Line 6 DL4 MkII Delay Modeler Pedal Reviews

Rob at Sweetwater was very helpful on this purchase. I gotta say, there's quite a bit to it but that seems to be the case with all of the 'big' pedals. Check the instructional videos and go back to school to figure it out. It's worth the effort. Also - I'm liking the Mission Line 6 expression pedal with mine. It took me a while to figure out, but again, worth the effort.

PLEASE make the FM4 MkII

I'm very impressed with this effect pedal. Tons of great reverb and delays to choose from. All effects can be custom tailored to your needs. Very solid when it comes to it's manufacturing. It's very quiet no noise or hiss. A truly great effects unit. I'm using it with my synths. I highly recommend it.

I purchased this Lin6 DL4 to replace an earlier version of this delay, which had developed the fatal 'white noise is coming out of every output' syndrome (which is intermittent and quite annoying) - this updated version does all that I need it to do from the previous version, and has a number of new tricks and presets, which I've only begun to use. I love Line 6's products.

The original DL4 was a pretty impressive piece of kit, as evidenced by the fact that it's remained popular for over 20 years. At release it had virtually no downsides other than sporadic, build quality issues (not insignificant if you were one of the unlucky ones to face that). Today, it's starting to look a bit long in the tooth in terms of its pedalboard footprint and the now short length of recording time for its once ground breaking looper, but the delays themselves and its functionality remains awesome.

There's an old saying, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it," and in many ways Line 6 has embraced this with a passion. If you were impressed with the original, then this pedal is a no brainer. In my opinion, it's improved in almost every single way. Remember the three weaknesses I mentioned above? Well, they're gone now. This one is smaller, has a MUCH improved looper time AND improved looper functionality (with the use of the one switch looper or midi control you can use the many delays/reverbs in conjunction with the looper instead of just the basic default echo effect), and the build quality appears to be significantly improved. Plus, they've about doubled the number of delays, AND threw in some very, very nice reverb options. Better yet, you can run the delay before the reverb, after the reverb, or in paralell. Wow!

If you never experienced the original, and you need an amazing delay pedal - there really isn't a better choice at this price point. There's even worse choices at higher price points. If you happen to also be searching for a reverb pedal . . . BONUS. This thing is BOTH an amazing delay pedal, amazing reverb pedal, and solid looper.

So what's not to like? Well . . . I think many people, and especially modern pedal users, have come to view this level of complexity as needing an LCD screen. This pedal IS well designed and easy to use but ONLY once you read the manual and/or find a seriously solid youtube tutorial. Line 6 clearly made a conscious choice for engineering simplicity and lower cost that would appeal to the original pedal fans - and that may end up working perfectly for them - but it might come at the cost of bringing in newer people into the fold. This is particularly true of the amazing reverbs which are "hidden" and take some time to memorize where they're at. I personally feel they could have come up with a better solution that still embraced their desire to keep it screenless. As it is, a HUGE benefit of this pedal is just hidden away. I feel this approach will be frustrating to some, particularly people who are loath to read manuals, which I've learned from experience there are a lot of you out there.

Still, if you're willing to put the time in, you need a delay pedal, and have the budget for it - I don't think there's a better deal out there. If you need an amazing reverb pedal . . . that's almost the same story. This is a very, very solid reverb pedal if you can get past the fact that the reverbs are "hidden" and will take some time for you to learn how to find them. If you need a delay pedal, a reverb pedal, a basic looper, AND you are willing to put the time in to learn how this pedal works - then look no further. This is THE best product at this price point.

I own both these original Line 6 Delay and also the Chorus/Flange. Absolutely love them.

The only reason I upgraded the delay to this model, which has been working for over 15 years I think, is the modern features which will help in studio and our current live situations.

Very happy with this pedal...so many features and ways to tweak n trim, you'll get the sound you need. If you're new to the line, pay attention to the cheat sheet, it helps a ton for new users.

This pedal couldn't be any better!! I've been using it to gig for some days now and well enough can say that I'm very pleased with all the updates Line 6 has made. The reverbs on it are so awesome and unique. I'm yet to unleash the beast in it, with the increased looping time and added 15 delays; bet on being able to replicate many delays sounds out there in the market now and some. I'm sure you'll be seeing this pedal make a comeback.

This is a ridiculously fun pedal. The delays are great. The reverbs sound great once you figure out how to adjust them. The controls are confusing to some degree to me anyway but that doesn't take away from the fun at all. This could be a really useful musical tool but it is ideal for the home player who just wants to jam with themselves or do soundscapes and noise. Very versatile. You will need to read the manual and cheat sheet and definitely run an overdrive in front of it. The ability to use the various delays while playing your loops is the best feature to me. Get one!

Bought this to replace an older Line 6 Tonecore Echo Park that I want to retire from gigging. The new delay doesn't exactly replicate the sweep setting that I use from that Tonecore pedal, but it's pretty good. I actually intend to use it more for it's reverb and looping capabilities.

At the current price this is probably the best delay unit you can get. If I were budgeting for something in the $ range then I have some I like more than this one. I mainly got it because I used the original DL4 for the longest time, it was lost or stolen in a taxi cab in Bangkok and I just went without a large delay unit for the next ten years. I used the delay on the Eleven rack and individual analog delay pedals during that time. I got this one because I liked the original so much. Here are some pros and cons. Pros- you can get it to sound like pretty much any other delay with a little patience. For example I have a boss space echo delay and the cosmos on this is the space echo setting. I can get this to sound almost identical to the boss. Same goes for the Memory Man setting, the DM-2 and many others. Pro#2- you can mix in reverbs and they sound really unique and amazing. I like some of the reverb sounds on this more than some on the Boss RV-500 and some on the Bigsky. It has some really unique ambient reverbs that I've only ever heard in reverb plug-ins like unfiltered audio and Valhalla. Pro#3- you can use the unique effects built into the delays and reverbs to get other effect sounds out of the pedal. I have a memory man setting with a really fast delay time and the vibrato turned up. It sounds like a really nice vibrato effect. One of the reverbs has a nice pitch shifting effect, you can set up a preset to have octave down and octave up effects with just a tinge of reverb. So you are getting a lot of bang for your buck. The reason why I would never get rid of this pedal is because the classic dynamic delay is my most used delay and I haven't found another that functions as well for me. The heliosphere delay also stands out as an amazing ambient delayverb that I can't replicate with any of my other pedals. Cons are #1- the preset management is very clumsy and lacking in any sort of library management or software editing program. You must get a midi controller with this pedal otherwise you will get frustrated, even with the midi controller it's still frustrating. There is no sort of display and not a real good way to know which one of your 128 midi presets you are on, unless your midi controller tells you. You can't really move presets around and when making a new preset you have to go to your midi channel for that preset first, tweak it then save it and hope that it actually saved to your midi channel and not written over your initial A/B/ or C preset, as that sometimes happens. Knowing that the helix pedals have software for editing and preset management it's actually a little infuriating that Line 6 didn't make a similar program for this pedal, it wouldn't even have to be that complicated and wouldn't take much time or effort to have a basic editing and management program for this pedal. Line 6 can look at the Boss 500 series editing software as an example. One hack is to install Midistudio on your iPad if you have one, plug the iPad into the dl4 via usb, load up the program change template that has tabs with numbers for all 128 midi channels. Then you can quickly choose the midi channel you want to edit on, for example channel 12, make your edits and then save it. By default all the extra midi channels are on the original ping-pong delay. Some other things worthy of mention are that it does have true bypass, a nice way to mix the dry and wet signals like you would in a recording DAW (dry through and mixing in the wet), excellent studio quality stereo path delay and reverb. You just have to deep dive into the manual and spend a lot of time explore g the pedal to get the most out of it. Hope this is somewhat helpful. But for the price point this is selling for right now it's almost a steal, you're not going to find this level and variety of delay and reverb sounds in anything else for this price.

You can get an insane amount of sounds with this thing and you would be hard pressed to find a pedal that can match its range of adjustment across the board. However, this isn't for the player that doesn't like tweaking sounds. The controls are anything but intuitive and most would find it hard to navigate without the cheat sheet. I happened to grow up with an original DL4 and am familiar with and love its weirdness. This is a great upgrade and it is incredibly well made.

So first, the good - the delays are gorgeous and incredibly flexible. Warm, softly degrading "bucket-brigade" tones, crystal clear, infinitely long digital delays, weird octave and pitch effects - it's all here. I'm really fond of the ADT setting for fattening and sweetening up tones. The reverbs are also beautiful and flexible. I cannot imagine wanting or needing another delay pedal now that I'm using this one.

The sort of less good - I originally bought this pedal because I was looking for a looper and the combination of delays + looper was very attractive. Only problem was that once I got it plugged in and started dialing in the tones, I realized that the delays were where it's at with this pedal.

Unfortunately, as near as I can figure out, the only way to gain access to the delays and the looper at the same time is to put the pedal into 1 button looper mode. That's fine, and works OK, but that looper mode isn't sufficient for performance.

It has the same flaws as many 1 pedal loopers: stopping the loop is an awkward double click that's really easy to mess up and to erase your current loop you need to press and hold the loop button which begins playback of the loop for a few seconds. Neither of these keep it from being a great practice tool, but they do keep it from being something you can perform with.

Those flaws don't exist in the "classic looper" mode, but if you use that, you lose access to all the tone shaping potential this thing offers.


Overall - I'd recommend this pedal to anyone who's looking for great delays and a ton of flexibility. I would recommend looking at a dedicated looper pedal if that's what you're after.

Pretty cool lots of nice sounds

This thing is not simple...that's for sure. But, since I started playing guitar decades ago the one pedal that has been a constant on my board is a delay. This pedal has 30 different delay types to choose from as well as 15 different types of reverb. Its kinda complicated but taking the time to figure it out will pay off. You can really augment your sound with some other-worldly patches. My only criticism? No power button...having to hold two buttons down while you plug the unit in to reset it is not ideal.

Okay, background: I used the Line 6 Echo Park for since it's release (about 20 years now). I thought the ease of use wouldn't be that different. I also like the algorithms on the Echo Park. Both of these things were major reasons behind buying the DL4 mkII. Purchased on sale for $ off Sweetwater normal price. Below are pros and cons after playing it for about a month now:

Pros:

The sound quality is AMAZING! As a direct comparison to the Echo Park, this is vastly superior. There appears to be more depth in the sound (even running in mono).

Build quality is good, though I imagine not as solid as the OG big green. The enclosure, though thin, is solid, and the footswitches feel of good quality.

Interface is decent. In the age of digital pedals, it's nice having simple dials to twist.

Variety is, I imagine, more than the average user would use. Chances are you'll find your go-to tones and make them presets and call it a day, leaving the rest to float in the ether. This is a good thing though! The more colors to choose from, the better. A beginner may feel overwhelmed given the vast array of delays and reverbs to choose from.

Cons:

This is an assumption, but I feel like this thing was not well tested prior to release. I have run into some hiccups upon purchase (and I bought about one year after release). Namely: the tap tempo, when set in global settings to be global (instead of per preset) seems to have a mind of its own. Switching presets will sometimes ignore the global tap tempo. For live players, this is frustrating; no matter how good the drummer, no one keeps perfect tempo. Subdivisions suffer a similar fate. Sometimes, even after the firmware update addressing it, it reverts to 1/4 notes. I cannot figure out the rhyme or reason behind these issues. I definitely have the presets saved, but switching between them occasionally reverts back to whatever default is in the pedal.

The Legacy button is used so often for different settings, I can see it giving out after a couple years moderate use. This is just a hunch.

As mentioned above, I love the dials. That said, one of two things could have made this better: 1) instead of shrinking the form factor from the original, keep it large and add more dials for more settings, or 2) add a small LCD readout showing your selection (e.g. be able to see your settings by parameter so you know what a preset has more easily. The Legacy button turns white to show current settings, but it leaves for a lot of guess work when tweaking presets.

Innovation. They could have knocked it out of the park, but didn't. Look at the mods for the original: you'll see people who mounted footswitches 5/6 on the upper platform. Why didn't Line 6 just make this part of the pedal rather than rely on people buying an external footswitch?

The sticker showing settings is only so big and cannot fit all the settings text. I know they're pushing "secret" reverbs, but truly, who wants to carry around a reference card? They could have made a larger sticker that spans the top of the unit, showing settings the same way as the reference card.

Global settings. Adding FS 5/6 expands the capability of the unit to allow for additional function. In my case, I opted for offloading the tap tempo and one-button looper engage. The on-board tap tempo is reassigned to switching presets banks. Here's the thing: why not make it possible to leave the tap tempo on the pedal and offload the preset bank change to the expansion switch? Frankly, they should make a simple software to let the user "program" what each button does, then upload it to the unit. Perhaps this is ignorance, but I imagine this wouldn't be too difficult for Line 6 to offer, even if it's an extra charge.

As I learn the unit better, I'll update this review. While the above seems to have more cons than pros, please note I gave it 4 stars. The overall quality is very good and it sounds great. I'm looking forward to creating "my sound" with this unit, and I believe it will last just as long as my Echo Park has.

JD Shamoun helped me a TON with choosing this pedal. He's a super knowledgeable gear guy, and super personable. Someone give him a raise! Sweetwater has the best customer service!

I'm a huge fan and early adopter of the original and this new version.The 2 does everything better/lighter/smaller as advertised. Except that there is a known issue with subdivisions not. Example, you set a patch for playing U2 style repeats, if the song changes tempo and you tap a new tempo, the delay reverts to standard 1/4 repeats.
Line 6 says this will be fixed asap by a firmware update. I'm giving 3 1\2 star review until this is updated. Still a big fan but this oversight is disappointing to all of us that play live with human purcussion.

Sound quality with updated algos and the adding mic preamp 5 stars.

For operating and preset limitations without adding an additional MIDI controller ..1 star.

I find the sub division knob in place of a standard time knob a bad idea.-

Runs on a 1 spot power supply....bonus vs the older brick.

I'm fond of whats possible here but limiting accessising and recalling those possibilities unless you have
a separate MIDI controller is a deliberate oversight

Love this pedal, the sounds are crisp and the build in reverbs make this a pseudo reverb/delay pedal and the reverbs are LUSH. My main gripe is that this does not save your selected note repeats, rendering the pedal useless in a live setting. I save setting to dotted 1/8 and it always reverts back to 1/4 note. Utterly frustrating

This thing sounds really great. I never liked the original DL4, but this is a huge improvement tonally. Really great tape, digital, and analog tones are all available. Looper is super fun, and allows you to be fairly creative with your loops. No complaints about the reverbs either, they sound pretty great and there is plenty of variety. From subtle to huge ambient options.

Unfortunately the interface makes it fairly difficult to remember how to use the pedal without having the manual beside it. I think they unfortunately chose to make a new dl4 and stuck too closely to the old pedal's design.

I feel like this pedal would have hugely benefited from having a small screen - that would communicate what parameter you are adjusting. Considering all the different delays and reverbs built in. Its seems daunting task to have to remember what the "Tweak" and "Tweez" knobs do. Timeline has this feature and it makes the pedal much easier to use.

The pedal is also fairly buggy. I experienced issues with the tempo not being saved to preset and currently there is no way to store a subdivision besides 1/4 tap, it always reverts back to that sub-division.

This is not the same as the first iteration of this pedal. It is fun and probably well suited for my needs BUT I'm concerned that the pedals that you place your foot on, and place pressure on, are the same as the first model where the switches were just cheap.

Warning: This is not kind. I'm not a fan. Sorry in advance.

First off, the volume changes between presets is still unacceptable, just like the original DL4. I don't know why I expected them to fix that in this iteration. But come on, at least have it fixed in the new algorithms (and the legacy ones too...)

Second, the "half lit when off" LEDs are a joke. Would prefer the old DL4 way of having them off completely rather than "this is the one that WAS on, but it's not anymore." You're going to kick it back on anyway, right? So a half-lit one (especially on a sunny day) is pretty much worthless, IMO.

Third, there should be no signal drop when kicking the effect on or off. Ever. There's no good reason for a blip in your signal chain. A firmware update may fix that, but when I called support it's already on the latest firmware. Are you serious? Who wants a quick full cutoff of their guitar signal when the effect is turned on or off? No matter what mode you are in, that should never be a thing.

Fourth, why would they make the delay effect sound like it's turning the Time knob when you use the tap tempo? I never have owned a tap delay pedal that goes "wwrrrrrrrrrooooonnnnkkk" up or down when you tap the tap tempo button. It makes it sound like you're cranking Time knob when tapping it. The whole point is that is supposed to be completely unnoticeable.

Fifth, getting to the reverbs is just flat out stupid. While I'm glad they bothered with it, why not just at a minimum include another tiny button for access to just the reverbs? Instead you have a triple menu off one button, that you have to hold down and twist a knob with the cheat sheet handy. Most VCR's were more intuitive than this.

I LOVED the smaller footprint. No need for batteries anyway. Loved the layout of the knob and the quick access to legacy settings. I'll bet the looper is fine.

Returned it, obviously. Just done with Line6.

Preordered the first day it was listed for sale on Sweetwater. I wish I would have known it still had several firmware issues. Never saw any mention of the issues from all the gear reviews and demos I watched. The biggest of all, not being able to save presets with tap tempo subdivisions selected. Several more issues with the looper and so on. After owning the DL4 MkII for almost 2 months I decided to sell it, and get something more reliable.

Theres so many things wrong with this thing I dont know where to start. Light are too bright and should be either on or off. They drive me insane. Knob are cheezy, Bugs Bugs Bugs, Not Reliable. Mine had a catastrophic failure 2 months after I bought it. Please redesign this.

Mine had a bug and I had to return it. I spent two days just trying to get a nice analog preset. This was to be the main preset that I'd use the most. In the middle of a song the multi-head tape galloping patterns would start up and I'd be all like ? Then it would stop for a while.

Ok- this may not matter to those of you who plan to use this pedal in a bedroom or studio environment. But I cannot for the life of me understand why Line6 opted to make the LED logic for this pedal the way it is- brightly lit when an effect is selected, dimly (but still pretty brightly!) lit when the effect is bypassed.

I am playing on stage at full volume, sweating profusely, singing at the top of my lungs and when I quickly glance down to see if I engaged the delay, do I really want to guess whether that is the kinda bright light, or the really bright light? There's sweat in my eyes, stage lights, and I'm trying to parse this? Make the light be on, or off, like every other pedal I have ever used. Argh!

It's too late to return the thing, so off to the used market it goes. Looks like I'll be buying a "vintage" DL4, though I know it will fail me within a few years (I have been through at least four of them over the years).

What a major disappointment on a product I was really looking forward to.