Line 6 ToneCore Dr. Distorto

Very easy to use, but it pays to work out how you're going to set the rise and fall part of the feedbacker.
Excellent sound - currently my favourite over a Rat
Manual brief but says it all

Excellent distortion sound, great for generating feedback at low volumes, and you can just use the feedbacker to feed in or out of another disto unit if you wish.
Using a Tele into a H+ K tube amp. Not at all noisy - has a noise gate, very quiet off both battery and a psu (but need to make sure PSU can deliver 100 mVa

The housing is built like a tank, the plastic module is a bit flimsier, used with a PSU I'd trust it.
However my model had a short somewhere in the battery supply as it drained batteries in 4 minutes from new... am awaiting Line6 support response.

Waiting to hear from Line6, who promise to reply within 48 hours - as this unit is unusable when battery powered, if they don't replace it then I'd be worried.

Great for Who, Oasis sounds, blues, indie and punk. Very clear when playing chords.
Playing 20+ years, have a Rat (very good) and a Danelectro cheap ?15 fuzzbox (flimsy but nice 70s sound)
If lost/stolen I'd replace, as long as Line 6 support comes up trumps.
It's VERY heavy - two of these in my guitar case and the weight is doubled! All that metal is great, but the module is a bit plasticy - but you can swap modules very easily - sometimes swap it over for a tap tremolo - slightly strange hex key size (probably an American size)
Extremely easy to get a good sound out of this - a slightly limited range of sounds but those it has are very good and I'd rahte have 5 good settings than 20 crap ones. Bought it second hand - probably wouldn't have paid that new without trying it extensively.

It's a distortion pedal. Manual had a couple of useful settings just to see what it could.

I'm running this pedal only for the feedbacker/sustainer and I must admit I am really impressed with what this can do. As far as I was concerned I had 3 options, Fit a fernandes sustainer? Thing is only one guitar would receive the treatment. Second, which guitar would I choose, My les Paul? Hack holes in it and lose my P-90 neck pickup, no thanks. My strat and lose my vintage rails tone in the neck, nah. Third, its expensive. So an e-bow, something I'd probably lose or the dr Distorto was left.

Currently I'm running guitar - Whammy - Dr Distorto - Bad Horsie - PODxt - Flextone 3 XL effects loop.

Like I said I bought it for the feedbacker sustainer and am inpressed with what it can do. Mostly I've played with the pedal off and at the end of that solo engage it to get perfect sustain or oct mode sustain, awesome!

Don't know about it as a distortion pedal cause

time will tell.

the only issue I've had with line 6 was when i bought my first line 6 amp. My flex 3 (stnadard one) arrived plugged it in when i got home and there was a hell of a lot of rattling. Took it back to the shop who packed it up sent it back and I had a brand new one in 2 days.

Great.

A great piece of gear that I plan to use sparingly.

Easy to use. 6 dials, 2 switches. All the knobs do exactly what they say.

The primary reason I purchased this pedal was for low volume, bedroom use. I have used this pedal with two setups and it is two completely different worlds of sounds.

Setup 1: Gibson Les Paul Std. w/ Duncans into Orange Crush 15 watt amplifier. This was the main setup I purchased the pedal for, and with this it sounds great. At low volumes the distortion is thick and creamy, and the sustain sounds wonderful. Even when the volume gets fairly loud it still sounds pretty good through this little solid state amp. Everything I was hoping the pedal would do... it does.

However...

Setup 2: Gibson Les Paul Std. w/ Duncans or Fender American Stratocaster into Carvin V3 head(100 watt tube head) w/ matching cabinet. In this situation the pedal fall short of everything basically. Normally this amp has thick, ballsy yet rich distortion with glassy, shimmering cleans. I did not intend to use this pedal for distortion with this amp, but I was hoping to utilize the sustain/feedback effect for some interesting sounds. I tried using this pedal in both series and parallel effects loops and not once did it sound good. The pedal completely alters the tone of your amp, even when off. So therefore it must not be true bypass. I can't even describe how terrible this made such a magnificent amp sound, the tone became thin, and sterile. Keep in mind I had the drive turned all the way down on the pedal yet my distortion(tube distortion!) sounded like an electric saw. It was actually pretty ridiculous. It basically sounded like I was playing a cheap digital amp, and there was no way to correct it.

This pedal weighs about as much as I do. It is shockingly heavy, and I haven't had any problems thus far.

Line 6 customer service is very impersonal, and general. It is average I suppose.

If you plan on using this pedal with a small bedroom solid state or digital rig by all means give this pedal a shot, it can be pretty fun. Although I strongly suggest you steer clear if you are a serious musician, or like the tone of your tube amp even a little.

pretty simple. turn the knobs, flip the switches and go

ok, this is difficult. as others have said, the pedal's distortion sound isn't great. it makes my guitar sound thin, tonally. BUT I'm not using this pedal for the same purpose as all the other metal-heads out there. I make experimental music, and I'm interested in the feedback function. Turning it to its most extreme doesn't sound like feedback, but is pretty cool, if you're looking for crazy sounds. If you play a chord, it can't track the whole thing, so it jumps around from note to note, like some sort of guitar synth (but with a nice tone/sound). I've had a lot of fun with it, and will definitely use it a lot. However, if I was looking for a straightup distortion pedal I would be using something nice and analog, boutique. no reason to go digital!

seems very reliable

like I said, this pedal is not right for anyone, but if you're looking for a sound that no other pedal can do, it's pretty cool

As a pure distortion pedal, it is easy to use. But if that is what you want, the Uber Metal from Line 6 is far more versatile and even a little cheaper.

The sustain effect concept is hopeless. Two knobs, one that determines how long to wait until the sustain starts, and one for how long the sustain should last. Now, tell me: do you sustain a note exactly the same way, every time?

Didn't think so. The Boss super feedbacker sound was cheesy, but at least the stomp-and-hold concept was musically more spontaneous.

As a distortion, good. The tone is not a primitive top-cut, it really gives a variety of tones throughout its range, so for just one button, it's good.

But the sustain "BLEND" level only brings up the level of the sustain effect. The straight guitar is still there. The only way is to set the blend so high that it drowns out the straight guitar, but then the feedback is SO LOUD!

Very heavy, so it will probably damage other gear before it is damaged itself.

never needed

Not sure what style of music it would suit. Not spontaneous enough for rock/metal, tries to be too wild but needs a controlled environment. Probably OK for studio work if you know exactly when you need your sustain in the solo.

When I ordered it, I assumed it would implement the stomp-and-hold interface of the Boss super feedbacker. This would have freed up two knobs for other functions.

The BLEND knob positioning in the audio chain also needs to be rethought.

I returned mine.

You don't have to study rocket science to handle a distortion pedal, even with these added features!

First at all: I tried this little fella in the store in front of a slightly crunched Marshall DSL head plus Greenback box - and was totally taken by surprise: It sounds really, really great, lots of pinched harmonics, very punchy, great sustain and the noise gate gets the job done. At home with my Marshall Jubilee combo the result was the same: Great tone for harder rock music !!!

The Sustainer und feedback mode however are 100% crap, I compare the latter to my Boss Feedbacker pedal (great piece of equipment when put IN FRONT OF A SECOND DISTORTION PEDAL) and can tell your that it's completely unusable for the tone will die away with the slightest movement of your finger. The Sustainer is ridiculous, doesn't keep the tone either and adds sounds on it's own. Because of that I rate it "8" instead of "10".

So when looking for one of the best distortion pedals on the market, you should give Dr. Distorto a try.

Let time tell...

Never experienced a friendlier, more helpful tech support - they even tell about the disadvantages!!!

Great as a distortion pedal, crappy as feedbacker or sustainer.

Ease of use is okay - I mean the knobs are labeled. For the gigging musician trying to find those little slider switches on the Noise gate or sustain settings would be absolute horror unless you gig with a flashlight taped to your leg.

This is one of Line 6's brand new Tone Core series. Ease of Use won't really matter when you get to the Sound Quality part of my review..

I spent over an hour with this pedal using Les Pauls, an SG Classic with P-90's and a Fender USA Strat. Amps used were an Orange Rocker 30, a Marshall Bluesbreaker and a Rivera Chubster.

It is very very noisy especially with the Drive anywhere over the halfway mark. This pedal has to be one of the absolute worse sounding distortion pedals ever made. Ever. Think of razor blades on a chalkboard and if that's the sound you're looking for -then this is the pedal for you.

A stock off-the-shelf Boss DS-1 kicks this things ass all over the place -at least the DS-1 has some sweet spots. There are no sweet spots on this pedal. I cannot believe that any one person who worked on the research and development of this pedal could even remotely play guitar or they would not have released this for public consumption.

It should come with a warning label that says "Horrid Tone May Kill You". I have been playing for 40 years and gigging for 28. I have used one hell of alot of pedals over that time span and I cannot think of one pedal worse sounding than this one - in ANY genre of pedals - let alone distortion.

I even own the POD 2.0 and the big assed floorboard that runs it. There are many useable and cool voicings in this Line 6 product so I was amazed beyond belief that Line 6 would even put their name on something like this.

The sustain forever settings create a loud screaming siren like screech that is just god awful. This pedal is just horrid.

Don't know. Don't care. Taking it back to Guitar Center tomorrow.

Unknown.

Simply useless for any genre in my opinion.