the knob settings tell you what's going on. The DL4 doesn't do that; if you dial up a sound, and switch off the effect WITHOUT saving the settings, you'll get whatever preset is stored there. That could totally screw up an otherwise great performance. Once you've saved your settings as one of three presets, the knob settings don't matter anymore; when you hit switch 1, 2, or 3 you'll get preset 1, 2, or 3, regardless of how the knobs are set. In Looper mode, the DL4 DOES act like a big pedal, and the knob settings work in realtime.

The Manual is long on self-indulgence, and lean on specifics. I got what I needed from it, but I can't ignore the complaints from so many of my fellow musicians, and I'm not willing to make the assumption that so many musicians must be stupid. The knob settings you see under the description of each effect model; those are the knob settings used to create that preset, but the Manual never really tells you that. You don't get any important specs like Current Draw, S/N Ratio, Input/Output Impedance, etc. Even a simple Boss DS-1 has that info in the Manual. It may not change how you would use the pedal, but it reflects a sort of carelessness that seems to be the problem with many of the Line 6 Modelers.

I had given the DL4 an 8 or 9 for Ease of Use, but I can see where it's probably closer to a 6 or 7 for many users. For myself, I'll give it a 7; double-clicking to get to Reverse Loop mode has gotten really old. I have an RC-20, and even though I had to buy an extra footswitch to click in and out of Reverse, it's worth it.

Not much new to say here. I've seen two of my favorite artists using the DL4; Bill Frisell, and Andy MacKay (!?!), who plays sax and oboe with Roxy Music. Couldn't see what Phil Manzanera had on his side of the stage. I'm still using the same three sounds (Auto-Volume Swell, Sweep Echo & Reverse Delay), and they all still come up when I step on the switch. I use Auto-Volume to get a Boss Slow Gear w/Delay sound, Sweep Echo gives me a Led Zep "No Quarter" sound (more like the electric piano sound), and I use the Reverse Delay full wet, at 2.5 seconds of Delay. When I use that setting live, people look at my hands, trying to figure out what's going on. I use the Looper most of all.

My rig is still mostly mahogany planks, with HB's, run through a GT-3 and a handful of Delay/Loopers. My current favorite guitar is probably my black LP Special SL, with a Roland synth pickup. The DL4 handles the output from the GT-3, and either of my Guitar synths (a GR-1 & a GR-30) without any added noise or signal drop-off.

Other than the three presets I made for myself, and the Loop mode, I don't really use most of the other models. I mostly found them uninteresting, not really bad, but not worth taking up a memory slot. If I just want a simple Delay sound, I can use the Delay in the GT-3, and for longer Delays, I have a DD-20 and an Akai Headrush.

One sound issue that I've noticed with every Line 6 Modeler I've used; the switches pop when you step on them. It isn't as bad as it could be, but I thought we'd moved past that in the 80's. (On some live albums from the 70's, you can hear the "pop" noise right before a big solo, just when the guitarist kicks in that old Phaser or Overdrive.) Maybe it's a subtle attempt to recreate that "vintage" vibe, but I doubt it.

Here's the critical issue; my DL4 still works. Like, after five years, or so, still works. I haven't experienced any of the nightmares breakdowns I've read about in these, and other reviews. In my earlier review, I mentioned that MY DL4 is one of the original, American-made units. Later on, they were made in Maylasia, and finally, in China. I wonder if some of the QC problems didn't start then.

Another thing I've noticed in reviews of all the Line 6 Modelers, not just the DL4; a lot of players started having problems during, or right after a live gig. I know that a lot of clubs have really funky power fluctuations. Lights, sound boards, compressors in coolers and AC units, all of these things are sucking power from the system, which means that instead of getting 110 volts of clean AC power, the actual voltage is going up and down like a cheap roller-coaster. That can really screw with your gear, especially digital gear. It's not an excuse for poor workmanship, but the combination of a sketchy circuit board and a few bad power spikes could be fatal.

Having said all this, I still give my DL4 a 10 for reliability; I usually have at least one other Looper (an RC-20) and one other long Delay (the Headrush) with me, so I won't be stuck, even if the DL4 dies on me. I probably wouldn't buy another one, if this one went bad on me, like so many other reviewers describe.

Never dealt with them directly, but the website isn't very helpful.

Let's see, experimental/noise guitar, w/lots of loop/delay sounds, so the DL4 is a good fit. I've been playing since the dawn of Surf Guitar, and I have enough gear that I could probably reproduce any of the sounds I get from the DL4, just not all in one box. (Yes, I have DD-20, but I don't take it out; that LCD display looks too fragile.)

If my DL4 left me, I might look for another one, but I would probably look for a used American-made unit before I'd buy a new overseas box. If it just plain died, I don't know if I'd want to spend the money on another potentially suicidal box.

When I got the DL4, there wasn't anything else quite like it; now Boss has released a pile of Loopers, and the DD-20, which has lot of the same features, as well as 23 seconds of delay. There's also a new version of the Akai Headrush, with 32 seconds of Delay/Looping, and, for insane looping, the Electro Harmonix 2880.

Now that the ToneCore pedals are everywhere, it's pretty clear that Line 6 has abandoned the Modeler line for something that acts more like a regular pedal. I've read some pretty unhappy reviews of those products, too; I don't know what to think about Line 6 gear at this point. If you were a friend of mine, asking if I thought you should buy a DL4, I'd probably tell you to read ALL the reviews you could stand, and then decide for yourself; it's your money. The stores are still full of DL4's, if you're feeling lucky.

Given the other products out there for Loop/Delay freaks, it's hard to recommend the DL4, especially if customer support is as bad as people say. Mine still works for me, but that's one unit out of thousands. Mine rates a 9, but yours might only be a 3, or worse, a 1. Let the buyer beware, I guess.

its pretty easy to use, comes with a manual not rocket science but the tweek and the tweeze is kind of lame

sounds pretty good, it obviously doesnt have the warmth of an analog pedal, when i played my friends memory man the tone from the memory man blew the dl4 outta the water, but other than that its alright.

well i hadnt had any problems with it for a while and now its jacked up, sounds to me like line 6 needs to work out the kinks in there pedals because they always keep breaking on people, sounds like not to quality of a pedal. wide range of delay's but for $250-300 people want stuff that works, id almost rather sell this thing and buy a memory man.

on their website you have to use there support forum, which i posted a question late last night and still have gotten no answers from them, if the problem lies with them, because i take good care of my pedals then why is my crap breaking and why is it taking so long to respond back from the company? i gig with this pedal 2-3 times a week so it would be nice for them to get back to me with an answer

if this thing was lost or stolen id be said because i paid 275 bucks for it, but i think id replace it with a memory man or a different delay, i wouldnt want to risk spending the money again and having this stupid thing crap out on me.

Read the manual it explains its self

My rig is vox wah>ernieball volume>visualsounds jeckel and hyde>voodoo lab sparkle drive>ibanez ts9>mxr dyna comp>digitec whammy>boss ch1>mxr 6 band gf eq>line6 dl4 into a marshall jtm 30 watt combo(blues breaker)
i love my setup
with the dl4 theres nothing i can't do its extremely practical but it can sound a bit digital. So what line6 only makes digital products know what your buying before you buy it. For what it does its well worth the minor sacrifice in tone which my mxr eq cleans up pretty well anyways because of it tho i'll have to give it a 9.

Before i bought it i was kinda swayed by all the bad reveiws on this and really all line6 pedals, it scared me, but so many people use them almost all of my favorite guitarists use them. So i bought it and its never let me down but i take very good care of it i keep it in a ata case at all times, it is about 250 brand new so you should too. I can't really say you should trust some these reveiws, people are dumb and probably don't take of there equipment i'm not a rich man so i do. I say find out for yourself and buy one.

hell!!

Great pedal, great "digital effect" i would recommend it to anyone of any style. My rig would not be complete without it

Right out of the box the pedal comes set with a selection of delays that show you as much as they can about the unit. With three selectable delays, a lighted Tap Tempo switch, and all the adjusting knobs recessed into the pedal, it feels solid and is inviting to be played. The manual is informative and somewhat lighthearted. It details the pedal's adjustments, and gives you specific references to which delay pedal it's modeling (note the name) and an optimized tone for the setting. It comes with some stickers to slap on the pedal that tell you the settings, and one can only agree with the common feeling that "Tweak" and "Tweez" aren't very helpful.

I was mildly amused, though. I give it a 10!

My favorite artists are Buckethead, Buckethead, and more Buckethead!
Only kidding, but from the Van Halen/Classic Rock, to the indie Minus The Bear (he's got two of them), to anything I've encountered, I've been able to model a suitable delay and control it easily.
I use it with my gibson sg, in a full pedal board with a variety of makes and manufacturers pedals, and into a Marshall JCM2000 DSL 100
Sometimes I get an audible click in the switches, which is something I've wanted to get looked at, but other than that I think the sound quality is the best thing about this pedal.

I love this pedal, but admittedly it's the third one I'm on. The first one broke, the second one got stolen, and the third one is bolted to my pedal board with a poisonous cobra in the battery compartment so noone takes off with it. Right now, one of the switches doesn't work. The far left one? The switch is unreliable. Too bad that channel is my favorite sounding delay, that I have not been able to replicate, so sometimes I endure it not turning on or off.

They're just like any manufacturer, if you play by their rules, they'll do what it takes. I was going to get my second one serviced and they were helpful via e-mails, but it was stolen.

I play rock, and alot of heavier sorts of indie/emo, and for everything I need it's a solid match. the issue of reliability is a big thing, but if it breaks or if it gets stolen again, I'll get another. versitile, worthwhile, useful.

Needs longer delay. think delay pedal + loop station in one unit