Boss MT-2 Metal Zone

Can't beat boss stuff for ease of use. That's why they're the biggest in their field next to quality of course. The EQ adds a most necessary complication to setting up but it is SO worth the extra time and effort.

Does metal really well but also tones down to do some nice crunchy blues stuff. That said though, if you buy one of these your generally looking to play the more heavy stuff.

The extensive EQ adds a fantastic amount of flexibility and I would have to say the EQ is the heart of the MT-2's success imo.

I use a Hamer SATQ with a JB/Jazz setup through a Marshall TSL 602 on the clean channel. The MT-2 is a quiet pedal. To be fair, I can't really compare this with any other pedal because I've not extensively tried others but I can't imagine anything better to be honest.

Only had it a couple of months but judging by the experiences I've had with other Boss pedals this is never going to be an issue.

Not had to use them.

The only thing I could possibly knock this pedal on would be battery consumption. I did use rechargeable in all my pedals and the MT-2 used to get through 2 of these in a 3 hour gig.

I've done the right thing and bought a dedicated power supply now.

If it were lost or stolen I would try other pedals first such as the Metal Core but I suspect I would come back to the MT-2 pretty sharply.

the eq on this pedal is very easy to use whilst offering a wide range of sounds. also you can go from low gain to insane distortions with just 1 twist

i use this with a epiphone les paul classic a marshall mg amp and a dunlop wah-wah, and even tho the lp is not really a metal guitar i can get a real thick distorted sound out of the classic's pickups with this pedal. Good for most metal sounds it can go from a high gain overdrive to insane thrash and heavy metal distortion. my fav setting is bass-3 oclock treble-2 oclock mid- 11 0clock middle freq- 1 oclock and gain 3 oclock this is a good general metal setting good for lead and rhythm. only problem is feedback after incresing gain more that 4 oclock

its boss no more needed 2 be said. my old boss pedal i had for 1yr with no probs before getting the mt2 and no probs so far

never needed

great for metal and hard rock i luv this pedal especialy as my small marshall canot give my that really heavy distorted sound. well worth the money. i prefer this to every other boss distortion i hav used best feture is the eq. really helps sound like my fav artist especially metallica without havin to spend lots of money on guitars with emg pickups and big amps.works well with my epiphone les paul classic marshall mg15dfx and dunlop crybaby

Parametric EQ takes some getting used to. Manuals starting EQ settings are mildly useful

Epiphone V with Marshall MG head. Using 4x10 cab with emminence speakers.

I'm doing this review on the pedal I modded.

I just put an extra diode with a forward voltage of .1v in series with one of the clipping diodes. Since the stock diodes were back to back of the same type, this additional one should make the waveform slightly asymetrical and add a little more sweetness (which the pedal needs).

Generally speaking I only really use this pedal in drop tunings (usually just stantard drop D). It has a certain whine that doesn't really sound too appealing to me for standard tuning or melodic leads and such. After the mod the whine is a little more stylish and useable but its still something you have to play with before it sounds like music.

Since its not really a very chunky sound, I use the pedal for faster type of songs. Like speed chug stuff that is played with fast double-bass drums.

Theres some great screaming harmonics that are great when played on lower strings.

The biggest effect this mod did was make the chug-attack a little larger/realistic/3-dimensional (how do you really describe a sound in words). Its still the MT2 with a very slight amound of color to it. I was going to mod it more but after I checked my work on adding the diode I was pretty satisfied with it so I stopped where I was.

In my opinion its not very versatile but I think it covers its intended sound pretty good. Solos and leads can work great espescially if you spice them up with the pinch harmonics which come out great on it. You just have to watch your playing because the whine is unforgiving.

boss

boss

Works great. Stock is definately ok but the mod gives it a little extra tonal edge to make the chug stand out.

Also, if you are a modder, this is a very configurable pedal, schematics are easy to find and easy to read. Plus there are many other people that mod this so there are a lot of suggestions you can find online.


Just ask me for sound clips and I'll send them. I have 1 song made pre-mod and I'm probably going to make a bunch of new clips now that I've done it.

if you put all the controls at 12 o clock you will get a pretty good sound to start with so thats easy .....

i would say in this position it's very middly kind of brian may and michael schenker ....so if you take that as your starting point .....you can boost the bass and go for a Sabbath sound or boost the trebles for a more 80's metal sound ......

i don't know if Boss meant to do it but they've voiced this pedal for a real Randy Rhoads sound....... a sort of rasping middle but with more bass or treble if you need it ...

usual boss very good

if i had to sum it up i'd say...... Randy Rhoads .......very heavy .....but with clarity....

Lots of EQ options with para-mid boost & cut and bass/treb boost & cut. Gain-wise it's just about insane if that's what you like. Took me all of 10 minutes to find 3 settings that I'll use.
Well built, ac adapter at the top end-where they belong on ALL pedals. EZ battery changes, rubber bottom. Cool controls. Easy to dial in. Easy to use.

Les paul into MT-2 into Fender Blues Deluxe RI.
I dime the gain, dial in the mid freq to 2K and cut it down to near zero. Bass is set at 1-2 o'clock. Treb is at 12 o'clock. I run my LP at 2 on the volume pots and 7 on the tone pots. MT-2 volume is at 8 or 9 o'clock. At these settings the MT-2 is not noisy.

Perfect, thick bluesy overdrive-distortion with nice sustain and harmonic feedback. If I need more gain I move the LP pots up to 4 or 5.

The solo tone using the LP 490 R neck pickup is very dark, thick and bluesy. I'm Using the 498 T bridge pickup for the heavier rock tones with the MT-2. Monster rock tone that sings and sustains. The middle position sounds well balanced through this pedal for crunch rhythms.

I play in a classic rock & blues band so I need crunch, heavy distortion and solo power that cuts but doesn't overpower or sound stupid. The MT-2 is perfect for this.

I realize this is the quintessential METAL pedal but I like it for its versatile and wide ranging sonic potential. People are surprised when they see a Metal Zone on my board. I guess they think its reputation as a chug-chug pedal marks me as a Metallica wannabe. But when I open up the LP neck pickup for some Clapton/Cream solos or Page solos, all of that metal stuff goes out the window. The big secret to this pedal is relying on the instrument's volume and tone pots to feed a perfect signal into it so it can do the magic for me. It's a cheap, easy to use pedal for my blues / rock playing.

Okay, so when we're goofing off, noodling and chugging along with the really heavy stuff, I raise the mids to 12 o'clock and it's "chain saw city"-LOL. Finally, with the gain at near zero and the volume up, it does a nice gritty boost for thin blues solos. It almost sounds "strat-like" with the LP on 2, using the 490-R pickup.

Great Blues & Rock pedal besides all that metal stuff that it does so well. That's my story and I'm sticking to it! Ha ha. It's plenty versatile for what I do.

BOSS ...stupidly well built. Been using BOSS stuff since the early 80s. Never, ever had a piece of BOSS gear fail on me. Impossibly well constructed.

C'mon...who ever sends a pedal in to BOSS TO GET IT FIXED?

I have owned lots of BOSS & Roland gear over the years. I currently own a TR-2, MT-2, ME-5, CE-2 and a Roland Blues Cube (outstanding amp, by the way.) BOSS Roland makes top notch stuff in my opinion. My ME-5 pedals (I have two) are late 80's devices and they still crank just as well as the day they were bought.
The MT-2 is a classic-for sure. It's not JUST a metal headbanger tool. Since it has so much potential I have to say that it will serve up some nice blues and rock tones for players who give it a try.

When I run out the door to a jam with my Blues Junior or my Roland Blues Cube 30, I usually grab my MT-2 and my TR-2 pedals. With just these two I can go from surf to hard, butt-kicking rock and everything in between. Versatile, versatile, versatile.

i thought it was very easy to get the sound u wanted, if u are into a heavier sound, i went off the manual then adjusted to my likings.

i am using a crate head and behringer cab alond with a gothic v that has emg 81/85 set up, when the lvl is up loud its kinda noisey.

i have had mine for years and i never had a problem yet, i do suggest getting an adapter though

overall i think its a great pedal for fans of creed to metallica to dying fetus. if u are looking for an ac/dc feel i wouldnt reccomend it. if i lost it or it were stolen idk how much i would play till i got another one.

The metal zone is a very simple and easy pedal that has 6 control knobs,level,equalizers(high,low,middle,mid freq)and dist.And there is output and input.And is easy to turn on just by pressing on a footswitch.And there is a manual its simple and easy to read.The metal zone has not been upgraded yet.

Im using a Epiphone limited edition custome made molson canadian guitar with seymour duncon pickups with heavy bottom slinkys and a Rhoads flying V jackson and fender heavy picks with a practice amp.The metal zone is loud as hell just with all knobs at 12 o,clock.The Metal Zone is a powerful crushing grinding sound.And as you use it the sound still sounds great.I use this pedal for Metalica, Slayer ,Rage against the machine and Cannibal corpse and death metal and thrash and grunge.Using this pedal every soud you can get out of it is pretty good.

The pedal is very reliable I had battery in it for 1 year ad the pedal still sounded awesome.And I would totally use this in a gig.

Customer support was good and very freindly.You dot need t upgrade this pedal and you can get this pedal repaired

I play death metal,thrash,grunge,hard rock and this pedal can do all that.Ive been playing for 2 years,I own a crybaby and a me-20.If this were stolen I would replace it.I love the dark and heavy pounding sound but i hate that when youturn the dist or level al the way up you get a loud fuzz and the sound turns to muddy.My favourute feature are the eq's.I chose this one because its cheap and cool looking and good reveiws and the sound of the pedal.I wish thispedal had more low end.This pedal helps me make music because the sound has lots of aggresion.I recommend this pedal to metal heads!!!!!

This pedal is great but it takes sometime to get a good sound of it. Its not hard to figure out at all, especially if you read the manual because in it, it includes some really good presets that i have tried out. The fuzz, hard rock, and heavy metal presets sound the best, in my opinion. If you take the time to play around with the knobs it sounds great

It sounds good, not the greatest, but better than most pedals. It doesnt work well as and overdrive or medium distortion. It really shines when you cut the mid frequency and boost the mids. When you turn the distortion past 3 it sounds to muddy for me. Id keep it around 12 or 1

Its a BOSS... enough said

never had to never will

It works great in any genre. This is a very flexible pedal.

I bought this on eBay a few weeks ago and it took me around 15 minutes to get the sound I was looking for from it.
The controls are set out well with dual-pot tone controls so it's not too cluttered.
The knobs are very sensitive too so you don't need to crank them too far to get quite a radical change in tone.

I'm running this pedal through a Roland Cube30 and an Ibanez RG321 with standard INF3/4 pickups, the sound quality from the guitar/amp itself is pretty good but this pedal really picks it up a notch. clear highs and crisp mids, gritty punchy lows... Perfect!

My previous pedal was a Danelectro Black Paisley and I loved the sound of that, but playing with this MT-2 is just on another level. That was quite muddy and lost some clarity but this is fantastic!

I play a lot of styles megadeth/disturbed/john petrucci/neil zaza and this pedal can be tweaked to suit almost any tone you want... with the gain turned right down it's still driving pretty hard but with any amount of gain wind back the volume on the guitar and it cleans up nicely for short melow phrases where you don't want the drive to be noticably 'gone' with the pedal off...

What can I say? It's a BOSS! It's built to withstand getting driven over by a Challenger Tank... All BOSS pedals are virtually indestructible and this is no different. Foot switch feels smooth but firm, jacks and power socket feel tight and solid... Even though this was second hand when I bought it, you wouldn't know it by the feel of it.

I've not had to deal with BOSS for this pedal, but with my old flanger I had to get the footswitch/battery cover replaced and they were happy to supply me with a new cover/screw :)

Quite a pleasure to deal with to be honest.

I've used many overdrive/distortion pedals over my 18 years of playing... Marshall Guv'nor (Mk1), various BOSS overdrive/super overdrive pedals, Danelectro Daddy-O, Danelectro Fab Tone, the Danelectro Black Paisley I mentioned before... and in my oppinion and for my style of playing the MT-2 p***es all over the lot of them!

It has enough gain range to play anything from Gary Moore to Disturbed, enough tonal variation to do anything you would want with it at all.

Being called the Metal Zone leads you to think that this is ONLY for metal, but believe me, it can be used for any style at all! This is a VERY versatile pedal indeed!!

I would recommend one of these to anybody!!!

I've had one of these for years ...like since it came out .I have 2 now one stock and one I modded I like the tones of both for doing cover band work . The modded one sounds relitavely EVH but not quite but close after a bit of dialing in... depends on the room your in too .

gahh, took me about 15-20 minutes to get good sounds.
the manual...well i didnt bother reading it.

its pretty noisy yeah.but only when youpumpup the volume a bit.
the effects are strong and have a metallic, cool tone to it.i donno, try not to play blues or rock or something.getting a goodrock tone out of this is near impossible.now playing some metal is really easy.and its great for solos.
most of the settings i use are fantastic.
i dont have any complaint with the sound of the thing, except its noisy at high volume.

haha.

never tried.

i play metal, like megadeth???slayer and sometimes death metal like cannibal corpse.i also play power metal, or melodeath.for all these genres, this pedal brings out a great sound.
but for my blues music, or hard rock/rock n roll stuff, its a bit too...cold.
if it got stolen or lost, i would buy this again.
buy the adaptor btw, its a pain to keep buying batteries.

4 knobs and each one opens a whole new can of worms... spectacular

i just picked this up i dont usually use any thing other than amp distortion but my 84 jcm 800 is a pain in the ars to make quick changes on stage.... i don't... do not... i havent since highschool... played anything that is metal appart from maybe some of my solos, and i love the sound it is perfect when you keep the distortion under 5 or middle or noon or whatever. fact of the matter is this is versatility at its finest.

i hear it is great havent had it long enough to break it though :P

this is great for me and im not a metal head by any means i am excited to use it on upcoming gigs tours and even in the studio! for an idea of the type of music im using this in go to; bernadetteconnors.com and cheack out some tracks its not metal...

Kind of bizarre that the mid controls are built around the main knobs, but easy enough to use.

I tried running it with a Yamaha semi-hollowbody and a Fender Super Champ (tube and solid state hybrid). With all the settings set to noon, the distortion is colossal - too huge for anything but serious metal. It sounds like an overdriven Marshall stack, which, I think is the idea. Other than lightening quick licks or slow chugging, however, all nuances are lost with this pedal. The sustain also lacks. I was immediately disappointed the first time I plugged it in after getting it. The distortion sounds very fake when any levels are lowered below noon. Good mids, but difficult to adjust and keep subtlety. This pedal has two sounds: Heavy Metal and Tin Can.

Definitely dependable. As are all Boss pedals.

The Metal Zone pedal is really only suited for heavy metal players. Anything other than riff rock sounds terrible on it. It's not subtle enough for classic rock because it goes from zero to 11 instantly. If it were stolen or lost, I would definitely try a different Boss pedal like the overdrive or turbo distortion.

In my case manual is f***** useless (as usual) so it takes hell of a lot of time to get your sound and then even if you change settings on your amp or change the amp it all means nothing and you have to keep fiddling... again.

I've got Jackson Ke3 and marshall 1960 300W half stack, and once I set up mt2 the sound is so amazing that I forget about the misery of setting it up. It is quite noisy but noisegate makes it quiet.

I actually am one of those who think that boss effects are tanks, this thing took 4 years of heavy playing very well and i think it will outlive me

Seriously, have they even got one?

For thrash and death metal- perfect, it may take a lot of fiddling, but the sound is very rewarding.

I'm giving the easy of use an 8 due to the fact that you have to unscrew a thumb screw to get to the battery. I can't wait until this rolls under the couch some late smokey night and I never find the #uc&ing thing again.

Okay, for starters, I'm kinda new but I sat here side by side with a HardWire TL-2 Metal Distortion. I give the MT-2 an 8 and the TL-2 a 10. The Hardwire is astronomically better in everyway, sound, design, construction, ets. Plus no stupid plastic thumbsrews to loose!

Don't get me wrong, I like the MT-2. I got mine for $40 (new). A steal at that so whose complaining righ? Nuff said.

Well, let me hit on the damn thumb screw again. It's positined just below the footswitch. I know someday, I'm gonna stomp on this thing and break it. IF I don't loose it first. Let's just say, you're on a gig, you need to change the batteries, you in the parking lot or behind the stage or wherever... it's dark, you unscrew this damn thing... set it... Oh damn... where did I set that? I put it right here!!!! Now you don't have a Metal Distortion box because the foot lever switch won't stay closed or work w/o it.

Because this actually hasn't happened yet, I can't score it too low. Seriously, the knobs are hard plastic too. the TL-2 has SS knobs AND a rubber cover that covers the knobs for protection... you can throw this damn thing and never worry about it. SO SOLID.

n/a

I'm gonna throw an 8 for overall value. Based on the fact I paid $40 for it new, it should get a 10 here, but... nah....

Pretty simple controls: level makes it louder, bass and hi's change the EQ, distortion gives you more distortion. The mid knob and the mid frequency knob gave me a little trouble, though. I had a hard time dialing in a sound that I liked. But overall, the pedal with give you a range of good sounds pretty easily.

I'm using mine with a variety of guitars. Basically, I put it through either a 1994 Fender American Tele, a 1988 Gibson SG with GFS Mean 90s in it, or a custom Tele I built with Hot Rails in the bridge and a Big Texas in the neck. I play through a 1960 Fender Champ. At bedroom levels, this pedal sounds pretty decent. If you jack up the volume at all, however, it starts sounding like a swarm of bees. The distortion isn't really very clean (if that makes any sense). Also, this sucker gets pretty noisy. I had to buy a MXR Smart Gate just to compensate, and noise gates just kill your tone. Also, no true bypass is a downer. I played with the MT-2 while I was still an amateur, and it never bothered me. But since I've gotten more serious lately, it won't cut it anymore.

My battery power supply broke, so now I have to run it through an adaptor. I think that might have been more my fault, though. But overall, Boss pedals are built like freaking tanks. I did gig with a backup.

The guys at Boss are easy to work with, and really know a lot about their products.

THIS IS NOT A REVIEW, IT'S INFORMATION FOR PROSPECTIVE BUYERS. THE MT-2 AND THE AXL DEQ2 AND JOHNSON DEQ2 PEDALS ARE EXACT THE SAME BUT WITH DIFFERENT ARANGEMENTS FOR THE POTS. THEY ALL HAVE IDENTICLE CIRCUIT BOARDS, IDENTICLE SPEC PARTS (AND IN MANY CASES, THE SAME PARTS) AND WORK IN EXACTLY THE SAME WAY. AXL AND JOHNSON PEDALS ARE WAY CHEAPER THOUGH.

IT SOUNDS LIKE A DEQ2

ALTHOUGH THEY ARE EXACTLY THE SAME, THE BOSS PEDAL HAS A HIGHER BUILD QUALITY. SAVE YOUR CASH, GET A DEQ2, AND IF YOU LIKE IT, GET A MT-2 COS IT'LL PROBABLY LAST LONGER

It took me about ten minutes to find the right sound for me.It usally takes a little bit of tweaking to find the sound that is right for you.

I am running this through a Marshall MG15CDR (Piece of crap) and I play on a Esp Mh-250.The sound I can get on this pedal is absolutely amazing.

I would happily use this without a back up.

Haven't dealt with them.

I play music ranging from Sepultura to Cannibal Corpse and with this pedal you can go from soft rock to brutal death metal.I would recommend this to any people that play rock and metal.If this was stolen or lost I would by another one.

Extremely easy to use
simple dials, well diagramed to help out.
Easy to get a quick, chugging, squealing distortion from.

I use a ESP LTD M100-FM
Not the worlds best guitar
I use a Marshall 50-watt AVT
Not the worlds greatest amp
I just use your bog standard cables
With this setup i have found hardly any noise whatsoever
Barely realise its on half the time

The strength of this pedal is incredible
It sounds like an angry stack on fire
It really rips through riffs. Boosts solos to sound awesome
I have very few faults with this pedal.

It is really good for your metallica/megadeth and heavier sounds
Highly recommended pedal

This thing was built to withstand a bloody Nuclear war followed by an apocalypse
It just never breaks
I have delievered heavy abuse to this pedal. I have kicked it. Dropped it. Allsorts, ripped cables out of it
Even the jack sockets are sturdy.
No complaints at all
This section is perfect
I would definitly use this without a backup
Even the battery power is decent enough

Never had to deal with them
as pedal is most definitly bomb proof!

I have been playing 4 years, used several different amps, pedals and guitars. I work in a shop that sells guitars, amps and pedals. Everything you can imagine. Its hard to find a pedal this good until you start hitting the hundreds. I payed ??35 for mine on e-bay, in used but good condition.
If this pedal does not rip your face off you arent using it right!
This pedal is indestructible

Simple enough 4 knobs total. Bass, treble, parametric midrange, distortion, volume. IF you cant figure that out, get prescription eye glasses or learn how to play electric guitar

To put it simply if you don't play Thrash metal, death metal, metalcore, black metal, or extreme metal in general then look elsewhere. If your interpretation of metal is Black Sabbath, iron maiden, and deep purple then this pedal isnt for you as you will dont understand or appreciate the nuances of the MT-2 as it relates to metal. Get yourself the boss DS1 or go with regular amp distortion if you want a mild metal tone.. However, if you want the real standard Chugga Chugga palm mutes, razor sharp riffage of early metallica, and the general metal midrange of thrash/death/metalcore then this pedal is for you. The key is the parametric midrange EQ which give endless tonal possibilies.

Its been dropped, kicked, and has multiple scars but, still works like new

Very available...

As i said before this is for the broad spectrum of metal music. I've been playing for 10 years. I'm more of a hobbyist but am always searching for the metal perfect tone.. The closest I got to that point thus far is the Peavey 6505 and the Krankenstien but, to be fair, those are 1800 dollar amps while the MT-2 is a 100 dollar pedal so comparing apples to apples the metal zone as a pedal gets a 10. Of course thousand dollar amps are going to sound better but, if you put the metal zone in the right type of set up though a good tube power amp into a 4x12 cab for example, it can sound pretty damn close to a thousand dollar rig.. Who knows maybe even better

This pedal is very easy to use....
you can try your own sound as it has a great EQ with bass treble mid and mid cut .. you can also change the distortion level and the main voloume at it
its manual is pretty good it gives you some presets that you can use and they sound pretty nice
i give a 9 here

What setup (i.e. what guitars and amps) are you using this with?

i am using ESP guitars with humbucker pickups on it
and i am using a crybabeQ95 wah and valve amps mainly it give great distortion.

Is it noisy? On what settings?

It is noisy if you give a lot of distortion if you keep the distortion knob at high levels ... it can be used for heavy distorted riffs but i prefer to use it in lead parts
it kicks *** at solos :-)
Are the effects weak or do they always sound great?

it is not always great at sound cause you cant use it for every taste it is good on leads and on metal riffs

What amp are you using it with?

valve amps mainly

Can you get the sound of your favorite artists? Who are they?

it can give you some great lead sound like Hammett it can also give sound like Murray or smith ... it can give you a great metal lead sound but in rock riffs and leads i dont use it much

Are certain effects (distortion, chorus, ...) very good? Very bad?

i like it when i stack it with wah and reverb.... it is perfect
also chorus are good and does not lose sound quality
flanger is interesting if is stack with an MT-2



8 cause it doesnt cover big variety of sound th

Can you depend on it?

you can absolutely depend on it ... its a very strong pedal.. as i have it for long time it has felt some times from 1.5M height or even more to bare floor but it still works perfect

Would you use it on a gig without a backup?

I would never use anything in a gig without backup so it cant be a exception to the rule

i have it about 5 years and i never needed to repair it or contact to boss... so o have no opinion on this section

What style of music do you play? Is this a good match?

metall at most times and it rocks
it isnt very good at the good old rockies ... you better use OD there

How long have you been playing? What other gear do you own?

playing 9 years tube amps :marshall handwired stack , tsl 100 stack , crybabe wah , multieffect pedalls, line 6 pods , srtat guitar
i had a line six spider amp at my first steps to combine it and it sounded good

If it were stolen or lost, would you buy it again or get something else?

i wouldnt buy it again as my amps have pretty cool distortion now so i dont need it

when i bought I hadnt such good amps so i needed it

what do you love about it? What do you hate? What is your favorite feature?

i love EQ and its durability


in others i cannot reply
i give 8 overall

it takes 5 minutes to find your sound but after that
you get bad man lows and little girl highs

sound quality is amazing even plugged into an acoustic amp
i play it normally threw a dean markley or my peavey amp straight out into the pedal and then into either my fender strat or my gibson sg and sounds good with any effect on my amps

bought my used and i still kick the shat outta it, its a heavy pedal you can beat it up and it'll last

havnt used it hope dont need too

i play anything from lamb of god to metalica and the pedal sounds great and ive used other distortoin pedals ad you cant get the same sound out of a pedal as you would outta this one ive used $150 and they dont compare to the 50 i spent on this one

it's a plug in and go process.....easy to figure out for newbies and easy to master for old scoolers...i run mine through the front of the amp in the high and or low inputs..depending on yhe venue and surroundings..the manual had several settings and my setting was a mixture of all of them...

i usually play through korean guitars with gibson 500 pickups into solid state amps with fairly expensive cords and patch cords...sometimes a boss noise gate after the MT....but i never have the gate on....i dont use a lot of the gain or the level knob and i eq the tone according to ,once again, the venue...and i have never been lost without my "tone" on any of these different sounding rooms or outdoor gigs..the bottom line is that with this pedal, i can get my sound out of any amps' clean channel...

well, i have one on the pedal train..and one on a backup pedaltrain and one in my gigbag.....i think i also have one in my van...and ny bass player carrys one for mr in his gig bag...
so i dont know if i would have to worry about it much...and i am actually using the same one i started out with years ago, on my main pedal board...and i have never had any problems...i have always used an adapter with it.

boss is a great company to deal with....i love my pedals

i have been playing metal since it was called just plain old rock and roll....and i really need reliable gear that sounds great and takes a beating and i have never been disappointed in this pedal...i really cant compare it to anything else cuz i dont like anything else and believe me i tried em all....cheap,reliable and everybodys got one....so what are you waiting for....

The metal zone has 6 knobs (volume, high, low, mid range, mid and distortion.) It can be potentially fiddly at times, but finding a good tone isn't hard.
It can take a little time tweaking the settings to find a tone you love, and to remember the position of the dials.

The sound quality of this pedal is fantastic. It has been my sole distortion pedal for many a year and provides harsh, growly lows, right through to brilliantly smooth high end screams.

I've owned mine for 6 years, the majority of the time it has spend plugged in to power, extremely reliable and has never made me cry.

Great pedal. I don't play metal music but it's fantastic tones, extreme versatility and reliability make this one of my all time favourite pedals. A must have for anyone looking for great, diverse distortion.

I think it's pretty easy.
4 knobs: 1Level(Volume),1Distortion,1EQ High/Low(-15.+15)and 1EQ Middle/Mid Freq(200.5k). If you don't know how to use them just give it a try and find your personal sound.

I must say that I don't like metal and the metal sound, but I just wanted to try it. Although if you like metal than you should buy this pedal, it has the classic metal sound. As said before it has the ''zzzz'' metal sound, so buy it only if you want to play metal with it.

Would you use it on a gig without a backup?
-Oh yea, this pedal will never let you stand on the stage like a loser. You can really depend on it.

I don't know, never needed any help because I never had problems with it since it's a good wuality pedal.

If you like metal then you must buy this pedal, it is really good playing it!

It takes a long time and a lot of experience to get th sound you want. You have a lot of options on this pedal (positive) but the most of the sounds you get out of it just s//k.

Lot of people say, this pedal is good for everything. That??s not true!!!!!! It does a perfect metal and hardrock, but it??s not good for anything below.
The biggest problem is, that you get too much of thet metal zzzzzz with this pedal, so you barely can hear the notes you play, just the heawy metallic distortion.
It goes down pretty fast in a band.
Also, if the other guitarist doesn??t use a metal zone, the sound of the 2 guitars get too different.
No matter what you do, you get too much hights. And when you try to compensate this by ading more bass, you get too much bumm-bumm when you palm mute. Also, you can??t play normal (not power)-chords with it, becouse you just get a bunch of ear hurting noise.
I listen to a lot of music, from old-rock to emo to metal and punk, but this guitar doesn??t do them all.
As i said, it??s perfect for Metallica or Bullet for my Valentine-like metal, but nothing below it.
I will sell this pedal, to get a Marshall Jackhammer instead. It has the same metallic palm muted sound, but a bit softer, just more marshall.
Listen to Sanitarium from LIMP BIZKIT, that??s the tone, you get with a Jackhammer. Listen to Sanitorium from METALLICA, that??s the sound you get with a Metal Zone.

Indestructible.
I never needed a backup for any of my boss pedals.

Never needed to call them....

If you play any kind of metal, this pedal is just for you.
If not, try something else.
A lot of amateur guitarrists think, they need alot of distortion to get their favorite bands sound. But if you listen more carefully, you just realise, that??s the bass guitar you hear. (sometimes)

its really easy to use as i like the concentric knob design
just the slightest tweaking can give you a good sound
the manual gets you statred fiddling with the knobs but the presets suck for what this pedal is made for

i am running an allen lp and a dean ml shadow through this pedal i dont really use amps often but i play through a pair of sony noise cancelling headphones and i also use an ax5g to get it in stereo. this peadal isnt noisy like most pedals in its price range, of course there is a little noise because it is a distortion pedal i can get most of my metalcore and doom settings on this pedal very easily, also turn down the mids cuz they are very loud!!

the casing is tough as nails but i also play many different styles so i only use it for metal and hard rock

i usually play metal but i dont really like the tube tone as much as i like pure solid state without emulation of the tubes
i have been playing guitar for over a year and a half i also own a ax5g effects processor if this item was stolen i would get a metal muff instead for the sound i want i love all the tonal possibilities i dont really like the tube tone but only cuz i suck i bought this item on a whim during a road trip overall this is a good item if you like tube tone.

this pedal is pretty easy to use. when I first got one about 10 years ago it took me about a couple weeks to find the sweet spot that I was looking for on this panel.this is how I dialed it in, it's been dialed in this way for over 10 years. Starting with the level I have at 12 o'clock the high and low knob is dialed in at two o'clock the mid and middle frequency is dialed in at 10 o'clock and the distortion is dialed that 12 o'clock. this is a sweet spot for metal players

the sound out of this thing is awesome!!! the metal's own I'm playing right now is probably about the fifth one I have owned, if this one got stolen I would for sure by another one. I play a Stratocaster, I plug in to the metal zone and then it's plugged into a MXR sixth band EQ. I find that the six band EQ makes the metal zone come alive.

very very reliable, I have dropped these petals down flights of stairs drop yet on concrete and still they keep on giving her. I could throw this thing at a wall and you would still work.

this is the most heaviest panel that you'll find, I have been playing for 15 years and have been through a lot of gear this panel is a staple if you ask me.

Dial up yor gain to your desire, adjust the level to suit and from there on its just a matter of finding the right eq setting
That can be the daunting task but for every guitarist there is always the search for that hidden tone that may lie just beyond another turn of that dial.
There is no getting bored here when searching for a tone from the massive range of eq options on offer.
I did have a bit of a hard time finding my setting for the mids but i basically have the frequency set at about 10pm and the level for the mid frequency set between 1 and 2pm

If you want the METAL sound then buy this pedal!!!!
I cant say I have tried the new Metal Core but if you own a Metal Zone you should have no need to.
As with all distortion pedals you get some background hiss with it at high gain, I run mine at 3pm, but its easily controlled with good muting technique.
I run a GE-& after my MT-2 purely for balancing out the difference between my Strat and My Zakk Wylde Les Paul but other than this there is no need for any extra eq.

I originally borrowed one of these pedals for a gig many years ago and I barely even bothered to set it up and man ... That night i had the Fear Factory tone from hell!!!
I went out 2 days later and bought one.
Sold it few years later cause was broke and needed the cash but when it came time to get a new distortion pedal.. There was no contest... Metal Zone every time

Boss just build their pedals like tanks man so for reliability id say it is awesome.
Ask yourself this.... How many times have you seen a Boss pedal that is covered in dings, scratches etc, Literally looking like its been run over by a truck on a daily basis BUT it still sounds just as good as a new one.

I cant afford to own 2 of everything so I always used it without backup and never felt as though this was a risk.

Refer to my comments on Reliability.

Never had to have a boss pedal replaced or repaired.

I use this pedal for Metal and rock and it never dissapoints.
Run with a Strat it wails and run with a Les Paul it roars. What more could you ask for.
If it were ever lost or stolen for arguments sake I would DEFINATELY get another one.
I love the footswitch, large and easy to operate in beefy big combat boots.
I do have to admit though the large amount of adjustability on the mid settings was more than my small plug and play brain could handle at first but I eventually won.

I look at ease of use subjectively, and apart from the rest of the review. Sometimes because something is a 10 in ease of use doesn't mean it's better. In fact, sometimes the most confusing effect pedal in the world is the best.

I give this pedal a 7 because of the dual midrange eq knobs. There are a million different sounds in those 2 knobs! And these 2 knobs are the key to the Metal Zone's sound.

I doesn't sound all that bad, or that great. I've used this pedal for a very long time and with great results. Really, it sounds best with LOTS of mids. If you suck out all your mids your tone will SUCK! No one will hear you play and you will sound like sh*t! Even in the bedroom if it sounds cool to suck your mids, don't do it! You are hurting your ear for TONE! METAL, requires MIDS! Trust me, I spent half my life sucking out mids and trying to find a guitar/amp combo that sounded good live. IT DOESN'T WORK. crank those mids, and sound metal baby!

I've tried using this with a GE-7. Personally I hate the GE-7, I bought one to use in the effects loop of my 5150ii, but it destroys the tone horribly, and it certainly doesn't add much to the MT-2. You can add some clarity by boosting whatever frequency the the highest slider is. Honestly theres so many EQ options on the pedal itself you don't really need to couple it with a GE-7. Think of the Low/High and Mid/Mid on the Metal Zone with your amp's Bass, Mid and Treble as a 7 band eq!

I've only ever had 1 Boss pedal fail me. This one is not the one. (it was a DS-1).

I came upon this thing in a weird way. I used it for a small but good portion of my life, and thus I will forever treat it special and keep it forever. I play rock music. I have a good ear for tone and this thing gets the job done for metal. Play with the EQ a lot you can get a variety of good sounds out of it.

The MT-2 is, as all Boss pedals are, very easy to use. In less than two hours, you'll find yourself operating the knobs like if you had designed it. Besides, the manual has some presets that work well (especially the Heavy Metal preset), and it's way simple to adjust the low and high frequencies to get a better fit of your personal sound.

I was playing Metallica's 'Master Of Puppets' with this pedal in the Heavy Metal preset when I heard that the sound was kinda toughy. Well, by listening to the song, I got the exact sound of the band in one minute. This pedal's distortion is very good, though it makes a little bit of noise at a high volume or high distortion level. I have tried it with a small Crate combo and a big Marshall, and the sound is always great.

It's really a nice piece of gear. Reliable in all kinds of situations.

I've never had problems with any Boss pedal, so I haven't dealt with Roland yet.

I've been in this music business for only five yeras, but still I have dealt with many other pedals and stompboxes and never found a better gear than Boss'. I play all kinds of rock (progressive,mostly), and even though the MT-2 is for metal-kind distortion, I have used it with tunes of bands like Rush, Pink Floyd and Yes and it work really well, aproaching to their sound.

Pretty easy to use, simple, quick, 6 nobs basically.

Very good distortion from this. Just as it says. For Metal. It pretty much sounds great on any amp. It makes wussy amps sound mean, and SERIOUS amps sound BRUTAL. My practice amp (squier) sounds a bit more tolerable with this thing (even though squier amps suck) - but man, my Randall RG100SC really sings with this thing. Sounds best with a noise cancel/supressor pedal. Best of all you can scoop out the mids with this pedal which is essential for that heavy metal tone you need. Semi-parametric EQ built into the pedal (although it can't hurt to get a real Parametric EQ)

Reliable. Never once broken. Even if you're gonna smash your stuff on a daily basis - I have a friend who has kids who loved MY Metal Zone MT2 pedal so he got one from a friend of ours who had it too. Unfortunately, as I said, he has kids. They smashed the pedal's knobs. They still work though.. albeit bent. Built like a tank. Even if you have abnoxious kids who think they have to destroy everything.

Never had to call them for anything so no opinion.

I have been playing since I was about 9 years old. I'm 25 now. I really think this pedal is brutal. I crank it up on my Randall and devistate.
If it got stolen of course I would replace it because it is part of my sonic pallette, if I didn't have it, half my tone would be gone.
I love it because it is able to boost highs and lows, take out annoying mids while boosting the high mids. I love its explosive sound. Sounds so chuggy and crunchy.

If your going to do your homework to find the best tone for your set-up, this pedal will work great. Great control especially with the mid-freq knob. The gain is overwhelming, and with a little fiddling you can get the most saturated, chunky, menacing distortion you could imagine.

Absolute devastation. I'm using a Schecter Blackjack 7 string tuned down to A, Duncan JB and a 59, and a Paul Rivera Fender Concert Amp(Tube). The amp doesn't have the greatest low end capability, but I can get very near modern Cannibal Corpse tone. As far as I'm concerned, Cannibal Corpse is the holy grail for metal tone. If your a six stringer, then you can get close to Justice for All distortion(The other holy grail of metal tone), but not exactly unless you have multiple amps. The mid controls are key to getting the right punch. Here's my setting: Level- 2 o'clock, Low- 3 o'clock, High- 4 o'clock, Middle- about 9:30, MID Frequency- 10 o'clock, Gain- MAX. I also use a touch of reverb on the amp. You may have to vary the high/low eq, but the mid adjustments and gain are key.

You can't break this thing.

Have never dealt with them.

The ultimate distortion for metal, bar none. Unless you have a triple rectifier, but I believe the secret to Cannibal Corpse's tone is a hybrid of the two.

relativity easy to use given you know how to set you amp up right with it.

again this pedal can make any axe scream if you have a good enough amp and know to set it right with it.

not a problem yet. the metal zone is freaking tank!

no comment on this issue....ive had none with the pedal. Ive been using it for about 6 years now.

great build quality, great sound. if you can set this pedal up right with a good amp you can get some phenomenal sound out of it. my opinion the amp and your guitar pickups are more the key. if you have crap then thats how it will sound..plane and simple.

I have been playing, and building my own guitars, and effects pedals for over 15 years. I am an idiot, so in this category, I was amazed how difficult it is not to find a good tone. The key with this pedal is learning your amp, and this pedal's eq. Its as easy or as difficult as you want it to be. The manual is helpful, so there is no way you can screw it up, unless you dont work with it and your amp. If you are one of those kids that wants instant gratification without working for the tone, go buy a line 6 head, and sound like every one else. if you want a fire breathing dragon this is your pedal.

ok here is my rig

les pauls, and jackson soloists going into 2 mesa boogie nomad heads

in my signal path,

Guitar - - - - mt2 - - - boss 7band eq - - - boss chorus----wah pedal

all hooked up with monster cables, for cabs i use marshall 1960 a and b's stock. i used to like the vintage 30's but they were crazy money for a tone i dont like. Pickups are in all guitars this way, les pauls, and jacksons, 59 in the neck, jb in the bridge. i like my action low, and i tune to Eb. My sound is like cannibal corpse, with clean passages. This pedal is amazing for this. If you go through a tube head, this pedal gets a lot more character, and you lose that harsh hiss that you get when you dont know how to eq, more on that later. Amazing pedal, as long as you want metal. if you get a metal zone and you want a rock tone, you are the weakest link. this pedal is for gain heads, not for vintage tone. go get a boss sd1 or a od 2. great pedals for that

its a tank. i have 3 of these pedals and i havent broke out the other 2 ever, except to make multiple pedal boards for touring. always go with a back up. it might cost you more, but you always can get your tone

dealt with boss before going on tour, or doing the local thing, and they are always helpful. emailing them is key, and they get right back to you

I might sound like a tube snob or whatever, so I will also recommend this for solid state heads as well. I heard a guy get a killer tone out of his avt 50 head, and i hate marshalls. so to me its all personal preference. I was lucky to have a good job to get the gear i love. i also build my own stuff too, so you always want to make sure that you learn. thats the biggest benchmark. not all the 10000 worth of bullshit gear, its getting used to what you like.

sit and play with your tone, know what factors are in your tone, and stop spending stupid money on stuff. a 3500 dollar head is just a piece of shit if you dont know tone. my heads were like 600 bucks, and everyone thinks that line 6 is great. they are ok, if you want a les paul, a strat and a tele to all sound the same. thats a weird thing, but the mt2 is an amazing pedal for METAL. graphic eq's also help

Should be easy to use, but can be a bit hard to get a good sound out of and I think I know why - see below.

It's a bit fussy about the eq settings and how you set up the amp it's going into, but it is possible to get some great sounds out of this unit, especially for palm muting.

I still might sell it eventually though, as the 'Natural Speed' preset on my GT-8 is THE sound I have always tried to get with the MT-2 and never quite nailed.

I think everything that can be said on this subject in relation to Boss pedals, has been said!

Never dealt with them.

OK, this is why I am writing this review. I think I have discovered why it can be difficult to get the tone you want from this pedal. Try this: plug a 'free' lead into the input (i.e. one with the other end not plugged into anything) and a pair of headphones into the output. Press the pedal so the LED lights up. Now max out the Level, High, Low, Mid and Dist controls. Leave the Mid Freq control around the middle. Put the headphones on. The pedal should be self-oscillating - loudly enough to drive a normal pair of headphones! Move the Mid Freq control and the oscillation changes note.

Now set the Mid Freq control back to the central position, and play with the High and Low controls. Again, the oscillation frequency changes. This leads me to believe that the tone controls somehow affect each other! No wonder it's hard to set up if all the eq controls are inter-related.

Roland have done this before - ask any synth fan about the TB-303 and they'll tell you part of its unique quality comes from the fact that the controls are inter-related in a way they aren't on other synths.

So, either learn to love its quirks or give up and try something else, it's up to you. I'm still undecided...

Very easy

I've got a lot of metal pedals-most of the popular ones and this pedal is hard to beat-it has the right tone and sits in a mix very well. I recorded a song with it and you can hear it if you go to www.myspace.com/lightsounds it's the first track. It won't give you the sound of a top shelf tube amp but for a pedal it's hard to beat.

You know what they say about Boss pedals

You know what they say about Boss pedals :-)

For a pedal this baby rocks-instant gratification. And by the way-what kind of idiot would spend good money on a pedal without knowing the pedals capabilities and wether it's right for him or not! This baby delivers exactly what it promises-nuff said!

Pretty easy man, normal pedal setup. Easy to use "double" knobs for mid,bass etc..

This pedal is def (as the name says) for metal players, it has that real cold harsh scratchy sound. The tonal possibilities are pretty diverse and the sustain is wicked and you can smash solo's with it..
BUT, it just was'nt the pedal for me. It sounds WAY too fake, like ur playing a midi or keyboard sounding tone. I prefer the warm full tubey sound e.g led zep,hendrix,t-rex

tank

I would'nt buy another if mine got stolen. It just was'nt the sound i was looking for. If you like cold metal sounding tone then GREAT! But if you prefer the vintage warm tube sound SWERVE this pedal!

Somewhat difficult to use but the reason for this is a good reason - the amount of tweakability, especially in the mids, can give you so many different but excellent sounds that it can drive you nuts trying to decide on your main setting. This pedal is capable of many, many different types of distortion, even a heavy fuzz if you set it right.

Excellent sound. It is amazing how a pedal that gives an almost infinite amount of gain and is capable of the deepest and heaviest crunches that you have ever heard in your life can also have such tone, string separation, and bite. Most any time that you hear a sound this heavy and that sustains as long as the MT-2 does it is usually compressed far beyond the point of any personality. But this one doesn't. I don't know how Boss managed it, but I'm glad that they did. There is no other pedal in the world that can match this one for mind blowing heavy heavy distortion plus useable tone and personality.

Also, as far as people who say that they can't get a good sound out of it - I've been playing for 27 years. There are good sounds in this pedal. Check your amp or your guitar because it ain't the pedal.

And as for the people who claim that it must be modded to sound good - well, I prefer mine stock. Boss knows what they are doing. Just because something has been modded does not mean that it is better. Modding is making a LOT of money for the people who are doing it. Five bucks worth of Radio Shack stuff and they sell the pedal for double or more than what it costs. nice fat, easy profit. Modding is easy. If you can handle a screwdriver, a pair of pliers, and a soldering iron then all you need are the instructions that can be found all over the Internet for free. Stop putting all of your hard earned money towards buying these guys a new house - mod your own pedals! But leave this one stock imo...

It has never given me a problem and it's been around.

No opinion, never needed any.

Really simple to use and to get a decent sound.

It sounds good if you use it mainly for EQ and blend it with your own amps gain and use mostly your amp gain and keep the pedal dist. low along with the level. Other wise I think it sounds really cheesy and processed sounding, especially on the clean channel.......just horrible in my opinion. I use it with a Marshall VR100 and a 1960 Lead 4 x 12. It can be noisy depending on your settings.

Built tough and I have been stepping on it for about 10 years.

Never dealt with them.

This is good for metal/hard rock not much else, of course I suppose that is why they call it the metal zone. I have been playing for 14 years and bought this when I was a teenager cause my friend had one and I thought it sounded good, it is still OKAY I guess but if it were stolen or lost I would definetley try other overdrive/dist. boxes before buying this again just to see what else is out there. This isn't a negatvie review by any means but this pedal can sound really good or really bad depending on who's using it. If you use this through the clean channel only, you are not using this thing right. When mixed well with amp distortion it adds some nice punch and the extra eq is good too. I haven't tried many other dist. boxes but I would garauntee there is something better out there.

It is as simple as anything I have ever used. For gods sake, you step on it! the controls are straight foreward, really.

I love the sound that this pedal throws at you.

all I use is this pedal, and some times my Boss ME - 33, to add a delay or flange. it sounds amazing.

I use it with a Strat, a Les Paul, and an Ibanez Roadstar, into any Peavey amp

hell yeah, I have thrown it out the window a few times, I have dropped it numerous times, I jump on it like a madman......

I would trust it with all my money, but more importantly, I trust it with my sound, its trust worthy.

no upgrades, this company rocks

I play everything from John Coltrane to Cannibal Corpse, It packs a punch, and I also use it with minimal distortion, I guess as sort of an equalizer. I have been playing for 8 years.

If this was stolen, I would Buy 5 more, just in case they ever got stolen again.

I dont hate anything about it.

it is top of the line, If this pedal didnt exist though, I would be using a Behringer Ultra Metal, that is the only thing comparable.

it doesnt get in the way

Very straightforward Boss Pedal. All the knobs do exactly what they state. BUT, the Mid control is where you will find the most variation in tone. Use a 9V battery or AC adapter, I recommend the adapter. The tone gets really thin and weak, if your batteries are even slightly down on power.

A friend of mine gave me this pedal about 2 years ago and I didn't even bother plugging it in and trying it out. I was a tone snob at that time. I thought its never going to come close to my current setup, ADA MP-1 --> Peavey 50/50 Power Amp --> 4x12 cabinet. Well one day, I gave it a whirl and I was BLOWN away. So now I don't have the rack setup, because this one pedal does that job so much better.

This pedal is a lot more versatile than its name implies. I can go from SRV-ish tone to Metallica with just the volume knob on my guitar. Btw, I'm using a Schecter C1+ with Seymour Duncan JB Bridge and Jazz Neck.

The key to getting the tone you want in this pedal is the mid knob(s). Make sure you play around with it for a while, the difference in tone is staggering.

My setup... Level 12'o clock, High 3'o clock, Low 11'o clock, Middle 9'o clock, Mid Freq 10'o clock, dist 12'o clock. This goes directly into a Peavey Bandit 112 (don't laugh! LOL) with the clean channel set at Vintage and all the tone controls set at 12'o clock. Turn the volume up to taste.

I recently went to Samash to try and see if I can get this sound out of another amp. Tried Marshall JVM something, Randall Head, Line6 Vetta II combo... not even close.

NO issues... it will probably survive a nuclear blast.

Have not had a need to.

I play hard rock, heavy metal and occaisonally dabble in thrash. I've been playing for 18 years and have tried quite a few pedals and amps out there. The Metalzone nails the tone I'm going for. Set it up and hit a E power chord, you will feel it in your gut... rich and powerful tone. I am open to trying other pedals, but I don't think I will ever get rid of this one. I've dialed in my sound and I don't anticipate ever changing from it.

Okay, here's the deal here with some of the bad reviews of this product: They are simply morons.

The Boss Metal Zone is an excellent pedal that has a high degree of customization available to the end user. I suspect most of the complaints against this product are with people who either have seriously shitty amps to begin with, or just don't want to spend the time necessary to tweak the proper tone out of the thing. I give it an 8 for ease of use because it is not a plug-n-go kind of pedal. It NEEDS to be fine tuned and dealt with to get the sound out of it that you need. If you want that sort of thing, try out the BOSS Metal Core pedal, but be warned: That pedal is more expensive and it does NOT have the same degree of customization that the Metal Zone has.

The manual is fine, but I felt just fine jumping into it head first without any instruction. That's how you find YOUR sound, anyway.

My favorite artists are Alexisonfire, A Wilhelm Scream, and similar bands. But getting their sound is not what I care about, I wanted to get a sound that I felt was unique, at least, to me.

My setup is pretty decent, I feel. I've got a Schecter C-1 Hellraiser with an EMG 81/60 combo. Going through a Fender Twin 100 watt tube amp. Now, the Fender Twin is one of the best combo amps I've ever had the pleasure of using. With the effects loop, I've got my BOSS chromatic tuner chained with this thing and it's wonderful. I've gotten a bit of crap from my bandmate because I route the pedals this way (he feels the tuner should be on the main line in between the guitar and the amp's input), but I've found this setup works great. The way I've got things set up on this thing, I never even need the amp's footswitch-- I just hit the Metal Zone pedal again when I need my clean tone and it works great.

Christ, it's a BOSS pedal. You can probably jump on the thing and not even come close to breaking it.

I've never had to deal with BOSS but I've heard great things.

I play in a band that does a punk and metal fusion sort of thing, and it excels for this sound. I've been playing guitar for four or five years now and I'm in my first project. Admittedly I am inexperienced, but I'm playing with a dude who has been in two bands prior and has been playing for over ten years and he has guided me with his supreme wisdom in an almost infallible manner. This pedal fits the bill and if it were lost or stolen I would almost certainly replace it. As far as other gear, I've got an assortment of acoustic and electric guitars and basses as well as the BOSS chromatic tuner, plus a Roland Microcube practice amp. It's good as gold, man. Good as gold. That's all you need to know.

6 knobs in total - its not very easy getting the sound you want out of this pedal its taken me months to find sounds that im happy with but when you do the position the dials in will stick in your head forever because it sounds amazing.
manual is pretty shit and it has those mid controls which are very powerfull if u wanna scoop or add mids (can get a bit harsh) but then that freq thing is complicated to get the sound u want.

using it with a line 6 spider2 30 watt and sometimes with a allums modded dyna comp after it. the distortion is very agressive sounding hard hitting and sharp it is good for moddern metal but that can all be smoothed out with a compressor if u need to. it has stacks of bass stacks of treble and you can scoop out loads of mids or add in even more it has a huge tonal range to choose from and anfter shit loads of tweaking you get the sound you want. some of you may disagree but i think i get a good dimebag/pantera sound it also nails metallicas earlier stuff.

boss = built like a tank = ment for stamping on.

never needed

ace

Its pretty strait forward. The manual gives you about 4 preset sounds that you could make which is helpful in creating you own tone.

I have had this pedal for a while and i just fell in love with it all over again. Its easy enough to get a good chord chomping tone from it but i can get some great lead sound as well...its more vers. than I thought it would be. The only problem is that if your not running it on a copper-top (witch may not last through a whole gig) use a Boss adapter cuz most other off brand adapters will give your amp a light buz (not enought to ruin the show but loud enough to piss you off).

300 years from now someone will find this pedal and it will still work...why??? Because its BOSS!!!

Boss doesnt need customer support!

This thing is great. I think im going to get another one so that i can have one for my rythem and another for Kick-A@# leads...this thing is great for me and i play anything from Folk to Rock to Hip-hop, and i can get it to sound like whatever i want.

Ease of Use,Well it depends on How you can hit a Chord/Note and adjust.

Sound Quality is Very Good EXCEPT The Nasaly Mids.Get a Mod done to it. Other than that,lemme put it to you Guys this way.I have been on a few "Death Metal" Bands Websites recently,and they are using it!! That May mean something.And these are BIG Name Bands That EVERY Metal Head Knows. Reason why a "10" is because of the mods out there.If No mod,a 7.5-8.The Boss Metal Zone is a Great Foundation that COULD be Awaken.

Hence the name "Stompbox" Built very rugged.

Well $19.99 for a Owners Manual + $5.00 S&H is alittle(ALOT)on the high side,but you can always download it from their website for free.

Style(s) of Playing,,Hmm Thrash,Death,etc,you get the Picture. For My other side(Rockabilly) this isnt a choice pedal,BUT if you tweak it(And it takes time),She will do good.How long have I been Playing?? Off and On since I was 14(ok,lemme think,,carry the 2) Thats 18 Years!!?? Time has gone By! If it was stolen,You bet I'd Buy another one,and ship it out to mod again.

Easy. Plug in and turn the knobs.

Excellent! Tons of tonal capabilities. I can't believe some people say they can't get a good sound out of it. Some people just like to be tone snobs, I think.

It's a Boss man.

N/A

Great pedal. I got one for use with my 15w VOX Pathfinder and now I have a killer practice setup. The VOX cleans are outstanding and now with the MT-2 I can get all the dirty drive distortion crunchy gain metal tone I could ever need. (Don't pay $100 for one, check Ebay get one for about 1/2 that.)

EASY to use and set if you mess w/ it enough.

Kicks butt! Deep, lush, grinding, dark, and smooth METAL. All depends how ya adjust the EQ's on this thing. Much different sound than the other Boss dist./overdrive pedals, but that's the point here. Don't mod it, leave it as is, sounds great (to my ears).

Great-built tough-as long as you take care of your things, it lasts.

no idea

Great pedal for what I like.

It takes a bit of twiddling to get some good sounds out of this pedal, but there are 6 knobs: Level, High, Low, Mids, Mid Range, and Dist. which allows for a lot of versatility. Unfortunately it means a lot of setting sound like shit on toast, and turning the dist knob all the way up isn't going to get you the sound you want, I guarantee it. BUT the knobs aren't all the sensitive and settings seem pretty consistent.

Like I said you can get a LOT of different tones from this pedal, you probably wont get it to sounds EXACTLY like anybody, but it can get close to pretty much any distortion sound. Downside is that the pedal is very hissy, especially with the "fuller" distortion sounds. I have run this through a Peavey Practice Amp, a Crate RFX65, an Ampeg SuperJet, and a Vox Valvetronix AD50VT-212, and It never sounded fantastic but always sounded good. I have also played it through my various rented bass amps on bass and it sounds good on that but you do loose a little bottom end.

Like everyone says a Boss is a Boss, and I treat this one like it can take it, and it can. No mechanism problems, I only give a 9 because sometimes the LED is a little unreliable on mine.

I play bass and guitar for a psychedelic noise band and this works better for the bass, I prefer to use my vintage RAT for guitar. I haven't been playing for all that long (2 years) but I am a gearhead and have compared this to many pedals. Honestly I wouldn't worry about it if I lost it, I might get something else, The two mid controls are the real unique feature on it that works some good metal magic, we will see how it compared to the homemade pedal I'm working on.

you know i've use a lot of muti effects and none of them seems to capture the sound of MT2,,, sometimes when you mix some patches on a multi effects a lot of feed back and noise come out from this effects but when you use boss it realy completes the noise reduction from feedback earasure.. for me it souds realy fine.. easy to twist the knobs from its right positions.....

tough gadget my fried.... something that you can relly on...

it helps to create more metal sounds compare to other effects..

OK here is bottom line on this pedal. I've lived with it for about a year now and have gotten to know it pretty well. Basically, it is a monster, but one that can be tamed. It is harder to use than most pedals because it has tiny adjustment knobs for "High" "Mid" "Low" and "Mid-frequency". You need to leave the distortion off and spend some time twirling those knobs back and forth until you find a setting that suits your ears, then leave them. Then you can start messing with the "Level" and the "Distortion" knobs. These have DRAMATIC effects on the sound. Little itty bitty adjustments produce huge differences in sound, so you just have to be careful. If you blindly start twisting knobs on this thing on a dark stage, you will be sorry.

I am in a cover band. We play mostly straight ahead rock with a few metal tunes thrown in, and I use the MT-2 to get that deep chunky crunch. My setup is Strat > Wah Wah > Metal Zone > Tubescreamer > Tube Amp (clean channel). This is one sensitive pedal. With the "Level" set at 8 o'clock and the "Distortion" at around 9 o'clock the MT-2 produces those deep, otherwordly metal tones that you can only get from other blues and distortion pedals when you crank the gain all the way up to maximum. At any settings higher than that the pedal is noisy, feedback-y, and basically useless - the sound turns to mush and has no character. Like I said, it is a monster.

The thing is a brick. I have had crowds of drunk people stomp on my Boss pedals with no damage.

Never dealt with Boss.

The reviewer who reminded people that this is a METAL ZONE, not a ROCK ZONE or a BLUES ZONE, etc... was right on. This pedal is for one thing - METAL - and it does metal just fine. If you use it through your dirty channel with the gain already at maximum you will be disappointed - the sound will be a mess. Hello? That is not what it the pedal is for. The MT-2 is supposed to be used through the clean channel. Get it? You stomp on it and it converts your clean sound and produces whatever thick, cruncy metal sound you have dialed in. Get it? The adjustments are sensitive, but if you play metal, this pedal has all the tone you need.

Very difficult to get a decent sound.

Never came close to getting the sounds of my favourite artists. Obviously they dont use this pedal.
I thought the distortion was excessively fizzy and the EQ very digital sounding.
Its noisey with the gain up yep.
The effect is weak unless you use it on extremely low gain settings to push an amp or other distortion... why bother - I use my OD2 instead now. I hoped it would give me some nice dark fat tones if I needed to charge up some black metal. Nah it can't do it. By the Line6 Uber metal.
I use it through an all tube amp.

Its boss so its made with nice metal but also has some cheap taiwanese parts to it.

never dealth with them.

Been playing all sorts of styles for 20 years. I have great distortion already and bought this pedal by mistake. I have seriously hardly used it and when I did it was to muck around or see 'just one more time' if it could produce anything decent. I wasted my money. I specifically wanted a pedal that could get my high gain tube amp a massive, dark, ballsy death metal sound through the clean channel. Nah...couldn't do it - it just fizzes away into fizzland :( Very dissapointed I must say. I would definately check out other pedals before spending money on this garbage... I know I should have instead of just buying it off the shelf because its Boss.

It's really not that difficult

I own this pedal for about 4 years now. I've been playing semi-pro for 10 years.
I learned that I get the very very best sound with the following settings. !!!note: at first it may seem strange, but wait and listen!!!
My set-up is: guitar > mt-2 > tube amp > boss ge-7 EQ (in return) > tube amp.

settings mt-2:
- level: 8
- high: 0
- low: 0 (with some guitars you should turn to about 3)
- middle: 0
- mid freq: 4
- dist: 7

On my tube amp (on clean channel) bass: 2, mid: 10, treble: 6.

On my EQ in effect return: adjust as desired, but turn the bass up a little.


I get a sound that is better and more tight that a good Marshall amp. At first your metalzone will sound like shit, but if you adjust your EQ in effect return you will be in heaven. It really really sounds great. (and yes, the mt-2 on it's own with these settings will sound like shit)

it's a tank

if you play death metal, these settings might be helpfull if you like a Marshall-tone

Pretty straight foward.mess with it for about an hour and you'll get the idea.

This is where the pedal lacks.Iv'e used the MT-2 for most of my guitar years(since they came out so I'm old lol)I swore by em up till now so I'm giving it a lower rating. I've found a pedal now that destroys this one tone wise and I realised how much better the MT-2 SOULD BE!Pass this pedal up and get the Line 6 Uber Metal.You won't reget it by any means!!The MT-2 is a good pedal but these days looks like other manufatuers are passing them up quality and sound wise.They might think about updating the product line.Maybe a noise gate and a wee bit less muddy distortion.It makes your speakers flutter.Trust me I thought this was the pedal of all pedals till now.

Had it for years and no issues.

Dunno never dealt with them

Still sounds good,no issues with reliability and I sold it so that should answer the question if it were stolen would I buy it again.BUY THE UBER METAL!!!! It kills the MT-2!!!

Ease of use, erm, four knobs to twiddle & that's it?

Easy to get a good sound, well, the only thing that may take a bit of tweezing is the semiparametric mid control. You'll need to experiment to get a feel which mid frequency to cut/boost in order to get the desired sound.

Ampage: Hughes & Kettner TriAmp, Mesa Boogie Mark III, Laney 2x10 cab, Marshall 4x12 cab, Intellifex, Ensoniq DP/4. I play mostly indie/grunge/prog stuff now; this pedal was also part of my rig when I was playing in a Rush cover band.

Planks: Blade R4 (SSS, hard ash strat clone, Ref2/2/3 Ultrasonic pups), Blade California Standard (HSS, alder strat clone, Ref 2/2/5 Ultrasonic pups), PRS CE24 (alder body, Ref 5/6 Ultrasonic pups), Ibanez Jem (basswood, HSH, original DiMarzio pups).

Lemme put it this way, it's the only OD pedal I use now, retiring my trusty old Marshall Guv'nor & ProCo Rat. I don't quite agree with some reviews here that the MT2 is a 'metal only' one trick pony - I found it to be a remarkably flexible stomp box, thanks to its mids EQ. While it is probably not the best solution for 'just about overdriven' dirty clean / slight crunch in the SRV/Keef Richards vein, I've had no probs getting great Thin Lizzy, Zappa or even Santana sounds out of it. Just go easy on the gain & toy around with the mids EQ - this stomper can scream quite well, but sings equally nice when it's supposed to.

As far as "metal" sounds are concerned, using the PRS & Jem, I've had no problems nailing Metallica, Panthera, Alice in Chains or Sepultura crunch with it. Whether that's enough for dedicated Nu Metal or the like I can't say because I never needed those ultra-scooped, "dropped C & lower" downtuned tones anyway.

One gripe: The voicing of the treble EQ isn't optimal IMHO - it adds edge rather than bite or clarity. Can lead to problems with an intrinsically bright-sounding guitar - may sound shrill or harsh (backing off the treble will only help a bit here & make the overall sound dull, but still edgy). Depending on what you want the pedal to do, that may be just the thing you're after - and I have to admit, while your tone may sound harsh/edgy when you up the treble & play alone, you're practically guaranteed to produce a tone that will stand out in the mix.

Built like a tank, has seen dozens of gigs, never let me down.

No experience, my Boss stuff never broke, so I've never had the need to contact 'em.

Versatile, sturdy & good sound, charmin' package. Seeing as you can pick up used ones for half the street price of a new unit & the box is very robust, you can't really go wrong with the MT2, unless you're after a sound that one would normally not use a 'metal' distortion unit for anyway: It's neither a "100% tube tone" or "blues driver" pedal, but if you're shooting for rowdier stuff, chances are you'll like this one a lot.

This is a follow-up of my last review. Since I last wrote here I've tried this pedal through my new amp, and I must say it really stinks. Not very responsive pedal. The EQ is to scooped on the mid and the treble is horrible. There are to much muddy sound on the base and it gave no satisfaction useing this pedal. I also have a BOSS OD-20 as my main drive unit, and the modelling of the MT-2 on the OD-20 sound better than the real deal. If I'm gone use this pedal it have to get a mod, most likely a Keeley-mod. In stock version it's crap. Ok if you have a transistoramp, but for use with a tubeamp with 6L6 poweramp tubes, it's no good.

Tweak knobs to your prefered tonal preference. It's not complicated. If you really need it, download the manual from the boss/roland website.

It's a one trick pony. What it does, it does well. There are people out there with a pickier ear than mine, but I play metal so I'm losing my hearing anyway.

It's a Boss.

Never needed it.

It's never let me down. You won't get blues or funk out of it. That;s why it says Metal Zone on it.

This is a strait up metalzone that i bought off ebay a year ago.
it's hard to get a good sound out of it becuase for my style of music it just doesn't sound good

i can't get the sound of my favorite artists. this pedal focuses to much on the mid range which makes it good for marshalls but for me i like to play super heavy death metal and this just doesn't work. i have tried using it as an overdrive pedal with moderate success but it's a really noisey pedal by itself, imagine it on top of overdrive!
they EQ is pretty sensitive which is good but it just doesn't have the tone i was looking for. i use this with a marshall valvestate vs100 and randall rh250 head. 2 cheap marsha cabs but they sound good at low volumes. i use this with a jackson with emg hz's in it and a jackson V with a dimebucker in it. this sound would be alot better for black metal but it can't do super brutal like suffocation and vital remains, but it can do stuff like early deicide which has a pretty bad guitar tone to it. go with the line 6 uber metal. alot better imo.

hell yeah! if there is anything i can say about this pedal is that it is built to last. if i actually used this live i would use it without a backup.

i have never dealt with them

i play brutal high gain death metal and this is not a good match.
i have been playing 3 years and i own 5 guitars and 2 halfstacks, and to little combo amps. i also own a boss gt-8. if it were stolen i prolly wouldn't care becuase if i wanted that sound it's an option on the gt-8. i hate the tone. that's all there is to say about it. it's doesn't sound pleasing to my ears but it could be great for someone else. i would go with the ubermetal by line 6. i have it and i think it's great even at high volumes it doesn't break up and it has a noise gate so it never squeaks.

Very easy! Six knobs Level/Low/high/middle/mid freq/distortion

Mids are semi-parametric, so you can choose the mid freq but no the Q factor...ok ok...nevermind.

If you are:
Begginer: simple...set all knobs at 12 0'clock then add dist at taste--->low-->high-->move at 0% mid then mid frec from 0% to 100% that means you are cutting mids...with mid frec you select the freq to cut...with mid at 100% u r boosting mids...comprendo?

Average: u r bored? use it on the fx loop w/o dist just like a parametric EQ...or after/before other distortion...

Stars: u don't use it...take it...remove the dust and food from it...then make a gift to your son XD

U$S 80 used in good conditions

Many artist use this stomp...but a few guitar players hahaha

If this is your 1st distortion stomp, you will love it!
then you get used to it...and you find it great...then ok...is good
then (3 to 4 years before) you want some moooooorrrreeeee and you don't like it because it sounds little artificial!!!! guaaaaaaa tears

Is real complex to rating this, because it is only one variable on the entire equation. mics/wood/stings/cable/amp/other fx/you...

Excelent for Palm mute!
Good for solos (because on high notes sounds artificial due to the complex harmonix that MT-2 generates)
Bad for playing anything but heavy. if you want to sound like AC/DC you can??t get the sound of an overdrive stomp lowering the dist level.

Low noise*...check out your ground conection! (begginers first)
*(used with humbuckers, ground conection checked, clean/filtered AC adaptor)

Anyway there's no artist w/o Noise gate/Noise supressors (part of the magic silence)

I give an 8 (Just for heavy music...no versatility)

It??s a BOOS

...BooS

ok I play from Pantera/sepultura/soulfly/megadeth and that kind of music...
after 6 years of use I say: It's great! but no always...I mean playing palm muting, I love it, but you lost clarity as you add a picked sting or playing w/o palm mute. Very complex to explain...and
depens on your rig...
If you heard it every day...at the end of the week you will hate it...but you will find it great 5 days after...maybe Iam ciclotimic hahaha

About the versatility...you choose a Metal distortion...sorry

On this days...I recomend you (metal players) try this:
Digitech Metal Master (it's digital! but it??s a secret! shhhhhhh)
Boss Metal Zone (the semi parametric EQ is part of the magic)
EH metal muff (true by-pass and versatility)
Uber metal (noise gate inculded!!!)

Byes...good luck and sorry about my english
Nacho from argentina

The pedal is straight foreward. It got two pots for Level and Distortion and two dualpots for Treble, Bass, Middle and Mid freq. It also spots a 9V socket for adapteruse and a batterycomparment. Access to the batterycompartment is easy. Just unscrew the bolt and open the lid. The manual is easy to get around and it contains suggested settings for different sounds.

The setup I used it in was this:
Guitar -> Morley PWV-1 Wah/Volume -> Ibanez PH-7 Phaser -> BOSS DS-1 Distortion (japan made) -> BOSS MT-2 Metal Zone -> BOSS OD-20 Drive Zone -> Danelectro DC-1 Cool Cat Chorus (18V version) -> Marshall VT-1 VibraTrem -> Carl Martin Red Repeat -> Amp (Reverb)

Guitars: Cimar Les Paul Custom Black Beauty and Squire Standar Fat Tele

When used for metal and high gain sound, it's spot on, but if you want to use it for other styles, it gets harder. That's the reason for why I rated this at 6. The problem with other sounds than metal require a lot of tweaking of the EQ and distortion. So if you're looking for a versatile distortion-unit look some place else. As other have mentioned, this pedal works better with humbuckers then singlecoils.

It's like the other BOSS pedals. Built like a tank.

Haven't had contact with them.

For the style I play, wich is bluesrock and rock, this is not the pedal I need. I bought this pedal 10 years ago and I played metal back then. If it were stolen or lost, I would not buy this again, but rather go for the BD-2 or a Ibanez TS-9

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

If you know what frequencys do then it will just take a a little bit to dial in how much of whatever you want. But the person who buys this is usually a new guitar player playing their $200 ibanez threw a marshall mg, its a hard pedal cuz thers alot of bad sounds in this pedal.

This pedal is what its made for, metal. So can't really complain i cant get classic rock sounds or blues overdrives now can I? But if you want to play Hardcore music, Everytime i Die, Fear Before the March of flames, this pedal doesn't work. You can get alot of bottom end and bass with this pedal real fat. great for Metallica kill em all type of stuff. You can set the highs pretty well, and get good metal solo stuff, but you have to scoop the mids. If you push the "Middle" it sounds like (what someone already posted) White noise, so you cant get ne mids out of this pedal what so ever. Im playing out of my jackson with an emg 81 and i still cant get ne mids. So its alright for metal, not great but it gets the job done but nothing compared to a decent 500 or up good distortion on an amp. played it out of my Randall Titan, 68 bassman silverface, peavy keyboard amp, (sounds best out of the keyboard amp for some reason)

Its a boss, i could throw this thing out of a window and i wouldnt have to double check it i know it would still work.

n/a

alright for metal, thats it, no mids what so ever, so if you want to play some metal, id look around look at the mega distortion boss pedal, or some mxr pedals, or save a little money and get a fulltone, this pedal isnt bad for a beginner but if you need some tone, theres really not ne here

Mine's a 'Humphreyaudio Mods' SLO-DIEZEL refurb which I bought off his eBay store.
Can't be beat. Thanks to his mod this will do lower drive tone as well as sheer over the top CRUSH!!!
I had a stock one for 2 months and couldn't stand the thing. I sold it.
Had a Keeley one next, not my cup of tea at all.
I took a chance on the Humphrey one, This one is night and day.
Very easy to get pleasing tone from thanks to Humphrey Audio.

I play 7 string JEMs through two KRANK heads and four 4x12 cabs.
This pedal has become the absolute center of my hard rock and Nu-Metal tones. No noise and the drive is perfect for low endy grind.

Don't see a problem, and Mark Humphrey backs his stuff up.

Emailed him about rig and tone questions I had, and he gave me some ideas which totally made my rig come to life.
Also collected some guitar tips from him too.
The guy's a pro.
He answered all the many emails I sent in a timely manner.

Original music ala Korn, Bizkit, Zombie, Metalica to Nickelback, Theory of DM, Switchfoot, etc.
Been a pro player for 7 years now, and heard about Humphrey Audio stuff from producer/guitarrist Lydale Macnamara who has a load of their pedals.

I plan to explore more Humphrey Audio pedals in the near future.
The price is unbelievably right, the service is pristine, and my tone is just SICK!!!

Six controls - level (output volume), bass, treble, mid and mid frequency, gain.

On the surface this looks easy enough, but it's actually quite hard to tweak the eq right. One way that works for me is to set the bass and treble at 12 O'Clock, turn the mid up full then tweak the mid frequency control until it sounds it's worst, then cut at that frequency. All the controls are very sensitive.

Rig is guitar (strat, tele, LP Junior, Yamaha SG2000)-Jen Crybaby-MT2-MXR Dist+-small stone-Boss CE2-Boss DD-20-Deluxe Reverb Reissue.

I've had the Metal Zone a few years, and keep coming back to it despite never being entirely happy with it.

It has an overall cold, harsh sound of the kind some people say sounds "digital" (the MT-2 is analog, at least, mine is). All Boss pedals have a distinctive tone - kind of clinical, and the MT-2 is no exception.

The eq gives a very wide tonescape, able to go from a bright fuzz sound to some seriously bass-heavy thump. The range of distortion available is pretty wide, but the pedal rapidly adds gain as you raise the distortion and to avoid the pedal walloping your volume up means keeping the level control pretty low (I use clean sounds that are as loud as the hi-gain so I don't welcome huge volume boosts). On the other hand there's huge amounts of extra volume there if you want it.

One problem is that the controls are very sensitive. The slightest twitch of the level or gain pots alters your sound and volume drastically. A second problem is that it takes over your guitar tone. The strat's bridge and neck p/us sound almost identical, as do the Tele's bridge and the SG2000's neck humbucker. Whatever you set the MT-2 up to do that's pretty much the only sound you'll get when it's on.

What I do find it good for are cascading into the MXR Dist+ to shove it over the edge when I do want more volume. It's also good for giving the boost needed to make tapped harmonics easy and loud. It also serves to buffer the rest of the effect chan to avoid tone sucking (the Crybaby is wired full bypass, the rest of the stuff is unmodded). It also makes getting feedback simple.

I've had Boss pedals die of old age, but it's rare.

Its just try and try, until you get the right sound for your tastes...

Great sound...I really like the pedal...

Very good...It combines with other pedals really well..

Its Boss....Boss is Boss!

Its pefect for hard rock, overdrive, metal....One of the best single pedals...

Getting a good sound on this thing is quite easy but you can also get the perfect eq with this thing. I'ts worth the money

WIth this I can get all kind of sounds like mudvayne or mettalica and pennywise. the 3 frequecy eq is incredible. I use this on a backstage peavey 15 watts and I can get almost the same sound level than my friend who have a danville 80 watts. I'll keep that all my life.

It never fell me (and I don't see why it should)The only thing is that if I leave my cable in the input jack it suck my battery but it's like every other pedal

I'm playing a lot of punk with this and the only itch is that my amp restricts me for the clarity of the sound.

3-band EQ with adjustable freq. mids. You don't see that on many distortion pedals. If you understand how frequencies affect your sound, you'll do fine. If not, stay away.

Personally, I love this pedal. I tried a Big Muff, Rat, Tube Screamer, Blues Driver, and a couple others, and this just roared above all of them. I play doom metal, blues, post-rock, and plenty of other genres, and this pedal can handle them all. Versatility is the key! It delivers warm tone like nothing else, and with minimal effort on my part. Soaring mids, fantastic highs, creamy lows, or snarling, gnashing distortion that would make Satan cringe. Seriously, if you know how to tweak EQ, you can get basically any sound you want out of this beast. Oh yeah, and it helps to have a decent rig to run through. Currently my setup is this through a Music Man 130HD, and a Marshall 1960A 412 cab. It simply sounds beautiful.

Boss is the boss. It will never die.

Will never have to deal with them! Yes!!!!!!

I love this pedal. Plus it was about $100 cheaper than most of the alternatives. Tone and value in one package? Rare. I'd give it a 395, but 10 is just as good.

i didn't rate this category because i could not get a decent sound out of this pedal. if good sounds actually came out of it i would give it a 9 because its not that hard to use.

i play a prs santana se loaded with tremonti pickups into my board (morley wah, boss mt-2, ds-1, bd-2, and tu-2 tuner) into a fender hotrod deville 212. this pedal sounded pretty good when i played it in my room. i had a good scooped tone similar to metallica. but when i brought it to band practice i realized how little mids this thing was capable of putting out. my sound was lost as soon as the drummer started playing. even with the mids all the way up it still didnt cut through and sounded way too digital.

its a boss

i guess if youre a metalhead it is good for ya. i expected to get a kinda creed/alter bridge-ish tone with this but its way too digital sounding and definately lacks mids. don't buy this pedal expecting to have a full, overdriven marshall or mesa sound. if you want that save up and buy the amps. you cant bottle a good sounding amp into a pedal. bottom line. if your looking for a great sounding and extremely versatile pedal (from blues to hard rock) pick up the boss bd-2 blues driver. best descision i ever made. puts the ds-1 to shame as well.

I can take a while to figure out how to get a thick tone without it being muddy, but when you do it is AWESOME!
I play a Jackson DXMGT with EMG humbuckers thru a 1961 solid state amp (priceless). I can get most any tone out of it that I want. I can get classic British metal to razor sharp, ear shattering distortion (without boosting mids). You can do most everything with this pedal.

I play a Jackson DXMGT with EMG humbuckers thru a 1961 solid state amp (priceless). I can get most of my bands like Metallica (old), Mudvayne and Disturbed. It isn't too noisy.

I believe that I could depend on it for a long time. I wouldn't use a backup.
I'm pretty sure that I could throw it at a wall and it would work like nothing happened.

Never needed to have support.

I play music from Bon Jovi up to Metallica and Disturbed.
I've been playing for about a year. I also have a Danelectro FAB Distortion and a Danelectro Black Coffee.
If it was stolen or lost I would either get it again or get a Landmine LD-1.
I love the versatility of it. The only thing i don't like is that it can't get smooth low distortion tones very well, or like a smooth overdrive. My favorite feature is the semi-parametic mids.
I compared this to all other BOSS and Digitech pedals. All BOSS distortion pedals rule! I compared it closely to the Digitech Death Metal pedal. The Death Metal pedal hat watery sounding mids. So I chose the MT-2.

I wish that BOSS would make this pedal larger and have everything semi-parametic.

Very easy to use. The piece knobs for equalization disturb a little.

This pedal lacks bottom end (like the SD-1). You gotta adjust bass to the maximum from amplifier side to get heavy sounds out of this one. And the sounds it produces are mostly annoying. I could'nt get decent sounds for my purposes out of this, just some horrible screeching which slightly resembles bad 80's metal.

This is a Boss stomp box after all. Very durable I would say.

Well, this is not probably a bad pedal. It was just not suitable for my purposes. The lacking bottom end is a big problem anyways. I wouldn't recommend this to anybody.

You should start with the suggested settings for the kind of distortion you want, then adjust it according to your amp and guitar. The settings are very good as they are shown, but you will still need to make some minor adjustments.

I have used LPs, Strats, single coils, humbuckers, everything you can possibly imagine with this pedal. There are really only two good sounds from it. If you want a Mesa scooped sound, you got it. If you want a good hard Pantera sound, you got it. The harmonics scream from your guitar. The bottom end chunk is awesome. However, it really lacks in the mild overdrive rock sound. It is NOT a Tube Screamer for sure. As long as you are using a good tube amp and good quality pickups, you will love your heavy metal sound. That is why it is called what it is, because it is truly a heavy metal distortion. Nothing else.

BOSS = Quality
Everyone who has ever owned any BOSS product knows.

One purpose for this pedal. Plug in any guitar with humbuckers, active or passive, plug into a good tube amp on the CLEAN channel, (do not go into the overdrive channel, too noisy), turn on the pedal with the right settings and you will have a fantastic METAL sound.
Period.

It is easy to use but takes alot of knob twisting to get the sound you want

I use a fender american strat and marshall vs65r. when the mid and bass are turned up this thing get a big fat meaty sound and when the mid are down it has a tight aggressive thrashy sound. It does gat noisy on high distrotion settings but it is'nt unbarable. this is a very versitile pedal. I can get sounds from classic rock to death metal to slight grind to screaming shred.

what can I say built like a tank.

I play metal and this thing gets the job done. I've been playing for 2 years and can shred people with 15+ years into there graves. I also own a digi tech rp50 and danelectro blue Piasley pure drive. My favorite thing on this pedal is the mid frequincy knob. I dont like the low gian settings.

Pretty hard to get a good sound out of it, can be really confusing for people who are new to guitar. The manual helps a little bit.

I use an Ibanez K7 with this to a Peavey XXL head and a Mesa Traditional Rectifier cab loaded with V30's, and without an EQ pedal to help thicken the sound this thing sounds terrible. It's sound is really trebly and thin. I run a MXR 10 Band EQ after this and it does help thicken the sound up a lot more. Also, this sounds really fuzzy at high volumes if the distortion is even at just 12:00. I usually leave the distortion at 9:00-10:00 on this and that helps too.

Boss makes the most reliable effects ever, all of their pedals are like bulletproof.

Never had to talk to them, but they do have a great 5 year warranty. You just send your pedal in it's original box and they send you a brand new one.

Without the EQ pedal to make it sound better I give this a 6, but with an EQ pedal it helps a ton and really makes a difference, so with the EQ pedal I would give this an 8.

it's a no brainer! But I do learn from the manual how to scoop the mids out.

I'm playing a yamaha pacifica thru the MT2 connected to a Peavy 50watt amp. The MT2 makes my guitar sound thin and brittle, too trebly and sharp. Very hard to coax a good sound out of it, but I could get a fake(make that very fake!) Randy Rhode sound outta it, courteosy of the MT2 for making my sound so thin.

It's such a sick pedal in the way that it's built so strong, yet the sound it produces is such a thin and brittle sound.Built to be a pest indeed.

Never dealt with them before.

I play anything from blues to metal to classic rock. This pedal doesn't suit them all. If it were stolen, I would pop some champagne and congratulate the thief for being such an idiot, this pedal would surely piss him off! :p

Is very hard get a nice distortion, it depends from the sound equip used. As example, you can get 2 different sounds with the same pedal settings using 2 different ampliffiers (i've used Fender Hot Rod and Marshal DSL50). You must try alot of combines to obtain a great sound. It's some difficult.

Used with a Marshal DSL50 and a Jackson Warrior [MG Series. Pedal makes extra noise, if you use a lot of distortion, that will produce a fuzzy ugly distortion. You can get only metal distortions. If you try to get a overdrive or a moderated distorted sound, you will have only "nasal" and noisy sounds. This pedal is only recommended for metal style. In this field, the sound is great.

Boss pedals are like war vehicles. Indestructible.

This pedal is good for metal style. If you buy this distortion for play other styles, better get another. I've used also Metal Master and Death Metal pedals from Digitech, but i preffer the MT-2.

I don't understand how anyone whould find this difficult to use, Level, High, low, mid, mid freq and distortion. That said, I tried tweaking this thing for maybe ten minutes, results below. I don't own one of these but a friend let me borrow his for awhile.

My main guitar is a 1981 arai pro II cs-250 model. I have tried this thing with several guitars (Strat copy, friends Ibanez rg etc...) and several amps. The metal zone is the ultimate tone sucking machine. Colours the tone like crazy, removes all individuallity. Try to shred or play fast licks high up on the fretboard and you get this fake sounding high pitched noise that will make your ears bleed. The treble is absolutely terrible. It's no good for riffs either; no chug chug crunch. Muddy as hell, attack sounds like punching a pillow.

The unit seems solidly built, metal casing. I could probly throw it against a wall and it whould work like nothing happened.

Never dealt with them

I usualy play prog rock, jazz, blues, hard rock and occasionally prog metal. No definition or attack on low notes, terrible high pitched whining on fast licks. Pretty much a useless box better suited to being used as a brick to throw through the window of someone you hate.

It covers a wide extent of distortion, at the same time, it's not easy to get ur tone. It gonna take ur time.

As I said it's wide enough to be competent for any kind of metal, but compare with some modern extreme distortion such as MESA rectifier, PEAVER, it seems not fashion enough.

Some people said that it's not strong at all, like sand... I believe that they didn't pay enough attention on adjust it. Ture it's not the most powerful dist pedal, but if u can add one more EQ after it, and adjust it in a undisturbed room. It can make what u want.

I always trust BOSS pedals, 3 years without a thing.

I have it for about 3 years, and I usd it to play rhythm and also solo. During that time, I had ideas to sell it, but finally I keep it till now, accompanied with my experience on learning from professionals.

I want 2 mention that, without a EQ it gonna be limited, 4 example, while I play solo, usually use a EQ to enhance mid range and cut the treble. It's a like a couple, lol...

All right, just enjoy it! Welcome to communicate.

It took awhile for me to get the right sound out of it. 4-band eq. need to keep the gain down... etc.

I run a epi les paul classic into a marshall vs265r. Very hot humbuckers. I will be frank with you, this pedal is really only for heavy metal. Nothing else. I guess I was hoping for some versatility. I think it sounds flat and has way too much gain. Definetly not impressed. If your a metal player this might be for you.

Solid. Its a boos. Built like a tank.

Good pedal for metal heads. Not versitile, and It did not fit my genre well (indie/post hardcore).

sounds kinda flat. lacks true tone and is covered by too much gain.

would not buy again. im going to buy a tube screamer.

it's easey enough, you get hundreds of sounds in this puppy, but be carefull, it bites!!!!

it's got to be the greatest of it genera, boss has done it again!!!!!!!

it's built to last so don't worrey to much about it

had no problems so far

must have if you love guitar

It has alot of EQ, so it is not the most simple like the DS-1 appears to be, but this is set up for alot of various sound configurations.

I think the pedal has a good bottom end and a great distortion. It does sound a little fake and transistory. Keeley makes a modded version that, from the sound clips, the description, and the reviews on Harmony Central, seems to be the way to go.

Seems like the boss is built fairly solid.

Haven't bought it yet, but will more than likely buy the Keeley modded version. It is a good pedal stock. I tried to MXR Dime and the Doubleshot and am getting rid of both. For $99 it is almost worth it. I think one of the music sites had it on sale a while ago for $75-$79, which is a great deal.

Pretty easy to use. The mid range pseudo paramto eq really lets you dial in your sound. But BE CAREFUL!!! If you max it out too far you can get into some serious weirdness. (Good, useful weirdness, but weirdness none the less. You know what I mean (;0)

I think it rocks. Sound quality is subjective though, and one man's trash is another man's treasure. That said, I can get every thing from light dirt to toxic sludge. But don't get me wrong! It doesn't ever sound like a natural amp crunch, or a tweed hammer. It always sounds like an effect, but a good, distortion effect.

Play with a baja strat (olympic white), boss delay, boss flanger, arion chorus pedal and peavey transtube bandito

Boss. Enough said!!!! It is built like a tank. And not some weird World War One thing with no turret. It is more like an M1 Abrams with a 120mm smooth bore gun and composite armor. But instead of a turbine engine it has more of an inline 6 Diesel. And instead of steel tracks it has a velcro stick plate, but it is still built like a tank. There is no way I could play without a backup, because I have two of them on my board!!! (One for lead, one for crazy feedback noise)

Boss. Called for a manual once and they charged my money. Rude on the phone, and apathetic. Glad that I never need anything of there's fixed.

I play kind of a mix of blues and indie. Main influences are SRV, Hendrix, Hawthorne Heights, Fallout Boy, Eric Clapton.

Been playing seven years. This is a great pedal for all kinds of distortion. More people should give this pedal a chance and not dis it just cause it's called metal zone. It is much more versatile than just metal.

This pedals is DEFINETELY not for beginners who don't want to tweak with EQ settings for several minutes. I would have rated it lower, had it not been for the somewhat comprehensive manual, as it does provide the user with a variety of distortion styles from classic rock, fuzz rock, and scooped thrash metal.

I am using this with an ESP Horizon guitar with an EMG-81 in the bridge and an EMG-85 in the neck. The amp I've got this and my pedal going through is a Line 6 Spider II 212. The pedal is noisy when the distortion is turned up past 3 o' clock on the knob. For me, to get a very good metal sound, the scooped mids setting is the only way to go. Otherwise, this pedal sounds very thin and trebly with no bottom end to hold it down. My person favorite setting for this pedal is:

level: at about 2 o'clock
low: at about 3 o'clock
high: at about 2 o'clock
mid: alllll the way down
mid freq: at about 3 o'clock
dist: between 2 o'clock and 3 o'clock

With this setting, I get a nice Pantera/ early Children of Bodom distortion. The distortion is tight and clear, but does not produce that massive, monster "chug-chug" that you may be looking for. An addition of an equalizer may help produce this.

This pedal is VERY dependable. I've dropped it countless times from flights of stairs and have even accidentally kicked it several times. I definetely gig with this without a backup, as it is very durable.

I have yet to deal with them.

I mostly play alllll kinds of metal, jazz, and blues. This is a fine match to my metal tastes. I have been playing for about 4 years and found this pedal to suit my needs. If it were lost or stolen, I would buy it again, as I am very satisfied with the setting I have dialed in. I am not very happy with the fact that it is not a great solo pedal, as the notes do not seem to connect.

not too bad - not for beginners though!
takes a lot of tweaking to get desired effect
the suggested settings all sound like poo

This thing is as noisy as hell. when I used it I kept level at 3 and it is still very loud - it completely takes over.
Plus there is a lot of hissing - but you get that with high gain so deal with it.

I play a maton MS500 into a Marshall AVT100 combo (+ various effects stomp boxes).

This peice of crap will destroy all your tone and it makes every guitar sound the same. I have used it with my mates guitars and amps (all different) and you lose all individuality

cant say anything good about this piece of snot

i was using one of the dirty channels on the amp until i invested in a RAT and i boost this with my TS9 reissue - sh*ts all over the MT2

its a boss nuff said

never dealt with them

i play metal/hard rock and dont rate this at all
do yourself a favour and get a decent dist. pedal ie RAT
BOSS normally make excellent pedals ie DD range, flangers etc
but this is just sh*t. no words can describe my hate for this pedal -it will totally dominate your sound

The 2 center knobs have dials within dials. This is the boost and EQ which can take some time to dial in just right. The Distortion is nice and standard but nothing to write home about. Your amplifier should produce the primary distortion sound you desire.

I have Zakk Wylde EMG active pickups in a gibson explorer. All tube amp and just recently bought some expensive Sylvania 12xa7 WA pre-amp tubes from 1966. I did a lot of research and these are nice tubes for metal sound.

This is the only pedal I have. The amp is the most important piece of equipement so spend money on that, instead of a dozen pedals. Like I said above, this pedal is primarily for boost and EQ because I use the 2 middle dials more than the distortion itself. My amp tubes give me the distortion sound.

This pedal is fairly easy to use. All it takes is a few minutes of fiddling with the knobs to figure out how they all work and influence the sound. The manual also provides some good starting points.

My current setup is Ibanez Destroyer II w/Dimarzio SD > MT-2 > Peavey Backstage Chorus 208. I also have a Marshall AVT50 but it's getting fixed at the moment.

In terms of versatility this pedal is good. You can get many types of rock/metal sounds from it. But where the pedal falls short is sound quality. It seems to suck the natural tone and character out of the guitar, resulting in a sound lacking in fullness. This not the fault of either the guitar or the amp, trust me. Turning on the chorus and adding some reverb seem to help mask this, but not entirely.

Mine has worked perfectly fine. As long as proper care is taken and it is used for what it is ment to be used for (not including throwing it off a building for shits and giggles) then there should be no problems.

never used them, can't say.

This pedal would be good for a teenager learning to play guitar who can't afford higher end equipment, is into rock/metal and wants something versital to emulate their favorite sounds. If I shopped around more I probably would have bought something different like a Marshall Guv'n'er II. If it didn't suck the tone from the guitar end I would say that this would be an awesome pedal. If you find that you life it, fine. If you don't, sell it. But if your a spoilled brat who has your daddy buy you thousands of dollars worth of music equipment so you can be just like your favorite rock stars and you still complain, then shut the fuck up.

It's easy as any pedal. In the end you simply have to tweak some knobs, cmon guys! I passed a couple of minutes tweaking this thing then I found my sound and I never had to adjust it again.

Excellent sound quality, ... if you know how to get a decent distorted sound. I mean that if you don't know what is a good drive sound, you can't find it even if you have it a couple of tweakings away. I play fusion, shred and Jazz. I use this pedal in front of my Fender Twin 65 reissue with a variety of high end solid body guitars (I don't use Jazz boxes with this of course). No other pedals. Just the Twin, its reverb, and this pedal. Guys, I have a very consistent lead sound. I'm not saying that this thing is like having a Bogner cranked up. This would be a lie. But this Boss thing can solve any problem with your lead parts giving you endless sustain, fast harmonics, excellent stopped lows and everything in between. For reaching a very good sound, I recommend to cut off treble from your amp and from the pedal, ... almost to ground zero! This is the secret to have a very good fluid, dynamic, no-mosquitos distorted sound. Put your middle as you like and put in a good amount of basses. With this eq i have a really great distorted sound. Sure it's a pedal sound not a sound from a tube 100 watts head cranked up, but I'm completly satisfied with this pedal. Until recently I had a Soldano Decatone. But I sold it recently to purchase some other instruments so I find myself without a gain sound (the Twin is my only other amp). So I did buy this pedal after a couple of days of tests. I try some pedals form Carl Martin, Ibanez and some more, but this is the one that I choose. I repeat, if you tweak it properly, you can find a very good (eighties) distorted sound with tons of sustain in it. Uh, it's not that noisy I think. Best buy for the price.

I never trusted pedals, I used to own big heads in the past (5150, Soldano) so I don't have experiences with pedals. But recently I talked to a very famous pro who said to me that behind the Marshall heads which he sports on the stage for show off reasons he played simply with a Boss pedals in the clean channel of a small combo amp (linked to some 4x12 cabs). He did a lot of tours with it and never had a problem. And with tremendous results .. So ...

Never needed it.

In the end this thing is very good sounding. It has that creamy, fluid lead sound with great fast, sharp harmonics you hear from the greats (Lynch, Van Halen, Shawn Lane, Warren DeMartini) all the eighties guys). Just remember to shut down the trebles ... don't forget. Then eq the sound as you like (but don't touch the trebles!!) and you will be fine. A good sound with simply few bucks. You don't need a 5000 dollars stack to play a good solo or a good metal riff or rhythm part!

THE SOUND IS IN THE HANDS !!!!! REMEMBER !!!! If you have a good sound in your hands you will be ok with this pedal too simply with a couple of tweakings ... if you don't have that sound, if you didn't study enough , .... don't waste your money with the big boys of amps. You wouldn't sound good anyway. Don't forget.

This is a good pedal. Can sound really similar to some stuff in the records from the eighties and plus more. It can even save you if you want to go to a gig and you don't want to take with you tons of stuff. With your guitar, this pedal, you can play with any good amp and have a good drive.

Uh, another thing. DON'T COMPARE THIS PEDAL TO THE REAL THINGS. If Soldanos and Bogner amps cost 50 times more than this pedal there would be a reason right?

easy no problems at all just tweak the nobs

my guitar is an alvarez guitar with rosewood fretboard and body with s/s/h set up i use v8 pickups in my bridge then into my mt2>>Boss ge-7>>peavy bandit 112. just be patient in tweaking those nobs and shaping your tone using boss ge-7 u can get a kick ass METAL sound, i think this pedal is far compared to boss hm3.(boss hm3 sucks big time)

boss i'ts a tank you can even use it to crush your enemy's head
i would definitely gig with out a back up.

never dealt with them

im playing thrash and deathmetal. its the right pedal for me. i've been using this for 5 yrs. if it were stolen i think im gonna try the line 6 ubermetal they said it's also brutal sounding and it has a noise gate. but for the price and sound quality i think nothing beats mt2

As with most stomp boxes you have to play with it to find what you like.

My main setup is a Fender Tele (american) with a seymour duncan hot rails in the bridge plugged into the Mt-2 to a Marshall VS-100r powering a Marshall 1960 4 X 12. The MT-2 is as noisy as you want it to be...........I use it mostly for the extra EQ boost. I turn the gain on the pedal to 1/4 and have the amp gain set on 6. You must blend the two together to get a ballsy sound. If you just use the pedal for crunch it sounds very cheesy in my opinion. My tone is almost identical to Mercyful Fate's---In the Shadows album.

I have owned and stepped on it for 6 years and it sounds as good as the day I got it.

never dealt with them.

I play classic metal and some new stuff with this pedal. I have played for 11 years and have tried many different effects. This pedal can be brutal if you dial it in right........I like the simplicity of it and the fact that you can level out the distortion on it. I have some digitech pedals where you can't reduce the distortion on them....that is kinda lame. Overall I think it is a great pedal for THE RIGHT PERSON. It isn't for everyone.

There are four bands of EQ, and you must pay extra attention to these in order to get a good sound, It does require some tweeking in order to get the most desired sounds. Other than that all you have to play around with is a Level and a Distortion Knob.

My setup currently consists of a Gibson Les Paul/Flying V loaded with EMG acxtive pickups going through various Boss Effects pedals then into a Marshall JCM 2000. Ofcourse, do not try putting this pedal through a valve amp, thats just plain stupid, I dont really use this pedal anymore but if I were to it would HAVE to go through a solid state amp.

The Boss Metal Zone is a noisy pedal, period, and you will need to consider this If you are considering buying one, active pickups or a noise suppressor pedal or both will cure this problem however.

This pedal does have a hell of alot of gain, but don't be fooled for a second, that doesnt mean it sounds brutal! cos it doesnt! the only sounds you will be able to get out of this are fizzy, weak, thin distorted sounds. You won't be able to get any satisfying sounds from this pedal, unless you're a fool who has never played a valve stack before and believes a #90 pedal will give you the sound of slayer! lol.

On the other hand this pedal will give you that nasty old school black metal sound if thats your game i.e. Mayhem or old Emperor.

It's a Boss pedal, so It's one of the most reliable pedals which can take a few tours. No other pedal to my knowledge is as tough as these.

N/A

I play mainly metal i.e death/black/grind/hardcore/thrash. This pedal does not really have much practical use for those styles, with the exception of old school black metal which this pedal may serve some use.

I have been playing about 3 and a half years now, currently the guitars I own consist of a Gibson Les Paul limited edition 2004, Gibson 98 "The Paul" modded with black hardware and EMG pickups, a Gibson flying V customised and fitted with EMG pickups and a ESP Ltd baritone. My main amp at the moment is a Marshall JCM 2000, i did own a peavey 5150 II but sold it to raise some cash. Also I use various boss effects pedals, morley bad horsie wah wah, and a digitech whammy.

If this pedal got stolen I would only have wished the thief left some cash for me lol, but yeah im selling this thing anyway! If anyone needs a good metal solid state distortion pedal, they should try either a Digitech Death Metal pedal or the hughes and kettner warp factor! the warp factor sounds really warm, big and most like a valve stack than any other pedal ive heard before.

To be honest there's not much I love about this pedal, It really is crap!

I bought this pedal when I first started playing, at a time when I was ignorant of how to achieve a great sound, as im sure most people do until they realise that they should really just throw it out the window and buy a valve amp instead!

Anyone who praises this pedal as "amazing" and "10 all the way!!" is a fool and doesn't have very good ears, or is just ignorant to the rest of the world, No serious musicians would ever use this pedal for serious use i.e. gigging and recording.

Overall get a valve amp, if you cant afford one, buy a randall, if you cant afford that then buy either a digitech death metal pedal or a hughes and kettner warp factor pedal!

Boss makes good pedals, but not this one!

This is possibly the easiest pedal to use that i have ever dealt with, you pussy's need to learn how turn knobs properly or sumthing.

Sound is perfect, i can get Dave Mustaine, James Hetfeild and Dimebag sounds outta this bad boy, its a little harder when trying to immitate another sound but to find your own is easy as fuck.

I could easily use this on a gig, theres no chance this thing'll fuck up on me.

I use this baby with my Washburn V & my Randall RG75, and it sounds sweet as, i would deffinately replace this if it were lost/stolen.

When it comes to thrash this thing is near perfection ;)

It takes a long time to get a good tone out of this one. The Mid Frequency was slightly confusing at first. For those of you who complain about getting a nasal tone, first, turn down the gain.

I use this effects chain:

Kustom KLA-20 > Digitech RP80 (for amp modeling) > Boss Metal Zone > Dunlop Crybaby 535Q

The sound is great with the gain turned down a bit. If it is full, you will get a bad-sounding nasally tone. This thing has all the gain you need, with some left to spare, no need to use it all. I give it an 8 because it took me a while to figure it out.

This has been covered... this thing is built a tank.

Haven't dealt with them

I play all kinds of metal from shred to thrash to death, this thing can cover them all with a bit of tweaking. If this were stolen, I would either buy this unit again or get a Line 6 Uber Metal. I wish the Mid frequency were easier to understand, but that's about it.