Boss MD-2

not physical. Getting a right sound trial and err. Too much mud comes with this. Treble can shred you with white noise. This thing is monster. Be cautious.

hmmm... Terrifying. It is hard to tame

I use it to other distort. has much bottom, it can make up loss other pedals suffer. Use gain and distort cautious.

sometimes, it scares me. But it can be friendly too. Watch! It can make many sounds with a tiny knobs.

boss is tank

ok

Not typical distort. Use like cautious wind. Might like, might hate. Has other use than strict distort, like bottom boost.

You will get sound of hell ripping you half. Or you can mild. It has much range. And much pain. Be cautious.

This is not one of the easiest Boss pedals to use. However with a bit of experimenting, it's possible to milk some meaty tones, as well as some rather more subtle sounds to boot.

The hardest part to get the hang of his the tone/bottom controls, but apart from that, everything's Boss standard issue: level, distortion, gain boost knobs, and input, an output, an impossible to miss stomp switch and an easy to replace battery (very important!)

Although I have a Gibson LP Standard, I am currently using my Standard Fender Mex Strat (+ stock pups) with my new post-hardcore-psych band for the added bite. I just use a really clean amp model on my Vox Valvetronix amp, so i can get full use of my ever growing pedal board.

I play with the gain boost at 3/4 o'clock and the distortion control at 10 o'clock, which gives a far more natural crunch to proceedings. The distortion is quite noisy, yet far richer than the somewhat tinny Metal Zone. It's a rather quiet pedal in the volume stakes, and to get any real bite out of it, the level control has to be used liberally.

I've experimented with the MD 2 quite a bit, and although I don't play very much of them, the pedal can create decent Grunge and very heavy metal sounds using the bottom end eq control to make the tone far muddier. However, when using my prefered settings and the neck pickup of the strat, it creates a very cool tone for soloing (especially when combined with delay and wah).

Bought it second hand and it still works perfectly. Bomb shelter.

Never needed it.

I play very spacey post hardcore which calls for sparkling clean guitar to quickly build into a very powerful distortion sound.
I use it with a Boss overdrive for bluesier sounds, a Hendrix JD Crybaby, with built in fuzz, a Boss Loopstation and the delay/chorus/phaser built into my amp.
I compared it quite a lot with the Boss MetalZone which is vaguely similar. Yet I felt this was a far warmer alternative, if not quite as extreme. It seems to be incredibley underated.
I can't see me replacing it at all in the future, as I use it dominantly as a heavy gain boost, and not a traditional distortion pedal.
However, it will never be a substitute for a good natural valve distortion, so will undoubtedly get used less and less once I get hold of a Fender Super Sonic, or a Marshall JCM.

one of the easiest:)

can get muddy if the gain or distortion is too high, but overall this is an awesome sounding pedal. The bass control is amazing! Just be carefull not to over do it or it will get muddy.

Its sounds like a good amp channel. Think: mesa dual/triple recto

duh

Roland is good about delivering replacement parts. It may take awhile, but its worth it.

I've had this pedal for more than a week. And, I have to say, this pedal has changed my life. Dialing in heavy guitar sounds has NEVER been this easy for me :)

It's about as easy to get a bad sound out of it as a good. Which means it's extremely versatile. The only thing to keep in mind with this pedal is that it has a mid scooped tone. Mids are one thing you are not going to ge with this pedal.

That said, you can mess with the distortion and gain knobs to dial in the right amount of saturation anywhere from a mild distortion upwards into the "Metal Zone" territory. There's also two EQ knobs so you can dial in the desired amount of bottom (and plenty of it) and also the right amount of top end (and plenty of that too!).

I'm playing a strat with a Seymour Duncan Hot Rail in the bridge into a Fender HR Deluxe. Actually, I would not recommend this with a single coil pickup in a strat. Anything high-gain with single coils sounds muddy and loose. This pedals strength is to be tight so it needs a strong compressed output pickup (i.e. Humbuckers). My current rig is a Morley Bad Horsie Wah, Toadworks Death Rattle 3, Boss MD-2, Line 6 DL4, Line 6 FM4, Fender HRDx.

First off, let me just say that if you're using this pedal to produce a cranked amp to 11 type natural power amp saturated tone, you need to take a step back accept the fact that this pedal is not designed for that and ain't gonna get you there. I got this pedal because I wanted a tight heavily distorted tone that would break up the signal with as little headroom as possible but not sounding too thin and metallic (no pun intended).

That said, this pedal is an awesome addition to complete my current rig. It's excellent for palm-muting, crisp-tight rhythms, and thumping drop-D metal chording. Tweaking with the EQ controls, I can dial in the right amount of bottom and top prefect my needs. Considering I'm using it with a mini-humbucker, I can get the fatness dialed in which wasn't possible with my other Toadworks Plexi Channel.

I'm giving this a 10 for what it does. Again, if this were the only distortion/overdrive pedal I had and thought it should be everything I expect out of an drive pedal, I probably wouldn't grade it very high. But hopefully you'll understand where I'm coming from. Use it as a tool for what it is, not for what you want it to be. If you need a crisp, tight, distortion in your rig, check out this pedal - hopefully it will do for you what it did for me.

Boss pedals are tanks. They always work!

I've been playing guitar for 10 years. I play all types of music and therefore love all types of effects and distortions (this being one of them). I'm meticulous and have been evolving my ear to different genres of music through the years. If this pedal was stolen, I'd go out and buy the same one. The tone is great and I love the EQ controls. I'm not a fan of the DS-1 which I knew wasn't for me right off the bat or the metal zone which the more I played it, the more I felt was just too thin (compressed sounding)... this pedal is the one I tried in the store for 30-40 minutes and the more I played through it, the more I dug the sound.

I play this through an epihone explorer and an ancient Laney of some description and i play metal in its varius forms. Setting both the Gain and Dist. at 1 o'clock, the level at full and then fidling with the Tone/Bottom to match your amp can get you a good hard, lond metal sound. However, it can take a bit of experimenting to work out how to use the Tone/Bottom nob propally and i still don't really see the point.

The sound is generally very good unless you do the stupid thing and put all the knobs to full which results in a bad fuzzing sound. I've also found that by turning down the settings with Dist and Gain at about 11 o'clock you can get a good overdrive (think Black Sabbath) whereas the settings above can get you Maiden or Metallica tones with ease. The pedals also good for heavyer stuff like Killswitch Engage. If you turn down all the knobs you can also use it as a simple volume booster for solo's etc.

It's a Boss. Before i bought this off my mate he hit it repeatidly with a hammer to prove its indestructability. Although the paint can wear a little around the edges the electronics can suvive anything. This has suvived many gigs and will certainly suvive many more with no need of a backup. Just remember to keep the battery fresh.

Never delt with. Their pedals never brake

As i've said before, this pedal does metal very well and thats what i use it for. This pedals been played for 4 or 5 years and has always given a good performance live or not. Its bright orange so pretty hard to lose and i don't see why you'd steal it but i'd definatly get another although probally still second hand. Overall this is a great pedal for a gigging musicion and is good value for money. There are always better affects and instruments out their for say studio recording but there also a lot more expensive. This pedal does a very good job for a very resonable price.

Fairly Simple. Level (Volume) EQ(Treb/Bass) Distortion(Grit) Gain(Warmth). Your settings will change with different amps.

My electric guitars include a stock Fender American Tele, and a stock '72 Original Custom Tele.
I was immediately blown away by how great this pedal sounds with guitars loaded with single coil pickups. As you may know, single coil pickups are finicky and tend to be really noisy with distortion pedals. The sound of a Tele plugged into this pedal is a meaty/growling distortion, with huge bass/ low midrange, and an aggressive yet musical treble sound. I would compare the sound to a Mesa Boogie Dual Rectifier.

Boss products are very reliable. I noticed that this pedal is light weight compared to my other effects pedals with similar size.

I called Roland directly to obtain a user manual on a used DD-20 I picked up. They were very helpful and considerate.
I would like to see more technical info about their products on the Boss Website.

The key for me was finding a badass distortion pedal that complimented the voice of my Tele. The MD-2 does that and added some serious growl with cutting harmonics, giving me a mean palm mute, and not being overly noisy. It's also versatile for a distortion pedal because of the EQ and both Distortion and Gain knobs.
At purchase I compared the MD-2 with: all of Boss' current dist/overdrive pedals. It won hands down.
I've tested and owned many distortion/overdrive effects pedals, and this pedal nails the heavy hard rock sound I was looking for.
I'm really happy with this pedal and cannot wait to tear up the stage with it.
I highly recommend the Boss MD-2.

Pretty basic stuff, as every Boss pedal.
Really don't need manuals for that.

I don't use this very much; anyway it's on my floor board.
Guitar (Jackson Soloist / Epiphone Slash Signature) -> Boss GE-7 Equalizer -> MD-2 -> CryBaby -> Laney VH100R tube head -> Marshall 4x12.
I just don't need it, 'cause the Laney already delivers monster overdriven sounds, so, if u have some all-tube, high-gain stuff, this one ain't for you.
Anyway it provides a very heavy and dirty distortion, even with the lowest settings. Sometimes I use it as a Boost for soloing, but it ain't great at this.
The sound is... think Creed, it's almost there.
It's not bad, but it is somewhat "artificial";
It comes handy for sure when u have to plug into some Fender-like clean amps, and delivers reasonably fair tone.
I strongly suggest to put some EQ before this pedal, since low-end and hi-end built-in EQ is not enough.
With some more mids and hi-mids from GE-7 (pre- MD-2), you get a sound which is similar to Boss Metal Zone, but heavier. Nice.
With better EQ it would be a 8, given the price range.
Almost forgot: does not have true bypass.

Rock-solid.

I mostly play blues-rock-hard rock, so it isn't really my kind of stuff, but I was sort of curious and wanted to give it a try.
I own it since last year, and overall I think I will keep it.

Semplice da usare, come tutti i pedali Boss, non si hanno problemi nel comprendere la funzionalita di ogni singola manopola. Il manuale comprende al solito dei settaggi orientativi molto utili all'inizio per capire le varie sfaccettature del pedale. Ottimo il controllo Bottom che brilla se usato con una chitarra a 7 corde

Provato con una Gibson Sg e un Samick da 60W. L'MD2 sa dare solo una cosa: una distorsione molto sporca e rozza. Principalemente questo e il suo suono base anche lavorandoci molto e con vari settaggi. Il suo campo d'azione e principalmente metal. Niente Metallica, niente distorsioni pulite e dure: l'MD2 se usato al massimo delle sue potenzialita ci dara una distorsione alla Obituary di Slowly We Rot, di quelle marcie per intenderci. Usato ad alti volumi o dal vivo tira fuori tutta la sua cattiveria, un muro sonoro vero e proprio!

Questi pedali sono notevolmente robusti, resistono a tutto, botte polvere ecc. l'unico neo puo venire solo dai due controlli sovrapposti, il piroletto piu piccolo tende alla lunga, ma non sempre, a diventare piu molle e a ballare un pochino.

Mai avuto bisogno. Sicuri del fatto loro alla Boss danno due anni di garanzia con tre aggiuntivi per chi registra il prodotto sul loro sito

Suono Death e Black, e questa scatoletta fa il suo lavoro benissimo. A mio avviso questo pedale puo piacere solo agli amanti delle distorsioni pesanti e sporche. Per chi cerca una distorsione metal standard piu alla Metallica se vogliamo o semplicemente un distorsore estremo e versatile e consigliato l'MT2, mentre per chi come me cerca un suono piu grezzo l'MD2 e decisamente meglio.

I have a stock Boss: MD-2 Mega Distortion. Setting up the pedal is pretty easy, there are 4 (basically 5) knobs: level, 2 tone, distortion, gain boost. There isn't anything overly complicated, and the knobs all do what they say
The manual isn't good, Boss supplies a big online one, and that has 1 or two basic settings, just follow those and change them as you want.

Humbuckers--->pedals (normal order)---->Fender Blues amp.
The pedal generally isn't very noisy, of course when you turn everything to 'idiot settings' there is an insane amount of buzz.
This is a really really strong disortion with a lot of bottom end. I was told it was designed for nu-metal, but I don't play that. There is no clarity for when playing 2+ notes even at moderate settings. Chords? Not even possible to understand.
If you are looking for a very heavy distortion, both tone wise and degree wise, this is your pedal. If you are looking for moderate distortion/fuzz type stuff, it's not really worth it.

It's Boss, the paint is chipped up on mine, and I don't even step on it anymore.
The quality is great, nothing to complain about, no backup needed.

N/A

It's a really heavy distortion, so nu-metal all the way. I wanted Led Zeppelin type distortion (the heavy kind) and this pedal does it way overboard. The low tone is great though, much higher quality low end than ANY other Boss distortion.
I wish I didn't get it now....but the power struck me when I first heard it and played it. I already replaced it with a Tubescreamer T808, that is the best pedal ever.

Simple turn the knobs to tweak the sound

Well, I wrote a review on this pedal back in March, in which I absolutely slated it. However, I have found a use for this pedal and now it is the only distortion that I use. It works brilliant in front of a valve amp as a booster...keep the tone controls down low, treble at 12 oclock bass very low, distortion set to 0 and add boost to match your sound...awesome for driving a valve amp at bedroom levels...over the top when the sound is cranked up, but for low level bedroom you can't beat it. Stick a GT6 through the effects loop to tweak the sound and you have a great set of sounds at your disposal.

Typical Boss

No experience

For use as straight forward distortion pedal in the clean channel of an amp...forget it, but makes an excellent booster for bedroom practise using a valve amp. I know give it a 7 instead of a 1, give it a try, but don't try and use it live, it will blow your amp and your audience.