Log in
Log in

or
Create an account

or
< All Line 6 JM4 Looper reviews
Add this product to
  • My former gear
  • My current gear
  • My wishlist
Line 6 JM4 Looper
Images
1/467
Line 6 JM4 Looper

Looper from Line 6 belonging to the Stompboxes Modeler series

Shakyamuni Shakyamuni

« Unfortunately, a pedal that combines the defects »

Published on 10/23/11 at 15:28
Audience: Beginners
We almost made the rounds of the unit, but I have a summary for those too lazy to look,
basically we have a loop pedal, ie they register, and you can play over our sample, we also simulated amps, way to clean a large distortion through the overdrive, for a total of 12 presets, effects were tremolo / chorus / phaser we can not use one at a time that may have a double echo (3 different) and reverb. Finally there are settings pre-recorded songs known (hey joe of master of puppets), and pre-recorded drum tracks to be accompanied.
Finally we have an auxiliary input, a headphone, mp3 input, microphone input, 2 stereo outputs, and of course a guitar input and an output amplifier.
And to top it off you can put an SD card to transfer loops on computer.
On paper it seems perfect for just 300 euros, seeing all this I thought "Great! With that I could do it all", especially since I bought used &#39;for 170 euros, but soon we realize that this pedal is a compilation of faults, I write so that "chronic" to open the eyes of those who thought like me at the beginning and they do not make the same mistake.

UTILIZATION

The configuration is fairly simple to choose the settings you should just turn the knobs, we choose between the clean amp settings, and distortion with a palette of 12 settings (5 or 6 would have sufficed), we selected our belongings, the sampler Battery and it registers accompanied, in short all is well. I had no manual, and I am very much out, everything is very intuitive (at worst on the site of line 6 can be found the record).
From that moment things that spoil ... For those who have enjoyed using this pedal in concert, I wish them good luck. While it can remove the battery from the demo, when you press Reccords was a small déompte 4,3,2,1 and recording starts, and although the countdown, it will make you chi * r to the end of your life! I do not know if it is I who am no one, but I have not found a way to remove it, basically if you want to use it live anticipate it will take a few seconds before the start of your loop does not start before or after recording began. Me my trick was to sample the "fast punk rocker" which is where the count is the shortest, with that recording starts 1 second after it was pressed on the pedal, which is still amazing ! And to stop the loop is not better, as it saves one sees the tempo which runs 1,2,3,4,1,2,3,4 ... and when you press again on the pedal to signal the end of the loop, the loop will wait to be on the 4 to stop recording, basically when you press to end your loop if you&#39;re not on the four at this time there, he&#39;ll have to wait one second to return the timer on the 4 and the recording ends. I do not know if you understand, but the trick is that you surgical precision for the perfect loop with the beginning and the end that is not cut or extended.
I still remember that the principle of the loop is "lean it saves you r&#39;appuies it finished recording" it looks like ben line 6 know how to do that.
That said it is not necessarily a pedal for live, I will admit, but the studio is even worse!

SOUND QUALITY

And continue on the most negative point of this pedal, the sound. It&#39;s bad, but bad! At first I thought I had a rotten one because I had bought second-hand &#39;, or because the power supply&#39; was too low, but no, this is the normal sound that I hear. Just the bybass, at home when you are bybass is as if there was no pedal, it has a natural sound, in line 6 is not the same, it was a rotten one. I use a Marshall amp that illuminates a round, warm, and with this pedal is a coming out of the abject. So we try to find a setting among those we offer the pedal to have a nice sound, but do not try, there is none. The clean is bad, it looks like we listen to someone playing in another room, the crunch is simply awful, and distos are terribly rough, the sound sounds totally electronic, it&#39;s not natural at all, that we play with a harley benton 50 euros or a gibson les paul 70 &#39;is the same. There are some nice presets and quite faithful to the original version, but the others are throwing up (another brick in the wall, hey joe, back in black ...) the guys who made the "preset" they at least listened to the songs before. The only thing I really liked his level is the sweep echo, but why just buy a line 6 echo pedal, it costs two times cheaper and it has good sound.
Otherwise the quality of the recordings of pieces of battery is good, then I have not much to complain, and you can adjust the speed of the song.

If you have the hope that the SD card recording are good and you can make edits to your own songs, it&#39;s not worth it, the sound is fake and if you enjoy to overlay multiple tracks is downright draft, when you improvise a solo you hear not the rhythm, and if you try to mount the rhythm track will be muted solo on the computer, in short, level studio is dead also.

OVERALL OPINION

Well even if the sound is poor, and the indomitable loop, there is still an advantage (though) is that it is an object which is quite portable and comes in handy if you go to a place or there is no amp, stupid example, this summer for vacation I could take my guitar, and this pedal in my suitcase without my amp of course, and I could play with headphones or small baffles simple though I preferred to play unpluged ... I am very happy to have paid Moitiers price, and I&#39;ll sell it as quickly as possible to catch the blow. I recommend this pedal for those who think playing with a live (rather take the jam man, I have not tried, but the comments are quite positive), and even in the studio for that matter. Basically this pedal is good for beginners, the guys who do not have amps or who want to improvise little things in their room, but then do not buy it new! opportunity &#39;is enough, and even a pod in line 6 is 3 times smaller, it fits in your pocket, it cost 100 euros, you can plug it into his computer, and with audacity you have the equivalent of a loop, so I see no reason to buy the JM4?!
As a final point, do not connect, oh, ever it low! The looper&#39;s not even detected, and the instrument loses its energy.
So here I am not averse to get rid of this thing after spending a year with her, and if it again ... I would have taken something else, anything but that!