Line 6 M5

[yorick]

Anyone specifically used one for bass duties?

Cheers

[sk8]

Same effects as the M9 and M13 and there are people using them.

I've got one but have used my seperates more so put it up for sale

[tonyf]

Hi Nige,

I've got an M13 that I use. Which is like lots of M5's in one box. lol

They're fantastic bits of kit in my opinion. A great way of having loads of stomp pedals in one box. They're designed for stompbox modelling only so I love mine because they're ONLY effects, no amp or cab modelling which I never used/needed when I had Bass PODs/XT Lives previously.

All but a few are near as dammit (for me) to the originals. The modulations, delays and distortions are particularly great and sound good for bass.

Being true-bypass, they don't suck your signal when not in use. They're also incredibly tactile so are great if you're into your tweakery. Dead easy to swap between effect group, effect type and then into the specifics of the individual effect.

Not having used an M5, dunno whether or not you'd benefit from an expression pedal at some point to control some of the wahs or distortions.

Nip along to PMT and give one a whirl? IMHO, at the reasonable price for all those great stompbox models, even if you don't get on with it, you'll be able to shift it on without losing a lot of money on it.

Call us if you want more info.

Tony

[thisnameistaken]

I've had an M9 on my board for a couple of years now. I don't like most of the modulation effects although there's a couple of good phasers and the ring mod is pretty good, mostly because of the way you can set up the expression pedals with it. Delays of course are great, reverbs are really good, envelope filters are useless because there's no sensitivity control... The synth effects are more useful than I thought they would be, octaver is alright, tracks well, pitch shifting and harmony patches are excellent. One good compressor and one good dirt patch IMO.

Overall it's the most useful multi I've ever had, I don't mind that some of the patches are fairly useless, there's a lot that make up for it.

[GarethFlatlands]

I got one but I use it for guitar. That said, I'm considering combining my bass and guitar boards and only carrying 1 case around. Pantherairsoft messaged me about it recently and I think he's tried one out on bass so he might be worth asking. An exp pedal is cool, I use it to morph between 2 presets and making cool noises to distract from my poor playing.

Here were my thoughts on getting it as per the old thread amended to deal with the rubber feet issue.

"If you've seen the M9 or M13 you'll be familiar with the setup and layout of the controls here, although the 2 footswitches are different in function. The left switch turns the effect on and off, although unlike the M9/13, the display still shows the selected effect and settings instead of simply showing that it's bypassed. Makes sense, the lights above the switches don't change colour to show you which category of effect you're in so there's no need to turn the effect on to see whether you're about to kick on a beatiful reverb for that nice quiet section or a maxed out fuzz. A nice touch which shows Line 6 have put some thought into this instead of simply taking a saw to their surplus stock of M9's.

The right switch provides the incredibly useful 'tap' function for time based effects and activates the tuner when held down. Both switches together brings up the presets menu. There are 24 slots, all of which come pre-loaded with a selection of effects and all of which are overwritable. The left and right switches then turn into up and down selectors and another click of both activates the highlighted effect which is both named and numbered. No matter which preset you're in, if you play around and find a sound you like and want to save, simply hold down the model select switch and you're given the option of which number slot you want to save it to, as well as the ability to rename it to something more useful. No point having a tube screamer saved under a slot called '63 Spring'. Re-naming is a bit of a pain as there's a lot of characters which aren't really useful and one knob to scroll through them all so be prepared for a lot of twiddling until you're set up with the selection of effects in the order you need them. I also couldn't find a way of moving, say effect slot 18 to slot 6 without selecting slot 18 then re-saving it in slot 6 and having to rename that slot, so think about grouping your most used effects together from the word go.

As for the sounds themselves, the 4 switch Line 6 pedals (and Verbzilla) have been around for long enough for most people to have a good idea about what this pedal can provide. I was expecting to pretty much ignore the distortions and filters as I already have a nice distortion (a modded Rat) and am not a fan of filters but was able to find some useful settings in both in the form of octave fuzzes, some surprisingly useful compressors, wahs and pitch glide. It has to be said, there was quite a lot of garbage in both those categories and some effects in the others where I wondered what the difference would be between that effect and the one next to it in a real world situation, but it's nice to have the choice available.

As for gripes, the knobs don't seem hugely sturdy, though they're protected by a bar which should stop them being accidentally trodden on by all but the clumsiest of musician. Odd, as the rest of the unit seems very well built and like it would last a long time if treated well. The pedal also sits on 4 rubber feet which can be removed and the screws replace to give it less floor clearance for velcroing.

Other brief points of mention:-
Stereo in/out
1 expression pedal input
No looper (something I could care less about)
True bypass option
Takes standard 9v barrel connection, centre negative, like all your other pedals so no need for an extra power connector, although it does come with one"

Edit:- I got Pantherairsofts name wrong and spelt it 'Panterhairsoft'.

Edited November 29, 2011 by GarethFlatlands