The Line6 DL4 is quietly the most important guitar pedal of the past 20 years

Writer is on crack. Where does he get this bizarre notion that Digital Delay units are a product of this Millennium? Or, that until the 00s, they were cost prohibitive?

Pretty sure my first DD Pedal was a Boss DD-2 I bought new in '84 for a little North of a C-note. The following year I bought a Boss DSD-2 Digital Sampling Delay that could sample an 800ms section and play it back... Along with a CV/Gate trigger In that effectively made it a looper that was triggered via voltage pulse.

I still have my DD-3 from 87/88, and it still works just as well as it did 30 years ago.

This dude is straight up whack!

I'll concede that the DL4 had/has some really great capabilities, but nothing remotely revolutionary or even deserving of historical significance. Not to mention that it's a RAGING POS in terms of build quality as was about the only accurate part of the article.

It also wasn't "inexpensive" by any stretch. Once again, that writer is a moron. I got mine for free directly from Line 6 when it debuted, and wasn't particularly impressed by it. It felt cheap, didn't really cover any ground I couldn't cover better individually with other units, and had much too big of a footprint.

Pretty sure I've mentioned the CASE of DL4s Line 6 sent to Jason Mraz. Yes, he used them for a while and with good results, but the reason he received a giant box full of the damned things was because L6 KNEW he would burn through them due to attrition. Pretty sure I posted a pic from the studio with unopened DL4 boxes scattered all about the main room. They were there as back ups for WHEN one of them failed. Within less than a year, Jason got so fed up with them that he went back to Boss and never looked back. He's been using the SAME Boss looper at every live show since 2011... Not the same model, the same unit! That thing has travelled around the globe several times over and seen hundreds of shows without a hiccup.

Moral of the story:

Fuck Line 6 in their stupid fuckin' meathead face.
 
I don't have much experience with the pedal. I think that they were an important step in the evolution of pedal effects and for a while, they were everywhere but...

also, Pitchfork.
 
I've never used one, but I can see where he is coming from. It was a cheap modeler pedal, maybe the first? You can get a ton of delay's from that one unit and now there are many others like it but better.
 
I finally used the one I bought a few years ago last night with the TP band. I really dig it.
 
The DL4 really was ubiquitous on cool kid pedal boards in the Aughts. (I. WAS. THERE.)

And, I think there’s something to be said for that box enabling the airy, drifty, loopy vibe of post-Radiohead cool table music where everything sounds like it is derived from half-remembered U2 songs.

The Fork isn’t particularly adept at writing about tech or the material culture of pop music, but that writer makes a case that isn’t totally batshit. I mean, that realatively affordable/accessible box helped create the goopy, dreamy sounds that finally divorced indie from it’s punk rock roots.

Plus something something echo as a metaphor of nostalgia blah blah.
 
Writer is on crack. Where does he get this bizarre notion that Digital Delay units are a product of this Millennium? Or, that until the 00s, they were cost prohibitive?

Pretty sure my first DD Pedal was a Boss DD-2 I bought new in '84 for a little North of a C-note. The following year I bought a Boss DSD-2 Digital Sampling Delay that could sample an 800ms section and play it back... Along with a CV/Gate trigger In that effectively made it a looper that was triggered via voltage pulse.

I still have my DD-3 from 87/88, and it still works just as well as it did 30 years ago.

This dude is straight up whack!

I'll concede that the DL4 had/has some really great capabilities, but nothing remotely revolutionary or even deserving of historical significance. Not to mention that it's a RAGING POS in terms of build quality as was about the only accurate part of the article.

It also wasn't "inexpensive" by any stretch. Once again, that writer is a moron. I got mine for free directly from Line 6 when it debuted, and wasn't particularly impressed by it. It felt cheap, didn't really cover any ground I couldn't cover better individually with other units, and had much too big of a footprint.

Pretty sure I've mentioned the CASE of DL4s Line 6 sent to Jason Mraz. Yes, he used them for a while and with good results, but the reason he received a giant box full of the damned things was because L6 KNEW he would burn through them due to attrition. Pretty sure I posted a pic from the studio with unopened DL4 boxes scattered all about the main room. They were there as back ups for WHEN one of them failed. Within less than a year, Jason got so fed up with them that he went back to Boss and never looked back. He's been using the SAME Boss looper at every live show since 2011... Not the same model, the same unit! That thing has travelled around the globe several times over and seen hundreds of shows without a hiccup.

Moral of the story:

Fuck Line 6 in their stupid fuckin' meathead face.

Yeah, L6 and build quality is something of a clusterfuck. Got an M5 right now, and I just know something's going to break on it eventually.
Meanwhile I still have a late 80s Ibanez delay pedal (bought it in 89 iirc) that still works perfectly fine - that thing is indestructable.
 
Yeah, L6 and build quality is something of a clusterfuck. Got an M5 right now, and I just know something's going to break on it eventually.
Meanwhile I still have a late 80s Ibanez delay pedal (bought it in 89 iirc) that still works perfectly fine - that thing is indestructable.

The DL, and DM series were tanks and can take the abuse. The new Line6 is exactly as you describe Dex!!!
 
Yeah, L6 and build quality is something of a clusterfuck. Got an M5 right now, and I just know something's going to break on it eventually.
Meanwhile I still have a late 80s Ibanez delay pedal (bought it in 89 iirc) that still works perfectly fine - that thing is indestructable.
I’ve never owned a Line 6 product and kept it. I’v had a Pod XT, ad Pod Pro, a Duoverb head, and an M9. Regretted every one of them, too.
 
I’ve never owned a Line 6 product and kept it. I’v had a Pod XT, ad Pod Pro, a Duoverb head, and an M9. Regretted every one of them, too.

Eventually I'll upgrade the M5. At the time I got it I needed it for midi-selectable delay presets in particular, so it will have to do until I get the Timeline. :wink:
The M5 was the only pedal I could find at the time (a couple of years ago) where you could have at least 5 presets that was cheaper than the Strymon stuff and be able to recall the presets from my switcher using midi - not to mention small enough to not occupy half the board. Weird how few pedals that you can actually do that with. I do a few songs that has to have a specific delay time :embarrassed:
 
I came real close to doing just that about a year ago. There was a broken on my local CL for $35 that I should have snagged. Life got in the way of me doing that. I have a Line6 EchoPark, which is sort of a shrunked down, pedal sized version of the DL4. It has most (but not all) of the features of the DL4, but of course just a single pedal button so no 4 presets. It's OK, works for me, but it is quite heavy.
 
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