Line 6 M9 Stompbox Modeler Reviews

4.5/5.0 based on 13 customer reviews

Sweetwater Advice

Mark Maxwell

Whether you're a guitar hobbyist or a gigging musician, consider the Line 6 M9 Stompbox Modeler: it's compact, full-featured, and sounds great, plus it's both versatile and built for the rigors of the road. You'll find it to be a valuable addition to your rig.

Robert Williams

My primary rig has rack gear, pedals and a MIDI foot controller. Great sounds, but a pain to carry. Recently I coupled two Line 6 M9s (one for gain, one for time based effects) into a combo amp and they worked amazingly well. Less setup time and a whole lot less back strain!

Aaron Rom

The Line 6 M9 Stompbox Modeler is a great unit for guitarists who are looking for a wide range of sounds without a lot of clutter. From subtle effects to far out sounds, this will let you do it all.

Nick Bobay

The Line 6 M9 gives guitar players an extremely portable option to take with them on the road, to gigs, or rehearsal. As soon as I brought one home, I found it hard to tear myself away. Almost instantly I was editing scenes and dialing in sounds that fit my playing style.

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Customer Reviews

Michael
from Schenectady, NY
May 18, 2013Music Background:
Experienced All Around Guitarist

Great Multi EXF Pedal!!!

I used the Line 6 DL4 for about 5 years with no problem at all, although at times due to the unit having only 3 presets i would have to bend over to add modulation to a preset if i wanted it for a song, so i figured i'd give the M9 a shot sense it had more presets... well i don't want to ramble on so in short i got what i wanted and more, also the chorus efx are great, as are the other modulation efx and you can set them for tap tempo or a set rate (same goes for delays of course), your choice, never seen this for a modulation type efx before, very cool... the reverbs are very good, as are some of the overdrives/dist./fuzz mods. Only thing i didn't care for was the size of the supplied power pac (it's huge), so i order the Godlyke PA-9S-US Power-All 2000mA and the L6 jumper cable(reverse-polarity).
Hope this helped, happy pickin'!

William
from United States
October 17, 2012Music Background:
Hobbyist/Enthusiast

Perfection in a box

First off...full disclosure. I'm fairly new to electric guitar (been playing acoustic for years) and all the "toys" that come with electric guitars. Mainly pedals. I have not owned any boutique pedals or just single pedals in general.

Now, with that out of the way--onto the M9. This thing is PERFECT for me. I get 75-100 pedal effects for the price of around 3 individual high end pedals. I don't feel I'm qualified enough to "diss" any of the pedal models included in the M9. I can't really judge fuzz and overdrive (or whatever) to anything else because I haven't owned anything else. But, to me, they sound GREAT...especially when you dial them in.

This pedal is SUPER intuitive. You almost don't even need to read the manual. And, it's super easy to set up "scenes" to your liking. I have a straight rock scene, "acoustic" scene, and then a "crazy" scene with all the weird sound effects locked in. Once your familiar enough with the pedal, you can almost change all this while playing on the fly.

Anyways, if you're considering this purchase I can't recommend it enough. Look up some YouTube video demos and be sure, but I doubt you will be disappointed.

Joshua Eldred
from MI, USA
May 21, 2012Music Background:
Modern Worship Guitarist

Highly recommended, you can't beat the M9

I am a contemporary worship guitarist at a large church in Michigan. The M9 is the centerpeice of my pedalboard, at this point I can't imagine trying to find something to replace it. The M9 is very compact so it won't take up much space on your board. It will likely eliminate the need for many of the other pedals too, because the variety and quality of sounds with this thing is impressive. Some purists may prefer an analog drive pedal in front of the M9, but plenty of guitarists are happy with the drives offered. I've never met anyone not impressed with the delays. Our band plays a variety of styles of music and the M9 allows me to find the sounds I need with with a minimal pedal board. True bypass and an internal noise gate as well! Lots of good advice for getting your settings just right can be found online, check out "Line 6 Stombox Modeler Settings" on facebook. I can't say enough good about this product!

Dano
from Orange City, FL
May 27, 2011Music Background:
Guitarist

Great product

I am very impressed with the build quality, feature set and tonal quality. I was trying to build a pedal board and the cost and hit or miss pedal selection was getting expensive and frustrating. The Line6 m9 was the best answer for me. All the tone I could ever want in a small package. This is a must have for any one that wants to play through their favorite amp and needs fx.

Theo Barnard
from Centurion, Pretoria, South Africa
May 11, 2011Music Background:
Guitarist, Dementophobia, Only when it rains

M9, you dont need anything else

I have owned my M9 for just over a year now, and I am still amazed.

I have played countless shows with it, in all types of weather conditions and it has never failed me, its sturdy build and easy to use features are probably the biggest plus points, and with 6 effects per scene and 6 scenes I can’t see why you would need another pedal in your collection,

10 out of 10 Line 6!

Tobias Kevorkazito
from Winnipeg MB Canada
May 8, 2011Music Background:
Hobbyiest/Session Player/Composer

I like it.

I use this more than my TC Electronics G-system while playing live because it is to easy to tweak settings 'on-the-fly'. My bandmates were impressed with my sound too. Highly recommended; this is the future... now!

Paul
from Minneapolis, MN
March 9, 2011Music Background:
Pro Musician

A must have effect unit!!

The Line 6 M9 is a very powerful yet very simple unit to have! the size of this unit is no bigger than any of the Line 6 Modelers but 6 six times the ability. For those people who want s a ton of options in a nicely sized unit, this one is for you!!!

I consider myself a tone geek and was very happy with the quality of the effects. I really like the tap tempo feature as well! You can set the tempo while the effects are off unlike the DL4 tap feature. Please, do yourself a favor and check this unit out. for the price and quality... you can't go wrong!

Chris Putrich
from Naperville, IL
December 29, 2010Music Background:
recording engineering, touring musician

Amazing Pedal! My new workhorse

I have owned this pedal for about 8 months - I know it's delayed, but I didn't want to jump to conclusions. I have put this pedal through the ringer and it continues to be amazing. I have never been a fan of multi-FX units, but this unit changed my mind forever. I could probably get by with just the M9, but I have a few old stomp boxes that I just can't part ways with. That's 100% just a matter of personal taste though - because this unit does it all.

I love the delays and reverbs (my primary use for this). The tremolos and other modulation type effect are also very good. I especially like that you can tap the tempo of the tremolos and designate quarter note, eigth note, etc. The drives and comps are believable and definitely get the job done - I have an old school RAT and Tubescreamer though so I've yet to use the M9 drives exclusively.

My only complaint is that when I'm dialing in settings (mainly for the delays/reverbs), the knobs that control the settings are a bit fiddly so it's hard to get it exactly where I want it. This could quite possibly be a result of fat fingers and unsteady hands though.

Overall - Amazing unit that sounds great and has excellent features. It will convince you to ditch your stomp boxes if you're not too attached to them sentimentally.

New Vintage Amplifiers
from Duluth, MN
December 3, 2009Music Background:
Amplifier manufacturer

Great pedal, tons of features

This pedal is really quite amazing. It does everything I need/wanted it to do. I've never been an effects guy, so I wanted to try this out because it features a wide variety of options. It's extremely simple to set up and use. Unlike A TON of other multi-effect pedals, it doesn't suck tone (on or off). The true bypass on it is killer, but even the DSP bypass setting doesn't affect the tone much. It's also very quiet running, introducing barely any hum or buzz (again, in the signal or taken out). Having all the Line 6 modelers in one small box is pretty awesome, not to mention a fantastic value. This is nothing like the POD (Don't get me wrong, I personally like the POD's and I own a company that manufactures tube amps...), it's a totally different animal. Line 6 hit another home run with this.

Realist
from Middleton, WI USA
October 29, 2009Music Background:
Pro Musician

great pedal, price is reasonable

So many people are complaining about the price on forums and reviews... because they know how great the effects are and what a steal it would be at $300 or less. You're paying for a brilliantly designed small foot print with all the great Line 6 effects. This thing is for people that want great FX in a small package, and it delivers. Only complaint is that I wish the modulations (univibe in particular) were a little better. But this thing kick a** in general. It is still a great value when you consider all the FX and features.... and the size and weight!

terry hamill
from aiken, sc.
October 9, 2009Music Background:
gigging musician

price too high

i was the first to try this out in my area its an awesome piece of equipment, most line6 stuff is, but even with saying that i would not buy it because i can get a pod x3 , or an m-13 for only $100 more the price is just too steep for what it does, line 6 needs to reconsider its pricing on this one.t

Brian M
from Seattle
March 28, 2013Music Background:
pro guitarist, composer

Great Pedal - But Line6 Won't Fix Looper Bug

The M9 is an extremely powerful multi-effect pedal with some great sounds from subtle to ridiculous. It shares all the models and looper from its big brother the M13 - with one flaw: there is a bug in the M9 looper which causes a ring-modulation type distortion on overdubbed audio under certain circumstances.

Anyone who uses the looper creatively will encounter this 100% reproducible bug eventually. Line6 acknowledges the bug since 2010 and that it could probably be fixed via a firmware update, yet the last firmware update was two years ago and the bug persists.

Line6 apparently doesn't think it's worth the man-hours to fix the firmware even on a product that they continue to manufacture and sell. Caveat Emptor.

Mark McDowell
from Orlando, Fl
April 10, 2013Music Background:
Pro musician

Great features, disappointing tone

This eliminates so many other pedals: Tuner, looper, gate.
It's real easy to select and edit effects.
Plenty to choose from.
Too many effects that sound good, too few that sound great.

It has one of the usual drawbacks of multi effects: The tone and volume of two different effects sound the same when you're playing by yourself, then they sound significantly different, especially in level and brightness when playing with a band. To me, this is TOO MUCH variation. I like to set it and forget it. And I wish it was easier to just get a "basic" chorus, delay, and clean boost from this without too much trouble.
One SERIOUS design flaw: It's really easy to accidentally erase a whole scene when you're trying to switch from one scene to another.
It also has a troublesome wall wart. Consider the "pedalboard" factor in this.

inSync Review

Nick Bobay
8-06-2012

As soon as I got home with in minutes I had the line 6 M9 stomp box unpackaged and plugged in. This was probably the easiest learning curve for me to overcome because everything about the M9 is familiar for anybody who has seen a guitar pedal before. If you have worked with a guitar stomp box in the past, you will be at home with the M9.

I did not have to read the manual to get rolling on this pedal board. Everything is laid out very clearly and intuitively across the board. The menu required to operate effect parameters is set up just like a stomp box and the controls almost exactly mirror that of its analog counterparts. The first thing I did was scroll through the effects on each channel and try out different combinations. I then found myself really wanting to save certain combinations and settings I had come up with...I then discovered that the M9 uses what it calls "scenes". The scenes are set up to save the different combinations you come up with. This means no matter where you find yourself, you will be able to call up your personal scenes at the touch of a button, or the stomp of a box! You get 6 scenes to work with and with midi you can save a back up of your scenes.

The M9 gives guitar players an extremely portable and user friendly option to take with them on the road, to gigs, or to rehearse with. Plus if you have an expression pedal like the Line 6 EX 1, the live possibilities open up even further. I would recommend all guitarist looking for either their first multi-effect board or a new easy to use compact unit to go and try this little box today.