Boss MD-2

I've never looked at the manual and never messed with Editing patches. That being said, I play Horror Punk. Low-end driven punk and this works perfect for the 3-chord bop. I also play it, with different turns of the knobs, in a Classic Rock cover band and it screams just like it should. Very easy to get good and varied sounds out of the bugger by just turning the knobs.

I run this through a Fat Strat with a Seymour Duncan JB Humbucker and into a Fender Deluxe 85 for practice and a MG250DFX into a 1936 2x12 cabinet on stage. No noise whatsoever. The distortion is right on.

I wanted to touch on a few comments of my other fellow posters. If you do a search on this page for "Palm", you will see that it is about 50/50 on whether or not you will get good palm mutes and "chunks" out of this stomp box. I just wanted to mention that with my Fender the palming is horrible and waaaay to chunky to even try to make sound good at any setting. However with the Marshall it sounds great and hits like it is supposed to. I would suggest other people that have had troubles to try it with another amp to see if that might be your problem while giving it the palm.

I'm giving it an 8 because it sounds very different through different amps. I also played it through a Peavey Bandit 112 and it was better than my Marshall and Fender. Just putting that out there.

I've had no problems with it. I have a backup battery in case I need it so no worries. It is a sinch to change. Unless you have an AC Adapter for it, then you should be all set.

It was on sale at a Guitar Center so I picked it up new. I love those racks of pedals that you can play with while you are in guitar shops. It could provide hours of entertainment, if they didn't didn't make you get up after a while, that is...

It's great for Classic Rock, great for Punk, great for melodic hard rock and rythmic riffs. I've had no problems with it. Like I said, I mainly play Classic Punk tunes and this fits perfectly. Great bottom end with my 1/2 step tuned down Strat.

This pedal was easy to figure out, just hard to find a good tone for it.

The sound was awesome if all you want to do is open strings low on the neck, but the higher yuo go the weaker it gets. Also, palm muting is horrendous. There is no bite to it, so I teamed it with a Boss Super Overdrive which still did not help the sound.

It was reliable, but do you really want to use it?

N/A

The setup I tried with this pedal was:

Cort M200 plugged into Marshall Vibrato/Tremelo, Boss Super Overdrive, Boss Mega Distortion, Danelectro Octave, and Dunlop CryBaby Wah in that order. It all feeds into my Marshall 100W.

I play in a punk/metal band that relies heavily on speed. I switched from the pedal to my amp's distortion and found an improvement. The only time I use this pedal now is when I'm using my 15W practice Marshall because that doesn't have a footswitch. I would not buy one of these again.

Typically Boss- very straightforward and easy to use. The knobs are
pretty much self-explanatory IMHO.

Not great but not bad either- a typical Boss distortion in this
respect. It's almost like a "DS-3". It starts where the DS-2 left off
with a separate bottom control and a gain boost knob for added
distortion.

Typically Boss- rock solid reliability and construction.

Never had to deal with Boss/Roland.

Again, typical boss distortion- ok but not great. Worth the money.
Some decent tones to be had with some tweaking. You have to be rather
conservative with the gain boost knob. I don't think it sounds
particularly good with the distortion and gain boost knobs set too
high.

EASY...just a few knobs to turn. Find your sound...experiment.

Very good for what it does. Here's the chain: Morley BH wha, MD pedal, EVH phase and a dd-3 delay. Played with a Music Man Petrucci 6 string. A rockman smart gate in the effects loops of an Ampeg all tube combo. 50 watts. I don't try to cop the sound of my favoite artist...I try to find my own. ( alright...the EVH pedal...but hey...it sounds good!)

It's a boss....should be fine.

??????????????? for a boss pedal?????????????

I was trying out for a heavy detuned metal band. It did really well with the rhythm sounds. I needed more boost for the solo's so the jury is still out there. I really like the sound...it gives a good solid heavy tone. I read some of these reviews and I don't know what they're talking about. Hiss...well ya...use a gate. Thin? Get some real equipment....that's my opinion. Better than my Mesa?...different...and no. But that's OK. It's for my little combo that I truck around to jam with who ever. I makes my 1x12 combo sound really hefty. I think it's a good pedal.

This pedal is very simple to use. It features two gain/distortion pots (one gives it more gain and the other one gives it more fuzz ?)
and a basic EQ. The footswitchis large and responsive. This is a very good pedal as far as ease of use is concerned.

I played my BC Rich NJ Bich and Rave II Warlock (both good guitars) through this pedal and into a Marshall Valvestate 8080 amplifier with no other effects, compressors, noisegates etc. what so ever and the basic sound was beyond disppointing.

Basically, what you get is a very extreme fuzz box. There's no definition and no 'chunk' when palm muting. The whole thing just sounds raspy. Don't get me wrong, I listen to Mayhem, Venom and Darkthrone regularly; all bands with less than pretty guitar tones, but this pedal just sounded cheap. It sounded better when I tried it in the store. However, if you use this pedal with a bass guitar, you do get a rather gruesome grinding sound which is, in fact, rather useable should you happen to be in a grindcore/gore band or a Necromantia tribute act. I'm not a bass player though, so I have to give this a low-rating. If I were a bass player I might be a little more pleased with it. It might work better with other effects however. Take everything I say with a pinch of salt, it's just my opinion.

I didn't use this pedal too much and I dropped it a couple of times but the thing's basically indestructible. The electronics are solid and very reliable. I can't really fault it on build quality.

I have never dealt with the company.

I play mostly extreme metal (primarily black metal) and I can safely say that this pedal was absolutely useless to me. I never found a good metal sound on it and, no matter how much I tweaked it, I never got any kind of decent distortion sound. The only reason I even gave it a rating on sound is because, for some reason, it makes bass guitars sound absolutely skull-crushing. If you're after a fuzz-box for some 70's style fuzzed-up stoner/psych rock then maybe this would work better for you but metalheads should steer well clear.

Easy just as every other boss product. There's nothing absolutely idiotproof, but this comes pretty close.

The chain I use is: LP Slash (w/Seymour Duncan Jeff Beck in the bridge) / Jackson Soloist (w/2 custom made stratocaster single coils and a bridge SH-8 Invader) -> CryBaby -> Boss GE-7 -> Boss MD-2 -> Laney VH100R -> FX Loop (Boss DD-6) -> Marshall 4x12 Lead 1960 w/GT-12T-75.
It has a little hiss, but nothing worth talkin' about... except if you crank both Dist and Gain Boost to max...
It has a good basic sound, when connected to tube amps (tried it also with a Fender Hot Rod Deluxe and a vintage Fender Twin)...
You can with ease obtain rock lead sounds, and rhythm also, but be careful when raising up the gain boost. This thing has really more gain than you might need. Not entirely usable, though.
The eq is rather simple and delivers an almost excessive amount of low-end.
Good to have the kind of sounds from Creed, Nickelback and so on...
But nice also when playing electric chicago blues, being a little careful with the settings.
It preserves dynamics and touch pretty well in respect of some other dist boxes, like MT-2. Bear in mind that this AIN'T a MESA rocket bottle or a Brunetti Overtone. You can't expect too much.
But, considering the cost, it's a good deal.
I give it a 7 for the cost/performance/ease of use balance.

Rock-solid. It's a Boss.

Never had to contact them.

I've been playing for 10 years, more or less.
I play R'N'B, Blues, 60's / 70's Rock, early Hard Rock & Southern Rock.
I'm not the guy with a ton of rack equipment, aural exciters, compressors, gates... I like pretty much the true sound I get from my guitar and from my amp when cranked.
This is a good match for my style, obviously.
Try to match it after a little eq like the GE-7 for some more punch in the mids (that's for metalheads).

This thing is quite easy to use. There's a Level knob, a Tone/Bottom knob, a Distortion knob, and then my fav, a Gain boost. I didn't need the manual, as the lead guitarist in my band owns one, so he explained everything.

The ol' MD-2 suits what I play just fine. The lead guitarist in the band uses one too, but he has his bass dialed right up. I play a Fender Jap Jag with a DeMarzio heavy blues pickup in the neck, an' a Semour Dunkan hotrails in the bridge. I used to use a Big Muff, but my guitar disagreed with it, and it was hard to get a "chunky" sound out of it. (Plus my amp ain't too good, a Warp 7) But the MD-2 has a bigger sound, and it gets that lovely "chugging" sound when yer palm muting. We play slow, sludgy noise and this pedal goes well with my Blue Box and Small Clone. I can't really think of anything negative, the damn thing is near impossible to kill as well, having copped many a drop.

Like I said before, boss pedals are pretty hard to kill. Once, as an experiment, a friens and I tried to destroy a DS-1. After throwing it onto the road, dropping it off the road of my house, and running it over with my car. We gave up, and the damn thing still works (The only damage was the knobs falling off) I'd be quite happy useing this without a backup, we've done a few gigs an' I've never even thought of the thing konking out on me.

I've never had to ring support, and, from what I've learned I won't need to.

We play horrible sludge, and this pedal suits perfectly. I've been playing fer 6 years, and I recently bought a Fender Jag, after playing a decrepid Magnum. (Although the Magnum has a muddier sound due to humbuckers) I have a Warp 7 halfstack which is always bugging the hell outta me (It was cheap and loud, that's why I bought it) I have a Small Clone, a Big Muff, a MXR Blue Box, and, apart from the Big Muff, all these pedals sound great together. (Don't get me wrong, Big Muffs are cool, it's just that my guitar and amp hate them) I don't get any bad humming or anything, and the feedback it creats is reasonably controlable. All in all, a pretty damn good pedal, if yer playing "Heavy" music.

Excellent pedal. Some people said that It was too confusing, or uneasy to cahnge on the fly. To them I would say, what single effects stomp box do you know of that IS able to change on the fly? and I'm not talking about tap tempo delay or trem for you smart asses out there. ;)

Love, love, love it. Mine has a little hum, but I'm sure it's just my particular case, and you'll see that in the next box. If you want responsive, then I would just say get a tube amp. No pedal is going to give you the response of a tube amp as far as dynamics, and losing a bit of gain when you roll off the volume.... delicious. but yea, I like to do that, and couldn't with this pedal, no surprise. :/. Still sounds nice for driving rock, to blues.

Oh yeah, I can't go by without mentioning the neat little tone knob on this thing. For you Single Coil guys out there that are unsure of getting a heavy Dist. Pedal, this one has a little low-end boost knob that really beefs up the sound of your strat or tele.

I got that damn buzz in it (probably from stepping on it too much ;) ) and it's so annoying. I didn't read all the reviews, but I'm guessing my problem is unique.

NA

The only amps I've ever played it on were tube. Got a sweet single channel All tube combo and looking for a nice meaty gain that will get you from blues to classic to modern rock? this is it.

well, there are different things about this one, but it's pretty easy to use if you are logical and not trying to put everything on max.

the key is to find the ballance between dist. and gain boost

dist gives this pedal a DS-1 type of distortion.
gain boost gives a more OVER DRIVE character.
cranking up these two will result in huge sustain thus hum and noise and bad things, so don't do that. it's like using two dist pedals at once.
do not go over the top, just have some moderate settings and you will find yourself in pure gain heaven.
this type of distortion will fit wonderfully for alt rock, rock, blues, even some slightly dirty jazz
I would use something else for metal though, like MT-2.

if you want incubus, limp, deftones, linkin park sort of distortions this is the right box. not for shredders or other music types under the name metal
for that you need a mid-scooped, trebly pedal, like MT-2, MXR dime, etc.
I've been playing for 8 years and I'm pretty picky about the tone, MD-2 is just a great pedal.
Mega Distortion produces a very warm distortion. cleans up very nicely and with mindful settings can give most wonderful tones you'd want.
and always try something before you buy.

It's a distortion pedal, pretty simple.

Only one word can describe this pedal...MUDDY!!! It does not matter if the tone knob is all the way up, the mega distortion still sounds muffled. I thought the gain boost would give the sound extra shred, instead it just garbled it. The sound was grainy, much like cheap single coils played through a pawn shop practice amp with a blown speaker. Palm mutes were lost in the pedals own grind. The only good thing I can say about it is it had killer sustain.

After a nuclear holocaust only three things will be left: cockroaches, scorpions, and Boss Pedals! They're invincible!!!

Due to their reliability, I've never had to deal with Boss customer support.

I play hard rock/metal,not the nu-metal junk, real metal. I was looking for the heaviest distortion on the planet. I went for this pedal because of the gain boost. I thought the gain boost would give the sound extra shred, instead it just garbled it. I put this up against a Boss Metal Zone, and the Metal Zone sounded tremendously better!!! This pedal would be great for a super grungey alternative band, but terrible for metal/hard rock. The metal zone has much cleaner highs, and a smoother, more pleasing sound with just as much distortion!!!