DL 4

[improv@peak.org (Dave Trenkel)]

I just picked one of these up Sat ($239 @ Portland Music, plus they threw
in a free (non-standard but works fine) power supply). I haven't had a lot
of time to play with it as yet, but I am really digging it thus far.

The Sweep Echo patch is especially cool: a tape echo simulation with an
LFO-driven filter on the repeats, just spent about an hour playing rhodes
through this patch. While I don't have access to a Space Echo, and haven't
compared it directly to my Deluxe Memory Man, the simulations sound *very*
believable, twiddling the delay knob on the tape echo sims actually sounds
like tape speeding up. Gets great feedback too, I'm glad that line6 opted
to emulate the way analog delays *really* work instead of the way they were
*supposed* to work. In fact, at extreme feedback settings, this thing can
produce some really hairy sounds.

There's a couple of very cool design elements in the box, plus a few that
are kind of annoying. On the cool side, the Tap LED changes tempo whether
you enter the time by the switch or the Delay knob. Also, it stores the
delay time as part of each user preset. On the annoying side: the switches
that recall the 3 user presets also act as the only bypass switches. If you
recall a preset, tweak it while playing, then bypass the patch without
storing, when you step on the bypass switch again, the unit recalls the
stored patch, not the edited patch. And, for such a preset-dependant
machine, having only 3 slots is pretty slim, though to be honest, I can't
see how Line6 could have implemented any more patches without making the
unit way more complex. Also, an infinite hold switch, like on the Digitech
pedals, would be cool, several times I've come across textures that I'd
really like to hang on to, but even with the repeat knob full on, the
delays still die away. This is more like the way real analog delays work
anyway, and I intend to keep my Boomerang in my pedalboard along with the
DL-4 to loop the output of the DL-4. Another thing: there's no input level
attenuator. I've run it on bass, rhodes, and on a line-level Aux mixer
send, and none seemed to overdrive the DL-4, so maybe this isn't an issue.

The Looping patch acts almost exactly like the Boomerang, except with only
14 seconds, which frankly is plenty for most simple looping, and the speed
change and reverse functions sharing one footswitch. It does record at slow
speed and playback at double-speed, which is pretty important for me as a
bassist, one thing I do a lot with the Boomerang is grab a loop at slow
speed, speed it up and reverse it, making it fill a different space than
the bass.

Alkl inall, it's an exceptionally cool pedal, it sounds great and costs
less than you'd pay for any *one* of the analog delays it emulates. The
tape delay patches in particular sound totally right to my ears.

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Dave Trenkel : improv@peak.org  : www.peak.org/~improv/

"...there will come a day when you won't have to use
gasoline. You'd simply take a cassette and put it in
your car, let it run. You'd have to have the proper
type of music. Like you take two sticks, put 'em
together, make fire. You take some notes and rub 'em
together - dum, dum, dum, dum - fire, cosmic fire."
                                            -Sun Ra
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