Line 6 DL4 Delay Modeler

It's very easy to use if you read the manual and remember that you can always return to factory settings

The sound quality is excellent. I play tons of jobs both private and bar & nightclub stuff. I'm constantly amazed at some of the comments from from people that must be analyzing equipment in a lab or a bedroom. The noise floor in a night club is such that I don't think any of these noise comments are relavent to live playing, in different rooms every night. This pedal is the pedal boards of Kenny Wayne Sheppard, Brad Whitford,Keith Urban and tons of others, seems like it works for them, so some of these comments seem a little silly

Seems like alot of these people have alot of breakdowns. I guess I'm lucky because everything always works if I take care of it, no mattter how much I use it other than old tube and tube amps. But that's just routine maint.

Deal with who you bought it from. Who has time to contact the factory when you are supposed to contact your dealer anyway. Deal with your local store and keep you reciept, any Guitar center or decent dealer will always work with you if you have your reciept and follow the return or repair rules of the dealer. Why would any one contact line 6 for a local repair problem?

Excellent, 20 years ago all we had were boss dd-2's and dm-1's, and they were great as well, it's all in the hands and these things just make playing more fun. I remember when you got laughed at for buying a seventies Strat new, and now they are "vintage instuments". Well there is more to good equipment than chat room misinformation. Try keeping an echoplex in good working order and than tell me how bad this pedal is. Most of these people have no idea how good some of this stuff is, or how bad some of the older "but not really good then" stuff is.

The control knobs make it easy to use and control the various make-up of each type of delay. It is a little tricky configuring the pedal at first, but easy once you figure it out.

I found the manual really helpful as it gives you the background of each type of delay setting and references popular guitarists that used that particular delay.

The loop setting is very easy to use after a little practice.

I wish there was a digital display to see exactly how many micro-seconds the delay was holding. It's like using a tuner knob on a radio, instead of showing 99.1FM (for example). You have to guess and adjust to make it fit the music.

I would like to have more than 3 user-settings, but it sure beats a single delay pedal.

I've been playing guitar for 10 years and over the past years have primarily played acoustic (Takamine Santa Fe 93-c w/ turqoise inlays). Since purchasing the DL-4, the Takamine has been collecting dust in my closet.

The sound is great. I especially like the way you can set it to keep playing the delayed sound even after you've hit the bypass switch. The echoes trail off and this sounds very professional.

Mine works fine. Although, I have heard others say it arrives broken or buzzes.

For the buzz/hiss problem, you can simply use a noise gate. Line 6's distortion pedal has this built in. But, you would have to run the distortion pedal after the delay pedal which I do not prefer. This makes some difference when changing between distortion and clean, when you want either sound to trail off with the delay.

Again, I have had zero problems with mine. I've found it's usually the guitar cable or amp that has hissing problems.

Haven't had any problems. No opinion here.

I play anything from Smashing Pumpkins, Nirvana, and Coldplay to Dave Matthews Band to Pixies to TV Theme Songs (James Bond Theme is awesome). Of course, I would prefer to have each of the original delay pedals that this thing emulates, but, for the price, this thing does everything you need and sounds almost identical.

The loop setting can really be helpful when your trying to put a rhythm and lead section together... or more than 1 guitar track at the same time.

This pedal eliminates the need for multiple delay pedals, a loop pedal, an e-bow, and a reverse pedal. It is wonderful, whether you want some of that new Modest Mouse / Coldplay sound or some old school Hendrix / Clapton / Eddie Van Halen stuff.

Buy one now.

Delay almost always sounds good, but there's a LOT of variables with this pedal before you get everything nailed. The manual is great, the sounds are all good, but with this many options it'll take awhile to find settings that you want to save. That's really not a bad thing, though.

Like I said, delay almost always sounds good and this is no exception. I really don't get the appeal of analog/tape delays with the scratchy repeats, I'd much rather a clean digital delay, but I guess they're fine for some people. I do love the Memory Man model for clean, softer delays, but I use the plain digital delay for everything else. Also, the auto-volume is one of the best effects I've ever used and it was the reason I went with a Line 6 pedal. When this setting is tweaked just right, it makes the pedal worth every(over-charged) penny.

I'm using it with a Tech 21 Trademark 300 amp and a Zinky 2x12 cab, which I love, but it's too bad that the Tech 21's effects loop is so picky because I'd love to have this going through that. Luckily it sounds fantastic going into the front of the amp.

I've heard extremely bad things about this and I've only had it a short while. One show and a bunch of jams, not nearly enough to make a rating. I'll report back if I have any problems, but I really hope this isn't the case.

No experience.

I'm doing spacey hard rock/metal in the vein of Dredg, Cave In, Sunny Day Real Estate, The Cure and some stuff like Misery Signals as well. Obviously delay is a given, but this one is fantastic. I'd buy it again in a second, but I'm definitely wary of the questionable reliability. I've heard stories that the first batch of these were solid as well as the newer ones, but quality dipped a lot during the time between.... hopefully this is the case and I got one of the newer ones, I guess.

No need to review features. Plenty of other people have mentioned in great detail.

Difficult at first, but easy to figure out if you spend some time with it. WRITE DOWN YOUR SETTINGS.

Line 6 has done a great job on developing accurate tones. Can't fault them here.

Tone is not the issue...reliability is. See below.

Okay, here's where I come in. I read the reviews here and should have listened, but I couldn't resist. So I bought one from AMS as a "scratch and dent". Well it was in mint condition. One problem. The Loop Sampler didn't work. I sent it back under their return policy and they kindly sent me a floor model no extra charge. For about one year everything is peachy. Then this past summer one of the footswitch hex bolts comes undone sending the footswitch into the chassis. This didn't make sense, but a friend had a similar experience and fixed it for me. A little weird, but fixable. No big deal.

About a month later the pedal starts randomly and very sporadically losing my saved settings. It would audibly scramble (speed up then slow down). I tried cleaning out the footswitch connections to the circuit board (a very poor design). Nope...it just got worse in fact. Several live gigs later and what do you know it craps out completely. This time it never recovers. The pedal, even after reseting will not allow delay times to be changed either manually or with the tap tempo. It forgets them almost immediately.

Line 6 nailed tone, but in the process they forgot about quality of the product. Based on other's recommendations on here, I went out and bought a Boss DD-20 GigaDelay. It has been a life saver and honestly a fairly large improvement (great for a ProTools studio where delay tempos need to be right on!).

N/A

I've been playing for over 10 years. My musical style is very British rock in nature. I have been playing live and in bands for 7 out of those 10 years. It is primarily a hobby which spurs on my desire to find the best gear out there. The DL4 is not in that pool anymore.

My rig is currently: Gibson LP Std/Fender 72 Thinline Tele (CIJ)/Fender Am Std Tele into Boss TU-2, TS-9 Tubescreamer, Fulltone FD-2, Boss Bass Flanger, Boss TR-2 Trem, Boss DD-20 all into my new Dr.Z Maz 18 2x12.

The Line 6 DL4 is junk. People are not lying on here when they say what they say. I should have listened. Please don't make the same mistake I made.

It's easy enough to figure out if you have an aptitude for this kind of thing.

my rig:

1964 jazzmaster, mostly stock
1963 franken-jazzmaster, tele deluxe pu in bridge
1963 jaguar, li'l 59 single space humbuckers

into some combination of:

Fulldrive2
Klon centaur
hotcake
big muff
ibanez analog delay AD9
VooDoo Labs trem
Boss dd5 and/or dd6
mrx compressor

into one of these:

1959 (?) Magnatone 213
1965 Deluxe (no reverb, not reissue)
1968 Princeton Reverb


the delays themselves can sound fantastic- i love that you can get these crazy, gritty, lofi, delays with tons of character. It does, however, effect the sound of your guitar- when the unit is on, it adds a fairly significant amount treble to the unporocessed signal. It's not a bad thing necessarily, but if you don't like it, there's nothing you can do about it.

The thing that I love about the pedal is that it really has a much better feel than any other digital delay I've played with. I have a few boss delay pedals, and i like them OK, but they all seem a little sterile. I had my DD5 modified with a high cut switch, and it really wasn't worth it. Plus, the DL4 makes all kinds of crazy blooping sound when you screw around with it, which makes me love it all the more.

as far as I am concerned, Line 6 owes me a new one, and one that works past the warranty.

Bought my first one, used it for a while, liked it, stopped using it, put it up on a shelf, brought it down a year later, fell in love with it.

Then the trouble began. Random resets, digital clipping run away freakouts, just plain not working- no delay, no guitar- nothing.

Stupidly bought another because I love the damned thing so much. Same thing is starting to happen again. The best way to get it to malfunction- try to record with it.


The chassis on this thing could stop a bullet- why go cheap and put the crappiest footswitches manufactured in there? They stick, they break, they make it difficult to tap in the right delay time. Infuriating.

With all of the complaints, I'm hoping they come out with a DM4.2. I would be stupid enough to buy it in a heartbeat.

the people at the support line ignored me for about 3 months, then became very charitable. The place that they sent me to get it fixed took 5 months, and tried to charge me the cost of the unit.

well, it is obvious what Line6 should do. Let's see if they do it. I would love to have it back in my pedalboard, but since i don't like to look like more of a chump than I do all ready, it is not going to happen.

My Boss pedals have never failed me, not once. Too bad they don't sound as cool as the DD4.

So, what is the overall rating for something that sound great when it works, but neverworks reliably when you need it? I give it a 3.

If you are not used to these Line 6 Stomp Boxes, it can take a little while to tweak to get your preferred settings. The unit is easy to figure out and create really good presets. Instruction (Pilots) manual provides good starting points for getting the classic effects.

I really liked the sound that this unit produced. I got rid of my Boss DD for this, primarily for the 4 presets and the 14 second loop sampler. The digital delay is warmer than the Boss, and I found the flanged delay and the stereo delays very useful. I primarily used the DL4 in the effects loop of a Vox Valvetronix AD120VT in a home studio with the optional AC power adaptor. I play mostly blues rock, classic rock, pop rock, alternative rock, jazz, blues. I use many different guitars for different sounds and musical styles (I have two American Strats, one with Kinman pickups and pao ferro fretboard and ash body and one with standard American Series delta system and maple fretboard, Gibson L6-S Deluxe with SD JB & Jazz PU combo, Dean EVO Premium with SD Pearly Gates, Line 6 Variax 500). Besides the Vox (great modeling amp - superb sounds) I also have modded (Torres Pre-CBS)1973 Fender Twin Reverb with TAD power tubes and Eminence Texas Heat speakers (killer blues/blues rock amp!)and a mixed PA system which I use for vocals and to play the acoustic models of the L6 Variax through - nice. Also have a Zoom 1266 digital multitrack recorder.

OK, this is where Line 6 really has a problem. This unit worked flawlessly for about 1-1/2 years...then completely went berserk and shut down...dead, notta, nothing. This unit was handled with kid gloves, gigged very lightly but mostly stayed in the home studio. What a shame, don't know if it can be fixed and I'm certainly not dropping another $250 for a new one. I sure hope that my Line 6 Variax has better reliability because I really like it's versatility in my tone line up. The only other Line 6 product I currently have is the Guitar Port which has always worked fine (also used to own a DM4 which worked fine for the 8 mos. I owned it). From other reviews regarding reliability for the DL4, this seems to be a generic problem. Note: I guess I have been lucky with my Vox AD120VT as there are many reports of poor reliability (so far - two years - so good). Again, this is by far the best modeling amp I have tried, and when I bought this unit new I had tried them all.

Usually, Line 6 has been repsonsive to my inquiries and helpful. However on this issue, I have inquired about sending the DL4 back to Line 6 or a qualified service agency and have gotten no return response. I believe they know they have a generic problem (more than a few isolated problems) with this unit. This was a unit capable of great sounds and versatility, but sadly poor QC (typical of many PCB electronics).

I have been playing guitar and making music for over 25 years and find the music technology explosion to be great, especially for learning and recording music...but it is a double edged sword with some poorly contructed equipment out there. I hope Line 6 comes out with an improved version of this unit, but currently they have lost credibility of quality with me. If anyone has had a DL4 successfully repaired please email me, I would appreciate the feedback.

I did not get a manual for it but I downloaded one from their website. This thing is fun to play with but I do not see how it could be of any use live as the settings cannot be programmed and assigned to a patch number.
As it is it is very confusing to set up and get a consistent sound,

I have several very high quality amps and various high quality guitars of all makes and models.
It is not noisy but the sound quality of the guitar is horrible especially when high gain tones are wanted. I have tried it with many different guitar/amp combinations and all exhibit this tinny lo-fi ring modulator like farty tone. It is noticable on all settings although some more than others. When playing a clean amp with a guitar with low output pickups makes this audio artifact less noticible.
As for the loop feature, I have not been successful in using it where the inserts come in at the right time so it's of no value to me.
The only thing I can use this pedal for is for the reverse solo thing. It does do that pretty good and sounds ok doing it.

I do not think I would depend on it giving all that I have read here. But given the fact that the only thing I would use it for is the reverse lead thing, if it failed I do not think it would be a major issue as I can a play reverse lead sound using technique without a pedal to do it for me and how often is a reverse lead even used anyway?

I wish I could get my money back for this pedal. I did try one in the store a few weeks before getting this one from the same store and did not notice the poor sound quality. I actually though it sounded good at the time. I may just have a bad one or they may have been a bad batch of chips used. But getting anyone to admit there is a sound quality defect would be difficult as sound and sound quality is a very subjective thing.

One thing that bugs me about some of the reviews on this page is the reviewers lack of commitment to understanding their effects. One complains that presets disappear; if he had read the manual he would know that you have to hold in the stomp button for 3s. to store a new preset.

Although I'm sure some of these complaints are valid, I can say with some ceretainty that a portion of these complaints are due to the reviewers failure to read the fantastic manual. The manual even has examples of how to use the delay unit, something most other manuals dont even try to do. Line6 has gone a far way ahead of the idiotic boss pedals "suggested settings" (boss has yet to realize that every guitar player has a slightly varying set up: different guitar, different amp etc. and most importantly a different taste in how they want their guitar to sound.)

The pedal in itself is near impossible to "get" through instinct. The tweak and tweez buttons have different functions depending on what model you've selected and there are a ton of features. (Ill get back to those.) But the manual does, like I said, more than make up for the enigmatic nature of the pedal.

My setup is either 1) A strat guitar with vintage singlecoils or 2) A Furch acoustic with fishman pro II-

I run this either straight into my effect chain or duplicate the signal and send one straight to the low input on my Badcat CubII amp while the other signal goes into:

A volume pedal->Budda Wha->My Distortion and overdrive boxes (Foxrox fuzz and octave, budda zenman ->Line6 Delay->Phaser and Pro Vibe and then into the high input of the badcat cubII amp.

Not a lot of unexpected "noise" unless you're tweaking the eq on the digital delay and analog echo models. The other noise is in my opinion good seeing as it is a part of that weird wild sound you get at extreme settings. My Boss DD6 beats the digital delay setting for ease of use, but the options on the Line6 Dl4 and the sounds you coax out of it with patience makes it the best sounding delay stomp pedal I've ever used.

Yes, I can. And I do. Economical reasons for gigging without a backup, but it aint failed me for the past three months (approx- 15 live sets at one hour each.)

havent dealt with them. I hear they're terrible though.

I play whatever I get hired to play: Toto, Gospel, Pink Floyd (My Big Idol is Gilmour if you haven't guessed; his sound is just perfect.) So the versatility of this stomp box suits me perfectly.

Have been playing since 1999. My set up now is:

Strat electric and Furch acoustic (Run the acoustic clean into a mixer through a DI for most live applications and run the duplicate signal into the guitar amplifier for effects that I use with the acoustic; mostly volume swells and pads but also some distorted solos and wacky sounds.)

Effects owned (at present not in the order they're placed in the chain): Budda wah and Zenman, Line6 dl4, Foxrox captain coconut 2, Frantone Brooklyn Overdrive and an old ibanez phaser that I put true bypass and dc power input on.

I love its versatility, its beautiful and its more artsy sounds (8 bit digital delay anyone?) I can play a beautiful set of TOTO songs, or Pink Floyd songs or I can play ugly psychedelic heavy punk with it. Its the best of both worlds.

The patches are ok for the most part. Some are useless. The real aggravation is that the knobs don't indicate what the setting is after you change patch. It's all "virtual" until you move a knob, and then the perameter is changed.
This does not take much time getting used to as far as playing with it. But "using" it is another matter.
It's a pretty good toy. I got tired of "imagining" what the perameters were set to whenever I changed a patch.
Programming, ie: storing a setting on the other hand is a snap, and the layout is quite good with four presets and a tap.

The settings are interesting. The chorus (mod delay) is weak, with zero tweakablity. You either love it or not. I thought the overall sound was compromised somewhat, like with any digital delay.

I had problem with mine. It was sitting in my bedroom for 3 mos. and worked fine untill just after the warantee ran out. then it inexplicably broke. Never gigged out with it. I think a knob went bad. I sent it to authorized service center (Local) and it was returned pretty much un-fixed, had to return to fix again. Sold it immediately afterwards.

Warantee too short

I bought this to loop with. The experience I had playing with the looper was less than inspiring. I think it is kinda hard to use the various loop functions, and get a clean edit.
Now that I think back on the whole experience, I beleive the sound quality was a tiny bit sterile, un-dynamic, over-compressed.
The whole experience made me suspect Line6 products on the whole.
Caveat Emptor

Pretty simple to use although at first it may seem daunting(lots of dials that all have different features assigned to the same knob)But other than that its straight forward.

Before making any kind of statement on this effect i thought i would wait a couple of months and really play around with this thing before i reviewed it.The overall set up of this delay is fine and the pre-sets are simple enough.The delays do bleed somewhat and are a bit muffled. But this can be cleaned up with time.I am comparing this to my second unit the Boss DD2.But the one thing that makes up for this is the choice of other delays they give you, if having trouble with one delay there are others that are similar enough in sound and pitch to use them instead.

I have had NO TROUBLES with this unit so far.But i cannot beilieve the amount of negative responses there are on this issue.This should be addressed/seriously looked into by Line 6 and their people.
That being said i have my good old Boss unit with me just in case always.So i will give this an 8 but will check back in if i have any troubles!.

I own a Spider 50 watt 1 12 amp as well as floor board, and a Verbzilla reverb unit from the line 6 people. And have not had trouble with any of them (the amps is 2 years old)

I play ROCK and have for over 25 years....and not the metal d-tuned two finger crap that passes for guitar playing now.My equipment is mostly Marshall's2203/JCM900 and cab's,line 6 spider,Roland JC 120,Vox..And Gibson and Fender guitars.
The DL4 is a good unit for what i use it for which is recording and some live.The choice of different types of delays and the power to tweek all these different delays is the reason i am giving this unit such high praise....that being said there are allot of very angry people who got bad units out there, so you will have to decide if its worth the risk...In my case it has.