Boss MT-2 Metal Zone

READ THE FUCKING MANUAL! You can even download settings from Bossus.com or you could do a little bit of tweaking it would hurt you! FYI...ITS HAS 3 PARAMETRIC EQ'S NOT 4 OK???

"METAL" Zone, from the name itself and with a little use of your most precious common sense it was built to play metal tunes. its versatile though, adjust the distortion knob and you can set this pedal to function as an OD. If you want to sound METAL i recommend using HUMMIES instead of Single coils.

TRY STRIKING YOUR HEAD WITH A BOSS THEN ANSWER THIS QUESTION.

huh?

FOR THE LOVE OF GOD ITS A "METAL ZONE" not a JAZZ ZONE, BLUES ZONE, ROCK ZONE, FUNKY ZONE, SELL-OUT ZONE. ITS A "METAL ZONE". GET IT? SHEESHHHHH.

This pedal has a very broad range of adjustability that can get confusing. It allows you to control much more of the sound than any other distortion pedal I have owned. The norm on distortion pedals has pretty much been turn all the controls all the way up - NOT WITH THIS ONE! The sound is so flexable with this pedal, you can sometimes get lost looking the right tone. But, patience and being conservative with your adjustments will payoff. I hate rating it this low but, getting good at figuring it out does take time. I now can get any sound I want rather quickly, but this came with practice.

Totally amazing, if you can get what your looking for. Incredible for running directly into the board. I have used it as a back-up for my amp when it went out. Like I said earlier, be conservative with your adjustments. Think of it like trying to get the water in the shower the right temperature, it can be done, with the slightest changes. One more thing, I'm a nut about using batteries instead of wall warts, but when I had the full board going with the boss power pedal, this unit did NOT add alot of noise to the mix. My set-up is alot smaller now, back to using batteries, and it is crystal clear.

It'a a BOSS, what can I say!

Don't need it.

Classic rock to heavy metal. I used it straight into the board when my amp went dead, no one noticed that I had done this. Made me wonder why I brought the half stack in the first place.

This is a Humphrey-Audio SLO-DIEZEL Modded pedal.
Great tonea all over the plavece on this.

I've never been this excited over a pedal.
Hed it 6 months and still can't wait to switch it on!

Any rock or metal tone your heart desire, plus is cleans up with the gain lower also.
The stock one is a doorstop, but this Humphrey Audio version is amazing.

guitars I use are PRS, Gibson sg, Gibson Les Paul Gary Moore, Fender John 5 signature Tele, and a new EJ Strat.

I play primarily through a Top Hat Club Royale amp.

Setup:
GUITAR>Humphrey Audio modded Boss compressor> Humphrey Audio 'Badder' Monkey> Humphrey Audio SLO-DIEZEL> Tim

No worries

I deal with Mark Humphrey on a regular basis. VERY nice guy and goes out of his way to get back to me. I have so many question and he's such a tone wizard I can't leave him alone.

He's building a Bass version of the SLO-DIEZEL for my bass player.

I play classic and Southern rock, country, hard rock, and blues.
I've been a pro player for 19 years and really have tried everything under the sun in the name of tone.

I own just TONS of other crap and am selling it off on eBay a few pieces at a time these days. I don't want any other pedals, and will simply add to my new collection with the Humphrey stuff. No reason not to. Money WELL spent.

If these pedals came up missin I wouldn't hesitate to have Mark Humphrey replace them for me.

I had lost his email for a time, but I googled 'Humphrey Audio' and he's all over the net.
Also read great reviews on his stuff on the Weber Board, Gear Page, Fender Forum, here on HC, etc.

Get ya' some!!

This pedal is very versatile, as its 3 band equalizer (mixed with my amp's 3 band equalizer) can fluctuate to the extremes of sound possibility. For this reason, your perfect sound may be hard to find if you don't already know generally how you want to shape it. For me, it wasn't too hard to play around with it and find a decent sound, I like a good crunch to my distortion, and this pedal provides more than I need. Sometimes, however, I feel the need to scoop the mids depending on what I'm playing or who I'm playing with, and the pedal also gives a nice cutting scooped distortion as well. I have found, however, that the pedal is very harsh if you're looking for warmer tones, and the perfect sound for me is not in this pedal. I use this with my practice amp (Crate GLX30) and it works fine for a bedroom. I have used this with my half stack (Randall RH150G3 head and B-52 LG412V cabinet) and the sound is very good. Before this head I used the pedal by hooking my practice amp to my cabinet and actually played a few small gigs with it, and actually did not sound bad at all. It's close to a perfect sound, but it is hard to get a warm tone out of it, if that's what you're aiming for.

I suppose I already commented on the sound quality in the ease of use section, but again, you can get a good crunch or scoop out of it, making it very versatile to use. However, this pedal has a harshness to it coming from the highs, and if you turn them down the sound does begin to get a little muddy. Another thing to note is a large amount of feedback that comes from this pedal. I use active pickups (EMG 81 and 85) which contributes to the feedback, but even when used with my buddy's Ibanez with passive pickups there was still a large amount of feedback. However, using a noisegate (I use the Boss Noise Compressor) fixes it right up. Overall the sound is great, but not perfect.

I can and have used this pedal in a gig without a backup, being a Boss pedal this thing literally has fallen down a flight of concrete steps and been completely fine. Nothing goes wrong with Boss pedals, they are the only ones I trust enough to use constantly. After 4 years the most that has happened to this pedal is a few scratches in the paint.

I've never had to call customer support, I wouldn't know.

I play a lot of metal, I am a lead guitarist in a 6 piece metal band. Having 3 guitarists in the band, each member needs to have a clear, crisp tone to prevent from muddiness in our sound. I like to play a lot of thrash (Megadeth, Slayer, Metallica) but my sound more reflects scandinavian metal (Wintersun, Ensiferum, Children of Bodom), meaning more intricate parts and an importance of clarity of my sound. This pedal does that for me rather well and can be adjusted to have a good sound for any style of metal that I want to play. I have been playing for about 8 years and have owned this pedal for 4 of them. It is an extremely reliable pedal that will get very good metal tones for you. I play mainly on my Schecter diamond series Black Hawk guitar that I loaded with EMG active pickups, and go through this pedal, Crybaby wah pedal, and the Boss Noise Compressor pedal into my Randall RH150G3 head and B-52 LG412V cabinet, or my practice amp, a Crate GLX30 combo. If this were stolen or lost and I wanted a distortion pedal (although my stack's distortion is perfect) I would definetely choose this over other distortion pedals.

When I was choosing a distortion pedal I compared it to the Boss Mega Distortion pedal and the DigiTech metal master. I soon learned that Boss has no competition from DigiTech in terms of anything besides price (this pedal cost twice as much as the Metal Master). However, I chose it over the Mega Distortion because the latter didn't have the gain I needed that this pedal delivers well. Overall, if you need a distortion pedal for any reason, rather than using your amps distortion, and are willing to pay for this, it is one of the best out there for any kind of metal.

If you think its difficult you don't know what the hell the knobs do so go ask an adult you baby. And to at least one reviewer: it has a THREE, not FOUR but THREE band eq, the mid freq (short for frequency, der) is a parameter for the mid, you moron. Please do the world a favor and kill all your relatives and gulp some drain cleaner because your genetic line is obviously of substandard quality. You don't deserve to exist.

For everyone saying 'Oh boo-hoo it doesn't do overdrive or mellow distortion' I have one word for you: METAL! It's in the name, for heavens sake, METAL Zone not Anykindofdistortionyoucouldeverpossiblyimagineorwant Zone, METAL, METAL, METAL!!!!! If you want a pedal that can do OD, buy an OD pedal; if you want a pedal that can do average distortion, buy an average distortion pedal; if you want a pedal that can do metal distortion, buy a pedal with metal or extreme or something else that fits the image of metal.

Okay. Whew, I feel better. Sound? Ah yes, of course, the review. It does have enough bass people. If you disagree you don't know what you are doing. If you boost low all the way on this pedal it kind of hums and sounds like crap. Bottom line (no pun intended) keep it at or below 3 o'clock.

If you still think it has no bottom end, perhaps you should try backing off the hi or, dare I say it, actually cutting it. Remember people, your amp has a hi knob too. If that's already high (again, no pun intended) then boosting the hi on the metal zone might make your sound tinny and crackly.

This pedal also has midrange to boost (despite other reviewers opinions) or cut, if you know how it works. The mid is the best part about this pedal. Parametric. You want modern black metal? MF at 2 or 3 o'clock and cut mid to taste. Pantera? MF at about 1:00, 1:30 and cut mid to taste. Classic thrash? MF at 12 o'clock and cut mid to taste. The key to the midrange on this pedal is knowing what the mid freq (short for frequency, der) does and no, I'm not going to explain it. That is what the manual is for. Moving on.

The hi is very high (redundant, yes I know) on this pedal and takes some getting used to.

A slight twist of any eq knob will change your sound more than you expect it to because it boosts/cuts 15 decibels. I'm sorry if decibel is to big a word for you but I do have reading skills that far exceed the 4th grade level that nearly everyone else reviewing this particular product seems have.

It does sound really nice when you first start playing, almost right out of the box. After a while however, you start to get the feel of the one aspect you can't tweak on this pedal: the distortion. I'm afraid this is where the MT-2 comes up short. Oh sure, you can cut or boost the dist to your hearts content but you can't make it sound any different, not that you can do this with any pedal. It just seems, well, too harsh, like it's trying too hard to sound like metal. Don't get me wrong. it sounds ok, a 6, but it just has a certain characteristic that is very hard to convey in words, kind of like a certain set of frequencies being permanently -/+, which is where the eq really shines. You'll note the 8-score I gave this category and the 6 I gave the dist. That's because the eq gets a 10. It helps to compensate for the dist. No need to continue with descriptives.

My setup with the metal zone, if you care:
various guitars
Dunlop Crybaby
Boss OD-3
Boss DS-1
Boss HM-2
Boss MT-2
very old Crate 65 watt SS amp I got from a friend (don't know the make)

If you're a bedroom guitarist, have a solid-state amp and like thrash, heavy, black, death or any other kind of metal I recommend getting this pedal on ebay or something because they are not in high-demand because (unfortunately) metal is not in high-demand. You could probably get it for 30 to 50 dollars. Plus, it's BOSS. What's the worst shape it could be in? 'It's scratched' or 'it has a stain' or 'it smells funny.'

If you have a Marshall or Mesa or any other big huge tube amp stack, what the hell are you looking at here?

So in conclusion, an 8 for solid-state amp, at-home play, maybe a small club gig. Anything bigger this pedal just wasn't designed to handle, and if you're playing gigs like that you can afford a stack, so why bother trying with this?

Boss.

I'll probably never know.

I play all types of metal, some alternative/punk, some blues (though I'm not very good at), and whateverthehell else I feel like. Love this pedal for close-quarters metal practicing, nothing else. About 10 or so years ago, I tried a bunch of pedals at the store display and no other pedal even came close to what I wanted at the time: chuggachug metal. Still the best at what it does, just like Wolverine.

it took months for me to get something usefull from this little bastard..not easy if you are kind of a "plug and play" guy..may take your days and nights just for one stable tone..the manual is another story of disfunctionallity..most of the settings are almost sensless and crap but who cares about the settings..it's all about your own creativity...soo...it takes a 3 for ease of use ..if there is one..

umm..actually yeh in these days i exactly got the tone that i was seeking for...i mean something different from the metallica,pantera and the whole other crappy fuzzy farty sounds,yes i got my own sound in my own taste..not only at home or at the studio,even on stage i'm absolutely in love with it.but i'm warning you it's going to be a disaster if you try to record directly with it or on stage if you don't have a good amplifier so don't even think to gig with it cuz yep it brings the loudest annoying whore cry..it gets thinner and fuzzy as it gets louder you'll need a compressor pedal and a di-box and maybe a cabinet simmulator too if your amp sux...so it gets an 8..

if you wonder how reliable is a boss product..there is the answer:Boss=heavy big balls...

i'm in Turkey and it's a $100 box pedal what support? no idea ??

i'm playing metal for almost 11 years and yeh it's a match but not without my jackson ps3-t rhoads,boss cs-3,tech 21 sansamp gt-2 and behringer ultra g di-box..i love the toughness of it..it's like built to be a legend or something and it's really capable of creating something different,powerful and individual than others if you give some time to it with some patience..

In a nutshell - Piece of piss

Superb - good for really heavy sounds (of course!), i.e Killswitch Engage, Slayer type distortion, but if you wish to play with a little less distortion dont buy this pedal unless your gonna crank it up to 10. then again it is a metal zone, so dont buy it if your not playing metal

Yes, End of

didnt break, easy to use, so i didnt need it

Tip Top

fairly easy to get good sound of, I dont like the how this pedal has 6 knobs too many should just be 4. Requiring more tweaking since simplicity is what floats my boat Manual is Ok but who needs it

Im into alternative rock mainly but I decide justice on power chord sound and this one does a good job actually and I was surprised by its heavy distortion since I had just purchased line6 ubermetal and wasnt too far off from this sound but like other pedals ive tried it just didnt cut it after awhile, it started to sound raunchy or something I dunno but I was using it through a tele and 212 deville and its a good pedal for its price but wasnt for me since im looking for something more along lines of boss ds1 and proco rat2

its not a danoelectro plastic pedal

just wanted to try the boss metal zone when i bought it at pawn shop and liked it at first but after awhile it wasnt what i was lookin for so i took this and ubermetal in for a rat at pawn shop :( lost out on some money, but if this was only distortion pedal on earth its not like i would be mad cause it does what its supposed to but i have a right a to be picky in a world full of distortion pedals

It's easy enough to use. It's a Boss stompbox, not a multi-FX unit. The setting examples they give you in the manual are not the best, but you have to see them as guidelines rather than actual settings.

Even though it's called "metal" zone, you can use it in other musical applications.

Obviously it does the metal thing to a tee. Just a guitar with a bridge humbucker into the MT2 into a clean amp and you're away. For metal riffing I usually give it plenty of bass. Back off the high mids and bring up the lower mids to about 1 o'clock. Add enough treble to make your sound "hot". Gain usually 12 to 2 o'clock. This will give you a nice thumping sound for riffs.

I've heard people who claim the MT2 sucks the bass out of your tone.

Huh???

Are you guys using the same pedal??? Believe me, there's plenty of bass on tap.

The only thing with this setting is that while it gives you a nice rhythm tone, it's no good for soloing. Sounds like a bee in jar, because you scoop out those high mids. You need a booster of some sorts for soloes. The MXR Dist+ works fine.

With the gain on full you get that thick, oozing, sludgy kind of doom/death metal sound. You can't possibly need more gain than this.

For more of a classic rock sound I take a little less treble than bass and both mids up to 12 o'clock. Gain at about 10 o'clock. It still sounds thick enough, but it's more of a rock sound.

For metal it's still the best stompbox I've heard. Period.

I've been using it for like 10 years. Never died on me. I use Duracell 9v batteries and they last a long time.

It's a 100$ pedal. What customer support???

While it's more versatile than most people give it credit for it IS of course made for metal. To my taste it's still the best metal distortion out there. Especially for those thick thumping riffs.

this pedal takes a few minutes to get a good sound out of it, in fact it took me a month to get my current sound. but, like anything, it is well worth the wait and effort.

i can get ANY, and i mean ANY sound out of this pedal. ranging from over saturated recto tones, like dream theatre or moonspell, to a marshall's crunch, down to a light overdrive for chords or blues (turn your guitars volume down to almost null for overdrive)

i am using this with a gibson sg, boss ds 1, boss flanger, boss delay, and crybaby into a peavey xxx cab and head.

you all know the answer to this one

i've heard many things but im not sure personally.

i play many different styles of music, i am a very versitile musician, and htis pedal matches all of those, some more or less, but it has found its niche in my rig.

and on a closing note, try out this setting, it is amazing..very good for heavy rhythm work and PROMINENT solos.. especially with the neck pickup.. good for shredding.

amplifier: bass 8 .. for the low end
mid 4.9...pedal's eq scoops out mids,amp's provide tone
treble 7.. equalizes out the bass

Mt-2: level: 5
high: 8.5
low: 10
middle: 2
middle freq: 6
dist: 7