Line6 M5 Stompbox

Do not be mistaken, this hasn't got anything to do with the movie. Although you don't get to play with Daniel Radcliffe you do get to mess around with the hundred of effects this incredible pedal has to offer.

Sometimes when musicians hear the word "multieffect" they run away and seek for shelter. They are a good tool if you hold a degree in pedal nobness or you're just an adventurer of new sounds, but in the end they lack that organic and warm feeling only a mother (I mean, a pedal) knows how to give.
The Line6 M5 offers a wild variety of sounds which will keep you entertained for decades. They range from fantastic to horrible. Some are great replicas of other pedals while others simply suck. That kind of goes away when you start changing the parameters of each effect with the dedicated knobs, but still some sounds retain unusable.

The pedal itself is indestructible. When the apocalypse comes, cockroaches & M5s will rule the world. So fear not dear stompers: you can kick the s*** out of this pedal and it will still refuse to die on you. The footswitches are not so practical though. They are ok to turn the effect on/off & tap tempo (you can also hold the right footswitch to activate a surprisingly good tuner) but when you want to activate a preset (yes, you can create many and even name them as you see fit) you need to press them both at the same time. Being one next to another you must use your feet in weird ways or kneel to it to use you're hands. It's not a big deal but it can be frustating if you're aiming for precision and using different sounds in a set. Keep in mind that you cannot use multiple effects at the same time, you have its bigger brothers for that (M9, M13)

Overall buy this pedal. Line6 M5 doesn't pay me to say any of this but if you give it a chance you'll find a very affordable and awesome machine with even more awesome features. Sure you'll sometimes feel retarded when pressing it and it has a bit of a learning curve which can be overwhelming at times (manual comes in handy), but in general you won't feel disappointed and even if you buy single stompboxes you'll want to keep this one on your pedalboard.

I use this pedal mainly for bass to add some modulation, delay or special fx. For that kind of effects it is really great and cheaper than buying all kind of single pedals ;)

Only thing to mention is, that the distortion effects weren't really usable for me. Don't know why but they always sound unnaturally..

Apart from that the M5 is really useful and has a great build quality. I've played nearly 40 gigs with it and never had any kind of problems.

PS: For Live-Situations: It isn't possible to switch between presets effectively by scrolling up or down, so you have to switch the presets between songs!

The M5 really is a Swiss army knife of stomp boxes, and it does some of them really good.
I use it exclusively for modulation effects, Chorus, Tremolo, Delay. Basicly the stuff that I don´t use that often but is needed in a song or two. The OD part I don´t use at all, especially since I run it in the eff. loop of my amp.
For my amp I feel it sounds best in the eff. loop. When running it in front of the amp I felt that the effects started to get blurred up in the tone, that is not the case in the eff. loop,
It´s easy to use, but the way you change patches could be done alot better. Having to press both switches at the same time, and trying to see the display is a bit of a challange, and how it will work on stage I have yet to find out.
Quality leaves a bit to be desired since mine broke down after using it for a couple of days. Thomann was great with the service (as allways) and got it fixed, but I can´t really trust it.