Line 6 Modeller
July 2011 Guitarist 117
£169
EFFECTS
This versatile stompbox is a veritable chameleon – what
colour would you like to be today? by Trevor Curwen
Photo gr aPhy by J o E braNStoN
The Rivals
There’s not a lot to compete
with the M5. Zoom’s G1u
(£85) and G2Nu (£125) each
provide 100 factory and 100
user presets, while the
DigiTech RP-55 (£60) offers
40 and 40. There are several
pedals around that give you
access to a variety of effects
of the same genre, the TC
Nova modulator (£249)
offers a useful range of
modulation effects, while the
DigiTech CF-7 Chorus
Factory (£114) does what it
says on the tin. If you have
the money, there’s the
various pedals in Eventide’s
Factor range (from £399).
Line 6 M5 Stompbox
Modeller
£169
L
ine 6 has been putting
modelled effects into
stompboxes for a few
years now, ever since the DL-4,
MM-4, DM-4 and FM-4 put a
range of delay, modulation,
distortion and filter effects
underfoot. The Stompbox
Modeller series of pedals has
eschewed the theme of one
effects genre in one pedal for
a more all-encompassing
approach – the M9 and M13
offer over 100 effects types and
allow up to three (M9) or four
(M13) effects simultaneously –
making them a practical choice
if you are only going to have one
effects box onstage.
The new M5, while still
offering all of the same effects
as its bigger brothers, takes a
different approach, in that it
only allows one effect to be
active at a time and has a
smaller footprint – the idea
being that it can be easily added
to a perhaps already crowded
pedalboard to provide a multi-
function role. In essence the M5
can be whatever pedal you
haven’t already got.
The M5 effects are arranged
in five categories (delay,
modulation, distortion, filter
and reverb) and include 19
delays, 23 modulations and 17
distortions, plus 12 compressors
and EQs, 26 filters and 12
reverbs, any of which can be
easily loaded into one of 24
onboard presets for easy recall.
Everything is clearly shown in
the display, with each effects
category backlit in a different
colour. The presets that come
with the unit have been
programmed at the factory but
are easily overwritten: a model
select knob scrolls through the
effects models in each category,
while a press on that knob
moves on to the next category.
Holding the knob down stores
an edited effect to a program
memory, but you can also set
the M5 up to automatically save
any tweaks. Each effect has up
to five adjustable parameters
controlled by the five
remaining knobs, each of which
relates to one parameter,
represented by a corresponding
horizontal bar in the display.
The tap switch is used for inputting rhythms and scrolling through presets
GIT343.rev_line6 117 5/19/11 11:23:11 AM