Boss MD-2

well i actually had a hard time getting a BAD sound out of it, seriously. I mean its easy to get something that sounds less professional, but it's just a matter of tweaking it a little to make it perfect, rather than spending hours trying to find something that actually does more than chasing cats away.

Using an american strat or a ibanez s520ex through a roland bc60/310, with NS-2 noise suppressor and a multi effects processor (basically i use it as a good EQ and sometimes the ambience and flang effects)

It sounds great. Really, it has that sound that rips your nuts off. its as noisy as most dist pedals, no exceptions there. great cutting sounds, and yes it does beat the older metal zone. its a greatly improved ds-1 with much more power available (though also just as less if you prefer.) i cannot stress enough how royally it kicks Metal Zones fizzy ass.

its Boss. Look it up in your dictionairy. It should be under "indestructible"

never dealt with em so idont know

its rock rock rock all the way. can go to really really good metal sounds if you have an eq to low the mids ofcourse. excellent low tone boost. no stupid compression in it either like that metal zone. compression in a distortion pedal is foor noobs.

A typical layout makes it pretty easy to use.No problems in the operation department.

I did't get along with this pedal at all. Tone is of paramount importance to me and I can't really say that I could be happy using this pedal at a gig. It's a kind of hollow, one-dimensional sound and it really kills your guitar's original tone.I'm a great believer that any pedal should enhance, not overpower your guitar's basic sound and I tried this out with a few different high quality instruments with the MD-2 ,both my own and borrowed, and it actually made them all sound pretty much alike. Not a good sign in my experience. This is definitely a mud machine as far as the bottom end weight goes. Oh yes, there's lots of bottom end in terms of quantity, but it's not particularly tight or extended,though certainly deeper than a Metalzone for example.Comparisons with a Zoom Tri-metal, for example, are inevitably cruel. The MD-2 lacks the tone, the flexibility and it has to be said, the bottom end power that such a pedal can provide. I guess some people are kind of hypnotised by the Boss name and just can't make an objective, unbiased asessment.

Most guys will tell you that The one certain thing Boss pedals have in their favour is a good record of reliability. I'm one of those guys.

I have to say that I don't understand how any reviewers can give something like this a ten out of ten rating for sound.You have to wonder what their true agenda is.Are they truly so inexperienced that anything that sounds vaguely ok gets a ten from them? If that's so then you wouldn't want to be lending too much credence to their opinions.So who can you trust? Well it seems to be more of a case of who you should distrust.Well here's a few pointers.
* Distrust anybody who says that any distortion pedal can give you a huge range of sounds. They can't.They all have a distinct sound of their own. Everything else is just tweaking a basic tonal character.

* Distrust anybody who can't lay off the capital letter emphasis.

* Distrust anybody who uses the word *awesome* when describing a middle-of-the-road product from a mainstream-oriented company.

* Distrust anyone who makes extreme claims for any moderately priced product.

* Distrust anyone who pretends that tHey can guarantee you will like something that they don't have the experience to examine uncritically.

* Above all distrust anyone who hijacks the name of a famous musician.

A 4 knober, one is a double concentric one (a passive tone cut and an active bass boost), 2 drive pots labeled distortion and gain. Not as easy as other BOSS units.

The sound is very good. Everyone who gives this pedal a bad rap has either used the wrong equipment (like "used it with my Yamaha DX15 Pro Metal and my Marshal Valvestate...") or doesn't understand how pedals work.

As the label suggests, this is a DISTORTION, not an OVERDRIVE. It's not as MEGA as one might think, it has moderate amounts of gain and output. This unit is not very loud, if you use your distortion device more like a booster, look elsewhere.

Both drive knobs add distortion and gain, the so called gain knob adds more compression and a tube like feel that makes it sound bigger. Too much of the gain knob and you start loosing definition.

Overall, it has a rather crunchy, tight sound, that is never muffled or dark (as other reviewers want to make believe).

This is one of BOSS better distortion devices, that keeps your low end intact (you can even boost the low end without getting muddy), good for solo or rhythm playing.

It is not overly aggressive and not the real deal for nu-, thrash, or speed metal. Better suited for old school hard rock, maybe some CREED or NICKELBACK stuff.

The pedal is not totally quiet, but you can live with the amount of hiss, especially if you keep the controls in a medium setting.

I know you don't wanna hear it, but it's a BOSS, nothing more to say?

Never dealt with them, because I didn't need to.

I play all kinds of music except country, jazz, metal, folk, soul, dance... as long as it rocks!!! I've beend doing it since 30 years now and have got too many pieces of gear to mention here (Gibson LP, SG, Fender Strat, Tele, Gretsch, Rickenbacker, Marshall 1987, Hiwatt Dr 103, Fender Twin RI just to name a few...).
This is a good on, I wish it would have been around earlier. I think it could replace my RAT (which has a week bass response).

I wish it would have more output and less noise.

Other pedals in this price range that are worth trying:
Marshall Guvnor or Jackhammer, Ibanez Smashbox, Zoom HyperLead or TriMetal.

I haven't made my mind up yet...

I would like to thank the last reviewer for actually pointing something out that annoys many guitar players out there. There are indeed people out there who claim to be playing for 10 years, and still give some products a flat 1 as a rating. Does it seem normal to you people that a very respectable company would create a pedal that sounds so incredibly crappy that it deserves a 1? Does it crack beer glasses when you hit one string? Does it send people running with their hands over their ears? Or did you simply pick the wrong pedal for your style and musical taste? Interesting question, however hardly one of those "yo i play for 15 years" guitarists bother to answer it. I myself specialize in tonal quality and sound setups, and when I came acros this pedal it indeed is aimed at a very certain type of music. I'll elaborate in the sound quality box.

Anyways, getting a good sound out this is fairly easy, however the really really nice sounds are hidden a little deeper in this thing. This is because it sounds especially good with low-midtone rythm playing. The manual is, well, simple... I don't see how you can not find your way around this neat little pedal. Also, it's very versatile.

Okay my rating for this section is most likely biased by the fact that this pedal has exactly the sound I was looking for. It's a balance between hard distortions and quality distortions. Powerful, yet controlled. For death metal you should probably look elsewhere, but many kinds of music ranging from as light as Dire Straits to gothic rock and heavier metal are being covered by this. The sound you get from it is that smooth rolling vibrating distortion which is exactly what I like to hear in classy rock as well as modern heavy metal. Simply adjust the low tone and gain to adjust to the mood of the music, it's very versatile.
On another note - the "low" knob on this thing sounds AWESOME. You can add as much punch to your rythms as you like, enough to make the ground shake and it will NEVER sound like it's soaked in mud, unlike almost every other pedal that has any kind of low end boost.

These are some well-known bands/songs which have about the same sound as what the pedal can produce (use an equalizer, do I keep saying that? EQ's RULE):

Rammstein - Du Hast/Asche Zu Asche (mostly the first two albums, not the Mutter album, thats a whole different sound)

Dimmu Borgir - Puritania/Mourning Palace Believe it or not, but the pedal actually has the ability to sound like that, same thickness and grip. (EQ the mid fq out ofcourse)

Bush - Machinehead (remove some of those pretty lows... ow well... you get the sound!)

Nine Inch Nails - Starfu*kers, Inc.
And seriously, the Quake 2 Soundtrack.... Same thing actually but with much more mids and more distortion and less gain.

Rythms sound excellent on this. Palm mutes are awesome due to the good low gain quality. Power! As much or less as you want! If you love the genre of this pedal (heavy) then you love the pedal. Play around with it a bit cause I can guarantee a good sound.

Come on. Boss. that is like another word for "nuclear bunker" Throw this around a lot and I mean a lot, just to see it survive. I've gigged with this a lot and it never broke. I used to borrow another one from a friend just in case mine would break down but it never did and I don't even bother borrowing that copy anymore. It's for life.

Never had to deal with them

As I said, it matches rock/metal on a very broad basis. Add some serious quality and lovely (not really a correct word for it but oh well :P ) low gain made it stand out. And that is not even considering it's friendly price. And to settle the subject that's going on in these reviews, I also prefer it over the metal zone cause it can practically do the same plus a lot more.

well, in my mind, all products were made and designed into a specific use. And it is clear that this pedal were designed to fulfil inexperienced nu-metal player. But, it has a special usage not wide use spectrum of sound like DS-1. i think this pedals is perfect for what it is made of : Heavy-Bassy-Rhythm sound

yes it's a tank

i use ibanez S 540L thru Marshall JCM 900 head with 1960 A 4x12 cabs.
i have played for 10 yrs, and i know what kind of tone is suited with a musical style.

i don't have to list my rig here, but for my main dist i use a mesaboogie Triaxis (Killer Sound), and why i bought this pedal ? i just only like to explore new sound and widen my tonal Experience.

i play anything, from anyday-annoying-cream-solo, squeaking Zeppelin lead, Glassy SRV tone, Pat Metheny, Randy Rhoads Licks, Petrucci Shred, Vai, to Malmsteen sweep style. i really appreciate this pedal made for : Heavy Rhythm Sound with flat tone response characteristic.

if you are a moron who said this pedal junk, well you're probably a jerk who can't appreciate other music you can't play. Tone is Limitless, it's a Creative process. If You guys Can't MAXIMIZE your Limited GEAR : It means You are not a truly a musician. A Musician Doesn't Depend Fully On Gear, As you always Know : YOUR TONE IS AT YOUR SKILLED FINGER !!!!!!!

easy

Metal zone's gain circuit + Big muff Heavy bass bottom = MD 2 .... Great Idea for playin Alternative & grunge

....SETUP....seee below

can people in HC took this part off from any Boss Product

i play Blues from Muddy waters to SRV, Classic rock from Purple to Zep to Yes, Alternative from Nirvana To American Hi fi to Pearl Jam, Progressive rock From Rush to Dream Theater.

I use it For my Alternative Sound. for Blues & classic Rock i use my Tube Screamer. For Prog Rock I use my Metal zone, Every pedals has it's Own Music to play with.

my rig :
Lefty am std strat or Lefty Les Paul classic or RG 470L

thru:
Ernie ball Volume pedal
Cry baby wah
CS3
TS9
SD1
MD2
MT2
GE7
EH Memory man
CE5
BF2
OC2
TR2

and then the superb Marshall JCM 2000 TSL 100 Head with two 4 x 12 1960A Cabs

Ease of use. Well, you need to beat the manual first to get a complete idea of the versatility in this thing, but seeing as that is only a one-time problem, I won't do more than just mention it. It is so versatile, really. Not entirely idiot proof, but then again, the more they make things idiot proof, the better idiots they make.

Roland BC 60/310 is what i used with this. Some people refer to that amp as the best kept secret in guitar amps but I can only advice you to listen for yourself to know what i am talking about. Yeah it has tube tech and (just wanna use this space to mention it) <AWESOME> sounds by itself, ranging from the warmest blues to the most defined crunches, and hey, add a little pre-drive to the input and you can get metal sounds any way you like them. The reason I bought this pedal was to get that biting in-your-face teeth-grinding distortion, you know, that versatile stuff that gives you all the low tone you could ever dream of combined with nut-ripping distortions as few or as much as you like it... Well this pedal is it. If you need that crushing distortion that makes your strings seem smoother than ever cause just by touching them gently the remarkable silence that this pedal has when idle turns into a beast! And so few noise! Just the noise you want: a diamond cutting distortion with so much versatility that you can cover the whole range of light distorted sounds up to that Rammstein's Sehnsucht album distortion. The only problem with it, is that it is not idiot proof. Just look at all the people that rate it a 1. Are you noobs? Come on, stop using that full-base no-mid full-trebble setup and dial in some real sound! If you want quality metal, don't use that easy trick to get some squeezed and choked distortion.

The bottom line is: Like all versatile pedals, this one takes some experimenting. After you got all the know-hows on this, it cuts diamonds, blows parents away, makes you mistake your guitar for a damn chainsaw. Metal, heavy metal, rock, that's what it's made for.

I'm sure there are still some pedals out there that i still haven't tried, but this one definately crushes any other pedal with the same price.

It is very responsive, NOT as noisy as most pedals (I use a Boss NS-2 to cut the noise out and max out the MD-2's quality), and cuts very deep.

If 'reliable' means you can bash the heads of all the people that don't believe in MD-2 with it and still have no dents in it, it deserves a 10. As for durability, I still need to meet people that have had their Boss pedals screw up on them. It is built like a tank and has a kind of pedal that simply cannot be torn off and if it does, it only takes 2 little screws to fix. Not like all those plastic attachment parts that so many pedals use.

Never had to deal with them.

I play metal, punk, and even some stuff that is actually sensitive. This pedal was my choice because the amount of ground that it can cover, especially considering its size, eaze, and price.
The only thing that is annoying is that if you want that totally smoothed out distortion that all those poppy metal bands like Rammstein etc use, you need sacrifice some versatility to get it. This pedal is for defined distortions, not spread-out basic ones.

But please, do listen to it BEFORE buying it, and make sure you got the manual and one or several nice amps there to try it on. It's a GOOD sound when comparing, but you need to listen to it to see IF IT IS THE GOOD SOUND THAT YOU WANT. Do the world a favor and don't be one of those that wants to play his favourite metal band , then buys a pedal based on 2 reviews and then starts whining that it isn't what he wanted. It's quality, but like everything else, it's only a certain direction of quality. Don't talk bad about it simply because you were looking for something DIFFERENT, instead of something SWEETER. This is a little unrelated to the review but I just wanted to mention that.

I know there is compareable gear that sounds a little warmer or a little more tonal, but I wish you the best of luck trying to find one that costs this little and comes with equal variation.
Raw distortion. No unavoidable precompression shit. Low noise. Versatile. Sweeeeeet price. Rock on.

this thing is pretty easy to use
i give it a nine
coz tha knobs are like too close together
but other than that,
any retard can use this (unless he's retarded)

unlike other people, i run my distortion last in my effects line
it goes like this:

Epiphone '58 Explorer Goth w/ Floyd Rose

Dunlop CryBaby--->Digitech whammy--->BF-3 Flanger--->DD5 Delay--->PH-2 Phase Shifter--->Dan Electro Cool Cat--->MT-2 Metal Zone--->MD-2 Distortion

Yamaha DG-60

this thing gives out some phat shit
if you want heaps of bottom wit ear grinding dist
this is tha thing for you

errr by the way
NOT FOR METALLICA!!!!
i must stress that alot
you seriously need the Metal zone for metallica

whoa dude
like i dropped this thing onto a concrete floor
from 2 stories up and hardly a scratch

meh

k
i like RATM alot and metallica
as i mentioned before and YOU CANNOT GET A METALLICA SOUND OUT OF THIS
also SOAD and Deftones and Incubus

this thing goes well with my decor (whammy)
the sound is phat and the battery last for a fairly long time

this is for everything heavy and not metallica or slayer
get this beast even if you have a good distrtion pedal

enjoy!

There is no problem in understanding how to use this pedal as it's got a type of control layout that's becoming increasingly common.Basically it's just another distortion pedal.

There is certainly a lot of actual gain available but that in itself is not unusual. plenty of other pedals can say the same thing, what matters is "how does it sound?" After trying it out over a period of several days (borrowed from a friend who is trying to sell it) I can claim to have expolored every tonal option available and my overall impression is that the sound is not the kind of distortion that I like. I too like bands such as Slayer and Pantera. As well as having all their records I've seen both of these great bands play live on several occasions, so I guess you could say I'm a big fan. Certainly I have a good idea of what they sound like. I not quite sure why some of the reviewers think that this pedal can match the sheer ferocity of sound that Dimebag, or Hanneman and King deliver but I can assure you that it doesn't even come close.The sound is characterised by a dull,muddy tonal quality that you can never really get rid of.I am not impressed at all with this pedal. Like I say it has plenty gain but that's not enough.It's actually a very poor product.

I use otherBoss pedals and reliabilty has been very good so far.

As I have stated this pedal is useless for replicating a Slayer/Pantera sound, both actually quite different sounds which are characterised by a really dark and brutal "bite" that is totally alien to this pedal. And if you're into Morbid Angel or Nile...stay well away from the MD-2! For the record I've played guitar for 12 years and do have some gigging experience.My equipment is not to blame, If that was so then other pedals would be affected negatively but they aren't. No wonder my friend Chad can't wait to sell it.But not to me.

don't get pissed off if you dont find a great sound real quick. it took me about an hour or so to get a great tone with it and my crate stack. The manual is pretty much useless, the presets are pretty bland. Its easy to use once you realize all the quirks in it (like putting the EQ too high will make it way to sharp, etc.)

once you understand all of its features, it sounds fantastic. It basically kills the damn metal zone (i dont know WHY everyone loves the metal zone, i have never been able to get a good sound out of it with any amp or guitar combination) in that if you want brutal distortion along the lines of bands like dry kill logic, cannibal corpse, hatebreed, deftones, etc. and that was what i was looking for. And i got a really nice slayer sound out of it too, im not sure if the last reviewer really gave it a chance.

Im using it with the crate EXCALIBUR GX 900 head and cab half stack, and it sounds so much better than the built in distortion on the head. Also sounds GREAT when up really friggin loud. (which is surprising because the amp used to sound like shit loud)

it does have a bit of background noise, but most is killed by my semore duncun distortion pickup. There is also that loud squeal sometimes that happens when you get too close to the amp.

basically i set it up like this

level- however loud i want
bottom- around 5 or 6
tone- around 7
distortion- 10
gain boost- 1 or 2

i realy dont use the gain boost option much.

all in all, i play my shit in CGCFAD tuning, and thats what i like to play in. it sounds great for drop tunings and with different settings, sounds great for standard tuning as well.

and i really need to stress this, For ANY TYPE OF DISTORTION FROM BANDS OTHER THAN METALLICA (or some of pantera's older stuff) this is so much better than the metal zone.

boss=tank.

they really have made the most dependable and sturdy pedal design ever.

never dealt with them.

overall, it gets a 9.

sounds excellent, but it is not the easiest pedal to get a great sound out of.

give it a good go around, and you will realize how much it rocks.