Line 6 FM4 Filter Modeler

basic, simple as anything...tweak your knobs andd get it on!!! memory is a lil low itd be nice to have a tad more but whateeeeever

not a very noisy pedal for me...all the presets are pretty decent.. the synth sounds dont track well though but still try it out if your into this kinda stuff

built like a brick shit house.. id gig with it in kosove with no backup

never delt with them

i like this pedal but after a month it lost its novelty and i ended up only using 3 of the pre sets and 2 of them were the mutron settings.. pretty spendy for just those 3 considering a min q tron is 110$ not that the pedal is bad.. its good dont get me wrong, it just lost it for me..go try it anyways!

It's fairly easy to use. But it does take some time to get to know the knobs and what they do. The manual is great but you need to refer to it frequently.

OK my setup is as follows . . . American Strat (with humbuckers and other heavy mods) running to Ernie Ball Volume > Boss TU-12 > Fulltone Fulldrive 2 > FM4 (w/EX1) > MXR Dynacomp > MM4 (w/EX1> DL4 > Alesis Midiverb 4 (effects loop of . . ) Marshall JCM 900 50 watt head and 2x12 cab.

Sound Quality? . . . hmm? Well I think that you can get some things that are really cool and really interesting. Some can be down right useful depending on what kindof guitarist you are and what kindof band you play with. The guys I play with welcome that experimentation. The thing that I discovered was that the non-filter effects (in other words the ones that don't require only one note to be played) worked best when mixed subtle and/or mixed with some delays to just really create something specific that's a staple sound for a whole song or for something oogy for a dark intro or something. And then the other thing I discovered was that if you stick a compressor post FM4 you get control of the Synth/Filter effects that can tend to be wild. It totally tames them and makes them usable. Simple.

Now don't expect this thing to just make you sound better. It's a tool. A song writing or experimentation tool. It's for weirdness or that little something different from what other are doing.

So far more reliable than my other Line 6 pedals which all seem to have switch problems that are just annoying but not debilitating.

Try one out and if you think you can come up with a few ways to enhance your bands already weird sounds and you've got some extra cash go for it.

You twist knobs and step on buttons...enough said.

First off, my rig consists of Fender strat->Boss TU-2 Chromatic Tuner->Vintage MXR 10 Band Equalizer->Boss PH-3 Phase Shifter->Vintage DOD FX-17 Wah-Volume->Danelectro DJ12 Chili Dog Octave->Vox V847 Wah->Vintage MXR Phase 90->Line 6 FM4 Filter Modeler->Line 6 DL4 Delay Modeler->Danelectro Daddy O Overdrive-> Boss HF-2 Hi Band Flanger. I'm big into wacked out effects so i am in love with this pedal. I have the Growler, Obi-Wah, Tron Up and Throbber (set very fast to get almost a "helicopter" type sound) preset on the pedal...4 of my faves. i also like the Synth-O-Matic. It has like 10 different synth sounds that are nuts. the tron up is very excellent for funk songs which i play a lot of. if you sit down with this pedal for like a day you could find all sorts of crazy sounds. after sitting and playing with it for about 30 minutes i found this great sound: make sure your guitar is turned all the way down. select the Octisynth and crank the Speed and Mode dial all the way down. then slowly turn the Mode dial up until you hear a slightly high note. now move the Mode dial up and down. you get a kind of step effect of all kinds of notes. i'm currently working out a solo with it, it's a very Tom Morello-ish sound. now turn the Mode dial up to 11 or 12 o'clock. then play with the speed dial, cranking it up very slowly. that'll give you a real whacked out sound that reminds you of something from a cartoon.

Line 6, need i say more?

Dealt with 'em once for my DL4 and they were great.

Works great for my style. the possibilities are endless, just play with it and see what you come up with.

The presets it has are pretty good, but with a bit of time tweaking a fiddling, it's possible to get some really good sounds out of it that make you sound like nothing else...it's got the potential to make either everything you do sound cool, or to get you thrown out of your band...

I've never used the manual, but that probably just means I'm not getting all there is to get out of the thing.

Some sounds on it aren't really useful at all...such as the parked wah one...to be honest, it's difficult to make out any clear difference in your normal guitar sound, but perhaps that's cos it's relatively tame compared to the others...

Of course, some effects are really tone altering, and that's what I bought it for. The Growler setting for some reason makes playing funk and metal (a la RHCP) more fun, and if it's used properly, it can be good...

I'm using this with a Fender Strat, a Carlsboro (a classic British make for all you yanks) 200 watt amp, a morley wah pedal, a Boss DS-1 and a Digitech delay pedal, and it's not causing any problems...the true bypass system is really good cos it doesn't affect any of the signal from my other pedals.

It's hard to get sounds of other artists, but anyone who likes Radiohead can find a decent Mutron sound (like Johnny Greenwood's solo on Paranoid Android) with a couple of minutes tweaking.

This is built like something built very well. It's impossible to break it, and in my band, it's almost becoming compulsory to have massive enthusiasm for jumping on pedals, and this one is a pleasure to jump all over.

I would use it for gigs without backup as it doesn't need one...plus, they are fairly expensive for a 17 year old to afford a backup anyway.

never dealt with the company

I play mainly alternative stuff with my band, but this suits everything in some way...mind you, I can see that it wouldn't fit into every band situation, and it's miles easier to use in a band if there are two guitarists. This is because while one guitar can sound conventional, with just a bit of overdrive or something, then you can create sweeping textures, harsh jabs and all sorts of atmospheres with this thing.

They could've explained some things better in the manual. Things like what they mean by "the width of the filter?" It just seems like another Mix nob or gain for each filter. And for some effects the FREQ nob is the position of parked wah (to my ears), though in the manual they call it "the frequency of the filter." Anyways, you will spend lots of time with this pedal and will check back with the manual once in a while. After spending hours with it the first day I got it, I could hear its Oberheim emulation effect in my head while I was peeing.

It's got 16 effects to choose from. I'm going to tell you what I think of each one.

Tron Up and Tron Down

They both remind me of the 70's. Tron down sounds like space lasers. I think Tron up's more popular. It can sound like a cat cry or a bubble about to pop. They do a good job of being auto-wahs and sounding vintage.

Seeker and the Obi-Wah

I put these together because they both sound alike. It's a cool sound. I think Styx used the Oberheim VCF at the very end of "Mr. Roboto." So check that out if you want to hear an example of how these sound. You can change the frequency patterns around on the Seeker, though very subtle differences. I don't think anyone will get away with using these on a bunch of different songs.

Voice Box and V-Tron

I think these two are the worst out of the effects. If you're looking to get this pedal for the voice boxes, just get the real thing. These are more like 2 parked wahs you can sequence. I've been trying to like these effects to no avail. The voice box can make a wah'd out tremolo or phaser if anyone cares for that.

Throbber

I like Throbber. It's a spacey tremolo with 4 different wave forms. You can make a science fiction sound of electricity climbing between 2 prongs or the sound you hear when Ms. Pac-man eats a super pellet.

Spin Cycle

It's an auto-wah that speeds up the harder your pick and slows down when your sound fades off. In stereo, one wah goes up while the other goes down. I haven't found it too inspiring.

Comet Trails

This effect's trippy. Makes me think of a space ship's alarm system going off.

Slow Filter

This reminds me of Van Halen's 1984. The synth stuff at the beginning, where the notes rise up like bubbles from the depths. It's kind of like the Tron Up/Down, except you can slow it down.

Octisynth

People have fun with this one. It can kind of sound like someone adjusting a bad radio or someone warbling sheet metal. It also has this vibrato you can turn on to sound like sirens or funky wind shield wipers. It is a good fun noise maker.

Synth-O-Matic

It's 8 synths in one setting. This setting's one of my favorites. You can do an old organ sound or sound like you're playing songs through the 8-bit Nintendo. You can only do one note at a time, but if you do more, you can make some pretty sick sounds. The synth at 10 O'clock (on the nob) can make good wet fart noises and frying egg sounds if you hit more than one note.

Attack Synth

This synth sounds pretty evil. Hear a bunch of demons burning to death if you strum all the strings at once.

Synth String

A powerful synth sound. Sounds like the one used on Rush's "Subdivisions." Pity this effect doesn't understand more than 1 note. This might have been the one some people were warning about breaking speakers. It shakes my windows and pictures on the walls.

Growler

I like scaring the cats with this one. It reminds me of some sound effects I heard off of that old show "In Search Of..." Cool sound.

Q Filter

Ooo fun "your very own parked wah!" I guess you'll like this if you want to hear what a guitar sounds like while there's water stuck in your ears. Quite boring.

Most of the effects it comes with are very inspiring. Could be better/could be worse. Wish they took off the Voice Box, V-Tron,Q Filter, and trade them for something else like a some settings from the Electro Harmonix Frequency Analyzer or Microsynth. Still a lot of fun to experiment and play with.

I basically took one effect at a time, and tweaked my brains out. After an hour and a half- I had 4 kick ass sounds that were completely useable for grooves and solos.

Any pedal with true bypass and rich effects gets a 10 in my book. I play either of my PRS McCarty's or my Ernie Ball Axis through my Mesa Boogie Rectoverb, a Mesa Mark IIC+, a Mesa Mark IIA or my '55 Fender Princeton...I'll be damned if a $200 pedal wrecks thousands of dollars in tone.

The pedal is quiet, and the sounds are inspirational. When this pedal first came out, I didm't know what to think. After hearing The Beautiful Creatures, Sevendust, Nuno Bettencourt, and George Lynch use this, (along with just about every song on the local pop station)- I had to have it. Check out Lynch's new tune "Bleed" with Jeff Pilson (mp3.com) and pretty much most of the Beautiful Creatures CD, as well as Animosity by Sevendust.

I've owned and experienced other Line 6 products, and what is nice is the fact that are easy to deal with and stand behind their products. Let's face it, every once in a while something may fail- but Line 6 is a company I feel comfortable risking that failure with. :)

Once again, a great company. Please see above.

I write and play a funky style of Hard Rock, and this pedal is simply the perfect match. Thank you Line 6!

Pretty easy to use, didnt really have any problems. The manual is long, but you only need to skim over it to get the right idea. Experimation is the key to getting a sound. Personally speaking I dont think 4 presets are enough, as I have loads of little parts in songs where I'd like to switch to one of the sounds.

My setup:
A Les Paul, Mesa Boogie 50watt 1*12, plus an assortment of other pedals including the Line6 Delay modeller (which when combined with this and an expression pedal, can make some awesome noises)

Some of the sounds can be a bit wild and unpredicatble, but thats what I like about it. Particularly the synths which can get pretty dirty soundy. The seeker sound is gorgeous, although again this can be hard to control partiuclarly if you are playing to a click rhythm and want the sound to "seek" at just the right times. If I had my way again, I would save up a little more for the pro version, which has MIDI control on it.

Seems pretty sturdy. I gig it regularly without a backup.

N/A had no dealings

a top noise making buy, although if your serious about this sort of stuff, I'd have a look at the pro version.

Line six comes up with another wonderful effect pedal, but if you buy it somewhere(pawnshop, friend) and do not get the manual your screwed. Every time you select a different filter the knobs take on different meaning. So as long as you get the manual your ok. But you can get a good sound out of straight out of the box, just play with it.

My setup is an ESP LTD Viper301 or Epiphone Casino into this FM4 Filter Modeler into a Rocktek Chourus into a Smallstone Phaser then into a Marshall 80Watt Solid State 1x12 combo. Adding this pedal to your chain will cause you absolutely ZERO noise difference. You cannot tell if this unit is in your chain or not, as far as noise goes. This pedal is awesome for getting weird out of this world sounds, or just your plain old synth sounds. You wont go wrong getting this little wonder from Line6.

My best friend weighs in at close to 400lbs. He stood on this unit while i was playing and nothing changed. Also know another guy who's exwife threw his out of a 2 story apartment window(along with all of his other gear)onto pavement and after gathering his belongings, the only the that still worked was his Line6 Filter Modeler and an EH Big Muff Pi. I would and have gigged with this pedal without a backup.

never had to deal with them yet

Im in a metal band, not NU-metal, just metal, and we have close to 40 songs written. Some of the lighter songs we do I add keyboard sounds and other pops and cracks from this pedal. Ive been playing 12yrs and never fooled with another pedal like this youll love it. If it were lost or stolen I would Have to replace it. Looked into other filter modelers and only one sound was available for about 100bucks, this one you get 15sounds for 200bucks, you do the math. This pedal has added a new dimension to about 15 of our songs, love it, if i forget to take it to a practice we quit long enough so i can run and get it, the other guys wont have it any other way.

giving it an 8 be cause with out the manual you really can't get all the settings. with this said it is very easy to program, and it's not hard to get a good sound ot of it

I have a simple setup. which is the reason I returned this pedal. I run a schecter c-1 with a classic 57 in the bridge run into a jcm 900 4100 with a 1960's a cab.
here's the downlow the effects sound great my taste was for the filters the synths were cool but I'm not into industrial sounds so I found them useless. I still give it a 10 because all the sounds were great and didn't break up. I did givethe pedal a chance a kept almost for a month, but with my sound I just found no use.

all the sounds sound even better with them stereo out.

you could break someones skull with it

great pedal sounds wonderful but I find no use for my sound

It seems like Line 6 put a lot of effort making this pedal as simple as possible by using all simple and familiar analog knobs and push buttons. Unfortunately, I don't think this particular effect modeler lends itself too well to this kind of interface. It's fine for the other pedals in this line where each dial tends to do the same thing for each setting, but on the Filter Modeler the modes of each dial can change so much from effect to effect, it's quite difficult to know exactly what to adjust without having the manual on hand. I think this effect would actually benefit from some level of digital display integrated with the dials to indicate functions and default settings.

All that said, it's not all that bad compared to other effects with as many functions. Also, the manual is quite good, so keep it with you.

The only other thing to keep in mind is that many of the effects on the FM4 will force you to focus on details of your note execution and playing style to get good sounds. If you've used other filter effects, octavers, guitar synths or the like, you'll already be familiar with tracking issues. Most of the crazier effects the FM4 supplies can be fairly finicky about note articulation (though no more so than the effects they model, if not less). So, you'll need to keep that in mind.

Nothing beats the pure tone of a great guitar plugged straight into a killer tube amp, but... on top of that, effects are cool, I love 'em, and I use a lot. My normal live setup now is either a Les Paul or Guild Aviator plugged into this chain,

Line 6 FM4 -> FoxRox Captain Coconut (fuzzface / univibe / octavia mix) -> Rack Tube Driver -> Wha Wha -> Ibanez FL9 flanger -> Volume Pedal -> Boss Analog Delay -> Ibanez Digital Delay -> Carr Slant 6V Tube Amp... then the signal lines out of the power stage of the amp, through a Hush pedal, and into a Digital Echoplex. That feeds into the PA.

Ok, that sounds like a lot of stuff, but most is direct bypass, and I rarely use more than two effects at any given time.

The sounds on the FM4 are fantastic. This is not a mild effect box. This is an over the top, psychedelic sound machine. Line 6 really has the vintage modeled effects down, and the original effects they came up with are slick too. The presets are lots of fun, but the possibilities are virtually limitless once you start tweaking them. Add an expression pedal, and you have even more to work with. One of the things I like the most about the FM4 is how clean the output is. You get all the effects with none of the noise. Can't beat that.

If your looking for that out there, crazy sound, the FM4 is a must have!

I've only had it a short time, but it's buit like a tank.

Never needed it.

I absolutely love the FM4. I play original rock music that takes influences from funk, progressive, blues, and jazz. I like being able to pull off everything from subtle tone variations to off the wall sound effects. The FM4 can do all that, especially the latter. This pedal is definitely a keeper, and I'd replace it in an instant. I don't know any other pedal that can do so much, so well, at this price point.

That said, I can certainly suggest some improvements. First are alterations to the parameter editing interface I mentioned in the Ease of Use section. Second, 4 user settings are far to few! I'd like to see 4 user settings for each modeled effect, with a way to step through the effects. With 16 modeled effects, that would offer the possibility of 64 user settings. Add the expression pedal and that doubles to 128. Now that would be lots of flexibility. Finally, if that level of control were available, add midi so the unit could be driven by an midi foot controller.