Line 6 ToneCore Verbzilla

Pretty straight forward

All knobs do something noticable and expected.

Ok, I dig Lexicon reverb. Two of my favorite players use Lexicon.
Steve Kimock uses an LXP1 and Bill Frisell uses an MPX100. They both have a similar quality that stands out from your typical verb.

I happen to own the MPX100 and it does what I would expect. Problem is, it doesn't play well with others, it gets buzzy around gear sometimes, and it's a rackmount unit and I don't do rackmount.

So I've been on a search for anything that sounds similar, nothing.
I tried the Digiverb and it's a good pedal, just doesn't do the Lexicon thing. And so many floor pedals seem to emulate the spring reverb as the highlight. I dig spring but I have it on my amp.

When Verbzilla came out, I had my reservations. I own the PODxtLive
and owned the AXsys 212, The POD is awesome but I have to say the verbs are nice but nothing special.
Like I do with all new reverbs I hunt for the posibility of it nailing the Lexicon. My first stop was the Hall model and it hit me right away, with a few tweaks I had the closest Lexicon tone I ever found.
The Hall is the only model that does this, the other models take me somewhere else.

I don't really like the octave thing, too fractured, not creamy.
The spring is very good.

The Hall is why I would use this pedal. Excellent.
I'll leave the Lexicon at home.

No probs yet

Never have had a problem with Line6

Hey, they made it didn't they?

That supported me :)

Until they don't, it's 10

Verbzilla is the best floor verb I've found. Why? Because it sounds very close to the Lexicon verb that I love. That is why I would have it on my floorboard. Real estate is limited on the board
and there is already a backup of pedals that don't make it.
But the Verbzilla has the honor of being the last in the chain on my board.

Not to hard to grasp how to work it, just dialing in a good sound may take awhile. Not too bad overall though.

First off, this pedal is bypassed when the trails switch is off. However, turn the trails switch on, and wave goodbye to your tone. My pedal, I don't know if this goes for all of them, actually causes quite a dramatic volume increase, and adds so much bass, it's about the same as diming the bass on my amp, and rolling off highs. Fortunately, it isn't as bad on all settings, but it's definitely noticeable. For this alone I give it a 7

Moving on to the actual sounds of the reverb, they're amazing. I use cave the most, simply because it does the retarded amount of reverb thing amazing, which suits my post-rock playing quite well. The hall and plate are also of honorable mention. The two springs emulate decently, but my amp spring is a lot better, to me at least. The octo setting is cool to mess around with for volume swells and such, but I can't find much use for it other than messing around in a jam.

The casing is built pretty solid, but the knobs do seem a bit flimsy. Just be careful

I've never dealt with them.

Overall, it isn't a terribly bad pedal. It definitely has some solid reverb sounds, but it's just the bass boost that frustrates me, although no one can really hear it live, I can. Don't let this shy you away from the pedal though, like I said, amazing reverb sounds. It does over the top reverb sounds pretty well, ala Sigur Ros, Mogwai, Explosions in the Sky.

Basically, if you want good, over the top reverb, this is a go to pedal.
If you want clean, studio reverbs, go for a Hardwire RV-7.
If you want a solid spring, go for that Danelectro Spring King.

Easy to find interesting sounds. There's non need for the manual. Despite the huge qantity of settings and nuances this pedal is very easy to use.

It's a digital reverb. If you need versatility, a great number of different settings (and all of them sound good and are usefull for a large variety of applications) you are encouraged to choose this pedal.
I have to say that this pedal sounds better than any reverb you can find in amps produced today (even the spring ones), and better than other digital pedals. Including those priced 300 euros or more.
T-Rex Room Mate for instance doesn't sound any better than this. I tried it lots of times. It's a nice pedal with a tube. They say the tube makes the sound warmer. But to my ears Verbzilla sounds better.
If you prefer analog stuff, you may choose an external unit or other stuff like Little Lanilei and VanAmps Reverbmate.
But.
Such stuff is much more expensive and doesn't sound "better". It's a different kind of reverb, a surf guitarist will obviously choose a spring unit. But that stuff is priced nearly 1000 euros, is very difficult to carry out, and has only one setting so it will not emulate Hall or Cave reverbs.
One may say that digital reverbs are cold. I say, if you speak about Boss Reverb you are right. Verbzilla is much more natural, very dynamic and will not change the sound of your guitar. And is completely quiet.
Other pedals like Holy Grail are very very noisy.
So.
If you choose this you'll have versatility and quality (good quality).
If you choose analog stuff you'll only have quality. Think about that.

Very well built. That's it.

Never needed.

As I said above, I think that this pedal could even be useful for those guys who already have a reverb in their amps.
Taht's because a simple spring reverb has a very restricted range of applications while this can be used as a sort of delay (echo function) and as a modulator (octo). It even works perfectly with other pedals.
In my opinion is the best choice one can make.
I looked for the right pedal for months, tried every possibility, even to buy a hand made spring reverb built by a friend perfectly working and priced less than this. But my conclusion was that if I buy a spring reverb I will always need even this! Instead, this pedal can even replace the spring one.

Despite the 5 knobs and the 11 selectable reverb settings the pedal is not difficult to use. Obviously, you need to spend some time to learn what are you favourite sounds, but all of them are nice and can be used in any context. I didn't need the user's manual to find some nice settings in a reasonable time.

Ok, that's the main question: "How does it sound?". Very very nice. I don't hear differencies with the analog ones. I find it much more deep and brilliant than those included in Fender amps for istance.
It's not noisy at all. Absolutely. And that's important to me.
It's a digital effect, that means two things:

1- somebody says digital reverbs are not able to emulate perfectly vintage spring reverb units. I don't think so. If you compare a spring reverb with a Holy Grail I agree with this opinion, but this pedal is based on some new algorthms that work much better.
I agree that a surf rock player prefers to have an analog reverb.
But the cost is different (a vintage reverb unit has a price that sometimes reaches 1000 dollars!!). Then, this is a pedal and not something whoose dimensions are similiar to a guitar head.
Finally, I know a lot of players who use this effect to "help" the reverb in their amps. So if you want a warm vintage sound you may prefer a vintage spring reverb, but this sounds clear too. And better than a lot of reverbs you may find in a tube amp.

2- you have 11 reverb settings and a very very very cristal clear sound. Analog doesn't allow that. Think abot it.

It works as a delay echo and can create some interesting modulations (the "octo" model). Works very good with other pedals.

Very strong and well built.

Never needed.

If you need a reverb don't hesitate, this is the best reverb pedal for sound and versatility. Works better than other digital reverbs (even those priced 350 euros like T-Rex, just to mention one). Sounds more clean and has more settings than analog ones.

Relatively straightforward for the reverb lackey, or anyone wanting to dabble in lengthy ambient reverbs.

The reverbs sound absolutely lovely, perfect for ambient, postrock/postmetal, or anything of that ilk, possibly some CTTS-esque screamo moments. Compared to most non rack reverbs on the market, it provides the best sounding and longest reverbs. The somewhat hyped Octo preset, however, is not as good as anticipated, and is probably the reverb I use least apart from the Room setting. Even without the Tonecore power supply, it is still pretty noiseless. Sometimes it can get a bit hissy, though.

Looks like plastic, then you pick it up, and it's rather ******* heavy. Built like a tank, could drop it and it would still work nicely. However, if you swap in other Tonecore modules like I do, the modules themselves are pure plastic, and I am scared to leave them anywhere, for fears they will fall off of a bench or get stomped on.

Shocking, from what I've heard. Haven't needed to deal with them thusfar, though.

Here's the obligatory "I play..." section:

I play (or rather, listen to and dabble in) ambient, postrock, stuff like that, **** you find on www.afterthepostrock.com , but definItely NOT INTO GOD DAMNED SURFER ROCK, and I DID NOT buy this pedal to COMPENSATE FOR MY AMP'S LACK OF SPRING REVERB. For things like that, this pedal is probably the best you can get without lugging around a heavy rackmounted unit. For the postrock lackey, this will make you feel cool plugged into your 5w practice Peavy amp, just remember your rosin; and if you use it live at a local show, people will be flabbergasted like they've never heard reverb before in their lives. "YOU HAVE MOVED ME BEYOND TEARS INTO A NEW REALM OF SPACIOUS MUSIC OUTSIDE OF FERGIE"

If you're trying to get into your local alternative crowd, this pedal, coupled with volume swells, tight jeans and lots of colourful chords (ie absolutely murder 9ths, 6ths and 7ths), this will provide you passage into the groin of a scenester female (or male, if you so prefer).

I'm mostly using small valve amps of 5W or less (fender, laney & crate) with my 6 string Rick, Strat 12 and Fender Baritone/Bass VI, most of these small amps don't have room for a spring tank ( or a spring or a digital reverb effect falls outside their target price) so I was mostly interested in the spring reverb modeling, took a little time to get the right sounds out of it tweaking mix, decay & time to get it "just right".... and I must say it does a damn good job, the only thing I miss is not being able to "gently kick" the amp (well the pedal) to get spring crash which was a "necessary" part of some of the surf punk tunes we play (hmm line 6 maybe you need to put a "kick pad" on the front of the case to emulate this)

other effects seem good, used it through a digital piano a few times but nothing serious enough to critique the sound or how difficult it is to tweak.

as above - for the sounds I got it for (spring reverb emulation) it was great.... the others well they sound great but can't comment as their not in my field of knowledge - they sound good but not sure how good compared to "the real thing"

umm... they look tough, they weigh in at, like, 4 times the weight of a similarly sized Boss pedal... but given the complexity of the electronics (essentially they are little dedicated computers in a stomp box) I'd be a bit suspect about treating them as mean as you can treat a Boss pedal.... no opinion as I've never gigged with them only jams and parties.

the local distributer is actually quite good, but I've never had any line 6 gear die on me so ... buh! no idea.

yadda yadda yadda... wish I'd save this from other reviews...
playing bass, guitar (6&12), baritone guitar, keyboards since mid 1980's pretty much everything: hard rock, heavy metal, death metal, hardcore, punk surf, pop, prog, stoner rock , grunge, old school (muscle souls style) R&B 'n R&R et. al.

if lost/stolen? yeh sure I'd buy another one, or try find a real spring tub, only stomp box size reverb pedal that give a good emulation of the real thing.

Only thing I'd like is a "kick plate/pad" added to it some where (or even a plug for a external SPDT/SPST switch box) so you could emulate the sound of kicking a real spring coil tub - which is pretty much a must have sound in surf punk which is what I'm currently playing - instead I have an old "noisy as" A/B pedal that spikes when you stomp it.. it's an OK bodge but not the real deal.

bit expensive given I only use it for the two spring sounds, guess if I needed/wanted the other sounds I'd feel I was getting better value out of it

Also you really need to get an external power adaptor 'cause it chews up even good brands of 9V battery in only 2 or 3 hours - less than a jam session or playing at a party for me.

Cool pedal. I've been wanting some sort of outboard verb pedal for ages to produce a nice surf sound. I've tried several and none really did it for me. Since this thing models a '63 Fender Spring, I just had to get one.

There are more controls here than many will be used to. Heck, most of our amps just have a 'Reverb' knob. What do we know from Time and Decay?

These controls are critical for changing the behavior of this monster (hey L6 put 'Zilla' in the name, not me) for various models.

For example, to get a nice drippy, surf tone, I've found that minimum delay time and about 40% decay work best. For some of the more standard halls and rooms, a longer delay with decay to taste works better.

The tone control is an oft overlooked gem. I really like it pegged for surf and backed way off for other sounds.

There is a bit of a learning curve for we luddites used to a single knob, but the examples in the manual give us a place to start.

I have to admit that I had to play with it for an hour or so to get much that really excited me.

As you might have guessed, I play a lot of surf. So I tend to use Strats and the like. I've also played a DiPinto into the Zilla with good to excellent results.

The pedal is very quiet. I'm not able to detect any added noise.

There are a bunch of really useful sounds here. Not surprisingly, I really like the '63 Reverb sound (more on that later), but the halls and rooms are also quite nice. The Echo sound has enough delay to get into slapback range and actually gives you a nice Sun sound.

The much talked about Octo setting is really fun. It creates a very synthy, pad sort of sound. Your playing has to suit it's use and I'm not sure it's a sound I would ever fall totally in love with, but it's loads of fun to play with.

One thing is critical to getting good sound out of this device. Placement. The '63 Reverb sounds awesome in front of an amp. Pretty much everything else works far better in an effects loop. If you set up a 'Cave' reverb in front of your Marshall stack, you're just going to get a muddy mess. Be advised. This isn't a fault of the pedal. It's acoustics. Place this thing where it belongs in the chain.

As mentioned, the '63 Reverb is the real attraction to me. It's good. Very good. Not perfect, but very good. Closer than any other modeler that I've tried with the exception of the '63 Reverb model on the Cyber Twin. Not really a fair comparison. You'd expect Fender to be better at modeling a Fender device.

However, it's not perfect. I can't get as intense of a reverb as I'd like. It just doesn't give quite the hollow, drippy sound that I'm after. Close enough for me to be happy, but I could use a little more.

Seems well built. I like the idea of the replaceable modules.

I don't really expect to need much support for this. If it breaks, I'll just return it to Musicians Friend. If it's out of warranty, I doubt it's worth paying to have fixed. I've been pretty disappointed with L6s support over the years.

I'm very pleased with this device. Over the past 25 years of playing, at one time or another, I've tried it all and this is the best reverb pedal I've come across. Holy Grails are great. RV3s are very good. I'm sure the list goes on, but I really like this thing.

As for the reviewers that think it's digital sounding -- well, I don't hear it. I'm not going to argue with you, but I've got lots of experience with lots of gear in lots of situations and I just don't hear it. I think some have said things like it 'sucks' tone. Whatever. I appreciate your comments and respect your opinions, but think you're missing the forest for the trees.

Straight forward, but who change all that settings ?

It??s good for a digital reverb. But it is still digital, and you can hear that. In front of the amp or in the effect loop: It will eat the best of your tone. If you allready have digital stuff in your signal path you shouldn't care, then you have nothing to loose.

I waited 1 month, and it was not worth it.

I send it back and keep my 80??analog Dynacord and Pearl delay/reverb.

Ease to use, typical knobs for a reverb pedal.
The manual is very clear too.

It's the best reverb pedal I've ever tried. Of course I haven't tried the T-Rex Room Mate or the TC Electronic NR-1 and other boutique pedals that are a lot more expensive but for it's price it's a very good value. Better than the Holy Grail and the Boss RV-5 imo.

The 63 Spring mode is just as close as it can get to a real spring reverb. The Cave is also one of my favourites and the Octo which is simply awesome. I can spend hours with it! The trails switch is nice as you can hear how the reverb fades out when you turn the pedal off.

Mi signal chain is:
Epiphone Riviera (Gibson 57 Classic PAF's,electronics upgraded) -> Analogman Juicer -> Dunlop Wah -> Analogman TS9 tubescreamer -> Boss DD-3 -> Providence Anadime Chorus 2 -> Line 6 Verbzilla -> Orange Rocker 30.

It's a really quiet pedal and although it's not true bypass I haven't noticed any tone suck. Boss pedals are worst.

It's built like a tank but it's made in China so you never know what will happen tommorrow. I don't like the skinny knobs at all, they don't seem very reliable but we'll see.

It's my first Line 6 pedal so I don't know much about the quality standards of these pedals. I haven't had a problem with it yet.

I never dealt with them yet.

Great value for the money. Maybe the best non-boutique reverb pedal out there.
I play mainly rock, brit rock and indie and this pedal fits my style perfectly. Doesn't colour the tone and has a lot of useful settings.
I love my Orange but I missed a good reverb and know I'm fully satisfied.

I skipped the manual. There are quite a few knobs on this pedal, but they are all pretty self explanetory. I plugged it in, picked a verb type, put the mix at 11 o'clock, and there it was. No problem getting good verb here. The only problem is seeing what your set on. The knobs are small and hard to read on stage.

The sound quality is top notch. You'll have many options on what type of verb you want. I think almost all of them are great. I'm running it on a pedalboard with a Keeley BD-2 and a Keeley SD-1 through an old Carvin tube amp. I just stick with the regular verbs, but there are some interesting ones on here. The octive and echo setting are cool, but not the most practical. However, if you play with effects mixed heavily, you'll have more use for these sounds than I do.

I've been gigging with it for 3 weeks now. No problems yet. Even though it's a big, heavy duty pedal, the actual on switch that you step on seems cheap and kinda wiggles around. Also the knobs are small and plastic. They too move around and aren't very durable feeling. With normal use, I don't expect any problems from this. I definatly don't carry a backup, but it's just a verb pedal. It could explode and i'll still make it through the night.

I am 31 years old. I play country, reggae, jam, rock, acoustic and blues. Pretty much all of it. I've been playing proffesionaly and full time for over 12 years. I've used rack systems and pedal boards. This pedal sounds as good as most reverbs out there. It works on all styles. If it were stolen, I would but this pedal again. Not just cause it's a great verb, but the price is way, way less that anything that is better. Like I said earlier, parts of it seem cheap, and I wish the knobs were easier to see. One quick tip: Keep the "trails" swich on. That way the wound doesn't cut off dead when you turn it off. Cool feature. All in all....great pedal.