Line 6 ToneCore Verbzilla

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.

Ok, mine is just a stock Line 6 Verbzilla. The manual was easy to use and understand but I like to toy with things so I don't really have much time for manuals, but I will say this, read about what all the knobs do before you go messing with it just so when you know what you are after you can find it. It is so easy to get any reverb sound you could possibly want out of this thing! I don't know how they do it. I bought it because I use a Fender Bassman, and (obviously) a Fender Bassman has no reverb, and i love reverb. I needed a quick fix and I saw this, and bought it with out hesitation. It has two inputs and outputs which is nice when you have a Fender Bassman because you can use both channels, which I like to do. Once you find out what all the different knobs do, it is fairly simple to use.

I like that basic background reverb, not too much but not so subtle you can barely notice it. I like it on all the time and with this pedal I have it. I thought that by putting it on the '63 spring it would give me that beautiful Fender reverb sound but it is'nt, it is very, very in your face on that setting so I put it on the spring reverb, put all the knobs to half and put the mix to 11 o'clock and voila! I have the reverb I want and I have'nt touched it since. I messed with it for a bit, and all the settings are very cool and very useful in there own way but this is the one I like. I don't really mess with it because it sits on top of my amp, and I just plug in the adapter and play, but when I did I found that the octo setting is very, very cool you can use it for some wierd trippy color to add to your solo or anything, it gives it this harmonic meets an organ with sustain effect, but like I said this is basically my reverb tank, so I don't really use it for the other effects. For what I wanted and what I got out of it I have to say I am beyond happy, I am extatic! Oh and by the way, NO NOISE at all! Not even the slightest hum or buzz which is nice seeing as how I run it all the time.

This thing is the heaviest pedal I have ever held, and I have a Radial Engineering Tonebone Classic Trimode which is also as a beast, but still does'nt weigh half as much as this little beauty. It is a tank, It has'nt failed me at all and I bet I could drop it off of a roof and it would still work. Seems like it is even better quality then Boss. Good job Line 6!

Like I said, it is a tank so I have'nt had to deal with them.

I play original modern hard rock and it suits me perfectly. I have been playing for 14 years and I have become quit acustomed to reverb over the years, so when I got my Bassman I was quite deppresed without my reverb so I went out and bought the first reverb unit I saw (stupid move I know but I was desperate) lucky for me it does more then I was looking for. Plus I live in a small town that only has one music store that rarely gets any good equipment in, once again lucky me. I did'nt really get a chance to compare to other reverb unit's except for the holy grail and the memory man (I know, it is'nt exactlty reverb) which are also very nice but produce way too much noise, espescially since I run it all the time. Like I said, I only wanted some really versatile spring reverb, so I don't really need all the other stuff but hey when I go into the studio who knows what I might use with this thing, and I am glad it has all of the options that it has so I can one day experiment. I play Gibson Les Pauls (Swamp Ash Studio, and a Double Cut Faded) and my precious Bassman through a Peavey 4x12 cab and our music is kind of like Breaking Benjamin meets Army of Anyone and I now have a great setup with the addition of this and my Tonebone. If it were lost or stolen I would buy one that very second I found out it was missing. The bottom line is this, anyone who owns an amp without reverb or just flat out hates the reverb that your amp has, give this a shot when you are shopping around it will shock and amaze you! It did for me. I love everything about it and hate nothing.

i agree with fool below me it is not easy to use at all but this goes with anything over 3 knobs and this thing has five and a switch. its got alotta of different sounds but i only found a few useable since i use the reverb on my amp. the manual is ehh. if someone messes with my settings it seems like i cant ever achieve the sound i once had. weird huh.

ok this thing sounds wonderfull to me love the ambient effect, like the music they play in a movie where angels emerge from a foggy background or something. I use the 'gate' or 'cave' setting dont know which since my pedal isnt here with me but it makes the sound im looking for when I bought it. I can use this thing in all my songs if I wanted but I only use it as a cool filler in a few, I give it a 10 because if compared to some of my other pedals then this thing always adds something nice no matter where in the pedal chain.

havent had a problem with it yet. but it seems sometimes that when I turn it on the settings have messed up in some way so I wish it had what those ibanez tonelock series pedals had where they save your settings that would be killer.

My Gear: American Telecaster with tex-mex pick ups -> Metal Muff, Boss DD3, Boss BD2, Boss DM3, VERBZILLA!, Boss BF3, ROcktron Tremelo pulse, EHX small clone, Korg DT10 tuner -> Fender HotRod Deville.

I listen to Interpol, Radiohead, Beatles, Nirvana. Been playing 12 years. If you'd like check out my band www.myspace.com/thepoisonchef I use the Verbzilla in the song 'calendars'

This pedal will always stay on my board I feel, it is a little funky looking, thats what I thought when I bought the 'ubermetal' (which I dont own anymore) but I love the height advatage these things have. no love for the skinny knobs though but havent had a problem with it. a bit heavy too for a pedal :( and I love the colour of the pedal as well. Like I said before too many knobs and options but I guess this means that im not familiar with it like I should be since im a lazy. but this pedal makes a sound that I love, no wait first distortion then delay then this.

Its not simple to use at all,but it has some cool options

I use it wit hughes & kettner trilogy and i like 63 spring reverb on it.
It probably sounds a little better than boss digital reverb,but it is only a little.
It picks up radio signal even when used with shielded cables.
When you set it up for clean and want to use amps distortion with same setting you get ten times stronger mix which makes this pedal useles for switching between chanels.
When you set it up for crunch or gain and go to clean with same setting you get no reverb at all.(exactly the same with line 6 echo park)

now this is where this piece of shit sucks the most-i bought it and it was faulty straight from the box:it works for 2-3 minutes with new battery than switches off.When you change the battery it does the same over and over again.
And than i got myself another one and it worked o.k.-for two days than the same thing happened to new one.

Couldnt be bothered,its still sitting in my draw-and i still play without any reverb

It has decent sound for a digital reverb but it is just to complex for cheap chinese mass production.
I owe pretty good gear and this pedal(when it worked)was a weakest link(fucking radio signal and other crap),so i decided to spend some more money and buy fender 63 reissue reverb unit.
If you can afford one-get it,and if not i strongly recomend boss reverb pedal instead of line 6(it let me down on gig so it might do that to you as well).
As i said before sound is relatively good,but when two of these die on you it is hard to keep any sympathy for them.
Sound-O.K. Line 6 pedal-hunk of junk

Only a few intuitive knobs:simple

I've bought this little beast because I wanted a good spring reverb simulation to use with amps without reverb or those with a short spring,not so good, reverb (like my Laney LC15 and Marshall JMC900):
I've made an A/B test with the lush reverb inside a 100W Fender Twin , and the result was incredible : same creamy warmth,same glassy and dynamic,tremulant effect as the best spring reverb in the world!!!

like a tank

not need

Fantastic Reverb effect,warm and organic as an analog unit