In Praise of the DL4

["William Walker" <billwalker@looppool.info>]

  After trying  a set-up of two Line 6 DL4's at loopstock this year, and
seeing my brother Rick, and John Whooley, use the same set up at past shows
to great effect. I'm damm near convinced this is the best budget looping 
rig
one could have. I understand that some of you have had bad luck with these
pedals, as they don't have any kind of input level attenuation control, and
yes, if you realy slame the front end you will get distortion. But I have
used my 3+ year old DL4 continually, and, other than replacing a 
footswitch,
and cleaning it after I dumped chai on it. DOH!, it has performed like a
champ, as has my year old DL4. I've also been through an expression pedal,
that I highly recommend if you dig foot control of   runaway regeneration,
or the ability to fade a loop manually as you play, change delay speed, 
etc.
I know John Whooley has been through at least one DL4, but if you saw him
play you would understand why,as he pounds the puppies in to submission. My
brother often uses his DL4's in the individual channel inserts of his 
Mackie
mixer, and though I know he has to take some care in not turning up mic
preamps too much, they work pretty well, for a floor pedal, designed for
instrument level operation. The big bonus, though, is the ability to have
two loopers capable of half speed sampling, asynchronous loops, resampling
capability, reverse recording capability, etc.. etc.. An idea of what I'm
talking about: I record a loop at half speed on one dl4, then I return to
normal speed, and its now playing back at twice the tempo speed, sounding 
an
octave above. I then resample that loop onto my other Dl4, again at half
speed, and return that loop to normal speed, now I have a loop 2octaves
above what I originally sampled it at, and, a loop recorded at 60 bpm would
now be playing at 240bpm. Capiche? Imagine the weird resampling weirdness
that could be rendered, with 3 DL4s, 4 Dl4s? Yikes!  As much as I love my
repeater, and its abilty to sync via midi, independent simultaneous
tracking,deep midi pc and cc control, and pitch shift capabilities,the list
goes on, I get as much thrill out of creating loops on the line 6. There is
something magical about the DL4, and refreshing that it is inexpensive,
available still, versatile not just as a looper, but as a  delay , 
rugged(in
my experience), sound as good as some high priced dedicated loopers, and
does'nt require a bulky extra foot pedal, though getting the expression
pedal is a must, as far as I'm concerned, as it opens up a whole world of
hands free access. Highly recommended.
Bill Walker