Line 6 M5

[StevenL]

Hey guys. Haven't posted in quite a while but am still enjoying my 5:25. It hasn't missed a lick yet and my speakers are getting good and broken in..... sounding better and better. I love that little sucker.

I got a Line 6 M5 stompbox modeler and expression pedal for my birthday a couple of weeks ago. Have to say I'm pretty impressed with this thing. I'm not much of an effects kind of guy. I've wanted a tremelo and maybe a chorus since I've have my amp and was thinking about maybe a voodoo lab tremelo or something but then ran across this M5. I thought, well if it gets me a decent tremelo and chorus, maybe phaser, it'll be all I need and the rest will just be gravy. But dang, the more I play with it, the better I like it.

It's got several different phasers, choruses, different tremelos, filters, wahs, octavers, overdrives, distortions, fuzzes, synths, delays, echos, pitch shifters, volume pedal, more and none of them sound bad to me, except, strangely enough, the Line 6 overdrive and distortion. Some of the effects are just gorgeous. I like most of the overdrives better than my Fulltone Fulldrive Mosfet, especially the tube screamer emulation. The wahs are better than I've been able to eek out of my Boss V-wah. And it's extremely quiet with of course some noise on the high gain stuff. I don't even need the noise gate. As far as I can tell, the buffered bypass is of good quality...little or no tone suck. My Fulltone seems to suck some tone to me but this thing, can't really tell the difference between the buffered and true bypass on it.

Hooked it up in stereo at a buddy's last week. 5:25 1X10 with 1X12 extension cab and an old Marshall Valvestate my buddy had stuck away, both running off the stereo outs of the M5. Freakin' incredible. Just phenomenal tone. And head-spinning with all that swooshing back and forth. Well this text box is screwing up so I'm done.

Highly recommend this pedal for anyone just looking to spice up their rig pretty dang cheap with something you won't think is cheap. They're getting this modeling stuff down pretty well. I was surprised and pleased. IF their amp modeling has progressed at the pace of the stompbox stuff, I'd have to say the new HD Line 6 amps are likely pretty dang good too. that is all

ps the expression pedal is a cheap plasticy piece of crap and overpriced.

 

[StevenL]

ps the expression pedal is a cheap plasticy piece of crap and overpriced.

Wow, text box is really scewed up tonight! Luckily I got the Line 6 pedal on sale for 50.90 which is still about $30 overpriced in relation to the build quality. They're regularly $69 I think. Luckily my buddy has an old unused Yamaha expression pedal he's gonna give me when this one craps out.

Oh and he also had a midibuddy pedal that I'm trying to learn to use to control the presets in the M5. Pretty cool. I can hang the M5 on a speaker stand or something for tweaking and use the midi board to change presets otherwise. I may have to go out and find me some gigs. :mrgreen:

 

[Rockerduck]

Line 6 led the way in modeling technology. They are the studio effects made for recording. Especially since all the models are in one package. Good luck with the m5.

 

[ddmeburger]

I noticed that about the text boxes a little while back - quite annoying.

Anytime I hear Line 6, it reminds me of one of my test drives with the earlier amps. It left a bad taste in my mouth.

A friend just lent me his M13 to test drive. Let's say I'm WAY more impressed with their stompboxes. Going through the 5:50's Clean mode and using only his presets, I found some of the modulations, delays, and reverbs (what I'd normally use regular pedals for) quite good. His filters were like icing on the cake, especially the weirdo ones he had dialed in. The most surprising effects were the various fuzzes, overdrives, and distortions. At normal household volumes they sounded just as good and lively as those on my board.

StevenL, Did you find any limitations with the M5 and only being able to conjure up a single effect at a time? Have you run it in conjunction with any of your regular pedals?

 

[StevenL]

StevenL, Did you find any limitations with the M5 and only being able to conjure up a single effect at a time? Have you run it in conjunction with any of your regular pedals?

I don't play out that much and have very little use for effects anyway. I just got it mainly to play with and satisfy my occasional urge for a tremelo or phase or wah... If I were to do any gigging, I doubt I'd use more than one at a time, but I'd probably have bought the M9 for the additional capability. The M5 does all I need it to do and more.

The only other stompboxes I have are: MXR 10-band eq, Fulltone Fulldrive 2 Mosfet, DOD Octoplus, and a Boss V-Wah. I never use the MXR - the eq on the 5:25 is more than adequate. It was very useful on my Epiphone Valve Standard pos. V-Wah is pretty lousy; the wahs on the M5 are FAR better. I've run V-Wah with M5... no use for it...tone sucker. The octaver in the M5 tracks way better than the Octoplus, but the Octoplus has a very good dirty growl that M5 doesn't do. Doesn't suck tone as badly as V-Wah. I've tried the Fulldrive with the M5 and found the overdrive and distortion on the M5 to be superior... and found the overdrive on my 5:25 to be far better than both. And.... strangely enough, I "perceive" that the Fulltone is a tone-sucker. Every time I've tried to bond with it, I end up removing it and my ears say "ahhhhh", much better.".

 

[StevenL]

The Fulldrive could be pretty useful with an amp with lousy overdrive/distortion, like some Fenders. But my ears just never did like it that much. I think I could use it some for a clean boost or maybe to get some squeal out of the burn channel. Would just as soon trade it for something else.

I love the two amp thing with the M5. If I ever do gigging again, it'll be with 2 amps. Some GREAT tone / effects to explore with that setup.

Edit: I've tried the M5 with both buffered and true bypass and couldn't tell much (if any) difference and no real tone-suck with either. I think Line 6 did a great job with that.