Line 6 Echo Pro

I've been borrowing the echo pro (the rack version of the DL4!!) for a few gigs, in need for a looper.

Because I didnt have time to read the manual or try it before the first gig, i realized afterwards that it wasnt that easy.

But the second gig I did everything went better, and it was pretty easy to use.

I'm a fan of displays and menus so I give it a seven because of the hard to work with midi when you just see silly led issue.

I like the sound quality very much for the loop function, it has a crisp edge when using contact mics (isopor (whatever it is in english) on copper plate!!!), and a great bottom when using bowed accousic guitar.

lol, because I didnt know my gt-6 sends program change i got quite scared when the loop suddenly stopped, but then I improvised on it! ;)

I play ambient noise, and this thing worked great. I didnt have time to see if one can change the time of the loop with midi (if you can I will be more happy!!), the half speed button was cool, and so on.

the reason I'm writing this is; WHY THE F*** DID THEY DISCONTINUE THIS SUCKER?!

real easy to use. you only need to look in the manual if the thing isn't actually in front of you & you need to know "can it do this...?"
the manual is good, if a little cutesy.
editing patches is straightforward. it tells you when you've changed a patch from what was previously stored, & even helps you restore some or all of the edited values.

I'm using this with line-level aux sends & returns on a regular mixer. I gather some folks have had a problem using these units with fx loops on amps. my only comment here is that unless you've got an amp with a stereo line level fx loop, you're probably better off with the DL4. I wish line6 had made a DL4 with more presets & a more versatile looper but this isn't it. some of the algorithms are similar, & it's almost the same colour, but that's where it ends.
the emulations are all pretty good, as they are in the DL4, but here they're all in proper stereo & there's an extra one- the "platter" which is modelled on the binson echorec. I wish they'd put this model in the DL4, & with a piezo in the case so you could kick it like the real thing.
one gripe- & to be fair, they do mention this in the manual- the levels wander around a bit amongst the various models. the cure is to over-write the factory versions with your own edits, having adjusted the mix levels for each one.

I bought three of these off of ebay. one was d.o.a. & had a sticker on the side saying "$99- to clear" or somesuch. someone obviously bought it as-seen & then shifted it in my direction. anyway, I sent it to line6 in the UK & got it back, working, less than a week later & for #28.
& they told me what was wrong with it- not ashamed to admit it like some manufacturers would've been. faulty component.
never had a problem with any other line6 kit.

see above. the support in the UK is amongst the best I've experienced, though I realise I'm basing this on the one repair.... I work in broadcast engineering, & have dealt with manufacturers of all shapes & sizes for over 20 years. these people sent out the right signs from the get-go.

I knew we'd end up buying at least one of these after a few minutes with the DL4, something of a classic in it's own right.
guitar/keyboard-based electronica, long-form improv.

User interface is well-balanced between immediacy and versatility.
Besides the obvious param. like delay time & feedback, each "delay model" has two additional parameters which functions vary between algorithms from Hi-cut/lo-cut to wow & flutter/drive.

Compared to programmable delays like Roland SDD-330, this unit is a breeze to program.
In order to get the exact type of vintage delay sounds that you like, it helps if you understand the principles of delay machines.

What I find most impressive about this machine, is the precision featured by the regeneration knob. It is easy to tune feedback so that it gives infinite repetition without overloading the unit.

Using this in the effect loop of a simple rack mixer in a synth-homestudio environment. Very, very quiet indeed.
I have read the various complaints below, but I am very impressed by the snr. In fact, I am often tempted to some add white synth noise for even better emulation of tape & analog echos.

General sound quality is excellent IMO.
Experimentation almost always results in adequate reesults

Especially the lo-fi digital delay with resulotion down to 6 bit is a favourite here.

Bought it s/h in very good condition, no problems so far

No experience

I like this unit a lot.
Before buying, I was sceptical from the reviews here, but apparently these are mainly generated by guitar players from a very different audio environment.

A shame they stopped production of this unit.

Echo Park is a digital delay with several modes and knobs packed within a stompbox. Download the manual from Line 6 for a complete list of features.

Easy to use. Double action switch is the most useful feature - enables user to tap tempo prior to engaging the effect. Although it does take some time getting used to.

I suppose another disadvantage may be too many features with no presets to use.

Firsty, I get no noise when I use the unit with a generic standalone 9v power supply.

Using this unit in front of my amp it sounds great. Tape delay is like a memory man although not as intense. Digital delay is excellent. Analogue is not to my taste - a bit muddy.

That said, like many others I'd like to use the Echo Park in my parallel FX loop cause I like to use the preamp on my valve combo without the delay sounding harsh. The Echo Park is USELESS in my loop. Whilst the pedal is on, everythings sounds fine but as soon as I bypass the effect, I lose ALL bass and treble response. It sounds like Ive just switched on a wah pedal. It HONKS. This is really annoying because it renders the Echo Park useless in my book. Ive tried this with no other pedals and still get the same result. Its definately not my amp, leads or guitar because they all worked flawlessly until the Echo Park came along.

Maybe I'm missing something here - if anyone has any suggestions email me at ryanrobles@orange.net.

I havent used it long enough to make comment here. The sad thing is -I doubt I will be.

I'm in the process of contacting Line 6 to see what they have to say. Will update when I've got an answer.

I bought this unit mainly to be able to use the dotted quaver delay and standard quarter note delay. However, not being able to use it within the loop is a big dissappointment.

The unti is packed with features but what good is that when you may never get to use them.

If you can help me please email ryanrobles@orange.net.

Not to hard to get into, just a few looks in the manual and i was up running. Knobs are always nice when editing effects.

I've been using it in a homestudio rigg. And i have to say i'm disaponted with the way this little thing sounds. I've definetly heard better replications of analogue delays. The sound is dull and cheap and lacks ambience. I been tweaking this box for hour and hours and 99,9% of what i get just sounds boring. The best thing is the loop machine, but even that one sounds crap when playing the loop on half speed. The bass disapears and it just sounds crumbly.

I've never had any techical problem what so ever with it.

As i wrote before, this one didn't live up to my expectations. I've heard chep guitar pedals that sounds way better. Even my old crappy cyclone has a deeper ambience than this thing. Boring boring boring!
if you want something like this, buy a HK "rephlex" or an Amtech "age one" instead and you will be much happier.

Well..............with egg on my face i write this.....im the "hot headded aussie" everyones going on about. I know gear, i gig three times a week, my rack is a floating rack and powered by a furman. After much much much consultation ive solved the problem. I ended up having to have a custom power supply built to replace the 9volt adapters that were in the rack - obviously it was not directly the unit here to blame but i do think it picks up hum easily.
Also this unit is not cheap "down here" (well...nothing is) so i was slightly annoyed to buy this unit and have problems.
Since solving this problem im absolutely delighted with this unit, so delighted, im about to pick up a mod pro to add to the setup (i got this one at 1/2 the retail price so im all smiles).

I would suggest to anyone purchasing this equiptment that they may not get a "plug and play" experience. It is digital so dont expect what the originals have to offer, but there is some really cool sounds (once u get past the hum issue - if you have it)

It's a cheap unit; so you get what you pay for; plain and simple!

My only mistake was thinking a $289 piece of shit would sound good with very high end gear (Lexicon, Eventide, Soldano Boogie, etc.)

Like all Line6 equipment it's designed and priced for the economically challenged.

This unit is perfect for those on a low budget, or someone that doesn?t mind tone loss or noise (or an arrogant dumb-ass keyboardist who thinks he knows everything about guitarist?s rigs?fuck you too!).

I have many preamps and power amps, but before we even go there? even standalone; this thing is noisy (not mention no vibe whatsoever).

I have isolated the Echo Pro, used line balanced cables (Monster Mogami, etc...), routed it through a Sound Sculpture Switchblade GL (not a cheap Berringer) and it still sounds like shit. (No stats, no MXR, no EH, no cheap cables?)

I returned the unit and exchange it only to find the same results.

I have put enough rigs together over the past 15 years and I can honestly say this thing is a piece of shit on a *pro* level. So how they gave it the name Echo Pro is beyond me.

Make no mistake; there is nothing *pro* about it (or any Line6 gear).

I?m sure a novice or someone using cheap equipment would be easily impressed by this wondrous noisemaker.

For the record I live in the US, so I really don't think the Aussie's are having a power issue. I think it might have something to do with knowing the difference quality and cheap equipment.

Think about it, the unit cost under $300; how could it *not* be a piece of shit. It's painfully obvious unit wasn't made with the same quality components as a Lexicon PCM 91.

Super easy

I'll start out by saying give your gear a nice home. Mine is in a 4 space rack with Furman power conditioner top space, then a Berringer EuroRack line mixer, then the Echo Pro and then a Yamaha Motif Rack. I'm a keyboard player. Well contrary to most reviews on this site about this product having a 60hz ground hum etc... I think you guys are all on crack. I love it when a stupid guitarist is like- Yeah i run a strat(with buzzy ass single coils) through like a signal chain of 10 pedals and then they complain they hear noise. Well fuck yeah you do dumbass- you need to learn about effects order placement and clean up your janky signal chain. Dude if I chained 10 of my old crusty MXR and EHX pedals together I'd have mad buzz too-more buzz than a chainsmoking honeybee! I put it in my rig and is deadnuts quiet. Also helps to use the highest quality cords you can get at all times. I am telling you all the people that say this thing is noisy it's because they don't have their levels set right, don't understand signal flow and all put the Echo pro in the most janky hippy jerry rigged of guitar setups. If you saw all the peoples rigs on harmony central- many of them would be appoling as far as how ghetto and hoopty they are. Also you can't expect much from any piece of gear if you use any rig regardless of size without a power conditioner. This is my favorite delay I have used. I switch around quite often but I think I'm sticking with this one for a long time.

Looks fine to me.

I have been on the holy grail quest for the best delay that suits my needs for a long time and I've finally found it. I absolutely love the # of different tones I can squeeze out of this thing. I have owned the following delays in the last 10 years.
Roland Space Echo RE201- killer but not rack mountable, not long enough delay time and unrealiable.
Digitech RDS1900 and 7.6 Time Machine- great build quality on the old digitech stuff, great modulation but really cold sounding delay.
Ibanez DM1100- cool sound, cheap build quality
Loft 440- limited analog delay, noisy but it's true analog so what do you expect from bucket brigade
Chandler stereo delay- the most overrated piece of shit ever, and the fact that it uses a wall wart makes me not ever want to use it.
Roland SD1000- big, heavy, cold sounding but great modulation/chorus sounds
Symetrix 606- good idea but kinda in beta fashion- it seems like a beta unit- cool but not really that well thought out, for example there is no power switch! you plug it in and it's either off or on-clearly a piece to remain in the studio and never gig with
TC Electronics D Two- I used to own a TC M One and the D Two suffers from the same cheesy build quality, nice chassis but the knobs and pots tend to get messed up/skip around easily, plus no bypass footswitch so really made more for studio than live work
Ibanez AD202 and UE405- both cool,but noisy, 2 rack space
MXR Time Delay- funky, cool and noisy. :) same with the DeltaLab Effectron I used to own. So as you can see I've owned them all, used them all on Rhodes, Synths, Wurli, Clav, and bass guitar. The Line 6 truly blew my mind more than I thought it would. I am really impressed with Line 6 gear and its truly on another level than the other delays I have previously owned. Probably most similar to it that I've owned is the TC D Two and this thing kicks its ass all over the place plus it has real time control. Don't be dismayed by all the hot headed AUSIES on this site saying this thing is noisy. I bet it sucks having to deal with 240 instead 110 over there- I'm sure it's bound to be more problematic. I read all the reviews of this on this site and was totally leary of this piece but it's won me over big time.

Everything is incredibly simple. From manual dial-in to midi control, It was very simple to get it set up. Note: I am familiar with midi, thus new users of midi may take a while to get the hang of it. I HATE the user manual! It is way too patronizing for me! However, I won?t mark this against them because it is clear.

I had the DL4 and LOVED it. With the DL4, I hated that I was limited to 3 presets and that I had to manually engage the looper. So I looked at the Echo Pro. I have read EVERY review posted on HC to date, which made me rather concerned about getting this unit. The big concerns for me after reading these reviews were: -10db unbalanced i/o, the midi clock, grounding/noise, sound quality, and a posting about the looper running exclusively through the right channel. However, since my buddy so highly recommended this unit ? and since the resale for the Echo Pro is currently MORE than retail (before L6 quit making them), I decided to give this a shot. The db drop was no problem for me. I use analog bypass and set the i/o dials to match. When I play a smaller gig that requires me to run direct, I plug into the system via the xlr outputs and don?t worry about unplugging anything. BTW, the extra 4db boost coming from the xlr outs gives the soundboard a nice hot signal. With the midi clock sync, My Echo Pro is DEINATELY WAY FASTER than my G-Major. The clock difference is so noticeable that I am actually considering opening up the Echo Pro and replacing the quartz! You would have thought L6 would have invested more effort into the clock accuracy of an effects processor dedicated to delay!!! On the up side, I change patches often enough during a gig that the sync isn?t an issue. Concerning the noise issue, I plugged this into my rack and have NO noise in my sound (other than the MXR pedals). Perhaps I am lucking out because I am running ALL my guitar equipment through a Furman Power Conditioner. Lastly on the noise issue, I noted that several of the noise complaints came from euro users; Perhaps L6 equipment is poorly engineered for 240 voltage. Concerning the sound quality, it has not taken away any of my tone. The biggest issue for me was getting the Echo Pro to match levels with the incoming signal, especially since I use the analog bypass. Once I matched levels, I couldn?t tell any change in tone. Concerning a posting about the looper running ONLY through one channel, I have not had that experience. I would not be surprised if the looper runs composite mono (like the DL4), but it still works in both channels of my setup. My best guess it that the disgruntled user had a defective Echo Pro. Overall for Sound Quality, I would give the Echo Pro a 9 or 10 if it weren?t for the clock issue.

FYI:
My Setup: Ibanez ?78 Musician > MXR Phase 90 > MXR Dynacomp > Sansamp > Preamp (mono out) > G-Major (stereo out) (midi controlled by G-Minor & FCB1010) > Echo Pro (stereo out) (midi controlled by FCB1010) > Amp/Direct (stereo out) w/ Georg L cables & Furman Power Conditioner.
My Influences: U2 (old school stuff), Delirious?, Coldplay, Switchfoot (Beautiful Letdown Album), David Crowder Band

Concerning the construction, knobs and buttons appear solid along with the unbalanced TRS i/o?s in the rear. However, I could see myself having to open up the board and re-solder the xlr outputs in a few years.

Though the Echo Pro is no longer in production, they still have the manual available online. They?ve always been easy to work with in the past. Additionally, I have launched a user group to help users & prospective buyers alike: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/EchoPro/

I am a bit torn: the clock issue is a big deal in my opinion. They have an entire led screen whose default display is the clock!! However, the clock is small price to pay for the features of the Echo Pro. I did buy this used, perhaps I own the unit 'evilgenius' complained about. For my setup, I will gladly put up with the bad clock to gain the capabilities & delays of the Echo Pro!

Just adding to my previous post below......still easy to use but the manual is useless with specs given no attention.

Got switcher, still noisy. Got the hum to dissapear when the unit is in "analog" bypass but it is still noisy as hell when it is switched in, also, the hum is AS bad with nothing connected to the input (and i run it in mono) so it goes without saying that this unit produces its own noise.

DO NOT BUY THIS EQUIPTMENT.
FORGET HOW APPEALING ITS LOOKS ARE AND WHO USES IT.
THEY SHOULD SPEND HALF THE MONEY THEY SPEND ON ADVERTISING ON PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT.
THEN WE MIGHT HAVE A HALF DECENT PRODUCT TO TALK ABOUT.
AS IT STANDS IT IS A PILE OF SHIT.

WOULDNT GIG WITH IT PERIOD. CANT USE IT IN THE STUDIO. CANT USE IT AT HOME AS ITS TO NOISY AND I LIKE HAVING THE ABILITY TO HEAR TOO MUCH TO TURN IT UP TO GET OVER THE HUM.

MUSIC LINK IN AUST ARE SOMEWHAT HELPFULL. I GET A FEELING THEY WANT PEOPLE TO USE THIS PRODUCT SO MUCH, THEY WANT ME TO TAKE MY RIG TO THEM SO THEY CAN FIX THIS PROBLEM AND ILL KEEP IT IN THE RACK.
I DONT HAVE TIME TO DRIVE AROUND MELBOURNE SO THEY CAN TRY TO FIX THEIR PROBLEM.
IF THEY WANT TO HELP OR RESTORE MY FAITH IN THIS PRODUCT ALOT MORE WILL HAVE TO BE DONE.

I WILL NEVER SPEND ANOTHER CENT ON ANY PRODUCT MADE BY LINE6 PERIOD.

IF ANYONE FROM LINE6 OR MUSIC LINK READS THIS, I URGE YOU TO CONTACT ME IF YOU GIVE A SHIT.

I COME INTO CONTACT WITH ALOT OF GUITAR PLAYERS AND MY RESPONSE TO ANYONE WHO ENQUIRES ABOUT THIS SHIT IS NEGATIVE.

WE, AS CUSTOMERS, ARE SUPPORTING YOUR COMPANY (AND LIFESTYLE) BY BUYING YOUR GEAR (THAT IS NOT CHEAP BY THE WAY). THE LEAST YOU GREEDY F*****S CAN DO IS SHOW SIGNS OF CUSTOMER SUPPORT.