# Line 6 M5 Stomp box modeler



## Milkman (Feb 2, 2006)

I wanted more modulation options on my board but didn't want three or four more pedals jammed on there so I decided on a Swiss Army pedal for that purpose.

This one also does delays, dirt, filters, and reverbs, but I'll use it for mostly modulation.

So far the sounds are awesome and very simple to tweak.










http://line6.com/m5/


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## ronmac (Sep 22, 2006)

I am interested in your assessment and have been looking at that same unit to have for an all in one. I supported a visiting guitarist on a series of shows recently and he used only the M5 direct into my Deluxe Reverb amp and it sounded great.


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## Voxguy76 (Aug 23, 2006)

Great little unit. I have the M9, and had the M13. Excellent for verbs, delays and those random modulation uses. Not totally sold on the overdrives, but they are definitely usable. Have fun with it.


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## Cups (Jan 5, 2010)

I'm not trying to sell Line6 products because they certainly don't need our money, but as a "I'm just missing a little something extra for my board" kind of pedal it's perfect. For the price there is little reason every guitar player doesn't own one.

love the verbs, delays, and especially the filters. The drives are useable. The trem, phase, tri-chorus and flange are pretty good too. 
Disapointments: rotary, vibe, univibe is terrible.

still a nice "tool" pedal. Wouldn't buy it as a do everything though.


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## sulphur (Jun 2, 2011)

I got one of these on a trade a while ago, cool little unit.

Congrats!


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

I was fortunate enough to be on the beta-testing team for that, and got a free pre-production one from them. It's a nice little unit. And given how it completely replaces the rest of the Modeller series (FM4, DM-4, MM-4, DL-4), I was expecting Line 6 to push that aspect, and the resale prices of the older modellers to be lower. I gather word has not spread, since you still see people trying to sell their MM-4 or whatever for $200, even though the M5 generally goes for about $150.

I did the firmware upgrade on mine (as did all the beta-testers) and it was pretty easy to do, should there be any future firmware upgrades. Have not experimented with MIDI-control yet.

I'm not crazy about, or at least was not able to get a decent sound out of, the Uni-vibe program.

The distortions are what you'd expect from digital distortion. I gather they didn't want to steal their own thunder, so the distortions found in the Crunchtone, Übermetal, and Dr. Distorto pedals (all now pretty much discontinued), are absent. A shame, since they're actually decent. Same thing for the Liqui-Flange, which has some really nice and unique sounds not found on other flangers. Perhaps it will eventually be implemented in future firmware upgrades, when they don't have any more Tone Core pedals to sell.

The expression-pedal thing is loads of fun. The expression pedal can control up to 5 parameters simultaneously. It only requires a 10k variable resistance to ground. If a person wanted, you could use a stereo jack on your guitar, and include a 10k pot on the instrument to control patches with your fingers from the guitar. Once I realized this, I rigged up a suitable photocell, and stuck it on my guitar with tape, between the bridge and volume pot, where I could cover it or expose it with my hand. Lemme tell you, playing the Whammy-like patch with your pinky is a _load_ of fun. Once I get mine back from a guy I loaned it to, I want to try pinky control of other things.

Finally, it is a stereo pedal, which means that some patches can be reprocessed by the M5 for interesting sounds. So, into A, from A output to B in, with maybe a stop along the way to a second pedal. More intense filters. More complex delays. I wouldn't want to reprocess distortions or modulation FX, though. A re-ring-modulated guitar is apt not to be pretty or functional.


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## zurn (Oct 21, 2009)

I had one but ended selling it cause I didn't use it that much, I didn't like having to scroll the menus to switch effects. Some effects sounded good but most of them sounded fake to me. I did like that fact that it had stereo in's and out's.


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## Milkman (Feb 2, 2006)

For me, the beauty is in the flexibility. First, it's mindlessly simple to find the patch you want and I don't generally need more than one modulation effect in any given song. Changing patches between songs is quick and easy and I'll wager most such changes can be done between sets.

I tried the univibe and agree it's not particularly useful, but IMO even the original univibe was pretty much useless for what I do.

The phasers, choruses flangers and trems sound great.

Heck, if all it did was two or three good sounds, $150 is a no brainer.


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

I just saw one for $100 on the local kijiji, but when I clicked it was gone.

I think the difference between zurn's and Milkman's experiences have to do with setup. There are more nuisance-carrying and less nuisance-carrying setups, the latter of which probably requires a bit of work to achieve. Still, there are plenty of players like myself who still find a box with 3-4 knobs less problematic than reading the manual and learning how to program patches.

Finally, is it just me, or has the migration to digital resulted in something similar to what we'd see in 1997, when CDs with 2000 fonts and 50,000 pieces of clipart started appearing for $19.95? In this case, you buy a pedal and you get a bazillion "effects", some of which have absolutely no earthly use for the buyer.


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## Milkman (Feb 2, 2006)

On the subject of intuitive design, this device can be understood and used by a person of average intelligence withOUT opening the manual.

No, I'm not recommending that anyone do so, but that's my personal benchmark for good intuitive design.

Companies like Garmin, Apple, and apparently Line 6, seem to get it.

Basically you get a grid on the screen that matches the pattern of buttons on the unit. Easy as it gets.


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## bluzfish (Mar 12, 2011)

I don't generally use FX but the M5 looks like a great solution for when you might want a touch of chorus or delay on the fly without having to have a dedicated pedal to do the job. I like the TonePrint on my HOF reverb but it is a single setting choice and it is what it is until you DL a different TonePrint effect.

I have been hemming and hawing over the M5 for some time. Perhaps it's time to spend the tunies I pop into my LP piggie bank at the end of the day...


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

If you like tube-bias tremolo, there is a very nice bias-tremolo model included, also found in the Tap Tremolo pedal and I imagine a bunch of other L6 effects units. It also includes most of the models found in the Verbzilla pedal, plus noise-gating, etc., and some synth-type sounds that the average player would not normally spring money for as individual pedals, but are fun for "those occasions" - sort of like the bowtie of FX.

And when you consider that it can be bought for the price of any two individual pedals....


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## Milkman (Feb 2, 2006)

That's what I was looking for. I might need tremolo once in a whole night, same goes for flange or octave. It's nice to have a pedal that can call up all of the above.

I can's see having separate pedals for those rare uses.


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## bzrkrage (Mar 20, 2011)

I did the same thing a few years back & got the M-9. I needed mod & delays & a looper. My dirt & OD is infront & this is in the tailend. With 2 expression pedals, this can be manipulated to my exact needs, anytime. That & the price rocked!


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## Judas68fr (Feb 5, 2013)

I've used the M13 for several years, and owned the M5 for a few months (same effects, different format).
I've tried recently the Zoom MS70CDR (chorus/delay/reverb only), I was pleasantly surprised to find out that the Zoom was superior to the Line 6 (it doesn't have any distortion/compression effects, but they are not very useable on the M5 anyway).


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

Judas68fr said:


> I've used the M13 for several years, and owned the M5 for a few months (same effects, different format).
> I've tried recently the Zoom MS70CDR (chorus/delay/reverb only), I was pleasantly surprised to find out that the Zoom was superior to the Line 6 *(it doesn't have any distortion/compression effects, but they are not very useable on the M5 anyway*).


Hence my comparison to the "shovelware" of the 90's, which provided tons of "stuff" for the money, but a great deal of it was things you wouldn't really use.

In that respect, the Eventide pedals, while more restricted in what they attempt, don't shove too much at the user, which can be a good thing.

It's also the case that a user is not going to like _every_ single version of a particular effect that a manufacturer decides to program into a multi-FX unit. So even if multi-FX unit A costs, say $200, and packs in 150 effects, and units B and C cost [email protected] and each pack 25 selected effects, the user may decide that B+C, even though more expensive, yields exactly what they want. Basically, you can pay for the buffet, and eat what's there, or you can order à la carte and get exactly what you want to eat. The buffet is the bigger bargain, but.....

Incidentally, the same sort of thing has pretty much been the death blow to virtually every attempt at "modular" effects systems over the years. Buying into a given manufacturer's modular system meant you HAD to like their flanger, and phaser, and overdrive, because nobody else was providing modules for that standard/format. So even IF you could maybe buy a module for less than the cost of a full-fledged standalone pedal, why would you sink money into a rack/supply for the modules unless you could fill it with your preferred version of those effects you normally use?


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## Milkman (Feb 2, 2006)

I decided to try playing with the Leslie sound in the M5 after reading the negative comments about it.

Has anyone tried slowing down the rotor? The slow rotor sound is actually quite pleasing to my ear. I've never really cared for fast rotor sounds with guitar anyway.


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## traynor_garnet (Feb 22, 2006)

I've been thinking of getting a Zoom G3 to use as a multifx unit (it could also serve as an emergency backup using the amp modelling). I have owned a few Line6 products and think they are decent, but wondered how the Zoom stuff stacked up.

TG



Judas68fr said:


> I've used the M13 for several years, and owned the M5 for a few months (same effects, different format).
> I've tried recently the Zoom MS70CDR (chorus/delay/reverb only), I was pleasantly surprised to find out that the Zoom was superior to the Line 6 (it doesn't have any distortion/compression effects, but they are not very useable on the M5 anyway).


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## Judas68fr (Feb 5, 2013)

I used to have second thoughts about Zoom products (my last experience with them was with the 505 a long time ago, and it was not extraordinary...).
But they have really stepped up to Line 6 products. For me, G3/MS70CDR > Line 6 M-series (I was sceptical at first trying Zoom again, good thing I tried to!)


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## allthumbs56 (Jul 24, 2006)

This is why my H2O will never leave my board. Chorus and delay add most of the flavours I want and often I want both at the same time. Will the M5 allow two at once?


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## bzrkrage (Mar 20, 2011)

allthumbs56 said:


> Will the M5 allow two at once?


 No, but the M-9 does.


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## doriangrey (Mar 29, 2011)

Milkman said:


> That's what I was looking for. I might need tremolo once in a whole night, same goes for flange or octave. It's nice to have a pedal that can call up all of the above.
> 
> I can's see having separate pedals for those rare uses.


Yup, good point. I bought a Zoom G3 for that reason but the M5 looks cool too...only downside I guess is only 1 effect at once. The Zoom MS-70CDR looks pretty cool to and you can use up to six effects simultaneously


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

Be careful what you wish for. Dedicating a DSP to one effect will generally yield better sound than obliging it to tend to 6 different things at once. If the specific effects are undemanding, as far as clock cycles go, it may be no problem. But once you use an effect that has to pay attention to the parameters of the input signal in order to produce the effect (i.e., distortion, or anything relying on envelopes), that demands more of the processor.

As DSP chips get faster and cheaper, I'm confident the burden of multiple effects will have decreasing impact on the quality of sound. But a single puny stomper is unlikely to have multiple DSP chips dividing up the work among them.


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