Line 6 M-13 and continuos controllers - and Line6 products in general (a little bit of whining)

["Rainer Straschill" <moinsound@googlemail.com>]

Hi Bill,

thanks for that lengthy report on the M13.

I find it interesting (and this is also in line with a lot of your
findings) that Line6 seems to have a really odd strategy when defining
their products, in so much that they always give you about 85% of the
features you long for (and a few extra ones as well), but then leave a
few really important ones uncovered. Examples here (without any claim
of completeness):

The (original and second-generation if I remember correctly as well)
PODs came in a guitar and a bass guitar version (just like most
competing products and all "high-level" ones). For some reason, the
bass versions never had any delay effects but for some reason three or
four distortion effect models. Then there was the wonderful Teletronix
compressor model which you also mentioned - but it didn't exist in the
guitar version.

The rack version of the DL4 (don't remember the name, it was
discontinued rather quickly if I remember correctly) had MIDI sync for
its delays, but no MIDI sync for the looper.

With all of their devices flexibility is lacking a great deal. You
mentioned the great things you can do with the expression pedal, and I
have to agree that for the DL4 the expression pedal implementation
really rocked regarding that market segment. However with the M-13
(which I regard as not just a stompbox, but a very complex beast), why
not give the possibility to use more complex curves. I always remember
my Sony HR-GP5, a device from the end of the 80ies (if I remember
correctly), which still sits in one of my racks, because you could
(among other things) assign complex controller mappings for (a maximum
of two) expression pedals and four MIDI CCs.

And you had a very flexible routing structure - almost any combination
of serial and parallel, something I've yet to find with some Line6
stuff. I'll talk a little bit about the POD X3 which I have: you have
two independent processing paths, but you can't route one path's
output to the other part (to cascade two amps, or two delays, or
whatever). Then you always have the effects order stomp->delay->mod,
you can't change that. No distortion after the delay e.g. No parallel
routing, either (and I believe that's also true for the M-13).

What bugs me most about the X3 that it gives you almost all of the
effects from the stompbox modelers, yet leaves some very nice ones out
for no apparent reason. Why on earth did they just leave out the
dynamic delay and the tri-state chorus?

It seems to me that the Line6 stuff is really great for people who
don't feel comfortable editing patches (which I assume, are not that
many on this list) - they simply keep you from editing a lot. I got my
X3 because I wanted a floorboard amp modeller with effects which
equally well caters to guitar and bass guitar - and for that, it was
the best choice. Still, if there was a product which, say, combined
the Boss GT-10 and GT-10B in one device, I'd get rid of my X3 and
never look back.

        Rainer

(It needs to be said that I like the amp and also some of the effect
models better than all/most of the competitors. This however from
someone who can't hear the difference anyway)