Used the M9 at Casa Bonita practise today for a few hours, ended up using the "Facial Fuzz" Fuzz Face model to replace my RAT distortion rather than the obvious "Classic Distortion" RAT-style model. The former just sounded ballsier than the latter, especially having control over the midrange.
Some thoughts:
Switching between the A and B presets on one 'FX Unit' is pretty tricky whilst concentrating on singing and rocking out, especially given the relative closeness of the footswitches. Using a standard pedal setup with this band, I use an OD pedal set semi-clean as my "base" tone, and stick the distortion afterwards. Rather than waste another FX Unit on the M9 for two sounds, I just had the OD on Preset A and the distortion on B on the first FX Unit, meaning I had to click a different footswitch depending on what I wanted. Sounds easier than it is.
While the footswitches are obviously close together to allow easy access to the Scene, Tuner and Setup mode (accessible by pressing a combination of two neighbouring footswitches), me and my size 12s managed to do this a few times accidentally when I just wanted to switch off an effect. Do-able in a practise situation, but would sound pretty shit during a gig..
The distortions definitely hold up in "real world" situations, I didn't ever feel like I was using some one-dimensional approximation of a distortion pedal, although admittedly, this wasn't really a "CHECK OUT MY JUICY TOOOONE" kind of situation. I've just used a lot of analogue dirt pedals with a variety of amps, and it fit the bill as well.
The tuner wasn't picking up the note a few times; I'm not sure if it's down to having two pedals (Micro POG and Boss PS-5 with its buffer) before the M9 in the chain, but it definitely wasn't playing ball at times. It's also pretty fucking tiny onscreen, I'm not loving having to stoop down a little to make sure I'm aiming for the right note.
So basically, the jury is still kinda out on this one- the sounds are great on the whole and definitely cut through the mix fine, there's just a few idiosyncrasies I've got to adjust to. I'll do some further bench testing over the weekend.
Posted: Sun Aug 22, 2010 2:09 pm
by Doog
A few hours of tweaking later and I've:
-Got the dirt sounds closer to the boxes I'm attempting to emulate
-Opted to use the Korg DT-10 as a tuner rather than the M9's
-Set it up to work as OD into DIST (ala my old setup), and just turn the DIST on and off. Much easier.
Boring report over.
Posted: Mon Sep 27, 2010 9:34 pm
by benecol
What's the M9 thread doing all the way over on the third page, eh? Are we not playing with our toys enough?
Things I have learned this evening:
- One of the lovely things about the M13 is that it allows you to play with effects that you'd never shell out for; tonight I have been messing around with compressors - I'd never buy one, but quite liked messing with them tonight.
- The wahs are really rather good.
- If you set the whammy just high, so you get a nightmare twelve string sound, and run it into a compressor, it sounds fantastic. Plus, you get some lovely glitches - all A notes made a clang, and occasionally notes would ring out like a coin spinning on a table (you know, when they just finish spinning and rattle?).
This completes my report.
PS. Dear Doog - any chance of changing the thread title to include the M13 too?
Posted: Mon Sep 27, 2010 10:12 pm
by Doog
I've been playing with mine loads; a bit of A/Bing with my RAT on Friday has finally proved I don't miss it after weeks of preset-tweaking. I've used it at a few Casa Bonita practises and it never feels "fake", "souless", "sterile" or any other mojo bullshit buzzword. I use my MicroPOG, PS-5 and Korg DT10 tuner in front of it and have zero problems with switching nowadays.
I'm totally with you on the "pedals you wouldn't normally use" front- I had an afternoon of just Tube Compressor and some slapback delay along with some Youtube blues-country backing tracks, just brilllliant. I ran a STEREO RIG yesterday with my two Marshalls and messed about with Particle Verb for about half an hour, it's so ridiculous. I want to use it for something, but it feels like such a cheat, all you do is strum one chord and it's LIKE WE'RE IN SPAAAACE.
I'm gonna see if my Bespeco expression pedal is still at the post office depot in London tomorrow and maybe HOPEFULLY take this baby to Pointless Adjustmentville.
Posted: Mon Sep 27, 2010 10:13 pm
by benecol
Thanks for re-title x
Posted: Mon Sep 27, 2010 11:14 pm
by sp3k
i'm thinking about selling my ehx memory boy and cathedral and buying a m9.
Can i use the looper with other effects (from the m9) on?
Is there a good octave fuzz in this thing?
Posted: Mon Sep 27, 2010 11:21 pm
by benecol
Yes and yes.
Posted: Mon Sep 27, 2010 11:25 pm
by sp3k
Nice
Does it do reversed reverb, or something similar?
Posted: Mon Sep 27, 2010 11:27 pm
by benecol
You can fake one up (plenty of nice reverse effects and volume swells) but no dedicated reverse reverbs.
Posted: Mon Oct 11, 2010 11:08 pm
by benecol
This evening's M13 fuckery consisted of: particle verbs into a pitch shifter with the mix set at 50%, blended in with the expression pedal; would glitch like buggery and almost play itself: Doog, I expect you to plumb in and do this now.
Posted: Tue Oct 12, 2010 12:27 am
by Medicine Melancholy
I'm really annoyed that the M9 lacks a proper auto-wah setting, and is also seriously lacking in the Chorus deparment.
Posted: Tue Oct 12, 2010 8:37 am
by Doog
Medicine Melancholy wrote:I'm really annoyed that the M9 lacks a proper auto-wah setting, and is also seriously lacking in the Chorus deparment.
Sounds like bliss to me.
I jest. The "Tron Up" model sounds pretty much like an autowah to me, only with lots more flexibility- no love from Melancholy?
There's 3 chorus models (Analog Chorus, Tri Chorus and Dimension), plus the ability to make some Whammy style "detune" chorus with the pitchshifter set a few cents up or down with the mix in the middle; that seems like plenty to me. Although, I suppose it seems a little more limited when compared to the forty-thousand phasers on there.
Benny: will give it a bash, sir.. although I am STILL WITHOUT MY FUCKING EXPRESSION PEDAL.
Posted: Tue Oct 12, 2010 8:48 am
by Mike
As long as it has a Small Clone Chorus model that is halfway decent that should be all you'd ever need for Chorus.
I mean, it's Chorus.
Posted: Tue Oct 12, 2010 10:56 pm
by Medicine Melancholy
Mike wrote:As long as it has a Small Clone Chorus model that is halfway decent that should be all you'd ever need for Chorus.
I mean, it's Chorus.
I actually sold the Small Clone because it didn't get the effect I wanted at higher settings. I wanted the 80s goth rock kind of Chorus and the Clone didn't do it. On lower settings it was more shimmery, too weak for that kind of thing, and on the higher depth it was too "sea sick" with the rate above a certain notch. It warbled way too much. Having more control over the depth would have been nice(a mid setting might have gotten me there), but I think this is an artifact of the delay time as well.
[youtube][/youtube]
I could not get this out of a Small Clone even though it's a fairly standard Chorus sound(in this clip, a DOD Mini Chorus, which I've considered getting).
I would like a Small Clone on the M9 though, especially if they added a depth and delay setting.
The Tri Chorus on the M9 is beautiful but it's not quite what I'm looking for normally and you really need to have all the voices on IMO for it to sound good.
Posted: Sat Jan 29, 2011 6:51 pm
by blacktaxi
I have a question about M9.
you can engage only three effects at once, right?
Posted: Sat Jan 29, 2011 6:56 pm
by James
Indeed. And four at a time on the M13.
Posted: Sat Jan 29, 2011 7:05 pm
by blacktaxi
Thanks!
I fiddled with the M9 for like 40 minutes in a shop today, and I liked it a lot. Really considering selling some of my pedals and getting the unit.
What boggles me is that the POD HD400 costs less than the M9, but seems to give you more. Like, an exp pedal, amp models and it allows 4 effects at a time. Does this mean I'd better go with the HD400? From what I've read, the effects on HD400 are identical to those on M9/M13.
Posted: Sat Jan 29, 2011 10:13 pm
by Doog
It does seem pretty weird, yeah; I just had a look at the list of FX modelled on the HD series and it's pretty much identical to the M9/M13, plus it has amp simulations of like 10+ "classic" amps. Plus a mp3/line input and headphone output for "jamming" along with songs or.. uhm, audiobooks. Aaand you can edit your presets by connecting it up via USB; the M9/13 just uses USB for upgrading the firmware.
The HD PODs are definitely physically bigger, maybe they can use larger and therefore less pricey components? Just found a list of "versus" threads in the Line 6 forum, may prove useful reading if you're considering either:
