Re: Any opinions on Line 6 DL-4

[Legion <Legion@helpwantedproductions.com>]

I can get a used DL-4 pretty cheap, I haven't tried it out. Anyone here have an opinion on it?

I got one when they first came out and later traded it for a piece of kit I really wanted. I'd certainly consider buying another one *especially* if it were cheap. Here my take:

The unit is very versatile. It has quite a few useful features and even some esoteric parameters that make it interesting. As a delay box on it's own (ie: not compared to anything in particular) it is stellar. The reverse and digital delays are great fun. The loop thing is not that sophisticated but works quite well.  If you want to hear it in action I used a DL4 exclusively with the Little Infinite Frequency Expander instrument on my CD "The L.I.F.E. Album". (Samples at: www.mp3.com/davidtalento) The growls and pings and scrapes are all  LIFE into the DL4 and it was flexible enough for me to use almost all the features and presets on a 60 minute album without duplicating much. I can't say that about many delays out there.

Two things that aren't all they are hyped up to be:

The emulations are cool as delays but IMO they are not *that* useful as authentic substitutes. In other words don't expect this to be the exact same thing as a Space echo or tube echoplex. What is it more like is a snapshot of one taste of those pieces and as such is still fun and useful but it is NOT the same thing. OTOH, each preset gives you a different flavor of delay so again, even though it may not be the exact unit it is emulating, it is cool to have many totally different delays in one box.

The other thing that was kind of confusing was the whole preset idea. I never found this useful because you get three (four) presets but there is no indication of what you're calling up or what the knobs are set for (fair enough there is no display on the unit). I guess you could look at these as a "bonus" and call one up when you don't need to tweak anything. I just found them too confusing to keep track of so I just dialed in something and then used the unit "live" for that it was great.

I recall these were selling for around $200 new plus the power supply. Anything less than that is an OK price. Anything far less ($125ish  or so) than that falls into the great buy for a good box category.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

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