Line 6 DL4 Review

The Line 6 DL4 Delay Pedal Review

I bought a Line 6 DL4 delay pedal almost 2 years ago, as my church was playing a lot of the Hillsong United stuff. And my word don’t those Hillsong people use a lot of delay, and 2nd don’t they half get their inspiration from Edge from U2.

Anyway as I was going to be the next guitarist so i thought step up to the challenge and resource myself. I was first a bit reluctant to buy the DL4 Pedal, mainly because it was expensive , 2 years ago it was going for £190 that around $380, however the good news is for you guys you can pick these up for around $250 on-line, there a few good on-line stores that sell them new for this price or you can check Ebay (check my matty links below this article for further details).

I am happy to say the money spent on the pedal is worth every penny, I am not only using it for the church stuff but have integrated new sounds and creativity for my own band thanks to this pedal.

As I said before I have had this pedal for 2 years and I have been gigging with it very hard, it was only recently I bought a hard case electric pedal board to protect it, but before that it got banged and stamped and slap a lot, and I must say its very durable , I however have lost a couple of washers….but hey washers are cheap and the pedals still working perfect and for the average Joe this is a solid , solid pedal, you’re very unlikely going to throw it across the room to hit someone!!

The quality of this pedal is impeccable I must say, there nearly every type of delay you could imagine, and one of the coolest thing about this unit is it has a 14 second loop, which gets your creative juices flowing it just wonderful. Plus I love the tap tempo, this is a life send especially when you’re playing live and your drummer goes berserk!

Now would it be easy to get a delay sound like Edge from this pedal…….Well yes and no …..mainly cos it depends on who you are Now me, even thought I love guitars …I’m more of ‘I love playing them’ kind of guy rather than lets see what inside of them, bit like driving the car …..I know a bit bouts car but I’m more into driving them ….and so its the same with these guitar delay pedals, I think for the average Joe it will be wise to look into the instruction booklet which I must give the thumbs up as is very easy to read…….

So yes you do need to do some reading and maybe some checking on the internet like YoutTube and the Line 6 website if you want to fully use the pedal to its full potential….

However a friend of mine, he is just a naturally he just knew how to use it almost from the get go and although it took him a few hours of messing around with it, he figured out the U2 delay signature sound, as-well as those Hillsong songs …well they all sounded pretty close like to me!

So is the DL4 a plug and play you just simple plug your guitar and you get beautiful delays , well yes, if you want to make your guitar solo’s sound bigger its pretty easy to just dial a pre-set…..

But if you want a specific delay you need to put in some time, read the instruction, experiment a bit and have an ear to know what you want.
For example do you want the notes to be have Dotted 8th delay…which simple means you get a double pick echo kind of sound check below on the Youtube vids if you want to know more.

Anyway my conclusion of this pedal

This is a awesome pedal, its definitely a must have, after 2 years I’m still learning new stuff on it everyday OK that’s mainly because I take my times with things, but hey they will make your solos sound sweeter and stir your creative juices, and if you want to sound like Edge well you can, and if you want to pretend you pick fast and accurate you can…what I am saying is this pedal got all the functions and capability that you ever want from a delay pedal …

OK maybe they could have places more buttons to save more pre-sets, but that’s just me.

But the pedal built well, I like the solidness, and it comes with a power supply so you don’t need to waste money on those Duracell ‘C’ batteries. Yes the price is still quite high over $250 brand new …well look at this way you getting 16 vintage delay and echo effects including Tube Echoplex, Space Echo, Deluxe Memory Man, and more , if you try to buy all them new well first you will have a hard time finding a supplier 2nd they will cost you way more than $250.

I give this pedal 9/10

Line 6 DL4 Delay Guitar Effects Pedal Features:
16 vintage delay and echo effects including Tube Echoplex, Space Echo, Deluxe Memory Man, and more
Provides for 3 programmable presets
Tap tempo control
14 seconds of sample-loop memory
True bypass switching
Expression pedal input
Stereo inputs and outputs
below is a video that shows of a dotted 8th note and how its sounds….

Matty tip 2: Dotted 8th notes classics here time to get them easy on the delay pedal

“Dotted 8ths are easy on the DL4…just set the timing to 16th notes and tap on the 1 and 4 of the groove. Works every time.

I needed to buy the dl4 because of the layout, presets, and ability to use an expression pedal with it. I use the exp pedal to control the FX mix…back off it for faster runs, heap it on for spacy/ambient stuff. I love it…and if the tone loss is really bothersome to you, Keeley can mod it no problem.

Haven’t had any reliability issues yet through extensive weekend warrior gigging…keeping my fingers crossed! “

Matty’s Tip:

I saw one of these DL4 pedals going for a buy it now price of $235 with free shipping to the US plus if you apply for the new Ebay master card to pay you get a further 15% off, you could possible get the pedal for new for under $200 what a bargain!

This entry was posted on Saturday, December 11th, 2010 at 9:44 pm and is filed under Multi Effects Pedal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

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Line 6 DL4 Review

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