Line 6 M5?

[frigid midget]

My other thread about the DD5's reverse mode sorta morphed into a search for a Line 6 Echo Park. Or an M5. Which is why I'm wondering why, with all it's got to offer for such a low price, it's not a lot more popular around these parts. I know Line 6's reputation is pretty far from that of the typical ILF boutique brands, and when it comes to dirt, we should obviously avoid digital modelers.

But why an M5 makes a helluva lot of sense to me:

- I miss having a couple of DL4 delay modes at my disposal. The DL4 is overkill for me though, in terms of price, as well as features and size.
- I really want at least one or two modulation effects on my board, altough I rarely use 'em. So something less analog/lush/pristine might be good enough.
- I kinda like the idea of getting a couple other extra effects that I can't justify buying in seperate/analog versions. Tremelo, pitch shift, flanger, filer, comp, an extra reverb,...

So to me the M5 seems like a perfect addition to the selection of corksniffy fuzz and delays peds that are on my board. I can imagine the M9 would be a lot better suited for guys who don't have a lot of other pedals, or for someone who's in a cover band and needs a ton of different sounds or whatever...
But I'd be okay with just getting a single effect at the time from the M5, and I like that it doesn't take up too much board space, nor monies...

Anyone else use an M5 for that sort of purpose? It just seems like Line6 had guys like me in mind when they came up with the M5, it almost makes no sense NOT grabbing one...So what's the catch?

[sp3k]

Get one. I have one and love it. I use it mainly for reverbs, it's allways nice to have some extra stuff on the board, like maybe this song needs a filter or a 4th delay. It also has a tuner, so you got that covered. It's line 6, so it's not well made, they have crap engineers designing stuff, the effects are fine, some are really good. Even the dirt and pitch shifting (it has a whammy and a ps5 in there) stuff have really nice sounds if you just spend some time digging. For the price, I can't really see why anyone won't have one just in case...

[Disarm D'arcy]

Yup, get one. Had an M9, loved it. But just didn't need it as I'm not into modulation and I have enough delay and verb pedals to not need it.

[frigid midget]

Get one. I have one and love it. I use it mainly for reverbs, it's allways nice to have some extra stuff on the board, like maybe this song needs a filter or a 4th delay. It also has a tuner, so you got that covered. It's line 6, so it's not well made, they have crap engineers designing stuff, the effects are fine, some are really good. Even the dirt and pitch shifting (it has a whammy and a ps5 in there) stuff have really nice sounds if you just spend some time digging. For the price, I can't really see why anyone won't have one just in case...

Exactly. I'm not gonna haul around a giant $3K pedalboard because I may want an auto wah effect on the second verse of one song, or a tremelo on the intro of another song, etc etc. I didn't even think of the tuner. Not needing another tuner pedal would be another easy way to free up pedal board space as well as funds...

Selling my tuner, DOD phaser, and my CE2, should be more than enough to make room for the M5 plus another dirt pedal or something

[backwardsvoyager]

I had one and it shit the bed, just totally stopped working.
Functionally it's great, but yeah, typical line 6 build problems and depending on the modes you want the sounds may be underwhelming. I think the footswitches can still be modded though.
Having said that the reverbs and modulation i thought were pretty cool, the filters i thought were awful compared to the FM4 for some reason, even though the models are the same i couldn't cop my FM4 sounds with the M5.

[frigid midget]

Yeah, I know about the not-so-great built quality of line 6 products. I rarely buy new pedals, but in this case it might make sense to spend a little more and get a decent return policy and 3 year warranty.

[oldangelmidnight]

I had one for pretty much this purpose. Then I got the Zoom MS50G and decided I didn't need both. I preferred the Zoom because you can run more than one effect at a time and the Bitcrusher is actually the best I've ever tried.

[Casavettes]

the filters i thought were awful compared to the FM4 for some reason, even though the models are the same i couldn't cop my FM4 sounds with the M5.

This always really bothered me with my m9.

[frigid midget]

Don't think I ever even heard of the Zoom MS50G before. It can do a reverse and swell delays too, and it's got a couple of delays that might come close to the Line 6 sweep delay. It looks shitty and cheap, though I'm sure that's just what digital stomp boxes have to look like

I'll check some demos to see if it's any competition for the M5. I like the fact that it's smaller, but yet allows you to use 6 effects simultaniously, instead of onlly one on the M5.

The one HUGE caveat I have with pretty much all digital gear...

Unlike say, my old boss or ehx pedals: New digital stuff breaks, gets outdated, loses its value,...

Mu buddy has one of those old cheesy Zoom multieffects. I forget the model name or whatever, but it was black, entirely made of thin crappy plastic, had a row of preset switches, and a wah and vol pedal. It sounded awefull, costed a lot of money at the time, and it's now worth litterly NOTHING.

I know nowadays it's easier to ugrade the software on your digital effects and what not, and that these pedals are cheap enough to toss out once they become completely obsolete...Still though, it's the only thing keeping me from shit pulling the trigger on something this...'high tech'

[zeravla]

It always seems I see the M5-M13 held in pretty good esteem around here. Normally I wouldn't consider another multi-fx but there's been a few times I've looked at them after seeing them on boards here.

[stilwel]

The M5 and M9 are perfect for this application depending on how much space you have and how many of those types of effects you want/need to run at once. I need mod, delay and reverb so I'm running an M9 on my board along with a selection of analog dirt boxes.

[frigid midget]

^This may be a silly question, but is there a particular reason you favor the Polytune over the M9's tuner function?

[stilwel]

To be honest....I don't favor it over the M9's tuner.

[goosekevin]

I had one for pretty much this purpose. Then I got the Zoom MS50G and decided I didn't need both. I preferred the Zoom because you can run more than one effect at a time and the Bitcrusher is actually the best I've ever tried.

Yeah I did exactly this too
Multi's are rad, whole lotta punch in a small/cheap package
I also recommend the zoom over the m5 sound wise, but the functionality and two foot switches of the line6 is a little bit better

[frigid midget]

So...It's a toss up between the M5 and the zoom multistomp ms-70cdr...

Zoom: Small, cheap, 6 effects at once, supposedly a bit better sounding.
M5: Two switches/tap tempo, and maybe overall a little easier to use. Shitty quality/durability.

I guess the ability to use more than one effect at the same time isn't really that big a deal for me, what with all the other pedals on my board and all. And the fact that I'm really mostly a bread and butter kinda guy when it comes to effects. I don't use much of anything, aside from fuzz/drive and verb/delay, which is why I'm looking for a small digital multi-effect in the first place. The size thing isn't a deal breaker either if I can get rid of my chorus and tuner peds.
But cheaper + better sounding...If the rest of the reviews I'll read comfirm that, they're tough competition for the M5.

I'm looking more towards the new MS-70 instead of the MS-50, cause I think I'd have more use for the extra reverb and delay than the mod/filter effects...