Boss MT-2 Metal Zone

this pedal is one of the easiest to use out of my collection, simple controls that don't leave you fiddling for hours trying to find your chosen distortion, no need to use the manual as with most boss pedals it has simple self explainatry controls.

i have been playing with the mt-2 since it first hit the shelves a few years ago, even though i have bought other distortion and effects pedals since it is still by far my most used and loved of all. i use it through an ac-30 amp at the moment and when the valves are fully warmed the two together create a powerful hard hitting distortion and with the added sustain from my ibanez rg570 the dirt becomes a sound that i will stick by until a superior metal zone pedal is introduced. i believe that it is importante to use this pedal with humbuckers as i have played through it with a strat and it didn't give a warm sound it was a bit weak, although a friend of mine who is a session player wanted to borrow one of my guitars as they all have humbuckers, he wanted a fuller sounding solo he also took the mt-2 and when he had finished he didnt use the guitar at all, he was so impressed with the sound he created he went out that day and bought it. it is a versitile piece of equiptment with warm, hard hitting sounds, my favourite sound is one similar to that of deftones and it comes pretty close to that. though it is important to keep the volume on the pedal low and the amp very, very high. love it!

i have broken it once, although it is built like a tank i managed to snap the plastic switch inside the pedal during a gig, thankfully the i got my sound but had to swap pedals half way through the gig. it was easily fixed simply replace the small plastic switch.

never needed support with this product, it rocks

my overall rating i love this pedal its sound is great, strong and powerful and when used in a band situation it wotks very well with a heavily played drum kit and clen bass sound, it helps carry sound very well. it deserves to be black it's mean! as much as i love this pedal it doesn't get 10 as nothing is perfect

its a very easy no brainer to use love the eq nobs can taylor your way into any sound you want i dint get a manual got it used.

the sound you get out of this is very impressive. ive played through many prosessors and the sound fake to me digetech the jay station and so on you only get the real deal when you use a singal pedal.this pedal rocks with any unit you use.you can get the old black metal sound of the 80s.thrash.like emperor.cradle of filth.dimmu.old mans child.and so on.great for leads and crunch as well..........

o yes built very well can survive any attack.

no never dealt with them as i said very strong and well built ver pro like.

i play mostley black metal and other forms not the nu-metal crap of today.real metal slayer.old manschild.old metallica.mega deth.cradle.dimmu.emperor.ive been playing for nine years.if it were lost or stolen i would be pissed and destroy everything and buy a new one hopefully that wont happen.well i think it funny how the other reviews say its sucks and they cant get a good sound get your ears checked this is perfect for black metal nice low end and hichs and mids and everything in between.not good for hadr core nu-metal gay emmo bull shit.buy a digetech very fake sounding pedal if you want to sound like everyone else then buy a digetech or go with boss and get the real deal analog sound and control enogh said this pedal is god if you truely love black metal to it fullest like i do..........

As all boss pedals this one is as easy to use as any of them. Stand on it and it works. As for the nobs you turn them and they adjust

Before i start i will say this. I have been playing guitar for nearly nine years. Now when i started this pedal was one of the first things i bought. Back then in the teens with my cry baby, 25 watt park, the mt2 and a cheap squir with a humbucker i was in heaven. Now this statment sums up the entire purpose of this pedal. It is for people with no idea looking for a cheap way to achieve "that metal, metallica what ever sound" As i progressed as a player and ended up with some pro gear "PRS CUSTOM 24, Marshal JCM Slash" i realised how silly and delueded i was. I will asure you any one who says this pedal sounds great in a professional setting will be beginers or mooron death metall players who can't afford the tripple rectifier that they see all their heros play. To put it simply run this pedal through anything other then a small trany amp and it's fucked. Just for shits ang giggles i ran it through my marshall to see what i could do. My thoughts were " what a boxy, bussy peice of shit" Although you have this great little E.Q. to fiddle with you have nothing sound wise worth choosing from. As i said i have had this pedal for ever and know what sounds good out of it through a little 25 watt trany to a 100watt valve state. For the life of me no matter what i did to it, this pedal would not perform through my stack. Try to play a little lead lick and and would sound squashed. Play your fave bread fan riff and you get a very square wav shape sound with no soul. All you can get is a real bad imataion of what would come out of a boogie with 28 year old tubes in it with the pre amp gain wound flat out, pure shit! It almost sounded like a keyboard on a guitar dist sound. The best i can say for this thing is this; if you 14 or 15 and a metal fan with a shit guitar and a shit amp this will sound better then what you would normally achieve. If you have the cash, go get a rivera, mesa boggie Mark 4 or a triplle reck, its the only way you'll get that sound. be ready to sell your kidneys though

its a boss. you could drop an anvil on it and it would still work. Built well as all the boss gear is!

Although often i wanted to write to the boss people and say what a great contribution to the pedal world they are. And how great nearly every pedal they have ever made is, and what a giant mistake and complete fuck theie mt2 is i never got round to it

as i said, if you got fuck all cash and can't afford anything but a copy of you fave shit ibanez destroyer and have a little cheap trany amp with real bad muddy gain, buy the mt2. Other then that it just has no real place with pro gear. Why would you even bother useing it when you can go and buy an amp like a rivera, solando, or a messa boggie that is pretty much designed for the purpose of creating bowl crunching gain. Piont made!

Lets face it ,,, its a Boss pedal,, you got knobs, and you got a stomp switch.... if you cant opperate this buggar,, you are screwed

Now here is the interesting portion.. i dont get all the "experts" on this page because you dont get a broad musical range from one pedal, if you are looking for that ,, get a rackmount Digitech. Now everybody listen closely, i'll tell you a secret about pedals,, EACH PEDAL DOES ONE JOB, AND ONE SOUND, and this pedal fits this need PERFECTLY. i have only one beef with this pedal, it hisses at me. but again these are pedals, they all hiss people get a NOISEGATE... and combined with my 7 band EQ, it sounds verry tubey

Well if i cant please the crowd at my gigs,, then well at least i can use it to cause some physical harm

I dunno,,, i never deaL with any company directly,,, i get my warranty thru the stores

I have a 15 space pedal board,, and until recently,, i had no Metal Distortion,,, i used a bosss turbo drive with a compressor and an EQ,, which worked alright,, but now that space is filled and my turbodrive can do back to its Whitesnake spot on my board... Petrucci, you are next,,,, <Pull Me Under, Pull me under, Im not affraid>

HARD TO USE, EVEN WITH ALL THE KNOBS UP I STILL HAD TO KNOW HOW TO PLAY THE GUITAR.

WITH ALL THE KNOBS UP AND THE GUITAR IN FRONT OF THE AMP THERE WAS TOO MUCH FEEDBACK AND FLOOR NOISE. WHY IS THIS?

USING A BANJO WITH A JAZZ MASTER PICK UP INTO A RADIO SHACK STEREO I THOUGHT THE SOUND WAS ONLY GOOD. WHO GONNA PAY $30 ON EBAY FOR SUCH A PEDAL?
SO I YELL AT SALESMAN AND HE SAID I NEED TO USE A ELECTRIC GUITAR AND TUBE AMP TO GET EXCELLENT SOUND. OH, IT'S MY FAULT! HA HA!

BOSS'S MOST POPULAR PEDAL EVER IS FOR BEGINNERS AND AMATURES THAT STILL THINK MEGADETH AND JUDAS PRIEST HAVE GOOD TONES.

I SOLD MY METALZONE AND GOT A GREEN BIG MUFF FROM RUSSIA. NOW I HAVE THE ULTIMATE ROCK TONE LIKE OLD JANIS JOPLIN BAND OR KINKS.

BUILT LIKE A MAYTAG

THEY WON'T TALK TO ME. THEY MUST BE TOO ASHAMED OF METALZONES SOUNDING JUST LIKE THOSE AWFUL SOUNDING BANDS LIKE DIO, RATT, IRON MAIDEN, PANTERA, TOOL ETC.

ONLY BEGINNING AMATUERS LIKE JOHN SIKES, WARREN DIMARTINI, JERRY CANTREL, DIME BAG DARREL, GARY MOORE, GLENN TIPTON, KK DOWNING, DAVID MUSTANE, ETC WILL LIKE THIS PEDAL.

GO BUY A KILLER LINE 6 INSTEAD OR JUST BUY A CRATE AMP AND SHOW THEM HOW SMART YOU ARE.

REMEMBER, TWISTING ALL THE KNOBS TO 10 SHOULD NOT MAKE THE FLOOR NOISE UNPLEASENT LIKE Joao Stotz POINTS OU TWO POSTS DOWN.

CRAIG SAID "I found the sound to be stale and hissy lacking warmth and a low end echo" NO ECHO? CRAIG PAID $90 FOR A PEDAL THAT IS STALE, HISSY, LACKING WARMTH AND ECHO! WHY CRAIG? LOL! WHY YOU PAY SO MUCH FOR A BAD SOUNDING PEDAL?

Overall the pedal is pretty easy to use. However, it does require some tweaking. To the untrained ear this can be a little time consuming, but worth it in the end. The manual does have some suggested settings, which are good for trying out the pedal, but I don't recommend any of them for primary use. Also, the settings might be helpful for beginers.

The pedal works very well for a good low end crunch. If you play heavy music, which I do, then I highly recomend it. Although, it's not perfect. I wouldn't use it for soloing or anything with alot of leads. The distortion is too overbearing for this style, and it looses definition. I have a seperate distortion pedal in my line-up for this. I recommend that you do the same. Also, the pedal is quite a bit noisy. If you own a noise suppressor then no worries, but if not then you'll need to get one if you're bothered by background hum and feadback. (My settings: level @2 o'clock, low @1 o'clock, high @2 o'clock, mid freq. @12 o'clock, mid @9 o'clock, and dist @10 o' clock)

I've had the pedal for two years and I've never had a problem with it. In fact, I don't bring a backup and as long as you don't abuse it you shouldn't need one.

I've never delt with their customer support before.

I'm a guitarist of over five years, a musician for over 8, and I have a background in audio production. My style is pretty heavy, and it fits into my setup like a glove. I would absolutely buy this pedal again if something happened to it. I have yet to find a better distortion, pedal or not, that fits my needs. The reason for that is very simple. It has a crunch you wouldn't believe. I was also very impressed with the EQ. Most distortions just have a tone control. This has a 3 band EQ with a mid freq control. The only thing that really bothers me is the noise it produces. However, If your worried about it there might be some things you can do to help. First of all, make sure your pedals are sequenced correctly. A basic rundown of proper sequencing is usually volume based, gain based, tone based, and time based; in that order. Whatever you do put only time based effects through your effects loop. That's what it was designed for. Also, don't settle for cheap cables. It's really not worth it the long run. Higher grade cables last longer and won't compromise your tone. I recommend Moster cables. If all else fails, noise suppression is the anwser. If you have something you'd like to ask me I'd be happy to help.

You all know the settings so I'll skip this part.

This category is what counts the most and I have to say that this pedal achieves some useable tones but, only with certain notes such as the E and not with all the rest. I found the sound to be stale and hissy lacking warmth and a low end echo. The high notes stand out on this pedal which is good for certain solo's however, it lacks sustain which makes it sound more like ringing a high pitch door bell. I was able to achieve a good crunch when palm muting the E or when using the low E for a chord but, other then that this pedal lacks the ability to produce any other type of good crunching sound. This is a toy in my opinion and I suppose if it used with other effects then a professional sound can be had, it does not achieve that standard on its own.

Havent had it long enough to know how durable it is since I returned the pedal one day after purchasing it.

Never used them

I've been playing for 4 years and I mainly rock but, have recently had more interest in Playing metal such as Metallica and Sabbath stuff. As I said before this pedal can produce certain professional similar to what metallica plays but, it will only sound similar with certain notes and will sound useless with other notes which made this pedal useless to me. I think this pedal is ideal for beginners who dont have a well trained ear but, can be inspired when they hear the distortion in this pedal sounds similar to their favorite heavy metal bands however, the more experienced player will not be content with that since its not similar enough and that it doesnt even produce a usefull professional Tone

Its a very easy to use gear, even though the best of it is not enough.
I dont remember how was its manual, but its really easy to handle it.

I used it with a korean made jackson and a marshall amp and seldom with a digitech rp3 fx processor.
The real issue with the metal zone is its noise, too noise, i didnt like that, mainly when every clock is on its max.
the effects sound great besides the noise.
But i could never get the same sounding of my fave artists (children of bodom, symphony x, helloween)

I can depend on it, even though i dont think i'd use it only as my gear. I would use it on a gig without a backup

I never had to get support from the manufacturer because its real well made. Never had to upgrade or repair it as well.

I play metal, I think I read it in the METAL zone box =]
I've been playing for 4/5 years
I'd not buy it again, because I aint a begginer anymore, but I recommend it.
I used to love its PANTERA sounding. I dont hate nothing on it at all.
I wish it had less noise =D

A blind monkey could figure this pedal out. Knobs make sense and are very responsive.

The distortion gets super heavy.. I run this through a Marshall AVT275 and it beats the crap out of the amps distortion for metal, though the OD channels on the amp could probably be used for more styles of music. But you cant beat this for metal. I like my palm muting CRUNCHY and my highs ear-splitting and my bass tight.. this is perfect for my needs.

Dude it's a Boss.. if you chucked it at someones head he would probably die

Never had to deal with the company

It's easy enough to use, just dial in how bad you want it to sound, and then step on it.

this thing sounds worse than crap. It's marketed toward younger less experienced wannabe players. I sold it immediatly after I bought it. It's just nasally high, piercing, muddy, no definition in notes, just overall bad.

it's rock solid like all boss pedals

didn't have it long enough to care.

I hate everything about it, get a real tube Marshall. There's nothing "musical" about it. If someone stole it, I'd find them and give them $20 for their trouble.

Anyone with enough brain cells can work the EQ knobs, and it doen't take too much for you to get a decent sound.

THE MOST IMPORTANT PART!! And also the part that's VERY 50/50 from what I've read here. Basically- it'll sound good if you're not a moron. I find it quite funny that all these "I HAVE PLAYED GUITAR FOR 50 YEARS AND KNOW EVERYTHING ABOUT THE GUITAR AND EVEN MORE" types slag this pedal. Obviously, they DON'T KNOW ALL if they can't get a decent sound for the life of them. On the other end of the spectrum are all the dumb Korn kids who say this is the BEST TIHNG EVAR!1!
Here's a list of facts based on observation:
-This is NOT some Marshall in a box, NOT the panacea to all your distortion needs. It DOES sound pretty good.
-Tonal diversity is NOT it's forte. Metal, metal, metal all the way. I struggle to get even a less heavy "rock" sound. That said, it IS DOABLE to get bluesier, not-so-harsh-and-brittle sounds with proper EQing, switching to a different pickup etc.
-Even with the distortion all the way down, you still get some fairly heavy sound. METAL ALL THE WAY. It's a one-trick pony but it does its job quite well.
-It kind of does have that "solid-state" sound but it's by no means blatant. That comes with the territory of having a 'metal' sound.
-The thing has a nasty proclivity towards a buzzy, thin sound so that it basically sounds like the UBER-FUZZ PEDAL of all time if you don't know what you're doing. Again, with proper EQ-ing and using that soft lump in between your ears, a decent sound can be had without too much trouble. I got a good sound. I'll go so far as to say that I got a GREAT sound when everything is set up to my tastes.
-While it doesn't have great tonal variety overall, you can tweak it and get all kinds of "metal" distortion- the Skogsberg sound, that terrible black metal sound, a mean gravelly sound, your typical mid-scooped Metallica/Pantera sound, a Slayer-type distortion lacking in presence but nonetheless heavy, etc.

I've been playing guitar for like 5,6 years now. I'm mainly a bass player but I've been picking up the guitar recently. My tastes lie in anything that fulfills the "Doesn't Suck" criteria from Erik Dolphy to Return to Forever to Rush to Led Zepellin to ELP to Morbid Angel to Stravinsky. I play a Kramer 300HST, an Ibanez RG7620. Any other guitar I've picked up running through the pedal. All sound wonderful through it.

It's not THE source for distortion, but it sounds pretty damn good for what you're paying. End of story.

BOSS. No more need be said.

Got it used.

More like an 8.5, but I'll be generous. Ehh... it's more like a B+ of a pedal.

once u read the manual alittle u can produce almost any sound

u can produce any high quality distortion sound... but it always sounds metallic... i dont mind but u cant really get a warm overdriven tone it will always have a edge-well it is METAL zone. and one thing id like to ask i have a 7 string 7321 ibanez and id really appreciate id someone game me a setting where my low string(the one added on a 7 string) wouldnt overkill any and all sounds coming from the other strings cuz i play Korn and they use this string really often and if i put my pedal dist on u can barely hear the other strings u can just hear that low string groaming and dominating my amp

the only time in my life i saw a boss pedal not working was a 20 yr old DS-1 that was going crazy if u put its tone past 12 oclock... other than that i never saw any Boss pedal not working

excellent rock/metal pedal alot of variety u Wont regret buying it

Easy to use. Just tweeking it for the sweet spot can take a while but one you found it you'll think it's worth the time. The manual has some sample settings but I messed with it and found my own.

I use it with a Ibanez Destroyer DT-420 re-issue and a Mesa/Boogie F-50. Yes the Boogie crunch kills but I needed some more variety in that of the crunch so I use the Boogie distortion for more of a 90's grunge tone and the Metal Zone for hardcore and nu-metal. I can match the tone of bands like Killswitch Engage which is the tone I've been looking for long before I heard them.

Tank-like construction,won't need backup for years.

I've been playing for 20 years and played every flavor of rock from classic to hardcore and have had multiple setups from a Crate solid-state to Mesa/Boogie power amps and preamps, and I can honestly say that for the few bucks spent on the Metal Zone played through a good tube combo amp you'll get that monster rig sound.

It's easy to use...but not easy to get a passable sound from. I've really tried though, best I could get was a mediocore weaker undefined mush that somewhat resembled Andreas Kisser and Max Caverlera's tone on Sepultura's Chaos A.D. album.

A wide range of sounds are available and the EQ IS very responsive. You wouldn't need a manual it's all pretty simple.

I think this is marketed at younger people as a shortcut to a heavy metal rig. Shortcut that kinda leaves you with a 20 mile journy left is more what I'd say.

You can achieve some "heavy" sounds, but they lack real power, the notes all squish together in a big mush. And it feeds back horribly.

I couldn't get any of my favourite metal guitarists tone with this and I tried through various amps, Fender, Marshall, Laney & Peavy etc. What I could get was a muddy approximation. The tone, with a lot of work is in the same ball park without much trouble, but getting any kind of deffinition would be a miracle with this thing. And it sounds very solid state too.

Mostly, it sounds harsh, fizzy, buzzy, but not powerful. Like someone's holding a microphone over a newly poured bottle of fizzy drink from a just opened bottle...that popping hiss...but amplified.

When I first started guitar, this might have impressed me somewhat, but after having used REAL guitar gear, tube screamers, JCM 800's cranked etc, this thing seems like a toy, not a real tool for music.

This is a Boss...and while it sounds like angry fizzy mashed potatoe it will go on sounding like this until the battery runs out, cos this is built like a tank. As is the way with Boss gear.

If it was a giggable sound, I would use it without a backup...but it isn't so this is a mute point really

No idea to be honest, I haven't tried to get in touch. I've heard good things...I've heard bad things.

A lot of customer support is luck...where you got it...who you get in the office that particular day etc.

I play a diverse range of music from mellow Blues and Classic Rock to balls to the wall Thrash and Heavy Metal. This, sadly, is not a good match for anything I play.

I have an SG into an SD-1 into a Laney LC-15. I've been playing about 18 months, and have friends who have much more experience and share my opinion of this..."pedal". If it was lost or stolen I'd pitty whoever wasted time and effort to steal this...that is if it wasn't a theiving bastard that stole it in the first place. If someone stole it I think it'd serve them right that whatever they'd stolen turned out crap and did the owner a favour.

I love the fact it's black and orange and realy durable. I hate the fact it sounds like amplified fizzy drink. I didn't chose this myself it was lent to me over an extended period.

I really feel sorry for people who buy this because they could spend their money on better products. Unfortunately a lot of people don't seem to get that there are few shortcuts to great tone. Just a lot of hardwork for the money that it'll unfortunately require.

I guess this would be the ideal pedal to test just how durable Boss are...after all losing it is hardly going to break anybody's heart!

To sumarize: Fizzy muddy crap, looks nice and tough as nails.

you can get some great sounds out of this but it takes some patience. the manual was a good enough to get a good general idea of how to use it. not too hard

this is the most important section so here it goes. first off my setup is an ibanez rg520 --> MT-2 --> Kustom Tube 12. (w/ celestion vintage 8 swapped for the crummy speaker). the meatal zone can produce some great and versatile distortion sounds, i also can get horrible sound too. this can really excells in what it was made for metal and hard rock which i mainly play. it has way too much distorion when the distortions cranked up all the way. when turned off there is no noise but there is a buzzing when the metal zone is on but your not playing. i mainly prefer to play metallica audioslave and some of the newer hard rock bands, the MT-2 overall has awsome distortion

it is almost indestructable. if i was gigging now i would use it without backup

never had to and hopefully never will

i play nu metal, hard rock definatly awsome match i have been playing for 3 years but im better that some who have played for 5 i also own a Kustom Kasino Strat. if this were stolen i would hunt him down and beat his ass then take it. i just love this little stompbox a lot better hard distiortion and sustain than anyting out there the only problem is that it did take some time to get a sound that fit my playing style. the only thing that has better distortion is a great amp like a mesa boogie.

Basically it's really easy. Level knob, distorsion knob, 3 band eq and a mid semi-parametric filter(very useful), You know how knobs work, right? You just turn them clokwise or counter-clokwise. Easy, ain't they? Of course, ease of use don't mean you get the right configuration immediately. The manual it's irrelevant, if you can't figure this thing out by yourself, you're probably too stupid to play guitar anyway.

I use this with a cheap erg121 yamaha gtr. with 2 humbuckers and 1 single coil, and a cheap 30 watt solid-state behringer amp. It's not noisy, even at maximum volume. Distorsion is great. with my settings I get a Thrash/Death metal type of sound, however I (unlike many) boost the mid range for a bigger guitar presence in the overall band sound. Can I get the sound of my favorite artists? Of course not... not without microphoning the amp speaker and procesing the resulting signal. That is basic, you can't have the sound you hear in a record directly from the amp. You have to... record it!! I had obtained really monstruous mega-driven sound from my little 10" speaker just puttin a mic in front of it.

It's a Boss, so it probably can survive a nuclear war. yeah I would use it without a backup.

never dealt with them.

I've been playing about a year and a half, and the type of sound I like it,s the heavily distorted, Pantera, Prong, Carcass, etc.
It took me a while to set everything up, but now I'm really pleased with the results. Now, this is a pedal for heavy gain and distorsion, with a dry, compressed sound, excellent for heavy stuff, please don't buy this and then whine about how you can't play Blink 182, or Eagles or whatever stuff you play! TEST BEFORE BUYING!!!!
I,ve seen a lot of misconceptions and fake expectations among the other reviewers. Getting a good tone from a guitar it's not like pluggin your cd player and hittin "play"... If you have a good distorsion but a noisy cable you're lost, if the pickups are too close to the strings, you'll get feedback like hell, if the eq is wrong... well, you get the picture.
In the end I give it a 9. It have a really good distorsion at extreme levels, the only thing I'd like to change: It's a little bit nasal and lacks a bit of a more rounded bottom end.

This was the first stompbox i ever owned, so it took me a while to dial in my tone. simple to operate and to fuck around with differing tones

i use a bc rich warlock (bronze???) and a jackson drx thru this pedal into a laney tf320. the laney's tones are good for older metal, hard rock and everything lighter than that, but for hardcore, extreme metal and *strung out* this is the only way. The pedal is quite noisy, but it has so much dark evil gain that this is to be expected. i can get most dark sounds out of this bad boy, and the pedal is perfect for the styles i mentioned. i play in flames, strung out, killswitch engage, hatebreed, thrice, afi, the haunted, atreyu etc, so yeh its great for more extreme types of music if u cant afford a mesa TR or peavey 5150 for those scooped tones. probably perfect for you nu-metal fags as well. i give it a nine cause of the noise

yeh its super reliable

na

I play metal. hardcore and hard punk mostly, this pedal does very well in these aspects. for hardrock its ok, but i have a tube driven laney for that shit. ive been playing 3 years, if it were stolen i would probably pick one up again, or maybe a dod death metal, tho id try to get one o these 2nd hand again. im going to get a multi effects processor, but this will remain my primary distortion box. i love the crushing evil scooped tones and it versatilty and shit...

get one if u play metal, because there are shitloads around and they should be cheap. fuck the ds-1 and that other shit, grab a hold of one of these and never look back as u triplet palm mute your way into the sunset...

If you can take 10 minutes to study how to use it,you will get good sound

Ibanez RG550ex-->MT-2-->Marshall MG50DFX
I get the sounds like Metallic,Megadeth and Pantera.
One of my friends told me that MT-2 is made in Japan and Taiwan.
I think the one made in Taiwan is not good enough.
Thank Goodness.Mine is made in Japan.

Metal Gear Solid .

This pedal is not as easy to use as others 6 tone sucking knobs make it hard to get a good sound out of this pedal.

I am using a late 90's SG in to a Vintage Rat, Danelectro Fabtone, Boss DD-5, Boss OC-2, Danelectro Cool Cat chorus, MXR phase 100, and through a berringer loudness enhancement system (designed for fattening up a master, but run Mono through my set up produces some fat tones) then in to a JCM 900 2x12 combo and a fender 2x12 cabnit with bluebacks. I got my metal zone in grade six befor i had a band, when i had a crappy crate....blabla. So for the past 7 years it had been collecting dust as i developed a taste for tone. Last week i took it out and it managed to kill all the tone in my rig......this pedal fucking sucks....never buy one. The only sympathy i have for this piece of crap is that it was my very first pedal and that made it hard to sell. During my revival of the MT-2 i was in the studio with my band and out of curosity took it out for some experimenting. I tried it with a fender london chorus and soldano astroverb a twin a JCM2000 it sucked everywhere. My band has a very hard sound and maybe this thing just doesnt suite me but im still going to stick to my guns and say please do not buy this.

Its a boss ya cant break a boss unless you try and sometimes that doesnt even work

I dunno its a boss they dont break so i have never had to contact roland

I give it 3 because it is my very first pedal...so i have a bit of a soft spot. If you are looking for a distortion with any kind of tone, buy something else, like a rat or try a tubed preamp. Again this pedal fucking sucks

easy once you get to know the controls, 6 knobs total, at first i just had everything cranked all the way up(WARNING DON'T DO THAT), i would recomend turning the mid frequency to 7 o' clock

nti am using this set up
ibanez grx-40(i know its crap)-MT2-crybaby wah wah-EPSC210. ok distortion, very thin(could be my amp), very muddy, i would seriously recomend that you get the MXR double shot ditortion, if you want all around heavy distortion, this pedal is not my sound.

outside good, inside bad. the spring inside fell apart, the swicth is plastic(crap). although the outside is good,so i'll give it a seven

never delt with boss

ive been playing for 4 years and have seriously researched distortion boxes. i'll give it a seven. not that great, but it'll do the job. does work with wah wah pretty well

It's not a dificult pedal to work with, but of course you will have to spend some time to get the best sound of it. On the manual you have some suggested settings, but the best thing you can do is to forget about them and go after your own settings.

I use the MT-2 with a B.C. Rich Warlock guitar and a Marshall Valvestate VS100R Combo. I play in a black/goth metal band, and believe me, the sound of the MT-2 in this kind of music, is perfect. The sound of the MT-2 is very precise and very pleasent. I have the MT-2 since 1992, and although I have heard a lot of other distortions, no other sounded so good as the MT-2. If you want quality and versatibility, don't think twice... go get the Boss Metal Zone.

In 11 years, never got damaged... do you want more than that!?

It was never needed.

The "Boss" of all distortions...

Just got this pedal , fiddled with the knobs and got a good sound in 5 minutes. The knobs a pretty simple and it shouldn't take rocket scientist to figure them out.

Depends on what you want. This pedal can crunch but it is a bit lacking in the low department. But i fiddled with it for a bit and managed to get some pretty fat sound out of it.

My setup is incredibly crappy (just started guiar a year ago). Fender Squier and Marshall G10MK.II amp.

Heres my setting:
Level:max
Dist:max
Low:max
High:25%
Middle:25%
Mid Freq:25%
This thing is a great pedal. It crunches like a mofo but I would die happy if the sound was a bit warmer as it can be buzzy or tinny at some settings

This is one solid pedal. Made with VERY sturdy metal casing. Im sure I could whip it at the wall and it would work fine.

Ive just got it. But judging by the dependibility of the thing I dont think I will be needing any support.

Overall this is a great metal pedal. Distortion is VERY loud! The sound is a bit gritty at some settings (but hey some metal players like that) but overall it sounds great.

It took me a while to get the sound i wanted,which was a heavy crunch with nice mids and highs,a little low for palm muting and anaccurate? distortion.It does still have a 'metal' tone to it no matter what its set at.But im very happy.I found that adjusting the two mid knobs affected the tone incredibly.

Im using a stock RG570 through JCM800 2203 and behringer quad .I tried two other distortions before this.One of them,a jackhammer wasnt bad but still missed that something.Im a tone freak.But at the moment im appeased.The effecs always seem to kick arse on this thing,i use it for all my rhythm tracks.Ive pulled all sorts of sounds out if the pedal to,it just takes time and patience.Something ive noticed is that some people bag this pedal for two reasons. 1) there playing a cheap guita through a small amp or they expexted something to much .I have been guilty of this.I have found that using this website HAS influeced my buying in some way.Do your homework beofre you buy something,and also if you hate it so much why do u still use it?FUCK!!

Yeah built like a brick shithouse.

n/a

Its a great match for what i play which is acoss between helmet,tool,audioslave,metallica and maybe a bit of Ac/dc.I think ut has a terrific tone.Its pretty expensive here in the land down under but for me it as cheap.If it were stolen id get over it but my bass player would shit bricks because it his pedal hehehe.Eh buy it but give it a workout first.Fuck em.

Easy to use considering I have owned heaps of BOSS pedals over the years especially the HM-2 ( for about 15 years ).

Yep, it sure kicks a punch. This pedal was pretty much what I expected and wanted. Playing a combination of thrash/heavy/death metal it easily fits into this area. I play it through a marshall amp and it has THE best sound for this type of music.

All BOSS pedals are bloody well built like tanks..!!! Reminds me of the story of my good old HM-2 pedal when one of the knobs got busted right off. Only having to grow my finger nails a tad longer was the only thing stopping me from playing it straight away. It lasted years in this state and was still with me in that state when I gigged around in Melbourne, Australia.

Never had the pleasure/pain.

I simply have to give this a thumbs up with regards to my personal use of the pedal and for what I use it for. I play thrash/heavy/death and I play through a marshall amp. I'm sure there are a couple of good amp combinations that could go with this sort of pedal, however, for what I do - PERFECT.

Well if you have been playing for a little while you will realize that turning the knobs is what you will be doing alot.Reason is your ears have been trained and you finally know what good tone is.And well you wont find it in this pedal.

If I reviewd this when I was playing for a yr I would rated this a 9-10.But since Ive grown as a musician.I do know what good tone is so Im gonna have to lower the rating.Its not the worst pedal in the world.If you have just a crate combo than this will work fine.So Ill give it a decent score.

Thats the only thing I can say good about this pedal.Its made like a tank on the outside.I mean the one I have is from the early 90's it was in my garage for like 5 yrs before I found it.My Mother's exboyfriend used to play guitar.

I never had to deal with them.From what Ive heard they should be decent.

If you are a beginner you will think this pedal is godlike.Than when you grow as a guitarist you will notice lots of its flaws or all.If your a beginner try it out because nothing else is gonna make your little combo solid state Marshall,Crate Peavey sound good.And even though this pedal wont make your rig sound excellent or even great.You will have a usuable tone that you can work with just to practice to get better.

I have had this Pedal for a number of years now and I swear by it, (I would never use anything else). I find It relatively easy to use although I find that once you get the sound you want if the knobs are moved in any way you have to play with it forever to get that specific sound back.

I play through a Marshall JCM 800 100 watt amp with a 4 by 12 cab fitted with celestions. My guitar is an Ibanez rg series 6 string. I have never had any complaints about the sounds that I have been able to achieve with thi effects unit. It is, for lack of a better word, great.

This is the most reliable pedal I have ever owned. It has been dropped, kicked around , heavy things have been dropped on it, and in general it has never failed me.

Never had to deal with the company.

I play an alternative style of hard rock and heavy metal in the styles of Tool, Soundgarden and Metallica and I find it to be an apropriate match. I have been playing guitar for 17 years and I use the Boss DD-5 digital delay, Boss stereo chorus and a volume pedal. If my MT-2 Metal Zone we're stolen or lost I would have to buy another one. I could never see myself using another product, I believe that anything else would be inferior to this.

This pedal is extremely easy to use. The knobs are pretty self-explanatory, and it is only a matter of playing around with the EQ a bit to acheive your desired sound.

I am using this Pedal with a Peavey Transformer 112 amp and a 1958 Epi Korina Explorer guitar, and I tell you for Metal there is no other pedal to use. It is perfect if you want to acheive loud, harsh distortion or maddening, crushing fuzz. It's great, and those demon thumping palm mutes sound awesome with this pedal. There is such a range of distortion you can get out of this thing and after you find your pefect setting, you've hit the sweet spot.

However, I don't recommend using this pedal for any other type of music than Metal. It just won't do it justice - if you're looking for a different kind of distortion for rock, blues, punk, or new metal check out the other BOSS distortion pedals. They're all great.

This pedal is totally dependable. It is a BOSS pedal, after all, and built like a freaking Tank. You can stomp on it, throw it around, and abuse it, and it will still give you perfect sound. Even if you abuse the top "pedal" part, the inside switch won't be affected, and that's all that really matters anyway. I bought it used, and after a simple polish up, it looked totally brand new. The sound quality has not diminished one bit ever since I bought it.

For gigs, I never have a backup. This is the only one I have, and it will never fail me. It's with me everywhere I roam, and all you need for it are a couple of fresh batteries, although it uses battery power rather slowly.

Like I said above, for all you MetalHeads out there this pedal is an excellent buy. Like the name suggests, there is no other music that would do this baby justice. My favourite feature is the whole range of sound you can get out of it. All the way from heavy, thumping distortion all the way to wailing, screaming fuzz - it can do it all. Linked up with other pedals this beast works perfectly, and when you combine the right effects (such as chorus) it only serves to fill out the sound. Definitely, highly recommended for all you MetalHeads out there.

Simple. There are knobs, you turn them, it changes the sound. If you're dumb, just rely on your ears.

It's quite helpful to know what the knobs do. So figure that out first folks. It's very possible to get amazing sounds out of this box. However, it's also too easy to get shitty sounds.

I use my MT-2 with a Peavey Classic 30. My settings are:
Classic 30 - (clean channel) bass = 5 1/2 mid = 6 1/2 treble = 6
MT-2 - (into the INPUT, not effects loop) - level = 12:00 low = 2:00 high = 11:00 mid freq. = 11 middle = 1 dist. = 9:00.

The guitars I use: Schecter C-1 Elite (stock). Ibanez Jet King (stock).

I give it an 8 because there are some horribly crappy sounds that can come out of this thing. But it can really sing if you know how to use it.

I got mine for $50 used. The thing looks just fine, some scratches here and there, but shit... you stomp on it with your foot, it's to be expected.

I give it an 8 because something could happen to the knobs. The rest of it will last.

Dunno.

On the LOWEST dist. setting this can put out some wicked overdrive. On the HIGHEST dist. setting... well, find out... but wear earplugs.

I play rock/hard rock. I have a simple setup that I'm using right now. Guitar -> MT-2 -> Classic 30

When I frist got this pedal I thoughtit was amazing of course had a nice sound, dind't really no too much about tones back then though, I'd just turn the knobs to wherever and it sounded good to me but now... the use of this thing is so difficult. I get frusterated trying to find a decent sound of of this thing, I spend hours on end wasting my time with it

I'm running this through a Ibanez RG570 and a Marshall RH100 Head and 1960A Lead 412 Cab. It's so hard to get a good sound out of this thing, it's so ridiculously muddy, way too much gain it's not even funny, this thing isn't worth the $150 Canadian that I paid for it. You need to by a really decent Equilizer to get a clear crisp dirty sound, howmuch would that cost, another 150 Canadian? so 300 dollars for a a pedal, not worth it.

It's good to use if you're just jamming around the house, but no good for serious things, I wouldn't use it in a gig at all, maybe as a back up.

I've been playing for 9 years now, and I play stuff with pretty heavy dirty sounds, not sjust hevay all around but the dirty sounds are pretty chunky and dry, and this pedal is not good for that, it does get a good chunky sound to a certain extension, but it could always be improved, but the dryness isn't there. I wish it had more clear of a sound it, there's too much gain. It would be alright to write with but not the greatest, I suggest looking into a different pedal.

Easy to use. You can play with knobs. It's a really versatille little stomp box. Loads of adjusment possibilities.

I would like to congratulate all those who set the sound of an all tube Mesa against this plaything. I have a Mesa as well (mark I). I like it, I just replaced my peavey revo, to a randall warhead II. I like it as well. Can I compare them. Yes! Is there any reason for that ? NO! I use this little box with a 112 mesa cabinet and a home made all tube head. It is a copy of old Vox ac 30 (I'am an elctro engineer)
Back to mt-2. I think it is not noisier than anything else in this category. Yeah its noisy with guitars equipped with distorting bridge pu. Mt-2 kills the character of the sound this way. Does the same with most stock single coils. But try it with a HS3, Red Velvet, Q Pound staggered, or air zone, air norton, paf pro. You will get it.
I admit that the sound is not really buttery. (it is not based on tube technology), It is not vintage. A little dry, but not soulless. It has a wicked slash, and a skullcrushing punch, the same time. That is why I like it. With Eq you can boost and cut the the different regions. Unique sonds can be reached, this way.

Never ending story.

O.K.

To buy this is a good investment if you have a really good warm balanced tone tube amp, without good distorsion, so NOT a MESA.

I got this pedal used a little over a month ago. I went through a crappy Boss DS-1 (as my first distortion pedal. God bless Boss but this pedal has to be one of their weakest). It gave me some distorted riffs but not nearly enough body for the sound I was looking for....so I tried to find my sound in a Marshall JH-1 Jackhammer - better but still weak for my own personal taste. I finally got smart and invested in the Boss MT-2 Metal Zone, (recommended by my drummer). This thing is wicked. It has such great body and sustain, more-so than the DS-1 and JH-1.
I bought it used w/out a manual so I just kind of tweek it myself to find the right sound.

I'm currently using a Les Paul and Custom Fernandez Dragonfly as my axe(s) played through a Marshall TSL 60 head with a 1960 A 4x12 cab. Depending on my setting, it can sometimes give some feedback and some buzzing, but nothing too annoying. Has dual gain circuit and 3 band EQ's so you can tweek it however you'd like it. Again, gives a great distorted sound with great sustain. Very crisp so lead guitars can be heard without getting lost in all the noise. I'm not a veteran by any means, but I'd like to think that I'm at an intermediate level. Can get a really good "A.F.I.; the USED; FINCH; DefTones; SOD; Disturbed; Glassjaw" sound. Hook it up to a Boss BF-2 and/or DD-3/5 and you can get even more creative sounds out of it.

I've also been thinking about hooking it up to my LINE 6 POD 2.0....
not exactly sure how to do that since the bypass on the LINE 6 doesn't seem to be a "true" bypass...

I CAN DEFINITELY DEPEND ON THIS TANK OF A PEDAL!!!! I've been gigging with it since buying it. The Jackhammer has turned into a back up but I think I'd only have to use the Jackhammer if some ungodly freak accident happened...like the lights crashing down on the MT-2 and it would probably STILL work! The only back up I'm going to need are 9v batteries! However, if anything did happen to my MT-2 I'd get another one in a heartbeat.

Never had to deal with them (yet). So...couldn't tell ya!

I ABSOLUTELY LOVE THIS THING! After going through 2 distortion pedals and finally landing on this third one, I have to say that this is surely the best distortion pedal that I've ever used. Boss builds 'em like tanks so it surely is built to last. Very crisp. Great Distortion sound. Great sustain. Great body. GREAT FREAKING PEDAL!!! I HIGHLY recommend investing in the BOSS MT-2 METAL ZONE.

This thing is easy to use 4 knocbs and 2 of them act as 2 knobs... so tahts 6 knobs and 4 of them and EQ 1 volume and 1 dist level, how hard is that? The manual is very helpful, it gets you up and running, then teaches you how to use it... I could use it easily with no manual.

I use a Shecter Omen 6, and this sounds KILLER! No noise at all. And the effecst were strong as hell, from soft metal to hard metal, and any other kind of METAL you want... I can get SOAD and Disturbed out of this thing... This thing SHREDDS!

The only time i could ever worry about it getting damaged is if i start playing out in the highway and 100 eighteen wheelers drive over it with metal tires. Its built like a rock. I would gig with it only if i had a spare battery or an adapter (i bought the adapter).

Havent had problems with any boss eqipment, probobly never will

I play lots of metal, and ive been playing for a while. Im trying to form a band, so far I only have a drummer. If it were stolen, i would find the pedal and then throw it at whoever stole it, then wipe blood off of it, then play again. Its the best metal pedal out there, it even kiks a mesaboogies ass. I just wish it had better battery life. Its my essential pedal, with out it i would have to write a county music song ("i remember that dayyyyy, my pedal went awayyyy, now im countryyyyy, and i hate ityyyyy.). Just get the adapter, its a metal crunching monster taht eats batteries then burps.

with a little tinkering of the knobs you can get a wide range of distortions.

Sound quality is awesome. Has a really "thrashy" sound to it not a whole lot of lows though. tends to lean more towards a high end distortion. Good for lead guitar.

Very reliable

Never had to use it

Overall a good pedal, has its high points and low points but still good.

easy easy easy, I set everything straight up.

Of all my many distortion pedal, my old Metalzone is my favorite! I use my MZ-1 with my old Fender twin reverb and my old Marshalls and I love it. I've been using this pedal almost everyday for years. The tones I obtain are exactly like Judas Priest's "Love Bites" CD or Megadeth's "Symphony Of Destruction" CD.
I also love the Metalzone for all the metal bands of the 80s and 90s. Even Nirvana comes through with my MZ-1.

I think the people who give this pedal poor reviews are looking for a different sound. The Metalzone is an excellent pedal. That's why Roland has sold millions of them.

I've played lots of tube amps as well using their natural distortion. I agree that a tube amp might sound better occasionally than the MZ-1 ever can but it really is a rare occasion.
I've played through hundreds of tube amps, from old Plexis to Mesa Boogies, Fenders, Soldanos, Ampegs, Crates and all those botique amps you see at the NAMM shows. My experience is that a tube amps distortion can sometimes sound wonderful but that most of the time... they don't. Even when you do find a tube amp with a good distortion the sound is unreliable and eventually fades away to something just ok. I think tubes just aren't what they used to be. But I can always count on the MZ-1 to sound great and the same as always.
I've got a garage full of old Marshalls that used too sound awesome. Now they just sound ok. I hate the way Crates and Boogies sound. Soldano has never impressed me. Most Fenders only sound good clean [and boy do they!]. Some of the New Fender amps have great dirty channels.

So what, you want to sound like Pantera or Korn than go get some $2000 Boogie or something. I prefer "Metal" music like Megadeth. I actually prefer the sound of a stock plexi style Marshall with a Metalzone over a Boogie any day. It doesn't mean that a Metalzone is the way to go, it just means that I like it better. To me a Boogie is all bass and has no dynamics. No lover of musical feedback would like the lifeless and sterile tones of a Boogie.

Everytime I try a rectalfier amp from Mesa Boogie I wonder if there is something wrong with the set up. I wonder if the amp is not getting enough voltage or if the speakers cones are made out of plywood.

I play classic metal and grunge. I don't play Korn or Limp Biscuit or Pantera or any of those other Boogie bassed bands. Although I do like one of Korns CD's.
I've been playing for 30 years.

Almost all bands use a pedal for their overdrive or distortion tones. That's because of ease of use and reliability. Eddie van Halen went nuts trying to maintain his tone when touring. Eddie, the king of overdriven Marshalls, finally gave up and went seeking not tone but reliability in tone in other places. It is a well know fact that Eddie did use the Metalzone in his later years on non Roth recordings. "Beat It" by Michael Jackson has Eddie using a Metalzone for the lead track.

Pretty easy to use after you get the hang of it but its hard to find a good combo but its worth it when u do

Well lets see here Im running an ibanez rg-320 with a phat ass Lawrence 500XL pu in the bridge and an esp with a Hot ass emg-81 in the bridge through the metal zone through a marshall mg100hdfx 100 watt head through 2 4x12cabs i built myself in shop class(better than what those fags sell for hunderds of dollars imo) with some sweet ass Madison symphony 12s(chose these babies over the celestion v-30s the madisons look bad ass and sound even better when playing high gain metal) fuckin awsome speaker.
Well since i got all that fashizzal out of the way lets talk about soundizzal muhnizzal.......
This pedal fuckin rocks like no other!!!!!
It seriously has too much distortion so i dont use all of it because i like to have definition
can get some brutal ass sounds that like makes the devil himself rise up in front of you and play with you,,,,,,,,oh shittt!!!!!
then of course youll sacrifice your mom to the devil and all that good shizzal dizzal manizzal.
I play.....MetallicA........Biatch......i play my band .......Biatch.........thats about it...........Biatch.......and your mom.........yep u guessed it........BIaaaaaaaatch,,,,,,,,
And i mean i hate to brag but after a while u start to realize how good you are and holy shit i dont think im supposed to be able to play as fast as i can------whooooooooooo---------ohhhhhhhhhh-aaahhhhhh-----yea the speed metal is what i do best and the metal zone doesnt let me down in the least,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,biatch,,,,,,,,,,
ive got it sounding like master of puppets(on steroids ),,,(biatch),, ill give u an idea of how its set up but u have to take in account how ur head is adjusted too or ur amp or whatever,,,,,(if u plug this into a crate 10 watt peace of firewood shit,,,,,its gonna sound like what your moms breath smells like.......ASS!!!!!!!)
so here ya go
ALL NUMBERS ARE LIKE IF U WERE LOOKIN AT A CLOCK
LEVEL- 12 TO 1
HIGH- ALL THE WAY UP
LOW- 2
MID- ALL THE WAY OFF
MID FREQ- 10 TO 11
DIST- 3

WELL THERE YA GO ITS FUCKING AMAIZING PEDAL FOR PEOPLE WHO CANT AFFORD BOOGIES...........BIATCH..........

im getting so Goddam tired of all these bitches sayin "nur, nur,its a boss, nur, nur, it can never be killed, nuurrr,, well shut the fuck up i think every body knows its a boss u retards,,,,,,,,,,but yea its pretty solidly made,,,,,,but im sure i could strap it to your aunt when im skinnin here and it would fall apart...........other than that though its great!

Nur nur i guess there ok nur nuuuuuuuuuurrrrrrrrrrrrr
baaaaaaahahahahaaaaaaaaa but sence i give everything a dam 10 cuz its such a great pedal then im gonna say fuck the support,,,,,,,they can support deez in their mouth ok,,,,,,,,,,

well dam i guess its a good pedal and if u want heavy distorion then go steal your crackhead moms money and get u one.........

This thing is pretty easy to use. Low, High and a Mids + Parametric EQ for the Mids. It takes a bit of time getting used to the pedal, but once you understand what each knob does, it's a breeze!!!

I must admit, I never liked the sound of this pedal, due to that buzziness, tinny and weak sound. I usually use my POD-->BBE 362 straight into the front end of my amp(Hughes & Kettner Attax 100).

I had a 'bad sound day' so to speak, and decided to take out the POD, plug in the BOSS EQ-->BOSS NS2-->Metal Zone-->BOSS Flanger-->BOSS DD3-->BBE Sonic Maximizer 362 (IN THE EFFECTS LOOP!!!)

I wasn't intending to use the Metal Zone at all, and I kinda re-discovered the beauty of the amps distortion. The BBE Sonic Maximizer did make a lot of difference. Suddenly I thought, what would the Metal Zone Sound like through this setup? I expected the worst of course...but to my surprise, I have found the sound to be very good indeed. No more buzzyness, no more mud. (I completely blame the BBE). All that harshness in the region of 2500 to 2600Hz is gone and I get this real-fat-tight distortion ala Shadows Fall/Killswitch Engage. Wicked!

How could this be?

My guess is that my signal is running through the preamp tube (12 AX7) in my amp, then going through all the pedal in my chain before finally being cleaned up by the BBE Sonic Max. I have tried this at band practice and even the other guitarist in my band who owns a Marshall JCM2000 says my sound is better, warmer and has more balls than his, despite that i am only running through a 1x12 (it's a combo amp).

I am not going to say that this pedal is the shiznit, but I think I have stumbled across a good and practival way to use the Metal Zone. Like all self-respecting guitarists i would say that tube-distortion is the best by far, but some of us are poor (like me) and try our best to get closer to that elusive tone we are all searching for.

Its a Boss pedal. it will live longer than me

Never dealt with them.

I play Rock and Metal. It's does the job I want it too. I have been playing for 12 years. I own 2 Les Paul Epiphones loaded with EMG 81's, a Hughes and Kettner Attax100, BBE Sonic Maximizer 362, POD 2.0 and a Korg Ax300G multiefx unit which I don't really use these days. I usually use my POD live, but with my newfound discovery of my amps own distortion and the Metal Zone, I see my POD doing active service at home recording. If I lost this I probably wouldn't buy another, coz I am saving up for a Mesa Dual Rectifier.

anyone complaining about too many knobs shouldn't write a review. The more you can shape a tone the better. Anyway the knobs it does have are easy to use.

Ok, first of all just because I know what it takes to get a good sound doesn't mean I own good equipment. I've been playing about six years but have a few friends who are professional musicians(not garage bands or local bar circuits). My equipment sucks and this might be why I like this pedal. I have a 99 fender american strat and a sloid state princeton chorus with two 10's. This was awsome when I first started but now i'm dying for a good amp. Anyway I listen to all kinds of music and try to play the same but I do find that since I can't get good round tube tone the punkier metal stuff is more fun to play with this setup. I don't think this pedal is that versatile with a solid state amp but this thing rocks for metal or punk (think pennywise). Anyway I can see how some might find it buzzy but I have found a pretty fierce tone out of it myself. THis thing is great for rhythm or even punchy accompaniment for rhythm lines. with the level at 10 o'clock I can only turn my master volume to about 2 before the cops come around and surprisingly I don't lose that much low end as you usally do with solid state amps. Anyway for this type of music this thing rocks and I have tons of fun with it. Until I try it on a real amp though I can't give it a ten but for this stuff it is damn close

Its a boss. hell yeah it's reliable

haven't needed it yet

THis has been said a thousand times but here goes again. If you are a guitar snob playing through a Marshall or mesa why are you even reviewing this pedal. Do the math morons(Marshall/Mesa=$1500+, Boss MT-2= $50-$85). You get what you pay for. By the way some of these reviewers praise their favorite amp and slag all others. Do they sound rational. If you like Mesa do you really have to think Marshalls suck in comparison or vice versa. Try using some objectiveness. By the way if you are a gear head then you know that effects sound different depending on how you have them set you your chain let alone with different equipment. After all is said, it's not a tube amp and it's not trying to be. It can be harsh sounding but if you give it a try it can sound awsome.

It's simple constructed and within 10 minutes you know how to handle it...

This thing sucks. It sucks professionell.

I used it with an Epi Les Paul (Seymour Duncan Pick Ups) and a small Crate Amp. This combination was quite ok, but do not even think about any jam session: It won't work. You won't be heard!

Then I put it in front of a Marshall stack and it was terrible, no real distortion, lack of bass and no unique sound or anything. It's just awfull.
I tried it with an Fender Twin Reverb tube amp and also here it was useless: It wasn't possible to get any nice sound. Just really fucked up.

I'm listening to Slayer, Machine Head, Fear Factory, Sepultura as well as KoRN, Slipknot ... as well as Nirvana, Melvins, Mudhoney etc. But I admire the real metal sound: fat bass, loud and direct with lots of dynamic. But with the ridiculous METAL ZONE you can't achieve anything but a noisy something.

Buy a good amp and you'll have a good distortion: Marshall is ok, clean it isn't that good, but the distortion is really fat and very powerful. But the coolest distortion is the Hughes&Kettner Tube Factor! This is a gift of heaven, seriously! But forget about this small piece of shit, metal zone is a toy for small children! On stage you need another kind of equipment!

No problems at all! A small tank!

never needed it!

Buy a tube amp, define your own sound! Not everything calling itself metal is really kickking ass. You get an incredible sound with a 60s Vox AC30 and a tube factor: Never heard Machine Heads Dividian sounding better but with this combination. Is Vox made for metal? Is the tube factor promising you metalsounds? Think about it!

Easy. Just turn the nobs.

I used a mesa boogie .50 caliber amp and a Jackson RR V-guitar w/ EMG 81 and 60. The amp sounds great by itself but I wanted a little more oomph so I bought this. Also when you have really heavy distortion with that amp and use a foot-switch to switch to clean, the clean doesn't sound too good so that's why I wanted a distortion pedal. Now I regret buying this it. It sounds TOO FAKE! No creamy, fat distortion just crappy thin distortion.

It's built tough, but what for what. It sounds crappy.

Never dealt w/ them.

I play mostly rock/metal and some punk/ska. It's o.k. for punk because for punk the sound doesn't need to be good and nice. But for playing Metallica, AC/DC, Iron Maiden etc., you want some good distortion, thick and heavy not robot-sounding weak distortion. Look elsewhere.

An easy pedal to use like all boss pedals.

Many Many reviews of this pedal and I cant understand why so many guys can never move on in their life. Let me tell my story.I used a Metal Zone many years ago when I first played as a teenager eager to learn. I convinced myself that this is how great distortion should sound.Yet before long I was not satisfied by the sounds I was hearing. I came to realize the tone was thin and lifeless and the bass was weak and the midrange area was strange like a pinging telephonic voice form of tonal coloration and like a cheap gettoblaster turned up too high. Now only stupid ever people blame amplifiers for the pedals inadequate sounds.So I did not feel That I should change my amp to accomodate a poor pedal.So naturally and sensibly I changed the pedal and upgraded to a DOD Death-Metal. The next step was when I saved up for a good Marshall combo .Then later on a Marshall stack (JCM2000DSL). By this time I was definitely realizing that amp distortion is by far the best. Two year later and I sold my Marshall and bought a Mesa Dual Rectifier.Now I have an even better amp (please to see below)and so I therefore know from true experience that if a cheap pedal can't 'deliver the goods' with a cheap amp then it cant 'deliver the goods' with an expensive amp either . It took a long time for that universal truth to sink in . I realize now that even the distortion channel on a cheap Marshall or Peavey practice amp sounds much better than the Metal Zone ever can.

Reliability is high for boss pedals of course.

And now it is the sad time for me to deliver a stern reprimand for it being the case that some guys who populate this reviewing sector try to give the false impression of wisdom and knowledge that they think they have.When in fact they just want to bitch out at at any opportunity because they are unconfident within themselves and so say it's the other guys fault that the Metal Zone is poor. It is very stupid for some to suggest that only wealthy people can appreciate the difference between good tone and bad. Many people who do not like the Metal Zone are not wealthy and they find their better sounds in other pedals.
And what about theunwise guy who foolishly disrespects Marshall amps for being 'thin',well he must learn to hang his head shamefully and in disgrace.( for Marshall amps incidentally are as used by Slayer, Megadeth, Iron Maiden, AC/DC, Scorpions,Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple,Judas Priest, Motorhead. Z.Wylde, J.Satriani, Y.J. Malmsteen, E.Johnson, G. Moore among many others noted for their powerful uncompromising sounds).And strangely enough his own beloved Ampeg amps are universally aknowledged by sincere and accomplished musicians as being cheap and loud but unfortunately tonally unaccomplished in the midrange tones.(( I am not thinking that the Ampeg Corporation will be needing to hire extra security guards to deal with queues of tone-hungry guitarist gathering around their factory block clamoring for their product:-)))Hiwatts are nothing more and less than an inferior shallow 70/80s attempt to copy Marshall and only of interest to collectors of vintage curiosities.No metal player will ever need of one. Unfortunately Matchless amps while good but horrificaly overpriced are not for metal sounds being warm and cosy and strictly for timid elderly gentlemen who wear cardigans, smoke pipe and slippers while playing guitar from an armchair and feel threatened by the powerful crunch of a genuine rock amp but still want to pretend that they are still youthful 'bluesrockers'.Again I joke only slightly but so sorry to be bluntly honest. But I can sincerely understand that someone who has no money and is stuck with a boring and tonally dull sounding amp such as Ampeg or Roland jazz chorus might find that even something bad like a Metal Zone would 'spice up' his sound. For why else would he want one if only his amp could truly 'deliver the goods'? I say to this foolish person when you get yourself a REAL amp like an Engl or a DIEZEL then you will know what I'm talking about.In fact if you get yourself a good distortion pedal you will also know what I am talking about, so you see you do not need to spend vast amounts of money.I now proudly own a DIEZEL VH4S and DIEZEL Cabs. Expensive Yes. Worth it most Definitely.Before you ask I will tell you. Nobody bought it for me. I worked very hard and saved for such a long time to be able to afford the undisputed king of all amplifiers.Engl Powerball is the only other amp that comes even close and even then great as it is it's just not as good as DIEZEL.I used a Metal Zone in my teens when I did not know any better and as I gained in experience and wisdom I knew that pedals distortion can never compete with great amp distortion. Nevertheless it is a fact that there is a hierarchy of tonal accomplishment among the distortion pedals and sad but true to say a Metal Zone comes very near to the bottom of that league. Pedals distortion can be good and useful options for players who do not have the choice of great amp distortion so I do not deride or disrespect those who are turning to pedals on grounds of cost since I have done so myself in the past.But then why choose the feeble Metal Zone when there is so many better like the Digitech HotRod Rock and Metal Master? or Zoom analogue series distortion/fuzz pedals. Or the universally admired Proco Rat series.Perhaps even the prospect of Bosses own infinitely superior sounding MD-2 Mega-Distortion would give immense satisfaction over the Metal Zon

Well its not that easy to use it,it has 4 knobs,and you have to go trough manual to see where to start.After that it`s all about your personal taste cause presets in manual are all useless mostly,but hey,it depends on amp you use.

Well,here it comes.
There are so many guys here who have 1000$,2000$.....worth amps and equipment,and they expect to have a sound of Triple rectifier from a 75$ pedal,ofcurse its not the same,and then they start shiting all over this pedal,and the it comes that legendary advice:"Save your money and buy Marshall or Mesa".I`m impressed,and what about guys who dont have thousand of dollars and just want to have proper sound on equiment they have?
Biggest enemy of this pedal is it`s name,and first time i saw it in the shop i thought what a stupid name,Metal Zone.I hate metal and wasn`t impressed by name at all,but the guy at shop let me try it at home,so i said what the hell,it`s free :)))
I have Roland Jazz Chorus 160,it has 4 speakers so its a pretty heavy cabinet,and plugged MT into it and,WOW.I was amased by sound it gave me,its like tons of gain people and i mean it.Took me a while to dial right knob positions,but after one hour i had perfect distortion sound,FOR SOLID STATE!I saw some people here saying it`s a stupid fuzz sound?!?!?!No way,i just wish we could upload some sound samples,so I can show all those richie rich`s out there how this thing sound on proper setup.
My favorite sound is like this HIGH-between 0 and 9 `o clock,LOW-full,MID FREQ-at 2 and,MID-full,DIST-most of the time full (yes its all the way up,and no fuzzing) but for bluesy stuff i get it down to 4.
This way i control the sound with my amp EQ. and dial it perfectly for Jimi Hendrix sound,yes,voodoo child coming out of this little pedal.
But the pedal is versatile,you can get really fat metal sounds of it,i played some Metallica stuff on it,no prob,but its not the 100% sound of them,never will be.
So i give this pedal an 8,cause 9 are valve-state pedals and 10 is TUBE :)))

Its a TANK!

Never had nothing with them.

For money this pedal beat`s all competition out there.I had 80 EURO left in my pocket and i needed a distortion,so i bought this one and now i love it.If you have thousands of dollars,dont bother buying this,buy the real thing,TUBE AMP,like i will someday :-),but the point is this is a BUDGET pedal,and it gets the job done excellent.
I bet if I took my setup,and played trough it in front of those "experts" with shitty reviews down there,it would made them change mind`s,cause i did live gigs with this things,and I had people asking me if JC is a tube amp,well it`not :)

Piece of piss. More knobs than most but set them all 12 'o' clock and fiddle away. As always the manuals settings are a good bench mark.

Right, here's where the bulk of my review is. I bought this little bastard when it first came out, I was a beginner into punk/metal, didn't know what I wanted, just gain! And boy did I get it. In fact, the distortion isn't proportional to the gain, you can turn it all the way down and it'll sound pretty much the same. As most people here tend to compare it to artists' tone I'll try, to me it doesn't get the 'dime-bag-tone' (pantera for the heathens), it doesn't get the metallica rhythm sound (phat), but it DOES get the kirk hammet sound, for solo's that sound really processed its fine. At this point I should probably point out that, to me it sounds completely different when listening to it through different mediums, ie, a miked amp, it's just about acceptable for recording, for headphones (via amp/effects) it sounds thin. I boost the lows and the highs, then put the mid to about 2'o'clock. Remember, this is actually mid scooped because the lows/highs are higher. I never cut the mids, at any frequency, it sounds just plain shit. Fantastic for those sterile palm mutes from Pantera and Megadeth (both use solid state amps), and nice for solo's. Just dont expect to get a nice light crunch, or creamy notes, cus it just ain't gonna happen.
If you are a professional you probably won't like it, besides, pro's have better equipment than most bed-room rockers. But if you just like jamming with high gain metal you'll probably like it. I wouldn't say its a 'must-have' but if you find its cheap it's fun.
For the people that say it sounds digital, I have no idea what you are talking about, sure it sounds sterile, but this is an ANALOGUE circuit thats been EQ'ed to death, no ADC's,DSP's, or DAC's. If you want to know what digital sounds like, play through a POD, excellent sound because 20-bit digital is QUALITY. Sorry for going off on one, but I'm an electronic engineer by trade :). So, just to recap, I wouldn't use it for major live situations or decent recording, but for some reason it really makes me want to kick-out some megadeth, or some fast chugging pantera riffs, maybe its because it was my first distortion pedal and I just have a soft spot for it.
Summing up: Not a serious pedal, just fun.

As most people say, 'It's a BOSS, it aint gonna fall apart'. However, its easily kicked around, and that little rubber thing that the screw goes through at the front under the pedal? Broke in 24 hours :) Obviously it still works, just makes a terrible clunking sound when ever I step on it, imagine Robocop with constipation. On the hole, pretty damn good.

Never had to speak to Boss/Roland. But I don't think they'll go into liquidation over night. So I imagine they'll be pretty helpful.

As I mentioned earlier, if you can find it cheap its a little gem, something to play with on those long winter nights, a toy for guitarists. If you mike up your amp with an electret/condenser microphone, and record, believe or not but it can perform quite well, of course you will have to double-track, but with distortion you always do. Note to electronic ppl: Try adding a Q knob to the mid, lowering the Q factor can make a big difference, because for some reason Boss decided to make the mid a thin spike.

I've owned this pedal since around '92. Back then I loved it because I was playing at bedroom levels. It sounded great through many of the e.q. settings and at various distortion stages. At that time I was playing it through a Roland JC90 solid state amp. Fast forward ten years and now I have a Fender 2x12 Deville and a Boogie Nomad 100 running through a Boogie 2x12 cab. When I play the Metal Zone through these amps it just doesn't sound that good, especially at live performance levels. I NEVER use this pedal live because it sounds very synthetic at higher performance volumes.
One other thing, it doesn't combine well with the various gain levels of any of my amps. I've heard people say otherwise but this isn't true for me. It's either Metal Zone into a clean channel or nothing.

Bottom line: The Metal Zone is ultimately a bedroom musician's effect pedal. There's nothing wrong with that but it is what it is. I give it a "7" for the home studio and a "1" for live use.

The MeTaLZone is a very versatile pedal, u can dial all kinds of tones from highgain heavy metal and 80's thrash/speed (excellent palm muting sound), to classic crunch (ac/dc, hendrix) and alternative rock sounds and blues (though if blues is ur main thing get the blues driver). It recreates extremely well the 70's British Rock sound. I was surprised to what it did to my setup and how it changed my sound.
The Mt-2 has a great equalizer. U have lots of choices to dial and lots of different tones. With all the kinds of gear that i tried it with, it came out extremely nice. Like all eq's, it takes time to find ur custom sound, and tweaking is ocassionally time-taking, but don't dial like a monkey without thinking because u will fuck up, if u want to get a decent sound, use ur ears and ur brain cells.

I have read a couple of reviews and it amazes me the animality of some people in just trying to compare a dual or triple rectifier from mesa, to a stomp box which is worth 100 bux. But well still they exist......Coming back to the peadal. It's just a great Stomp box. My gear consists of a Marshall Mg50dfx, a Crate Glx212T and A Valvestate 8200 head (my bandmates head through a valvestate 4x12b cab). And our guitars are An Ibanez S470 with an emg60 and a 85, a Mexican Fender Strat, and A Jackson Warrior MG. My stomp bosex are the Mt-2, the Blues Driver, The Digitech rp-2000 and a Dunlop 535q Crybaby. At home i play in my 50w marshall, and tough it has avery nice distortion, it's pretty much straight hard rock sounding, and it's at its best at high volumes, sounds weak at practice levels, and i can't play loud on my apratment so i decided to get the mt-2 for this reason and to beef up my crate. It really does give u a whole different sound and it its extremely amzing the amount of sustain that u receive from this box, i can't fucking believe what the other kid said that this shit doesn't give u sustain, well u don't know shit about sustain. As i said u can get great sounds from this baby, i could perfectly nail the thrash sound of metallica's Kill 'em All, and then the sweet overdrive of the solo of Fade to Black. I could also recretae that sound of Highway to hell and that that sweet 70's power rock tone of the Trooper from Iron maiden, it really does it, but take ur time to dial the sounds, the given guide is not very helpful. i PLay all kinds of things, from Hendrix to Immortal and all kinds of Black and Death metal, but this is where it doesn't shine as much, because the digitech pedal has a higher growl for the in your face punch that death metal has, but still i love this one more. When i play black and death i just either use the jmc 900 emulator of my digitech and i add the tone of the mt-2 and my amp's own distortion, Godamned brutal sound, ( use a noise supressor though).(My bandmate has the digitech's heavy metal pedal so i can tell u about it). It's really great sounding though i really recomend u to go to any music store that's local to you, and listen for yourself, if u are into heavythrash/power metal and just all kinds of old power rock and british and just need a great distortion pedal for all kinds of playing, get this dude, it's really awesome. If u play mostly death and black or need a higher growl to ur sound the get the heavy metal distortion. They are both greta sounding, still, don't compare stomp box distortion to a stack sound, it's different, still i don't credit away from either one of these, bcause they are fucking badasses at what they do, and they do it good.

Hell Yeah! I dropped him a couple of times, and i tought i really broke once, because it didn't light up again. But i opened the box and fix up a little cable, which moved, and that's it. It was alright again. It's very well built. Very reliable.

N/A

Overall, this an awesome pedal. The sounds it provides are incredibly broad, but it's not prefect u know, nothing really is... I'm really happy with it and i look forward into getting in the studio with all kinds of shit to record our shit, and of course i'm taking this little fella there. It really is a Heavy Metal peadl *if u know what really hevay metal is*, though it does so much more than that, and the sound sthat i crates are very good. If it was stolen i would definately find the sob that tried to rip me off and torture him for his insolence. I have been playing for 6 years and trust me, u gotta put ur own ears into this thing, and dial well, to see what i'm talking about. My friend even has a squier, and with his ears, he can get a good sound out of it, but still better gear always changes ur tone, and so it will with this thing. Definately i recommend it. Keep MetaL Alive. Rock on -\m/

As with most pedals, this one was very easy to use.
Some people were complaining about having to tweak
all the knobs to get a sound, but I kinda like being able
to shape the sound of the distortion.

Very good sound quality.
The distortion is meaner than a one legged chicken.
I play Ibanez guitars with it, and it rocks a$$.

This thing has the munchies when it comes to
batteries. I'd use a power supply or a pedal board
if I played a concert with it.

Nope a$$

I play any kind of rock, Def leppard, van halen, linking park,
12 stones, chevelle, anything. It's good for everything except
Backstreet Boys. Darn.
I've written lots of stuff with this pedal.

This pedal is really simple to use. The parametric mid shift gives you a wide range to choose from. Simply use your ears to dial in a tone and you're set. I give it a 9 simply because you have to take some time to learn how to dial in sounds.

My setup consists of Peavey Wolfgang Special, an MT2, and a Randall Bass Amp I got back in 93. I simply have the most beautiful lead tone with this thing. I'm impressed because I'm running into a bass amp! This rig should not sound good! But I'll be damned if I can tell the difference between my killer lead sound, and one of the great guitarists. I'm having trouble getting a good rhythm tone, simply because this pedal is either on or off. You either dial in a ripping lead tone or you have to compromise and have a decent rhythm tone. It lacks flexibility in this respect, but is an amazing pedal for what you pay for it. You can get a wide range of tones out of this thing, but be careful with the mids and highs...they can get nasty.

Never worry about it....it always works.

Never needed help.

I've been playing guitar for a few years, bass for many years. I love bands like tool, apc, radiohead, big wreck, the tea party....I really love the lead sound I get out of this pedal. Simply amazing...of course having my wolfgang helps...incredible neck pickup tone...so smooth and butterlike! I plan to upgrade to a "real" guitar amp soon. By real I mean a solid state Peavey XXL or a Transformer 212....I just don't want to mess with tubes...not worth the time trying to sound like a guitarist from the 60's...besides you can get that tone out of a pedal...use your ears!

Pretty ease to use
If you want my setting for it send me and e mail and when i get my webcam workin again il send ya a pic of setings

Sounds bad ass alot of people say this isnt as good as an amps distortion this is only half true of course a mesa boggie triple rectifer is gonna sound better but this is bad ass for pedals this is the best distortion pedal ever.ive been through like 6 distortion pedals.and this is the best much like some one noted eariler you can get a good Godsmack out of it<and a pretty close Static-X and Mudvayne ive been playin for six years now and i say the metal zone i the $hit

ITs a Boss

Never dealt with em my friend did though he said they were great

I play metal nu metal what ever you wanna call it as long as its heavy

I found ok after a few tries.If you have trouble you can look at the manual.It has some sample settings to aid you.

I'm using a washburn 134bk with emg-89 fitted on it,zoom 707 effects processor and mt-2 straight to the amp.Personally it didn't give me the metal sound I was looking for.It lacks of sustain and it's highs seem faky.And it's unacceptable noisy.

What can I say?Solid and reliable enough for gig's.I never used backup.

No comments.

If you look screaming metal sound this is not the pedal you want.If it were stolen I would bye a rocktron.Although you can have different variations of distortion I don't suggest it for really heavy metal sound.

It is very easy to use. This thing is just like any other distortion pedal except for it includes built in EQ which is great. It takes a little while to tweek the EQ the way you want it but after that it sounds great.

I use this with my vintage strat and a vintage club 50 watt Crate amp. I cover mostly punk/emo bands like Jawbreaker and this pedal works fine for this type of music on the on the lowest level distortion setting. If you turn the distortion knob all the way up it gets a little to crazy for my taste, but all around it sounds just like it should.

I have never had a problem with any of my BOSS pedals, so I expect nothing less from this one. BOSS pedals are very reliable.

Never dealt with them

I have been playing guitar for about nine years and this distortion pedal is one of my favorites. It is especially useful for any Metallica type songs you want to play, but I use it for just about everything. This pedal definitely helps me out creatively. I prefer it over my BOSS DS-1 Distortion pedal because f the built in EQ.

If I lost this or it did happen to quit working on me I would definitely buy a new one.

Easy enough. Controls are self explanitory, except for the Mid knob. Ya don't get the hang of that til you either mess with it for a few mins, or you read the manual.

Damn good. It's just what i expected. Unadultered metal brutality. it is really quiet too, which i certainly didn't expect. the only noise really comes when i turn on my Boss compressor pedal right before the MT-2. then it starts to let some noise through, but i think i'll get an NS-2 to fix that little problem.

haven't had any problems with it yet, and i doubt i will

have not dealt with them

rockin pedal. it's become and important part of my ever growing collection of distortion and overdrive pedals. i actually tried running all my pedals at once. crybaby wah --- boss cs-3 --- ibanez ts-9 --- boss mt-2 --- ibanez dd5 --- marshall mg50cdr (with boost channel selected). holy shit, the sounds that came out of my amp are indescribable. i would never do that again, due to the fear that i'd cause some irreversible tear in the fabric of our universe. anyways, yeah it's an awesome pedal

This pedal is not the easiest to use but it's not rocket science either. The manual that comes with it offers really good settings. Mess around with the knobs for a while and u kno wat to do.

My home rig consists of a fender frontman 15 G, Ibanez DS7 distortion pedal, MT-2 Metal Zone, and my Ibanez rg120. The pedal is actually very quiet. It only get's slightly noisy once you start really pushing the gain and eq's but it's still far more quiet than alot of other metal pedals. The pedal has a pretty wide range but it still has a "harsh" sound to it with each effect. I can get really good Godsmack on this pedal, Good "old creed", and Metallica just to name a few bands. The sound is great but of course a tube full stack will kill it any day. Still best metal pedal i've ever tried.

This thing is tough and it doesn't move around alot which is nice. I would definitely use it on a gig and since i have my ds-7 i'd be safe. But you'd have to throw the MT-2 off the empire state building to break it.

I heard Boss is good but I got Sam Ash taking care of me.

This pedal really does well in my rig and it gives me the sound i wanted. I wanted the tight bass with the sharp and harsh treble. MY ds-7 is great but it's "smoother" sounding and i needed something for metal and hard rock. I'd recommend the pedal for all types of distortion but really i use two distortion pedals b/c of the level of variation and who the hell wants to change settings on a pedal during a gig and not get the exact sound u want? I compared it to the zoom TM_01 and no contest. I actually went into the store getting ready to buy the TM-01 but the metal zone just drew me in. I read alot of bad reviews of it and i thought it sucked but let me tell u everyone can kiss my a$$ b/c it kicks the crap out of all the other pedals i tried including the tm-01

easy

I don't care what the previous guy says, if you play with it you can get a very good sound. Maybe the problem is his Marshall. Marshall sounds great until you play a real amp like a vintage Hiwatt, vintage Ampeg, or a Matchless...then you will realize how thin Marshall sounds. Anyway, with the MT-2 and my 1971 Ampeg V4 I get a great sound-Radiohead-Houston-Shiner-Hum. Even still, I prefer my vintage MXR Dist+ along with a vintage Boss SD-1. There's just nothing like old guitar equipment.

built very well.

never dealt with them. never had to.

I like it for certain things. Like I said, I can get a good sound out of it. It helps that I have an extremely deep sounding amp-Ampeg V4 (11 tubes). I've never tried it on another amp, but I know the guitarist from Houston uses one, and it sounds awesome live when they play.

This is by far one of the easiest distortion pedal I have ever used. You just plug it into your amp and you are immediatly playing metallica, master of puppets, you name it! The different knobs really change to sound which makes this pedal very versitile.

What can I say, it sounds amazing!! There is almost no feedback, just a bit of humming if the distortion is cranked all the way but this can be fixed by laying a bit back on the dist knob. It still sounds great anyways. The thing I really like about the sound is that it has great response and any metal riff sounds very clean, not muddy. This is by far the best sound out of any pedal that ive heard.

studio quality sound, this pedal is very dependable.

Boss product are always the highest quality you can get. It comes with a 5 year warranty so your set. Anyways, it's not going to fall apart, it's a frickin huck of metal!

If your looking for a pedal that looks great, is very durable and has sound to back it up, then get a metal zone. This is definitly the bang for the buck.

Very easy to use. One of the few pedals on the market with 4 different tone controls

This is to the idiot with the review right below mine. I'm afraid that when I was 12 my parents were not daddy warbucks and could not afford to go out and buy me a Marshall Stack and a $4000 guitar for Christmas. My parents bought me a metal zone and a small amp when I was 12. And for the amount of $ you pay for this pedal it delivers the closest thing to a Marshall, Mesa type of distortion you can get from a stomp box. I am 21 now and also play lynch, malmsteen, and vai and i can use this pedal to play riffs and leads by these artists and many other styles. Mabe you should have just said it didn't suit your needs because you obviously are better than everyone because mommy bought you a marshall stack and you have no use for such a pedal. I too am now playing out of a Marshall 4x12 with a JCM900-slx which i had to work very hard for to purchase. I occasionally use the metal zone with this setup and it gives it a very unique sound. Overall it has a very good distortion and in my opinion like many many others it is the best stomp box on the market if you cannot afford to shell out $1500 for a Marshall, Mesa, or Soldano. But if mommy can afford to buy you such a luxurious amp when you 12 by all means go for it. Just don't criticize others for trying their best with the cards that their dealt to get a sound as close as possible to their favorite guitarists.

Very reliable. I have dropped it, lost it, and had it fall down a flight of stairs and it always works. I use it as a backup distortion in case my amps craps out.

Never dealt with Boss customer support

Overall for the price and quality this is by far the best distortion pedal on the market. If you cannot afford an amp with a nice built in distortion then get this pedal. It will save a ton of money and delivers an amazingly versatile distortion. Sounds especially good with humbuckers!

It's a stomp box put power to it and step on it! For all the extra EQ settings on this damn thing it doesn't produce a variety of sound. TOO MANY KNOBS FOR TOO LITTLE SOUNDS!!!

I've used a Fender Strat Plus, and Charvelle with this thing through a Marshall 8080 (overrated no bass end, no tone, noisy amp). Seriously if you want awesome Hi-gain distortion due yourself a favor and save up and invest in a 5150, Recto, VHT, Bogner, or a high end Marshall. You're not getting a hi-gain amp in a box with this sucker. MT2 sounds thin and tiny, and thrashy, maybe good for industrial but not for what I do. I have a MXR Distortion + that sounds warmer and has more life, would I use it to play Nu-metal or Death Metal or hell even old Metallica? No it's not ment for it. I have a Creamy Dreamer that shits all over this pedal thick, warm, and with some tweeking (help of boss EQ pedal) brutal. I look at a distortion pedal as a flavor to my tone not as the main source of my tone. MT2 will not make you sound like anyone! Noone famous uses it avoid at all costs!

For the most part I like boss pedals they are reliable and can take a beating.

Want good distortion buy a good amp, then buy the distortions and overdrives to flavor it. If you think that the MT2 is going to make you sound like any metal, hardcore, emo, punk, or blues guitar hero your nuts. MT2 is garbage avoid it, seriously.

The mids take a bit of tweaking - this was the first piece of gear I had with a parametric eq - it was a lot easier when I stopped looking at the settings on the knobs and just started twisting and listening...

It's a grindy bottom heavy distortion pedal for sure... have had mine for about 9 years or so. It's been used with (GUITARS) Mako strat copy with 3 single coils, Jackson DR (Sweet!), Original Jackson Rhodes (RR00021), Early 90's Black "Mexicaster", 88 Gibson Les Paul Standard (AMPS) 50W Marshall JTM45, Early 80's Marshall 100W JCM800, Peavey 5150 (ugh!), Crate 65W Combo, Ampeg SVT (Not a guitar amp, but that 8X10 cabinet is the SH*^)..... With all of these guitar/amp combos, the eq on the MT2 got a pretty convincing 80's metal sound everytime. This pedal can sound great when set up right, (AND PRETTY DAMN UGLY OTHERWISE :) ....

No problems from ANY boss pedal I've ever owned

N/A

Good for what it is, remember this thing is about 10 years old now. Buy a used one and have fun!

I now have a Mesa studio preamp + POD Pro + (Old) Alesis MidiVerb III + (Older!) Ibanez HD-1000 Harmonizer/Delay + Mesa 2:95 Power Amp + 2 4X12 Peavey MS Cabs. The old metal zone sounds ok through it too!!

Now if I could just buy some talent...

Lewis

It's very easy to use. 4 Knobs, it's a no-brainer. I like the extra EQ knobs so you can really tweak the sound.
I have never even touched the manual. You just don't need it. You just plug it in, set the knobs the way you like em and go. There's really no bad sounding setting.

Fuckin' Great!!! I'm in a pretty well known band called Papa Roach and I used this pedal for a few songs on our new record. It can't compete with a tube amp, but for mega gain no other pedal can beat this little box.
I use my signature Schecter C-1 through a Rocktron Multivalve FX, Marshall JMP-1 (great preamp) and into a Marshall JCM900.
The MT-2 kicks ass with this rig. Tight sounding distortion which I love.

Well, since it's a Boss it's almost unbreakable. It's solid metal. The switch is very durable. You can play basketball with this thing and it won't break. I haven't gigged with it, I've only used it in the studio, so I can't comment on that, but I bet that wouldn't be a problem.

The people at Boss were so nice to send me a few of their pedals to try out, so they were very friendly. I must say that they make really good effects!

The style of our band is rock/metal. We used to do the rap-metal thing but we kinda changed that to pure rock. I've always loved the tight sound I got out of my rig and the MT-2 is a great addition to this. I reccomend everyone who loves massive gain that doesn't get muddy to buy this pedal. It won't get any better than this.

It aint hard to use butyoull wait and wait and tweak and twiddle but youll never get a good sound out of this cheap sounding buzz box. Don't be dissin other ppl's amps or guitars just because they've got good enough taste to know shit when they hear it.Knowing shit tone when you here it doesn't make you a gear snob. It's definitely the guys who think theyre getting good sounds out of the MT2 who got the hearing problems.

I'm playing an Ibanez JS2000 + RG3120 as backup with a Marshall 6100 head into two 1960 412s.(Yeah I know. My gear sucks and the MT2 is completely blameless. No *wonder* I couldn't get it to sound good, blah blah blah etc,etc,etc. When are you simpletons who deal in these shitbrained excuses for your own failures ever goin to get yoursellfs a fuckin life and face the facts?) Like I said this is just a cheap and nasty sounding pedal.Weak and gutless. There is nothing like a brutal distortion on tap here.I've got to laugh when some ppl say that you can get Metallica or Slayer or Pantera sounds out of this. Heres a clue for anybody who doesn't get it. NONE OF THESE BANDS USE A BOSS MT2 OR HAVE EVER USED A BOSS MT2. Now why do you suppose that is? Answer:::: BECAUSE IT TOTALLY SUCKS ASS! That's why. Just think about that for a minute.No big name users. Oh yeah, forgot about Adam from Tool. Somebody always whips him out from under his ass to say therefor the MT2 must be good. Well here's the deal. AJ uses Mesa and Diezel amps to get his sound. Anybody who thinks his sound comes from an MT2 is seriously wacko. You can bet all these guys who say the MT2 rules would not recognize great metal tone if Hetfield, Dimebag and and EVH wuz to jam outside their bedroom windows every night for the rest of their lives.

unfortunately it's prolly unbreakable.

I been playing since I was 12. By the time I was 16 could play anything by Malmsteen , Gilbert , Lynch, Vai, Eddie or Satch. Now I'm 25 I know there's a world of difference between just copying other guys shit and finding your own voice.Just don't be telling me I dont know nuthin about guitar tone.
I cant beleive that guy who said it was one of the most brutal distortions he ever heard.Here's a useful piece of advice for him and anybody else out there who seriously believes that the MT2 does a brutal distortion. On no account should you ever go to see any of the following bands, Metallica, Slayer, Pantera, Slipknot, Soulfly, Morbid Angel, Nile, Krisiun, Meshuggah, Hate Eternal, Iced Earth, Strapping Young Lad, Shadows Fall, Vader, The Hauntedf,Zyklon or anything of the kind because it will shrivel your tiny fuckin mind if you think that MT2 sound is any way close to brutal. In fact don't ever use any of the following pedals for the v.same reason, DOD Death Metal, Digitech Metal Master, Sansamp GT-2, Ibanez Smash Box, Danelectro Fabtone, Zoom Tri Metal, . These can sound brutal. The MT2 can't.

I just boght this thing brand new. The manual is excellent, it gives you 8 settings to start from and you can take it from there. Some people might find it takes some getting used to to get the exact sound you want but it does such a wide range it's worth the trouble...

I'm using a Fender Strat --> MT-2 --> Yamaha Fifty 210 amp. The amp is old and has an early version of transistor distortion in it so it's great for 70's rock but too weak for some of the hard 90's stuff. This thing has transformed my simple, yet powerful setup, into something I'd take on stage in a second. This pedal has done everything I needed for signal processing so far...

Also, you have to try to get noise out of this thing. Considering the amount of distortion you can get it's very quiet.

I've heard boss pedals were excellent, this thing feels like I could play football with it and then go play a concert and it'll keep coming back for more.

Don't think I'll need support. The website's excellent, the manuals excellent, and it shouldn't ever break.

I play everything from Stevie Ray Vaughan to New Order to Deftones. I've been playing steady for about 4-5 years now and I consider myself intermediate. I played for a long time with just my axe and my amp, and was quite happy, but this pedal has opened up a new door in my song writing. If it got stolen I'd snap, and then buy another one in a second.

I was considering buying a super distortion pedal instead for $69 CDN, but this thing produces so many different sounds it's like 2 or 3 pedals in one. Absolutely perfect for my needs!!!

the mt2 is the first pedal that i ever purchased. it's quite easy to use, but it takes some time to find the sound that you want. since there are about a million possible configurations, you might get tired at first, but don't give up. the manual also gives you an idea on how to use the pedal. pretty helpful if you ask me.

my setup is quite simple: ibanez rg320>boss hyper fuzz>boss super overdrive>boss metal zone>roland cube 15. i'm a living room rocker i suppose. i just started jamming with some guys just a few months ago. the pedal itself sounds great. i can deal a great deal of eardrum assault with this baby. you can get a wide variety of sounds out of it, from 80's thrash to present day blasphemic death. it's just a matter of tweaking until you find the sound you want. it took me about 30 minutes to find my growl/sing setup. like making up some black/death/thrash riffs and throw some happy maiden solo's in between. i personally try to keep the high frequencies low but yet high enough to get some searing leads when i feel like harassing the floyd. in combination with my fuzz (which has a gain boost function), i get the lead sharpness which drives the neighbours crazy. the pedal makes cheap amps ,like my roland, sound like gods of thunder. i like it too because of the punching sound that you can get of it. it's great for terrorizing traditional teachers (boring as hell) and principals (hey, they shouldn't have taken the job in the first place). it pleases me everytime i see them turn pale.

it's a boss, you should never doubt a boss.

nope, it's a boss.

this pedal can take the pepsi challenge anytime. if it got stolen, i would hunt that person like a dog and feed him his insides. after watching the guy have a gourmet meal, i would march down the shop again and get exactly the same pedal. the sound that you can get out of it is simply a statement, it's great for metal, thrash and probably for some sissy rock too. everybody should give this pedal a chance.

Not the simplest pedal but as it does evrerything distortion wise apart from make you a cup of tea its all justified, 4 EQ Buttons, one level and one gain. Twiddle the knobs for your chosen sound.Got it from a pawn shop with box but no maual, Boss manuals usually have suggested settings... could have been stolen but the shop i got it from is legit. For ease of use its a 7 but for functions its a ten

Squire Strat with Kent Armstrong Hotrails-->Boss OD-3 Overdrivce-->Boss DS-1 Distortion-->Boss MT-2 Metalzone-->Boss CT-6 Tuner-->Laney LC 15r Valve amp. Not noisy so far at bedroom levels even with the gain at max. The Knobs are great, nice range of control and thank the lord god of guitar for parametric mid EQ! I wanted a heavier more contmeporray sound than the other two pedals and took a chance on the very low price. Thought maybe this wasnt the pedal, all it would give me is scooped mid, Well I was just a bit wrong there, it'll do whatever you ask it and then beg for some more, This got me the sound I always wanted, mid-focused or scooped it'll do it. Not a copy of any one although it'll hit all the right tones from 70's glam to 80's poodle 90's grunge and '00 nu-metal...

Its a Boss, This category should have a 100 out of 10 mark just for Boss pedals. I.ve seen nuclear bunkers less well built than this.

N/A should never need it, but i'd like a manual and I cant find one on any of the Boss/Roland websites.

Don't be mislead into thinking this is a one trick pony by the name, I was enourmously surprised. In 15 years this is by far the best pedal i've had and i've gone through a lot. Got rid of my Big Muff from the signal chain cos this gets me my rock sound and my 70's sound. Bought it the same day as the DS-1 which is also excellent and those three pedals along with the magnificent clean sound from the amp give me every sound I could need.

The MT-2 is really easy to use. Four eq knobs, sound level, and distortion knob. You can get really nice distortion out of it just after several minutes, but some settings can get lost, when playing with another distortion guitar. That's why I gave 7 - you have to spent some hours to know it well...

I've played through many different amps, with Mayones KTM-2 guitar and I always got my tone. It wouldn't be possible without eq... And eq knobs are most used, exactly two of them - middle, and mid frequency. I almost don't use the distortion one, all the time it's set 3:00, because if set all the way up it produces to much noise.

Every Boss compact pedal is reliable as a tank, and very dependable...

Never dealt with them...

I play mostly heavy metal, and MT-2 is great for it. It is really good for fat riffs. The only bad thing is that you won't get light distortion out of it... But for light dist riffs I have the DS-1 pedal, so there's no problem at all... And if my MT-2 were stolen I would buy it again on next day.

P.S. Sorry for my terrible english =P

Although it took me a good amount of time to find good settings for this, it was well worth it. I didn't really use the manual I got with it, but it gives some suggested settings which didn't suit me much.

I use a Gibson SG Standard through a MT-2 and a CE-5 to a Crate GLX 212 and it sounds sweet! I am able to go from more of a mellower town to a hardcore heavy metal tone. I listen to lots of Nirvana and Metallica, and I can get very great sound for Metallica, and Nirvana I can't quite nail on the dot, but my settings make it sound even better to my opinion.

Tis a boss, it won't break. I would definitely use this in a gig without a backup.

Never dealt with them.

I play lots of metal and alternative rock, and it suits me great. I've been playing for about a year and a half, but I have lots of experience with these pedals since I've tried them out before I bought them. If it were stolen, I would definitely buy it again. What I love about it most is that it can go from an alternative feel to a heavy metal feel, but if you want to turn the low and high frequencies up too much, it sounds crappy. If you like hardcore metal, this pedal is PERFECT for you.

The controls are pretty straight forward, level, low, high, mid, mid frequency, its takes a little creativity to get something you like since theres so many possible combinations. The manual explained everything, included a few sample settings.

I'm using a Squire Strat, into the Metal Zone, into a Crate BFX112. Great, strong sound. I have the distortion turned all the way up, so of course there is going to be some white noise, but I could really care less. I got the Metallica sound I want. Awesome. But if I turn the level up too high, I get a rumbling sound, and i'll have to turn the gain down on my amp.

Boss, its a tank.

Never deal with them.

Perfect for metal, gives me the sound I want. I've been playing for around 14 months, but I learn fast. I would deffinately buy another one if it were stolen or lost. I love how I can get a very unique sound with it, such as an almost dead on tone as in the song "One" by Metallica. The only other pedal that can compare to it, is the Rocktron Rampage, and the Digitech Metal Master. I chose the Metal Zone because its more versatile.

I bought it without user's manual, but it's easy to use. Just read the labels below knobs. It's not that kind of pedal you just plug and get a decent sound. Needs a little tweaking 'cause the equalizer section is very powerful and versatile.

My axe is a brazilian Giannini (a mix of EVH Wolfgang/MusicMan Axis) with a Seymour Duncan's SH-4 JB on bridge and cheap stock puckups on neck (despite I like their sound) with Stra-like tremolo, runing throught a Marshal Valvestate VS30R.
I was looking for a distortion pedal to use in a gig or rehersal situation and was also disapointed with the way the overdrive section in my Marshall sounded at high volumes. My amp lacks of bass and the Meta Zone's Bass Eq did help to bring a more dense sound. It's a very versatile pedal, lots of tonal possibilities. Goes to Nu Metal, Metallica, 70's and 80's Hard Rock, Pantera, even heavy Blues. The mid parametric EQ really do the job. The middle knob is very sensible and have a wide range of cutting an boosting the frequency adjusted by the mid knob. It's the heart of the pedal. Have to spend some time tweaking it. It's too brigth sometimes but the treble knob helps to bring high frequencies down. Strong distortion.
Not to noisy, even at max distortion (using batteries). It's not a tube-like distortion, but you can get surprising crunch sounds.
A carefull adjust in the EQ section of the amp multiply tonal possibilities.

Like others Boss's pedals it's very solid. Just need to take care of the EQs knobs.

I never had to deal with Boss (i bought it used from a friend) ...

Playing Hardcore/Metal/Hard Rock/Heavy Blues for 7 years and aways looking for a very strong distortion pedal that cover a wide reange of stiles, seems that I found a good one. Heavy distorion!!! Really a must have distoriton!

After you buy this dark gray box, you think, "How'm I gonna get a sound out of this?!?" Yes, it's a bit on the complex side, considering that the midrange is a parametric control. That's where the fun lies, though. Fortunately, the manual that came with this is helpful enough, without getting in the way. The sample settings are good enough to begin with, and can be tweaked further. (Or make your own :)) The only setting I didn't agree with was the British Rock setting. Crank the gain and the low end up full for that one, and you've got the black metal sound.

It seems that only the manual's been upgraded. Mine was printed in May of 2002. I tried one of these back in 1993 or 1994, and the amount of gain seems the same.

Just take your time, and you'll get somewhere with this monster of a pedal...or not. It's up to you.

I use this pedal with a Fender Deluxe 85, and a Peavey MicroBass. The guitars are a 1992 Ibanez RG560, and a 94 Gibson LP Studio (on loan from my dad), personally signed by Les Paul himself. Sweet! 8)

As you may expect, high gain settings can be rather noisy with this pedal, esp, with the DIST (gain) set higher than 10 or 11 o' clock. The HUSH pedal serves me well to eliminate the noise. (I have the original 2 threshold version, not the current single threshold one.)

Using the Les Paul, the sound sweetens up nicely, even with the volume and tone knobs up full. I can hear whatever pickup I switch on, no matter the gain level. For instance, when I solo on the neck pickup, the tone is smooth, yet well defined. Using the bridge gives me all the grind and harmonics I want. Yes, this baby can make me sound a bit like Zakk Wylde, even with this LP's standard pickups.

With the RG560, DAMN! The thing just cuts through... the hot single coils here maintain definition, again, no matter the gain level.

Like some posters have said, putting the gain at zero still has some grind to it. That's fine with me, it's like a cranked Marshall plexi, so it's cool. Using effects like chorus, and flanging smooth out the sound, and with an extra EQ and overdrive, I get nice, singing leads.

Even with all this gain, though, I can still clean up the sound, unless the gain is beyond 12 or 1 o' clock. After that, only the gain changes.

Now which artists do I think use this? Perhaps Bernie Versailles of Agent Steel, Engine, and Fates Warning fame. He's had a stompbox based preamp of sorts for the last several years, and has definitely inspired me to get some unique tones. It's made his life a lot easier, that's for sure. His rig is light, yet mind-altering enough for some serious tones. At one time, I think one of the guitarists of Cannibal Corpse used one. The only other guy I can think of is in the band called catherine Wheel. They aren't a metal band in the strictest definition, but no matter.

Can I depend on this? As I said a few years back when I reviewed the Hyper Metal HM-3, Absolutely! I could use this without a backup, just need either extra batteries or a powered pedal board.

I haven't dealt with BOSS, but I'd probably try my local dealer first.

Though I play a bit less metal these days, this still helps me get that sound anytime. There's nothing bad that I can say, really. I know it isn't tube, but I'm fine with that. Most of the guys who say this is a bad effect either have a bad guitar, amp, or possibly a bad cable (yes, that does matter to some degree). Upgrade those things, and you can get some killer tones from this tank.

It took a little time and effort to tweak it, but when it was tweaked it sounded pretty good. Who bothers reading manuals? I dont think MT-2 has been updated. I should look that up

I use this with my Fender Princeton Chorus amp. I added a crate 412 cabinet. I use a epiphone Nuclear Extreme Les Paul and Fender Standard Strat (Mexican) with it. It's not too noisy, but I have it set really well. The pedal sounds good but the low end is a little weak. The high end doesn't cause too much feedback like the built-in distortion. Who likes Fender distortion anyways? Unless you like jazz. I don't try to replicate sounds and tone too much. The metal zone does sound a lot like Kirk Hammet's from Metallica though. Good distortion.

Battery runs out too fast. Especially when you play for hours straight. You can get a power supply for it but its $14.95. I spent way more on batteries then that. I wish I would have kept the Roland battery that came with it. OH, and when you shut down everything, don't keep your metal zone connected to your cords cause it drains. I had that happen one too many times. Holds up like crazy, its built tough.

Never dealt with the company, but that's a good thing. It's really tough.

I play anything from punk, to alternative, rock, metal, to my own style. This pedal works great for everything. I've only been playing for a little over a year, but guitar is my second instrument. I've been playing drums for 6 years and I picked up guitar quick. I'd definetly buy one again if i lost it. Nice Tone!!!! I love the sound, I hate how the battery drains, and I dont like the low end too much. Boss beats out DOD any day in my opinion. Buy it if you want nice distortion, especially if you have a solid state amp.

It took a while to get that good punk sound. Theres a lot of kick in the pedal so you can play almost any harder based type of music with it.

For my style of music i think it sounds great, i also am using it through a combo amp.

When you got a good batterie in that thing your ready to rock man.

Haventhad any problems yet.

I play Punk/Hardcore/Emo, works great for all, but for emo oyu need th right amp for it to.
My set up is a Ibanez s370dx,MT-2,Dunlop Cry Baby,8 Track soundboard mixer, into a Fender Princeton Chorus on a 4x12 marshall 1979' special edition cab

Takes awhile to get it to sound good, need to experiment alot.

Fender Fat Strat with dimarzio evolution hum. in bridge through a Boss CS-3 Compressor, Dunlop Cry Baby, DOD Chorus, DOD Flanger, Dano Delay, Electro-Harmonix Big Muff Pi, Boss Metal Zone into a marshall DSL 2000 100 Head into a 4X12 cab. This pedal sounds very good through a solid state amp but sounded awful through my DSL Tube head it sounds so so digital and crappy the distortion out of my amp kicks the shit out of the metal Zone. The Big Muff sounds incredibly better than the Big Muff

Like a tank

I play rock, alternitive, metal and this pedal absolutly stinks through a tube amp, I repeat do not buy this if u have a tube amp.

Very easy to use. You turns the knobs and you changes the sounds.....

My set-up is: Gibson Les Paul into MT-2 into Marshall 2203 JCM 800 (Use the Low Input or you may not survive the encounter) 100 Watt head into 4x12 custom Splawn cab loaded with Celestion G12H-30's. Actually I borrowed the MT-2 to check it out and have one on the way to me now from eBay.
If you back off the distortion knob, and adjust your guitar volume knob accordingly, you can get much milder rock distortion too. I prefer it cranked up much higher, though.

Seems funny to me that many of the reviews I read who trash the sound quality are using gear that does not necessarily sound all that good (to me at least). Not to single anyone out, but one guy played through a Line6 spider and complained about the tone. My God, man! It's the amp that sucks (IMHO).

Seems tough enough to me....

I take exception with the whole gray market policy with which Roland US screws its customers. Check out the prices of digital pianos in the US vs. Europe and you'll see what I mean.

This pedal is a very good match to my style of play.

Certainly one of the more tweakable distortion/overdrive pedals out there. The quasi-parametric midrange (frequency and boost) EQ control allows you to very accurately attain the exact midrange growl (or scooped sound) you're after, but one must spend some time playing around I suppose.

Other than that, just crank the gain, bass and treble to suit, jump on the magic button and distortion nirvana is on its way.

Gets a 9 because it needs to be tweaked to get the best sounds, otherwise it'd be a 10. Of course, it is the Mid EQ's controlability that is the MetalZone's greatest asset, so don't consider it to be a hindrance, rather a sophisticated control that'll need more than 5 seconds of your time to get all those great tones out of it.

My electrics include a Mex Tele and a Kramar FR 7 string. A Union Jack Edition VOX wah feeds into the MetalZone, which then feeds a Johnson JStation. The J's digital out feeds a Tascam US-428, where I record using Cubasis, Nuendo or ProTools, and monitor out through my computers speakers and sub.

The MetalZone adds an amp type that the JStation doesn't include - a solid state one! While the JStation emulates smooth tube amps with ablomb, the MetalZone's own buzzy grind is surprisingly missing. So the two complement each other well in my rig, especially when I want to pretend I'm Dimebag!

The MetalZone has a hell of a lot of gain, typically too much if you want to hear any definition in your playing. You will always need less gain than you think you do, so take it easy with the More knob.

From minimum setting the MetalZone isn't clean by a long shot, up to about 9-10 o'clock you can get some classic kinda barky Marshall-esque sounds if you're careful with the EQ and your guitar's vol/tone and pickup selection (too much treble especially and you'll get rather unconvincing quacky, burby tone typical of bad practise amps). Relatively convincing AC/DC chords and riffs can be bashed out, though when playing lead lines, it never seems to sound smooth enough (for me, but I think the JStation has spoilt me).

Wind on the gain a bit more and you've got hard rock and metal tones from the 80s to today. Death Metallers will sink the midrange south and chug away to their heart's content, though I feel better and if anything more realistic tones are had by BOOSTING the mids slighty between 2.5KHz and 5KHz. Remember, guitars are midrange-voiced instruments.

Coping the tone of say Dimebag Darrell (Pantera) actually requires a very buzzy, midrangey tone; the extreme bass of their riffs comes from (shock horror) Rex's bass! Again, don't overdo the distortion or you'll lose edge and definition. With a little more gain Dime's lead tone is easy to cope, though clean and articulate picking is needed to keep the notes clear and smooth - of course, if you have a fraction of his skill then you're laughing.

The tones of Metallica, Fear Factory and many others are just a few twists away; again, it's a matter of dialling just enough gain and the right mid setting.

Being such a high-gain unit, feedback, buzz and noise are all part and parcel of the game, especially if you play in a studio surrounded by 5 monitors pouring crap into your single coil pickups. A noise gate would have made an ideal extra function of the pedal. That said, the unit's self noise is very respectable, and it engages with narly a click or thump, just the roar of unmuted strings! I belief BOSS pedals aren't true hard-bypass as such, but I don't notice any deterioration or colouration with the unit inactive, unlike my wah...

Gets a 10 'cuz it sounds like it's suppose to sound, and does it very well.

BOSS pedals are the yardstick for any modern stomp box. Their design is simple yet very rugged and sturdy; the knobs are recessed away from your boot sole, so you don't shift them or rip them off. The unit is weighty enough to stay upright well, and would serve as a lethal weapon should you choose to hurl it at an unruly and unappreciative patron at a low paying gig.

I am a bedroom rockstar, but I'd gig happily without a spare MetalZone, though a spare battery or adaptor would be of course mandatory.

Solid as a rock - 10.

Don't really know to be honest. Roland/BOSS have pretty sucky websites, and don't let you download product manuals, which in this day and age is pretty fookin' poor. Ever other company does; I always scan through the PDF manuals to products I'm considering purchasing to evaluate them properly.... of course, a manual for the MetalZone is largely redundant (it's a folded sheet and doesn't exactly tell you much), but still, it's a pretty poor showing from them.

Having never dealt with them proper, I'll give No Opinion, but considering their web presence as a form of support (which it is) I'd give only a 5.

I play a range of music - blues and jazz to industrial and metal. The MetalZone, along with the JStation's Recifier model, helps fill out the latter requirements wonderfully.

I've been playing for around 10 years, and since day one this pedal has been a classic, usually on the top of the "must by" lists for anyone who plays metal or hard rock. It is a true 'modern' classic and has stuck to BOSS's product catalogs year after year for very good reasons.

For modern grind-style distortion, it is the benchmark. It isn't as smooth as a tube Marshall or Mesa Dual Recto, but you can get close through careful midrange EQ. Call it ironic in this tube-obsessed day and age, but the MetalZone is a great solid-state sounding pedal, and that's why I love it. Takes me 2/3rds of the way to sounding like Dimebag (the other 1/3rds up to my fingers, and let's just say Mr Abbot is in no danger of losing his spot in Pantera to me ;-))

I've listened to other heavy metal-orientated distortion pedals like the DOD Death Medal pedal, which isn't as tonally flexible. And of course, you can't back the damn thing off either. BOSS's other distortion boxes don't have the quasi parametric EQ required to dial in that grind either.

The MetalZone doesn't sound like a tube amp though. If you want to really sound like a cranked Marshall or Dual Recto, buy yourself those amps and two 4x12 cabs. Or, get 8/10ths of the way there with a JStation or Genesis3. However, if you want to sound like a Randall - or armagetton (!) - the MetalZone is THE pedal to get.

Anyone stupid enough to steal this (or anything) from me would be tortured in a most horrible way, respect for any minors reading this prevents me from getting into the gorey details. I'd more than likely replace it with another, although I'm not completely tied to it. Frankly though, I can't think of anything that would better it, especially for the price.

Highly recommended.

Don't you just hate these sort of reviews by spotty gearsnobs like 'Matt', about 2 reviews down?

"Price Paid: US $79
Ease of Use: 4
Well this pedal by itself cannot produce any kind of brutal dist lol.No matter how you tweak it you will always end up with a lackluster unballsy tone.The manual pretty much gives a good idea of how not to use the pedal."

Well actually its one of the most brutal distortions I've heard. Maybe a bit generic at points but it's really versatile. and p*ss easy.

" Sound Quality: 3
Well when I first started playing yrs ago I thought holy shi* this pedal rocks.Than I added a Boss eq and a bbe 264 and actually got a pretty decent usuable dist.But once my playing progressed and my actual knowledge of good gear started.Once you play an actual badass amp with awsome dist you wont go back.Pedals dist are so gay.Ill be getting me a Engl Savage120. "

I am lucky enough to be able to afford most gear I want, and indeed have done so quite a lot. This isn't my favourite pedal by any means, but seeing comments like 'Pedal dist is so gay' makes me laugh. I wonder who told you to say that, Matt? Yes you're right. We shouldn't buy affordable versatile pedals to get different sounds. We should buy new amps and guitars. DUH!

My playing has progressed and knowledge of good gear is quite high (in my opinion!) but that doesn't mean I'm bogged down and limited by my own gear snobbery.

This thing sounds cool i think. and I don't even play metal music!

" Reliability: 10
Well I wished it dies but it always stays alive through everything which I wish wasnt the case damn. "

Erm, sell it? Give it away? What a stupid comment. (and it's 'died', not 'dies'.) Mines lasted ages, too. Long may it last!

N / A

" Overall Rating: 3
Well if your ignorant about real tone this is right up your alley.This has some brutal bee attacking Distortion man.Better watch out and keep away from being stung.Bottom line dont get this thing unless you have the cheapest crappiest squier bullet amp out there. "

Well if 'your' ignorant in general, listen to Matt. Otherwise bear in mind the fact it's Boss's biggest selling compact pedal ever. Fact! I bet Matt is the sort of guy who aspires to be a session musician or something. all I can say is YUCK. In all honesty Matt, it sounds like your gear can't handle such a powerful pedal! Why not buy a better amp?

Sorry, I know I seem a little bitchy here, but I get so appalled by some of the comments made here by pig ignorant gear snobs who don't know what they are talking about. These comments get echoed onto eBay sometimes and, strangely, end up as fact. My advice? Listen for yourself and form your own opinion.

The metal zone pedal is fairly easy to use, finding the right setting ur looking for may be difficult at times, but once u find it, its worth it.

I have it set up with a les paul and it sounds great. It can be a little noisey, but that could be the amp because its not a very good amp, but with bosses noise surppreser the excess noise is minamal.

completly dependable. it truely deserves the term "stomp box"

I've never dealt with them.

overall i enjoy useing this pedal. I would recommand it and the other boss pedals as well. I play heavy metal and jazz, and i use the metal zone for both styles. if it were stolen i would most likely buy it again.

The MT-2 is pretty simple to use, 4 knobs. Finding the right sound can take a while though, i suggest sitting down and playing around with it until you get the right sound for you.

Once i found the right combination of knobs i got a really gud sound out of it using my BC Rich Warlock. The amp i have is useless but the pedal still sounded good, and variety can be found if it is played around with enough.

its a boss, nuff sed.

If it got stolen i would definatly buy a new one straight away, I play thrash/heavy metal and no other pedal ive encoutered gives the same heavy sound as the MT2.

It's not difficult to figure out what the knobs mean: level, distortion, and a 4-band eq. But it's definitely hard to get a great tone out of it unless you sit around and obsess over it. Give it some time, sleep on it, and you'll find the tone you're looking for.

The presets in the manual were helpful in suggesting the range of tones that the box can produce, but the settings themselves weren't all that great.

My setup: Fender MIM Fat Strat --> BOSS MT-2 Metal Zone --> BOSS CH-1 Not-So-Super Chorus --> Electro-Harmonix Big Muff --> Peavey Studio Pro 112 (solid state).

With my amp set up accordingly, I get more than enough bass out of the Metal Zone. It sounds good at low volumes, albeit quite processed and somewhat too bassy. When I turn the amp up to band practice level, however, the Metal Zone gives enough gain and bass for me to have a solid rhythm sound with mostly clear palm muting. It still has that "processed" feel, but what can one expect from a $90 pedal? Luckily, there isn't a loss in volume like there was on the DS-1 I had been using, so switching between soft and loud within the same song is a definite can-do without tone or volume loss. But be warned, your "real" clean sound will quickly turn into loud, bassy, and "modeled."

Combined with the chorus, the Metal Zone sounds like crap (and don't even ask about the Big Muff). "Does not play well with others."

Leads definitely suffer. They really don't have definition and are covered in goop. Although my settings could be to blame, it seems to lose clarity more and more as I move up the fretboard and onto higher strings.

I can get a decent Nirvana sound out of the Metal Zone by turning the distortion down and the mids up. But Nirvana isn't really what I want to play. Using the chorus for clean, I can get a mediocre Metallica-imitator sound, but again, I'm not interested in playing their stuff either. The pedal fits my own sound for the most part in that it is loud and bassy.

If I had a hundred dollars for every time a BOSS broke...I'd still have no money.

I play guitar in a three-piece alternative/grunge band and the pedal fits my style for the most part. It's not perfect...nothing is...but it does what I need it to do. It's better than any other distortion pedal I have, except for perhaps the Big Muff (which covers completely different territory anyway). I wouldn't recommend this to anal tone freaks, because it definitely has a processed feel. Cool for beginner distortion, though; it kicks the asses of your friends' DS-1s, eh?

If you play a lot of rhythm and palm mute extensively, I'd say that the Metal Zone is a good bet. But don't get it if you're lead-heavy or want an authentic tube tone (in which case it seems obvious to just get a tube amp anyway...what do you expect for $90?).

Very easy to use, with excellent controls, an informative booklet and easy access to the controls. It's like every other boss pedal.

I use a home-made guitar with seymour duncan pickups and a mahogany body through various pedals into a crate gfx1200H head to either a homemade cab or marshall cab, both with celestions. This pedal sounds great through my setup. I could not ask for a better distortion. It's very versatile and you're able to create various distortion sounds through it. Right now i have actually acheived a nice fuzz tone, but it's because the battery is dying, but the pedal still sounds great. I'm able to get the sound of bands like Lostprophets, 311, Limp Bizkit, and many more.

I can definitely depend on it. It's very sturdy although, i had one that i bought used and it would crack and pop, but i don't know what the previous user had done to it. But i've replaced it and the new one is excellent. No need to gig with a backup unless you have a fear of losing battery power, but as i said before i like the sound of it with low battery power too.

i haven't dealt with them

I gave it a 9 only because even with the distortion all the way down, there is still a lot of distortion. If you want just a light distortion sound this is not the pedal for you. But otherwise it's an excellent pedal. I also own the boss ds-1, i think it's called, and the metal zone blows it away. Unless you want the tone of the ds-1 don't get it, spend the extra money to get the metal zone, it's well worth it.

not confusing at all

i like this thing. i run my fender strat through it to a marshal mg80rcd. i can get from scooped mid sound to bottom heavy crunch. ofcourse, it helps if you downtune to C. i usually turn the bass to about 3/4 wide open, same w/ treble. its best if you turn the distortion to about 1/4 wide open, and turn the level up.

never had a problem

like i said, no problems

i been playing for 7 years, and this pedal fits my style, ecspecially on a clean channel. i play everything from redneck fingerpicking to downright nasty durge metal.

Well this pedal by itself cannot produce any kind of brutal dist lol.No matter how you tweak it you will always end up with a lackluster unballsy tone.The manual pretty much gives a good idea of how not to use the pedal.

Well when I first started playing yrs ago I thought holy shi* this pedal rocks.Than I added a Boss eq and a bbe 264 and actually got a pretty decent usuable dist.But once my playing progressed and my actual knowledge of good gear started.Once you play an actual badass amp with awsome dist you wont go back.Pedals dist are so gay.Ill be getting me a Engl Savage120.

Well I wished it dies but it always stays alive through everything which I wish wasnt the case damn.

Never needed help.So I cant really say Ill just give a neutral score.

Well if your ignorant about real tone this is right up your alley.This has some brutal bee attacking Distortion man.Better watch out and keep away from being stung.Bottom line dont get this thing unless you have the cheapest crappiest squier bullet amp out there.

Well.. I think that getting a good sound is easy when you've got money to buy a lot of pedals and fx.. but mt-2 fits very nice an 80's metal sound like metallica, but i still couldnt get a good sound of it for new metal stuff. It's a little noisy, and it doesnt sound very clear when distortion is high, theres a schhhhhhhhhhhhh behind that i still couldnt rip off... People come here and say this pedal is a junk, but i think its a great distortion pedal because of eq, and to get a more pro sound i think it can come close but not enough, so i will try to use the ge-7 with it and see what happens... theres no way that mt-2 is a crap, but its also not perfect as i was told before buying it.

Its all about eq, so i believe this combo with ge-7 may help a lot and make it sound pro. but it has a large range of distortions able to be made with it, so i dont complain a lot about it, maybe its just me that couldnt adjust it to my sound... its a good pedal, a very nice distortion, but alone wont make miracles

i think that on a gig it may sound a little noisy if you dont compress it

well... i will say it again, cause its a very cool pedal, but i wil try the ge-7 to get a larger range of sounds, because it wont do miracles alone and its very dirty, cant get a clear and crunched dist. with it

very easy to use, but there are very high
frequencies that are very unusable! TOO SHARP! &
TOO HARSH!

im sing it with marshall 8040, duncan-equipped
ibanez.
no matter how i try to equalize it, still,
HARMONICS ARE VERY HARD TO GET!!! i always use
harmonics so i'm good w/ it, but it's better to
use DS-1boss or sansamp GT-2 instead. i think this
pedal was designed for people who are not using
HARMONICS, in their playing.

again, you can have one if you don't want
HARMONICS! i wouldn't use it in a gig! this is
just a useless backup if someone borrowed a
distortion! IT DOESN'T SCREAM!

i play any music, but mostly shred, blues and some
fusion. i've been playing for 8 years, i hope they
did not create such pedal junk like this one. if
you want a reliable pedal, go get a GT-2, i have
one! and it's the secret to my sound. don't waste
your money with this metalzone , it's not for
professional use. yes this is indeed the most
popular boss pedal, why? because many people talk
about how hard to produce pinch/natural/tapped
harmonics with this piece of junk! i suggest for
anyone to appreciate all boss, but PLEASE! not
with these!!!

I play it with all the knobs just about straight up.

With my Les Paul Custom, a 100 watt Marshall and the Metal Zone, my set up sounds just like Megadeth's rig on their Countdown To Extinction album. If you like Megadeths sound here then you'll dig the MetalZone.
Of course you have to know how to play a guitar to get a good sound too. I wonder if the people here who think this pedal is weak can sound good on anything.
Boss pedals are used by the best bands in the world. Van Halen, Pink Floyd, SoundGarden, Tool and Nirvana are just a few high dollar bands that used Boss pedals.
So don't let some adolecent punk who blows his cash on amps and pedals and then says they sound like junk twist your mind. I good musician can make anything that's in tune and working properly at least sound decent.

better than all the rest

They suck

I've been playing lead and rhythm metal guitar before Van Halen hit the scene in 1978. I learned the leads from the masters like Vivian Cambell, John Sikes, Michael Schenker, Scorpions, Priest, Ratt, Van Halen, Iron Maiden, Megadeth and Randy Rhoads.
The Metal Zone is the perfect box for this kind of metal music. The lead tones are super fast with smooth and clear definition and sweet harmonics and the ryhthm chords are solid in your face with a great crunch and burn.
I've got dozens of guitars and amps and I've played everything. I've found that almost everything sounds at least decent when in qualified hands.
I've played through hundreds of old Marshalls. The Metal Zone sounds as good as the best overdriven Marshalls.
I've played DOD, Dan Electro, MXR, Electro Harmonix, Ross, TC electronics, ART, Digitech, Jekyl and Hyde, ShredMaster, Roger Myers, Klon and more and while all these companies [except Dan Electro] make decent distortion boxes I prefer the Metal Zone over all of these with the vintage Marshall Shredmaster coming in second.
A good old Marshall half stack, an old Les Paul, a delay pedal and a Metal Zone is my choice for the best screaming heavy metal sounds I can create.
If your bummed with the Metal Zone but still playing on junk like a Fender M-80 .... well, it's no wonder you sound bad.

not the easiest pedal in the world to get the right sound out. its good if you like fiddling around with the settings until it sounds right but if youre a dodgy plug in and play kind of guitarist just dont bother and buy a ds-1 or something.

i use an ESP kirk hammett signiture into a cry baby, then into a rocktek compressor, into the mt-2, into a ibanez tubescreamer, into a rocktek chorus, into a vox phaser(if anyone has any info on this please let me know cause i was given it second hand by a friend) and into a ibanez digital delay, going into a crate 120watt head and laney 4x12. the mt-2 is good if you want a crazy scooped mid metal pantera like/metallica kinda sound but not good for anything else as it has minimal tone. you can at a push get some sweet vai sounds out but be prepared to use a tubescreamer pedal aswell as the mt-2.it CAN sound quite amazing for lead guitar and gives wonderful sustain but it takes quite a while to find the sound you want cause it has about 700 knobs.(technically 6.. ahem.)so to sum up; good for metal, shite for everything else.

its built like a brick outhouse; you could(probably)throw it off a building, plug it in and continue to play, so its definately dependable but i would keep my tubescreamer as a backup incase one of the jack sockets went sketchy or summat.

never had any probs

its the right pedal for metal, as i said before, but for anything else its not wonderful as it lacks tone. if it was stolen or lost i think i would buy it again as it is the best sounding metal pedal out there in my opinion. the sound is particularly loveable if youre into that kind of thing and the amount of knobs can be a downside but im one of those, who at gigs kneels down now and again, to adjust it.

It's not easy to use because its not a useful pedal

I bought this thing because the distortion on my Fender M-80 amp sucked pretty bad. This pedal provided absolutely no improvement, and for lead playing, sounded even worse (cut off all the squeal).
Like any piece of gear that isn't broken, if you fiddle around with it enough you might find a sound or two that might prove useful. For instance, this thing is OK for the more slow and doomy forms of death metal (like Six Feet Under or Obituary). It can get a deep and ultra distorted sound, but too mushy. It ruins all the dynamics in your playing. It's not good for the faster styles of metal, and useless for all other forms of music. I laughed at the review that said it can nail a Judas Priest sound, as its way too buzzy, and i laughed at all these reviews on here that gave this thing a 10... what kind of drugs are these kids on?

This pedal is super reliable, ensuring you will have a shitty tone for many years to come. Trust me, you'd be better off if this thing broke so you'd have to go out and find some real gear.

BOSS has insulted us all for even putting this crap on the market. Screw BOSS

If your amp has shitty distortion, buy a new amp, preferably with tubes. Don't try to upgrade it with this pedal. I may not be able to get a good tone because my gear sucks, but i know what a guitar distortion should sound like, because i'm a fan of good music. If all you do is play slow ultra-doomy death metal and can't afford anything better then buy it, that's ALL its good for.

Come on now! It is just a stomp box!

My setup is: Ibanez-550ltd (incredible fret board) (DiMarzio super3 on the bridge)->Boss-DD3 digital delay ->Boss CE-5 chorus ->Boss MT-2 Metal zone ->Ibanez-Tube king ->Soundcraft 4-channel mixer ->Peavey Envoy and Marshall JCM-800 head with several cabinets.

Ok. Introduction: After 7 years of experience I believe that only a good amp (Head & cabinet) can combine the sound of your taste with the quality that you hear from professional bands. All these stom boxes are just trying to give you the sound of your taste (most of the times they try to imitate the sound of an expensive amp) but they can?t bring you quality (that?s why they are cheap). So, don?t expect from any distortion/overdrive/fuzz stom box to hear a cd quality sound.

Now, I bought MT-2 for nu metal sound. I feel that this pedal was made for a Metallica sound. It has the best Metallica sound I?ve ever heard on a stomp box. You can get some very good Slayer tones too. It has a strictly 80?s thrash metal sound. Although it destroys the guitars and guitarists personality it is the best for this sound. For every other sound there are better stomp boxes out there. You can get many sounds but everything else except 80?s thrash will sound crappy. The best nu metal sound you can have (low: full, high: 10 o?clock, mid: scooped, mid freq: 10 o?clock, dist: almost full) sounds pathetic, impersonal, empty and cheap. This pedal has no 90?s felling.

I through it on the door and it still works (need someone to fix my door)

Never need them

If you want a 90's modern sound don't even think of buying it. If you are aware of 80?s thrash sound this pedal is for you. If it were stolen or lost I would go for an Ibanez SM-7 or a big muff (I am gonnna buy one of those in some weeks).I put an 8 because of the incredible (for the money) 80?s thrash metal sound.

easy

Listen to Judas Priests Screaming For Vengeance album. Add a touch of chorus and then delay behind the MetalZone and you will have totally nailed this albums guitar sound. Not that Judas Priest is all the MetalZone can do but it sure does NAIL [duplicate exactly] Glens and KKs guitars tone hands down. I've been playing Judas Priest songs for almost 20 years! I have been playing the MetalZone for 7 years.

I have $10,000 worth of equipment and I almost always have the MetalZone on.

It can capture old Aerosmiths tone as well. Today I was playing the lead to Walk This Way and with my old Les Paul and Fender amp I was impressed with the tone.

The MetalZone sounds killer in my world. I usually have the distortion set at 10 oclock and at lower volume use a compressor in front of it to get the sustain of a louder amp. Turning the distortion beyond 10 oclock and the floor noise gets annoying quickly. I would bet that the folks turning the distortion beyond 11 oclock are the same people giving the MetalZone low scores in the sound quality catagory. Sometimes I play with the distortion between 8 and 9 oclock [that's almost off] and still there is plenty of distortion for old classic rock tones.

Daily use for 7 years and not one problem yet.

I doubt it

I like using all kinds of pedal for all kinds of music but the MetalZone is my most used pedal.

Remember to get a good clean sound with your equipment before trying to dial in the MetalZone. After you've got a good sound without distortion then activate the MetalZone and set it up to work together with the clean sound.

And if you've got the distortion level beyond 11 o'clock....I doubt you'll be very happy with your tone.

BOSS MT-2 METAL ZONE
This unit fulfills my needs for a biting, growling sound. It took a bit of tweaking to get the exact sound I'm looking for. I never even looked at the manual, because I know how to use these pedals by heart.

Here's my setup.
1992 Washburn N2>Crybaby Wah>Boss MT-2> Gallien-Krueger 112 power amp combo.
If you're looking for a warm tone, you'll be trying and trying to find it with this unit. This is for hard rock and metal, and the sound is not 'warm', it's 'hot'. I mean this thing burns, I play Nuno Bettencourt and Extreme music, tinged with blues. I play lots of burning leads and chunky, funky rhythms, and this thing just burns. I love it. I've never turned it up very loud to see if it gets noisy or not (I live in a cramped area), but it has made people hold their ears when I switch it on from clean (Take that as a clue?).
But all in all I LOVE the sounds from this pedal. At first, I thought it sounded a bit nasal, but that's due to the high amount of gain in which it dishes out. It just blisters for lead and slams for rhythm, no matter what genre of rock you play, I guarantee you'll love this!

Sheesh, you can build a house with these. It will outlive you, your kids, your grandkids, and the roaches.

I play music from the band Extreme, as well as my own style of blues shred. This pedal sounds just wicked for scorching leads, and Pantera-style rhythm sounds if you have humbuckers. You can get excellent harmonics, and tapped sounds out of this, and it's especially good for a hair-metal sound. The only thing I wish that it had was a "Scoop" control, as it sounds a bit nasal at times. I've been playing around with guitars all my life, and I've heard numerous bands, artists, and just plain old guitar players play with these. If it was stolen I'd beat the crap out of whoever did it.
Boss makes great distortion, I hope they don't discontinue these!
Peace out, and feel free to contact me.
Cody

There is a lot of adjustment and tweaking for this pedal, so at first it can seem like a real challenge.... but in reality, it is not very hard to get a good sound from it.

The Metal Zone is the very best pedal I have found to get a variety of sounds in the "metal" genre. I play in an industrial band, lemur (www.lemurcult.org), and this pedal sounds great for those harsh sounds that are necessary for such a style. I use this pedal for both my guitar and my bass.. HELL, I have even used it in my vocal FX chain!! It is the epitome of metallic sound!

I know this is cliche... but Boss freakin' roX in this department... I collect Boss pedals, the sounds they produce vary from muddy to marvelous... but the one thing they have in common is they are TOUGH! Go ahead, I dare you to try and even bust it!

never had to deal with support...

As mentioned before, I play mostly industrial and experimental thrashish metal... and this is a great pedal for such a sound. The versatility is incredible. I can get low muddled growling, as well as clear high-pitched scratching. The pedal is excellant to have in your FX loop with other pedals... OR EVEN BY ITSELF. I would suggest you try it with yuor bass as well. Such a combination (with hi-end boosted) gives a great scratching sound when you slam the strings. I use this pedal on most every guitar riff I produce... for samples of my music, check out lemur at ... www.lemurcult.org

Very simple very easy. Just the knobs could be more available.

MT-2 has an image and tone of current nu-metal bands. All though I am pretty sure that none of them uses this cheap pedal. Overdrive and distortions are available. And somekind of fuzz (don't exept too much of it). Everything is loud so all of you Willie Nelson fans.. don't bother. Overall there is a tone that sounds Deftones or something...Noisy. No hum though.

Dude it's like a rock!!!

I do play Metal but I don't think you can get for example a systemofadown distortion out of this box. I wish I knew what Daron is using. Black Sabbath's sounds come out pretty easily. They aren't perfect though. Palm mutes are strong if I want 'em to be. But There is always this ugly flavour in the sound that I don't like. I' ve tried to cover it by tweaking. And now it's not dominating so much.

Very easy to use. I dialed my tone in within 2 minutes. There is low mid mid freq and high eq settings, but the only ones that you really have to work to get your tone is the mid and mid freq, the rest is cake.

I use a custom made flying v (left handed) alder body with ebony fretboard and a mahonghy neck with emg 81's. This pedal has very smooth distortion and great palm muting. It can get noisy at times, but all you ahve to do is keep your volume on your guitar at 7 or 8. You can get plenty of tones with this, but they are all heavy. The only thing that can make this better is an eq pedal from boss or dod (the boss and dod work exactly the same and same quality) and filter out all the mids and that takes away alot of the noise.

It's a boss ya boners, boss pedals will be the only thing left on the planet after the earth gets nuked a few times during world war III

who cares

Great great great great pedal, all i recomend is getting a power supply cause it eats up batterys. Best way to go is to get one off ebay because it doesn't matter how long its been used, used or new they work the exact same

It seems almost pointless writing a review for this thing, since there are over 700 already, but here it goes. I'd have to say that it is pretty easy to use for a pedal. There are more buttons than most pedals have, but it's not a big deal. Like anything, getting a decent sound takes some time, you just have to work with it. Manual isn't much help, it gives you some presets, but ignore them, get your own sound. Maybe they are good to get some direction.

Obviously being called the metal zone, it has a metal sound to it. I can go from an Iron Maiden sound to an Iced Earth or Slayer sound easily. In my opinion, it sounds great for heavy rhythms, but kind of sucks if you want a good lead sound. Leads tend to sound too harsh, or sometimes crackly on this thing. But for riffs and power chords, I love it. A lot of assholes say that it sucks because it sounds too fake, and tube amps are better, but I think it sound great for the price, you can really do a lot with it, as far as rhythms and riffs go. I use a Gibson '76 Explorer, a Boss Gt6, the Mt2, and a Marshall MG15RCD amp(dont laugh, my tone will eat yours alive :) Contrary to popular belief, all guitars do not sound the same through it. My friend's Jackson Soloist and my shitty BC Rich Bronze Warlock both sounded COMPLETELY different from each other, as did my Explorer. It's just a matter of what you use with the pedal, and how you tweak it.

Very dependable, never had a problem. Would definitely use without a backup. Sucks up batteries like crazy, but that's why there are adapters.

Never dealt with them.

I play hardcore metal(similar to Iced Earth, Iron Maiden, you know, music that requires real talent, not that shitty nu-metal or rap-metal that seems to require sucky guitar ability), and instrumental shred(Vai, Malmsteen). Mostly it's my own style, a blending of the two I mentioned. The metal zone suits the rhythm side of my playing very well, great for Iced Earth-inspired triplet riffs. For lead tones I use my Gt6, which is absolutely excellent. I've only been playing for almost two years, but believe me, Im no novice. I can play lead like Yngwie, and write songs and play riffs like Iced Earth. Thats what happens when you practice hardcore for 5 or 6 hours during the week, and 8+ on the weekends. Mwa ha ha! Anyway, it is necessary for my rhythm sound for now, maybe until I get a tube amp. For now though, it does exactly what it should, create great heavy rhythm tones for hardcore metal riffs.

It's got more knobs than most distortion pedals, but is pretty easy to tweak.

Now here's the deal. I have been playing for fifteen years, and my tastes run from jazz to surf to the Talking Heads - so what the heck am I doing with this pedal? I use a ton of effects, but this one is always in my main performance board:

Strat - Boss Tuner - Boss Compressor - TS9 - TS9 - MT2 - Vintage MXR 100 - Voodoo Trem - Ibanez Echo Box - 69 Fender Twin Blackfaced to 64' specs

My main sounds are very straty / fender with a nice amount of compression, and for slightly overdriven sounds the TS9 can't be beat. But what about times where you want a nice compressed lead tone, or serious chunkiness out of a set up designed for clean bell tones?

This is why I use this pedal. I've tried almost everything out there, Fulltone to Sansamp to MXR, and I have yet to try a better Marshall-in-a-pedal box. Listening to tone snobs on this page turn their noses up at this pedal says to me that they dissmissed the pedal without giving it a chance.

The only thing that would ever replace this pedal in my setup would probably be some kind of Marshall preamp, or perhaps a Menatone KOB, but I doubt it. If you really dig on clean sounds, you know a nice American strat thru a WELL MAINTAINED vintage Fender tube amp with a little compression and delay is THE sound. Unfortunately, it also limits what you can do for crunch and overdrive, and the MT-2 has performed rather well in many live situations.

Never have had a problem.

Like I said - many tone snobs here, who think this is a beginner's toy - not true. Just my two cents here...

But I would be interested in other people's opinions for good distortion pedals, but, there are very few I haven't heard.

It takes quite a bit of fiddling to set it up just right, and any EQ changes I make on my amp really come back to haunt me when I turn on the pedal. Lots and lots of adjustments needed to get a good sound.

PRS Santana SE -> Metal Zone -> Fender Bassman 25 (I play bass too, and this amp is great for both). Occasionally I put a Boss Flanger and Dunlop Wah into the mix, but I rarely use distortion when those are on.
It's only noisy when the Dist is turned up really high. When I keep it around 12:00 all's well. It'll take a while, but there are some really great sounds to be had out of this thing. These days I basically have one setting on my amp and MT2 and just turn the Dist knob up for "metal", down for "overdrive".
This thing can do everything from Yngwie to AC/DC to Slayer if you take the time to tweak it. BUT, the leads always sound a bit harsh. Great for fast Slayer-ish shredding, but not-so-great if you're looking for a Dave Gilmour-ish sound (although I managed to get a pretty convincing "Time" solo sound out of it once).

And if you're wondering, my EQ settings:
Amp -> Bass 11:00, Mid 9:30, Treble 3:00
MT2 -> Level 9:00, Low 2:00, High 3:00, Mid Freq 11:00, Mid 11:00, Dist 12:00-4:00 (depends on what I need it for).

Built like a tank. I stomp on it with all my 240 pounds and it's still working great.

Never had to deal with them (see above).

I play anything from Lynyrd Skynyrd to Mozart to Dream Theater to Slayer. This works great for the most part. I've been playing guitar and bass for about 5 years now, and also own a Squire P-Bass Special and some fender acoustic/electric.
This pedal can be hard as hell to use, but it can really fit any genre, not just metal.
If you're looking for a simple little stomp box, don't bother with this. Buy a Rat or something. The more time I spend with this the more I begin to love it.

Well this pedal is real easy to get a sound out of it i mean i was there for what 5 or 15 min playing with it till i got the sound i whanted.the only problem is that some times the nobs get in the whay with other nobs. thats why i give it and 8

am using a jackson dx10 runing it threw a digitech rp3 into a laney all tube 212 amp.so far am getting the sound i whant from it the only problem is if u whant real tube sounding distortion dont look at the boss metal zone this is for Metal and nothing more.but am sad to say that am looking for real bad ass distortion like cannibal corpse dying fetus slipknot ext if u whant that u need a bad ass tube head like a mesaboogie or a marshall running threw some preamps but i dont have the money for that so the metal zone has to take its plase it dosent stand its own near that but what does all i no its doing a good job playing the music i play

so far nothing has happen to it i mean it fell of my bed i kicked when playing and it fell of stage but it still works just as good

never called

i play death black hardcore grindcore and some soft metal like diturbed and it gets the job done.ive been playing for about 2 and half years. if it was stolen i would proboly buy it or save up for a rack effects. like i saied for metal metal only if u like tube destortion then dont buy this pedal

This pedal is pretty easy to use if you know what you want to do. My suggestion is to use one of the ideas shown in the manuel and then mess around with that a bit

I am using fairly beginner equpiment, i use an epiphone g-400 and at little marshall practise amp and i find the distortion great. If you put the level below 12 o'clock it wont be two load yet i find the distortion to still sound nice

i havent had a problem with it so far so i guess its pretty reliable.

haven't had to deal with them.

I play mostly punk but somtimes a bit of metal, i find i can get nice sounds for both genres simply buy adjusting the mids (i have my lows and highs nearly on full) If it were stolen i would look into getting it again only but i would proably get a better amp first.

If you have a shitty little one channel amp (like me) then i suggest you get this pedal, the distortion is far better than the crappy distortion you get on a practise amp.

It's not so hard, there is just so many sounds you can get
out of this box, that you need to know what you're looking for.

It's called Metal Zone, so if you want some nice smooth overdrive,
you don't pick this. This is just perfect for heavy metal music and
soloing, although I have used this in alternative rock, too.
It's harsh, but very nice and compressing. Usually I keep the 'dist'
knob at 12 o'clock, and get really nice pinch harmonics and stuff with
that.

I've had this for seven years, and it has never let me down.

See 'Reliability' ;)

If this was stolen, I would buy a new one and not hesitate about it.
I have Tokai LP model, some other stomp boxes and then Marshall JCM800 2210 head with 4x12 cab. The sound that these things make together is
just perfect.
I have looked for other distortion pedals, too.
I have had BOSS Mega Distortion, which I didn't like at all, I've tried
BOSS Distortion, which was better (than MD), and so on. I have Blues
Driver which I use as a clean boost, but I can't think that there
could be better box for heavy music than Metal Zone.

OKAY HERE IS THE SCOOP! THIS PEDAL IS LIKE A PISSED OFF HOT ROD. I'VE BEEN PLAYING OVER TWENTY YEARS AND I KNOW MY SHIT WHEN IT COMES TO GEAR. THE BEST WAY TO GET A GOOD TONE OUT OF THIS THING IS TO SOMEHOW KEEP ALL THE GAIN AND AT THE SAME TIME TONE DOWN THE FUSS. THE BEST WAY THAT I HAVE FOUND IS TO RUN A VOLUME PEDAL AFTER IT. THE VOLUME PEDAL WILL SUCK A LITTLE BIT OF THE FLAVOR OUT OFF THE PEDAL AND BELIEVE ME IT MAKES THIS PEDAL SOUND SWEET. I PLAY THROUGH A WALL OF 4X12'S AND MORE SHIT THEN ANY BODY SHOULD EVER OWN,BUT YOU CAN GET A GOOD SOUND FROM THIS THING.

VERY SIMPLE, I GO DIRECTLY INTO A BBE SONIC MAXIMIZER BEFORE MY EFFECTS, THIS WAY IS DOESN'T MAKE MY DISTORTION TO BRITTLE,BUT REALLY MAKES THE CLEANS SOUND PERFECT. NEXT INTO A CRYBABY THEN OTHER EFFECTS THOSE IN LINE WITH THE METAL ZONE. NEXT IS A DOD VOLUME WHICH I RUN INTO MY ART PROCESSEOR.IT'S PRETTY COOL RUNING YOUR VOLUME BEFORE YOUR DELAY, GOOD FOR SOME SYMPHONY STYLE EFFECTS. FROM THERE INTO A SUPER C HUSH , AND THEN INTO MY HEADS AND CABINETS.

THIS THING COULD TAKE A SHOT GUN BLAST.

I HAVE TRIED SO MANY AMPS. I HAVE LISTENED TO SO MUCH BULLSHIT FROM SO MANY PEOPLE LIKE , SOLID STATES OF DULL, TUBE AMPS ARE FUZZY,REAL PROFESSIONALS LIKE USE PEDAL DISTORTION. ALL THAT IS A LOAD OF CRAP. WHAT WORKS FOR ME MIGHT NOT WORK FOR SOME ONE ELSE, THERE IS ALWAYS GOING TO BE SOMETHING THAT WILL WORK. TRY OUT EQ'S, AND NOISE GATES , AND SONIC MAXIMIZERS THE THREE THINGS ALONE MAKE A WORLD OF DIFFERENCE. THIS PEDAL ROCKS , AND IT CAN SOUND GOOD.

it's easy to use it's not like you need a degree to work it out.Saying that ut is worth spending time playing around with the frequency knob to find some interesting sounds

I normally play a gibson les paul standard with emg 81's into a marshall jcm900.A lot of people seem to like slagging this pedal but to be honest it isn't going to give you the sound of a great tube amp distortion.I find the best way to use this pedal is to turn the 1st gain knob(sensitivity)on my amp all the way up and then put the distortion on the pedal to about 3 o'clock, then turn the second gain knob up as high as you can before it stars to give a load of feedback.I find this the best way to get a really brutal distortion with this pedal and indeed any distortion pedal.The trick is to let your amp do the driveing and seen as I have a okish amp I get a good sound this way.I always prefer playing with my amps distortion which is just brilliant in my eyes but it doesn't have a seperate clean channel so if I have to go from clean to distortion in a song I need a pedal.This is not my favourite distortion pedal thats my Rat 2(it can mimic the drive on my amp nearly perfect) but if you like heavy this will do it brilliantly.It sounds pretty good on a completely clean amp with the pedal cranked but for best results do as I said above and get the amp to brake it up.Overall as far as metal pedals go this is the best I've used in this prie range

boss in some countries they class these as deadly weapons there like a brick you could even build a house out of them(just kidding)

pretty good response time for e-mail

I play original stuff in a band named Rust we're a hard rock ,Heavy metal outfit.Ozzy, Metallica,Alice in chains,Sabbath,etc.Its a pretty good fit but Its not for everything.Every pedals got a certain thing its good at this is a metal distortion not a country pedal remember that.And remember it's not a tube amp in a box ok.

Well.....since it's so hard to get a good sound out of it I'll give it a 3.

Well....I currently use a Fulldrive2, SD-1/808, DS-1, Vintage Big Muff through a Traynor YCV40 all tube amp. To get to the point this pedal is horrible. It's sounds like a bee is flying around in my amp when I play lead and for rhythm it is way to nasally sounding. I could go on and on about how bad this pedal sounds, but I'm not.

It's a boss, of course it is reliable.

Never dealt with them.

Don't buy it.

It's pretty simple, plug in the chord and tweak the knobs. The manual is ok, provides some presets which are too terribly great, but a start.

Currently I run this pedal along with an Ibanez Black Noise pedal and a cheap Korg Overdrive pedal through a Roland KC-500 keyaboard amp. It can be quite noisy, but you have to tweak it to your style. I don't really try to play other atrists songs, but I can get some great distortion out of this baby. People on here have said it's twangy and bad distortion, but I play indsutrial music and it has the right amount of twang and fits in well this my other pedals. Could be a better blend between the twang and bass though.

It's a Boss, built to last. I've had it for years and it's still there for me. I wouldn't need a backup.

I never had to deal with Boss, but if their service is as good as their products, it's should be tops.

I play industrial music and this gets enough twang and bass that it's wonderful for the type I play. Mixed with the Ibanez Black Noise Pedal and a Korg Overdrive pedal which I use to quiet the distarion and bust out when I turn the overdrive off, it sounds awesome. I've been playing for at least 10 years. I play a Parker Fly Deluxe Guitar. I'd definitely replace it if lost. I love how it can get that indstrial twang, but it does sound kinda band if you don't have knobs in right places, so adjust wisely. I'd recommend it to everyone into heavy stuff. It IS a metal pedal, but it works for industrial music too. Try it out, you'll be surprised.

The first thing i would like to say is that i'm a newbie (a real one, i just play bass for a couple of months).
It took me an hour to get what i want. I think it's easy to use, but for me, the ease of use is not important when you talk about a device with six knobs. Maybe because i worked with a lot of effects and instruments (i'm sound engineer and i play piano and synths).

I tried some distortions from Boss (ODB-3, DS-1, OS-2) and i couldn't get what i want: a fat sound, with distorded basses and no fuzz and not too much treble. Then I used the MT-2 ...
For me, it sounds far far better than the other Boss distortions. My bass sounded like a guitar with the other pedals. This one seems to be built for me.
I plugged the device between my bass and my amp, and was not satisfied with the sounds i could get just by tweaking the pedal. Then, i used an equaliser between the amp and the pedal. What a world of difference !
It's still a bit noisy but it's good for me.
I use it with a good Jazz Bass copy with Seymour Duncan pickups (neck pick-up at max, bridge and tone nearly at min), a Ibanez SW35, a home-made tube equalizer and a CEB-3 (Bass chorus).
What a blowing sound with such a cheap setup.
The sound of this pedal alone is certainly crappy, but it's possible to make it really amazing.

I never saw a boss pedal not working. I only had, one time, to solder the battery wire.

I really don't know

I don't know what to say. I like this pedal :)