ilovefuzz.com

Here we are nearly 2015. The big hype of modelling amps is virtually dead. Digital equipment has a home in most people's boards or home studios in one form or another. At the same tim there has been a boom in the boutique market (analog and digital) as an alternative to mass-produced equipment. Options are amazing these days. People's ears seem a bit more discriminating these days.

So what I want to know is if what is printed in your Line6 Stompbox Modeler is accurate. They claim their effects will be ahead of its time even a decade from when they were made. Being nearly 2015, I think its a good time to weigh in.

I was never a fan of line6. Part of that was becuse of the types of people that used it. I have a Filter Modeler because its all the non-wah filtering I need and some guitar synth in one box for cheap. I'd say as far as features at a price point, the Stompbox Modelers hold up very well. Most of them have stereo ins, get specific control over what the tradle input does. Easy factory Reset. Easy programmability.


How about all of you?

My opinion on the filter modeller is that nothing else on the market is anywhere near as good even after 10 years. They all sound too dry and subtle and if they do have a lot of range like eg the Xero DLX they're too fiddlesome to sound consistent. FM4 is the eternal glitch filter king. They even managed to screw up the filters in the M series somehow that are supposed to be the same.
Everything else they've modelled feels like it's become redundant to me though. Although the filter delay on the dl4 is better than the one on the timeline. I think anything that ends up resembling the unit it's based on very heavily is bound to go out of date sooner, so a passable emulation becomes boring more quickly than a failed one that ends up doing new things.

That's an interesting view.
I also agree that where something fails usually is where the magic happens and it becomes something else, it actually seems very apparent in both gear and music.
I'm curious though which filters, besides the FM4 and Xerograph Deluxe, you have tried out so far?

Tristan wrote:That's an interesting view.
I also agree that where something fails usually is where the magic happens and it becomes something else, it actually seems very apparent in both gear and music.
I'm curious though which filters, besides the FM4 and Xerograph Deluxe, you have tried out so far?

M5, Synth Wah, Robotalk, SB7, SYB-3, Q tron, bitquest, XP1000, Mobius... i can't recall any others so i guess far from all of them but demos are still somewhat indicative enough

i'm speaking more so about filters comparable to what you can dial in on the FM4 rather than filters in general, obviously like a Moog LPF is great but i would barely put it in the same category as the FM4
Xero DLX is the only one i liked tonally and it just frustrated me how differently it reacts to being in different places in the chain, different guitars etc. I could not get it to sound consistent like i can with the FM4.
To me the FM4 is really a bunch of 'shitty' filter models that are (probably unintentionally) more intuitive and versatile to use than the things they're based on even if it sounds ridiculously digital.
Some of the others i tried were nice (bitquest definitely has some useful functions but overall the filters don't inspire me) but e.g. the mobius is probably the worst filter pedal i've ever tried and that's as 'modern' as it gets. Even the robotalk i thought sounded terrible compared to similar sounds on the FM4. This is totally subjective though.
But overall i think as modeling technology gets better those happy accidents won't happen anymore and most stuff prior to that is too low resolution to even be considered usable in a rig nowadays, so the FM4 is special
I didn't really notice any overly quirky stuff on any other line 6 models like the modulation and stuff. I guess you could talk about the DL4 looper too but that's not really 'modeling' and it's almost been bested now anyway (i way prefer the timeline + DMC combo but there are tiny quirks with e.g. not having a play once function)

Don't think most of them have held up well - they were dated very, very fast, and a lot didn't sound anything like what they claimed.

My big gripe is they brought in the era of 'add crappy modulation, it's tape delay' modelling that doesn't sound anything like actual tape more than anything else, and dumbed down the number of presets and options to a "tweak/tweeze" level where there's no deep editing at all.

At this point, the DL4 should be $109 new or something like that as well.

I came to the Line6 Modeler party blindlingly late. As in, within the last two months I've bought 3 DL4's and I got an FM4 in August. The FM4 is rad, I don't care what anyone says. The String Synth setting in parallel with just about anything is an awesome added texture, and I think it's the Growler model that's a great subtle addition to arpeggiated stuff. Definitely a go to effect when I'm putting together small scale rigs. The DL4 is my favorite looper/sampler ever. Honestly I think I used the delay models on it once, and that was because my main delay rig took a shit on me at the last minute. Looping on those is so much fun, so simple, and one shot looping has completely changed my music making process. So yeah, I'm a big fan of the Line6 Modelers. Had an M9, didn't really get along with it, have had PODs, same deal.

backwardsvoyager wrote:

Tristan wrote:That's an interesting view.
I also agree that where something fails usually is where the magic happens and it becomes something else, it actually seems very apparent in both gear and music.
I'm curious though which filters, besides the FM4 and Xerograph Deluxe, you have tried out so far?

M5, Synth Wah, Robotalk, SB7, SYB-3, Q tron, bitquest, XP1000, Mobius... i can't recall any others so i guess far from all of them but demos are still somewhat indicative enough

i'm speaking more so about filters comparable to what you can dial in on the FM4 rather than filters in general, obviously like a Moog LPF is great but i would barely put it in the same category as the FM4
Xero DLX is the only one i liked tonally and it just frustrated me how differently it reacts to being in different places in the chain, different guitars etc. I could not get it to sound consistent like i can with the FM4.
To me the FM4 is really a bunch of 'shitty' filter models that are (probably unintentionally) more intuitive and versatile to use than the things they're based on even if it sounds ridiculously digital.
Some of the others i tried were nice (bitquest definitely has some useful functions but overall the filters don't inspire me) but e.g. the mobius is probably the worst filter pedal i've ever tried and that's as 'modern' as it gets. Even the robotalk i thought sounded terrible compared to similar sounds on the FM4. This is totally subjective though.
But overall i think as modeling technology gets better those happy accidents won't happen anymore and most stuff prior to that is too low resolution to even be considered usable in a rig nowadays, so the FM4 is special
I didn't really notice any overly quirky stuff on any other line 6 models like the modulation and stuff. I guess you could talk about the DL4 looper too but that's not really 'modeling' and it's almost been bested now anyway (i way prefer the timeline + DMC combo but there are tiny quirks with e.g. not having a play once function)

Right, yeah, I as well think the Moog LPF is different but that one also needs distortion before it for the best sound, just the same as I do with my Xerograph Deluxe, as a clean filter they both aren't worth as much I'd say.
Most filters you mention are digital I think by the way (or they're on the weaker non-synthlike side of the scale), the only digital filters I heard so far that can really match the synthy analog ones are the Xerograph Deluxe and the BitQuest but they both have their quirks.