Roger Linn Design AdrenaLinn II

Takes a fair bit of work and manual reading to get up to speed. Not intuitive.

I don't like this with guitars but with a groovebox or synth it is a great tool and you can get some great and innovative processed sounds.

I am using a Korg EMX-1, Smith Evolver and Novation X-Station 25 with this.

This is great as a processor and drum machine for live electronica with synths and grooveboxes.

Don't bother using this with guitar. You will be disappointed.

Very easy to use on a basic level. No idea how difficult it is to edit the drum sounds or patterns - the manual makes it look complicated. It's quite easy to tweak the guitar settings from the knobs. Mine has the 2.1 software.

I was told the amp models on this are better than Line 6 PODs. Having used an XT Pro for 4+ years, I would totally disagree. The models are OK but nothing to write home about. The sounds are very much 'in your face', I get a headache using this unit for more than 2 minutes. The drum sounds are punchy, yet of dubious quality - very one dimensional if you take the time to listen to them. I've used the machine with a range of guitars & pickups - Duncan JB, Invader, EMG 89, 85 & 81. With extra tweaking you could record the guitar sounds off the Adrenalinn 2. You'd certainly need a bit of compression before it and a nice reverb after. Compared to the Boss DR 880, which retails at the same price, the Adrenalinn2 is absolute garbage.

It's pretty solid. The chassis would stand a fair amount of abuse for sure.

Played for 30 years, mainly rock and fusion, ocasionally blues & jazz. I own lots of gear, but the obvious comparison here is with the DR 880 which I bought recently. The Adrenalinn 2 was played through either headphones - some cheap Technics model and through a Denon AV amp.

If the Adrenalinn 2 was stolen it would be godsend. I wouldn't have to kick myself for buying it everytime is see the thing.

The one thing I wish it had is a good resale price. You can't give it away. That should give you a clue as to how good they are.

Pretty easy to use -- plug it in and an have fun.

Sounds pretty good. Way better than a POD for it's distortion tones. The filters are just sickely fun to play. The drum beats are great for goofing off.

OK, it worked for about a week, then the power was not coming on initially. I had to force jam the power adapter into the hole, and with a bit of jiggling it would power up. Then it just stopped working a couple weeks later. The power adapter was fine, the unit just upped and died.

Of course this all happened about 3 months after I got it. I did not even use this thing on a daily basis. It was a gradual demise.

I think this thing has quality control issues. I want to fix it so I can sell it.

Well, when I mentioned my problems, the support folks on the phone said to try a new power adapter. So, I had to haul my butt to Truetone Music to find out my adapter was fine. I was real busy with work on a movie, and I never got a chance to return it within the warrantly period.

I should have sent the thing into Linn in the first place, because when I called it was under warranty.

So, basically, I am at the mercy of the Linn people to fix it, I have no idea how much they are going to charge me.

Well, I really think this is a great toy to have. With the drum beats and filter effects, you can just space out and have fun.

Howerver, anything that does not really work

sounds are easy to program, drums are a bit of a pain, but that's not the problem.

here we go. I've been using the ADII for over a year now so i feel enough time has passed to give it an honest critique:

the amp sounds are very one dimensional. it's like playing with a limiter on, no matter if you turn the "gate" function on or off. if you play soft, you lose the whole amp sound. it's like there is full on or really soft, no in between. i find all of the models to have that digital tinge on them. sounds "real" on the website, but i've played thru a lot of systems of the past (wow already TWO years) and you feel very weak up ther not having control of your dynamics. there is very LITTLE control with the amp models. it's like a picture of the sound, not a real sound.

drums: so quantized that they run away from you. that's the way a grid sequencer is(right on the quantize grid) but this one just doesn't groove. no pocket. i suggest running the drums out one side and putting a small compressor on them. but even that probably won't cover for the run away feeling.it's not that noticeable to the average bar audience, but for me, i would prefer to lay back a little. doesn't feel natural, and i can play in time very well.

beat synced effects- this machine should be put into an effects loop as a side thing and not the main thing (you sound is with your amp, this is added to that by effects loop). using this live as the only thing is okay but the lack of dynamics control is really crappy considering it costs this much. even Zoom has better dynamics than this. in fact, you might do nearly as well with a Zoom.

knobs will come off. use super glue.

gig without a backup? i guess i'll have to. RL is out of his mind if he thinks i'm gonna buy another one.

roger linn never wrote me back with my questions. the more i see him on the web, the more i think he and Dave smith are both pricks. JMO.


bought from pedal geek. best service ever.

americana roots rock, jazz, techno stuff. i use this thing only for the roots rock stuff and a few hip hoppy sounds for soft songs. have done techno guitar on it.

amp sounds are the worst, the sound real, but they don't FEEL real. it's scary not to have good control over dynamics. that's digital.

here we go with a bold brash opinion:

i think Roger Linn and Dave Smith took music technology down the wrong road, from which it has never recovered,ie, roger linn invented the akai MP (hence sampling, hence hip hop, hence grabage music made by anyone who could press a button) and dave smith invented MIDI (hence time lag, sloppy orchestral compositions, and geeks). CV would have gotten more advanced if Midi hadn't been invented. there would have been no blurred lines between "real instruments" and synthesis. synths would sound like synths and have that kind of groove.and sampling just suck. i even hate to loop guitars anymore. delay is where it's at.

Moderately easy to get up and running. Matrix editing with the four knobs is fine once you get a feel for the parameters. Still I would say you need to spend a few hours at least with it before you can start building patches that you want rather than just randomly messing around.
Manual is pretty straight forward and at first essential to get your head around it. And even then it is still advisable to have it to hand when editing patches.
My unit has the 2.1 OS which I would say is essential as it improves a few features a great deal.
Previous reviewers comments about it being a novelty box are bizzare and strike me as either a joke or downright odd.
This box is hardly sold under any pretense. It does exactly what it is advertised to do.

I use this box at home in my small studio and with my band and it preforms differently in either situation.
In a studio enviroment it is quite amazing. As other reviewers have stated the stereo effects are quite lush and exciting. The amp models are vastly improved with the 2.1 software and are very useable and easily as good as most other amp modelling around.
Synced up to your sequencer you can start making some great synced patches. The filter based effects give you instant analogue type keyboard sounds. The trem effect is very good and using your own trem sequences is excellent.
The chorus/flanger is good for more extreme/experimental sounds but doesnt really work as a classic chorus sound.
Overall the effects are all pretty good but in a more experimental way. This isnt the unit for covering classic rock sounds really. If you want that type of unit look at a pod or similar as this unit constantly seems to push you into more exploratory sound areas.

In a band/live situation it is a different beast. I dont understand people banging on about noise. The unit is quiet. Without having high gain on the amp models it is quiet. The amp models drive goes very high though so I suspect some people have been turning this up too much and creating noise. Most amp models useable gain goes no higher than 40-50. It is just a feature to let you have crazy amounts of gain on amp models if you like.
I have used it though my VOX AC30 and my HIWATT half stack. Set in mono with the guit and drum outputs seperate you lose the stereo fx obviously. I havent tried it yet but I imagine having 2 amps in stereo from it would sound pretty glorious.
Anyway in mono through an amp with the amp mode enabled it is still good. It takes quite a bit of tweaking to fit it into your rig/songs. Volumes are a problem and some stuff that sounded fine on headphones may be too extreme through an amp and need to be tamed.
Overall this unit is inspiring soundwise. It makes good noises. If you want to sound like Van Halen or some other classic guitarist dont buy this unit. Although five minutes with the promotional material would surely make any person with half a brain aware of this.
If you want to experiment and make your guitar sound like a synth etc you will probably really like it.

The drum maching also needs covering as it is a major feature of the unit. It is basic and pretty easy to use. The sounds are limited but what is there is good basic drum sounds. Through a PA system it sounds good. Very useable if you want to add some basic drum loops to a band. Fed through the fx/delay the drum machine becomes very good. A basic beat becomes really interesting fed through the filter and a bit of distortion. It is not just a toy add on drum machine like on some cheaper multi fx pedals.

I laughed out loud at the previous reviewers comments on melting the knobs on. Truly idiotic. They come off because it needs updating and you have to open the unit.
Mounted on a pedal board it will be fine. If you spend 200+ on something surely you are gonna look after it??
It has an all metal enclosure which feel s reasonably tough. Solid metal footswitches and the sockets are firmly secured.
I would gig it without a back up as I cant afford two of the things.
On that note though the footswitching arrangement is a little convoluted. Each footswitch has a lot of functions and changing patches takes a bit of practice. If you are going to use it live I would suggest using it in a switching loop such as a BOSS LS2 or similar.

It has frozen a few times when I was syncing it to my sequencer but in normal use it hasnt given me any problems.

I tried to upgrade my unit to the 2.1 software over a midi link. Well my unit didnt update and also completely stopped working. So I ordered the upgrade kit from Roger Linn. It took 3 weeks to arrive. It took 4 days for any response to emails.
When it did arrive it was a 15 minute job and it was working even better than previously.
I think I was just unlucky in my update taking so long. It seems that it is one guy called Jay who does most of the work there so I imagine he is quite busy. From looking on the message board it seems he is pretty helpfull in most cases and he ensures that the units will work. To the point of sending out new circuit boards in some cases. Even if it does take a few weeks.

I have been playing for 17 years in many different enviroments at mainly a pro level.
I am looking forward to incorporating this unit into my band rig and so is the rest of my band. The drum machine I think will see a little use too.

This pedal is not a device for bread and butter guitar sounds. It is a little odd and quirky.
It is inspiring to play with and create sounds that not much other effects do.

I would replace it if it were lost.
New Kate Bush album has some nice uses of an adrenalinn on too.
I cant give it a 10 in this catagory as it is very expensive and there are minor quibbles I have with certain features like the not that great pedal switching. At this price I cant see how one more pedal switch would hurt.

The Adrenalinn 2 iswhat I bought and my exoectations fell short when I plugged in.
For the most part, this is really a "novelty" box. It's cool to do some experimenting on, but on stage it lacks all the vital counterparts to make a stellar perforamnce posiible.
Patch editing is easy, but only if you are seated and have a few minutes to tweak the thing. On stage there isn't that kinda of mercy so it's best left at home.
The manual is pretty good but really doesn't do much for defining the presets and what there more practical applications are.

I have been an avid Rocktron user for nearly 10 years and the Adrenallinn was merely a "toy" compared to my Rocktron gear.
I use a 4x12 stereo cabinet with a Rocktron Velocity stereo power amp.
When plugging in the Adrenalinn2 a mountain of hiss and digital noise comes through like a freight train. Lowering the Noise gate only hastens to limit sustain and natural feeling compression and does little to slow down the noise train unless you raise it considerably. The trade off is crappy sounding tones and a "limiting" effect on higher gain models.

Well the little rubber knobs fell off the first day. I hot melted them and they were semi permanent but inexcusable for what I paid for the unit.
I would not depend on it nor take it to gigs.

Roger Linn has "patch exchange" on his site that never worked. He never answered my emails or im's so I think customer support is all hype there.

If you are a hobby guitarist who just wants to fart around with sync based algorythims then this is the toy for you!
I have been playing for over 30 years and am a tone junkie. This unit I bought in search of the grail of tone and different effects but it fell way short even out of the ball park of what I anticipated.
Again, I tried the maudio black box which is better as far as user interface but still lacks the real punch and tone needed for live performances. They say John Mayer used one, but he did so with a bunch of computer editing and ran the thing thru a $3000 Boutique. Even a Radio Shack item will sound pristeen through those.
I would not recommend this unit to working professionals!

Flicking through the presets gives a rough idea of this unit's capabilities but you REALLY have to get your hands dirty and start editing the patches to appreciate what this box can do.

The manual isn't bad and if you've got half a brain and aren't coming to music tech completely raw you'll probably find you can skim through it and be able to work things out for yourself. the matrix style editing is very logical and after you've used it for a while you will know where certain paramaters are located and editing is a breeze.

My unit is second hand and was bought for ?110 which is a real bargain. If I'd have known how much fun this actually was I'd have bought one brand new for ?260.

I'm using this in a home studio setup Fender Strat - Adrenalinn - Mixing desk - Samson Servo 170 - Tannoy Reveals and it sounds absolutely gorgeous. The effects can either be assigned to be off / on / stereo. The stereo settings for some effects is truly staggering and adds real movement and air to the sound. I can understand if your system is mono things proably won't sound quite so good and I'd be wary if I was planning to use this through an amp as the manual does warn that it's not best used this way.

I've seen reviews above saying it's noisy but you can set the sensitivity of the noise gate to your own liking. I personally have found it to be extremely quiet and it's sat on a desk surrounded my a computer monitor, mixer, synths etc. By comparison I also have a Pod and that's way noisier. This is without doubt the quietest effects unit I've ever owned.

With regards to the amp sims they are pretty standard stuff but they do the business and in a recording situation can be made to sit nicely in the mix. I don't tend to use a lot of overdrive so can't comment on this but the clean preamp is very nice for clean tones. Again you have a lot of flexibility in editing to your own taste and for clean sounds this thing wipes the floor with a Pod. (IMHO).

Effects? Absolutely stonking! The modulation and filter effects are very very nice and again editing is a breeze. What I find particularly wonderful is the range of most parameters goes not from 0-10 but from 0-99 so the control you have is phenomenal. There's no reverb but the delay can help with this and I'll come to this in a moment. In some reviews above someone said that you would never use the phaser. ???? With a little tweaking and with it set to stereo this thing sounds wonderful - you'll lose mindless hours just messing with this and other effects. Someone also slated the delay which I really can't understand as this is one of the unit's real strong points. I use delay a lot and I'm speaking from the point of view from someone who's had a Wem Copycat tape loop snap on-stage so I know what I'm talking about. You may not get that many parameters to tweak but what you do get is a very nice sounding delay with 0-99 control of the major parameters. This section rocks and I'd buy the unit for this alone.

The bottom line is this thing is inspirational.

Not gigged with it but I'd be happy to. No problems so no comment on this.

N/A but Roger Linn looks like such a nice bloke in the demo video on the website!

For clean to slightly roughed up but effected sounds this is the dogs. I haven't heard anything else that comes close. Like someone else said above I wish I'd had one of these when I was younger. If I had I'm pretty sure you'd know my name by now.

After reading the manual for about 15 minutes I found navigation very straight foward. The layout for adjustment of the most used parameters is bone simple and very visual, no layers of hidden menus, could be explained to most anyone in a matter of minutes. The deeper layers of editing drum patches, ect., can be understood very quickly with little reading also. Very impressive.

I downloaded the beta software for version 2.1 and that went smoothly as well, no quirks.

My main guitar is a 1990 PRS Artist with Joe Barden humbuckers going to a '68 Deluxe Reverb that I use as a head for my 1970 Marshall cab wired in stereo (original 25 watt greenbacks). I use a Rivera M-60 for saturated sounds as well as hiding away non-true bypass pedals (i.e., Adrenalinn) in the effects loop.

The modulation effects (which I bought it for) are very crappy (thin, digital) sounding through a guitar amp. Moog blows them away. Amp sims are great for playing at home through your console. It's fun to get high and use the headphone out with the beat box and mod effects, and get all tripped out, but as a gigging musician I found this device virtually un-usable. It's interesting to note that the manual states that "guitar amps are basically distorted woofers, we recommend playing your adrenalinn through a hi-fi sound system". Had I known this prior to purchasing I could've saved the buying and re-selling.

I did try recording a track through a vintech preamp using the Deluxe sim with trem and I was shocked by how good it sounded, incredibly realistic. Unfortunately, there are no balanced in and outs, which in my mind keeps it in the hobbyist realm.

In short-
sound quality for at home hobbyist - 9
sound quality for gigging musician - 4

Have had to reboot (turn off and on) several times when starting up trying to switch between amp and direct mode. The first time I took it out one of the knobs flew away, I think it went to where those socks go...

I give support a 2 because Jay was nice to talk with. He said he'd send me a new knob in two weeks. That was six weeks ago, nobody has been answering the phones, I've left messages, but no reply. Small companies often offer better service and support, but these guys are the exception

A great idea,but for me it has ended up being nothing more than an expensive novelty for practicing at home.
The beat box and sims are usable and fun, the real life gigging side has not materialized because of low sound quality when used with amp, no true bypass, knobs flying off, basically the wrong gear for me.

I've had it for over a year and, well...

The amp models are a lot better than i first thought. I was into them a little at first but mostly unimpressed. I shelved the Adrenalinn II because I got sick of the way it did NOT work easy with other equipment, much less in any effects chain. It just to too much re-setting of patches, gain, etc.

The thing is, after getting fatigued with the mostly traditional amps I have for recording, I got bored and went back to the adrenalinn, and bang, I got into it in a whole new way. Tap into those Marshall tones. As a player who never loved modern Marshalls. either they've perfected the classics I've never had the chance to play or they've crafted their own wonders. The other boutique models are a lot more flexible than I initially thought as well. Gotta get your hands dirty, but there's a lot more magic in the models beyond the presets, really good stuff. The fuzz setting is kind of a joke to me, but the octave fuzz is right on. There's a lot of trade-off with this pedal, like for every disappointment there's a pleasant surprise. The good thing is that the pleasant surprises are unlike anything you've probably played through, which makes a trusty Adrenalinn one of you things you never want to part with. As a Vox and Twin guy, I think they need some improvement those models for sure, but nevertheless this pedal has come off the shelf forever. Wonderful tones, you just got to know where to look.

The modulation effects are hit and miss. Mostly, if you're a pro or truly discerning guitar player, some are are just going to fall short, but despite my initial dissapointment, even the less 'real' effects are so adjustable that a little imagination makes them unworldly. I still think they should work on decent models of the basics (the phaser digital model for example is just not something you're EVER going use, i can practically promise you). The vibe is in a world of it's own, very chilling, especially on mild settings. Random modulation is fun for about 40 seconds (I dare any sober person to enjoy random modulation for entire songs). Panning is fun though.

The filters and synth effects rule, but they are not comfortably custimized, and I wish they'd make an expanded Adrenalinn hardware model with more real time knobs and/or pedals. MOOG is still head of the class, their stuff is great, but exspensive (with no preset options) and open to competitors.... so c'mon, with digital, there's players on a budget (who don't need "all analog gear") who want the goods too ... just an idea...

a year in and still kicking. it works and does not fail me.

they are very friendly, available, supportive. A+

From what I read on the website, I think they really listen to customer input. This isn't some miracle product, but after a year of use it's bounced back from a bit of a disappointment to a real clutch player. I wanted something I could carry around amp-free and easily do spot recording with folks without a lot of tweaking, but ultimately lugging a small amp couldn't be trumped. I've tried them all (digital preamps) though, so Linn and Co. aren't alone on this. It's turned out great for my home and studio fun. I can't imagine anyone being sorry they got one of these.

There's still a fair amount about this product that falls short of it's catalog descriptions and loving reviews, like what's up with those faux-verb'd out drums??! and why do the amp models have such hissy noise floors? BUT they have an free download upgrade on the website, so my complaints may well have been fixed (the descriptions of their fixes in the machine are creepily close to my would-be wish list, so these guys are very on the ball).

It really is a very varied and easy to go with processor. I will never part with mine. I hope they make more stuff, actually.

This is just a follow-up to my review of 3/04. I've had no problem with
the unit for the past 6+ months and just tried plugging and unplugging
my guitar about 20 times in a row and the "static" problem did not show
up. Does anyone know if a problem like this can resolve itself? because
it seems it has.