Really bummed with my new M9

[cucumber187]

A couple of months ago I bought a M9, thought it was the perfect solution to pull a few pedals off my board, just to learn that the pedals I wanted to model are one that the M Series can't do!

 

The M9 was meant to replace my:

EHX Small Clone

Boss TR-2

Fulltone Deja-Vibe

 

The chorus model on the M9 sounds pretty bogus and doesn't even come close to the Small Clone.

The Opto-Trem model gets in the ballpark of my TR-2 but sounds a little odd.

The Uni-Vibe model sounds pretty awful.

 

 

My question is- Does anyone know if Line 6 plans to update the models?

If not I'm going to have to get rid of the M9 I just bought and put my Small Clone, TR-2, and Deja-Vibe back on my board... or look at a better modeling pedal.

 

Thanks for the help!

 

[jwoertz]

Guess you should have tried before buying. It's not Line 6's fault. Doubt any new updates are coming for the M series.

[ColonelForbin]

Good question about updates; to date they haven't actually come up with new FX algorithims from what I understand, these same M-Series FX were ported into the Helix, as opposed to modeled new. I haven't actually done any side by side comparison between Helix and M9 models of the same FX, so I can't confirm any of that; I use them in two different rigs, so they haven't yet overlapped.

 

I love my M9; but my use of it is limited, in that I use it in the FX loop of my amp, so it's primarily delay and reverb - I used to have my M9 on my pt-pro board with all the other pedals, I recently moved it on to it's own flat pedalboard. I briefly tried putting it on a pt-jr, but that was too awkward and the exp pedals didn't quite fit.. (photos of all three versions below!) :)

 

One thing I can say, the functional 'mojo' of the unit is expanded exponentially by adding an expression pedal (or two!), and a MIDI controller to cycle through the 24 different preset scene banks. I've got a pair of Mission exp pedals that I use to control the delay and reverb parameters; but any effects settings can be controlled by expression pedal, so I imagine you could get the M9 chorus to do things that way that using it 'static' might not offer. I've got a Disaster Area MIDI controller on the way, it arrives tomorrow, so I'm looking forward to tweaking with it this weekend. 

 

I will mess around with those FX that you are not liking and see what I can come up with -  I don't have originals to compare to though; but in general being able to sweep the mix and other parameters on the reverbs and delays makes it substantially more awesome for my needs; so will test that expression pedal idea with the chorus, univibe and opto-trem and let ya know how it goes!

 

 

Here's the current layout I am working on; a 24" Trailer Trash 'flat trash' board with two Mission exp pedals:

(the Disaster Area DMC-3XL (gen2) is going into that empty spot above the M9)

 

 

 

The awkward version on a pt-jr (this didn't last long, only stayed like this about a week!)

(the angle of the pr jr made using the expression pedals weird)

 

 

 

 

And the old version when it was still on my pt-pro: