Boss MT-2 Metal Zone

i think at first the EQ is a little mad, but then you find a settin you like and then you can just mess with it slighly for different sound.
its awesome, my freinds envy it so i dont know why people talk crap about it.

hear this pedal in action
i use it in my band
www.myspace.com\shottopiecesband

there you can hear it live and in recording :)

its great
crunchy as you like
pinch harmonics rip out of this thing
solos are clear and smooth
sustain is great
chords bite you back as they scream out of the amp, i love it :)

threw it at a chav as they walked past my house saying metal is shit
and he bled
still works
its strong enuff 2 last
light enought to carry
but heavy enought to be stable and to be used as a weapon

never had to
will not break

its great
perfect for metal and rock
and no im not danish, i bought it on holiday
screaaams metal
i love it
the only pedal i need live
other than a wah sometimes
not very noisy

and what the hell are half you guys talking about
have you try checking your other equipment before blaming the pedal???
it seems everyone with good experiance likes it
maybe the rest are n000bs!
i love it!

It's easy to use, but hard to dial in a decent setting.

Not a very noisy pedal by any means, it just sounds so cold and digital. Not much tone produced by this little stomp box. They say it's great for metal, I can't find any justification in that.

Well, we all know the reliability of Boss pedals. Nothing can break 'em.

Never needed it before. Probably never will.

This is a very compressed and cold sounding pedal. I'm sure this is somebody's "perfect" sound out there, but it is far from being mine. It's only use is for dirty/clean switching on my practice amp so I don't have to lug my other equipment around.

It is really hard to find a config that sounds right

I think it is the best distorsion for playing metal. It is a very common error to forget that it is only a pedal. The best distorsions have to be created with tube amps like 5150, etc. But if you want to obtain a cold distorsion (with the most distorsionated sounds) you will need it

Yes, it is a part of my sound, playing every kind of music. It only need to know how to use it.

I bought it in sales...

I play from blues to heavy metal, and y can alwais find a place for it sound (with differents configs...)

I love this pedal.
for the music i play this pedal does the trick.
If you want a dry, crunch sound, this is definately the pedal for you.
I never use the manuels so i dont know about them. It sounds even better when you run it with an EQ.
Alot of people give this pedal shit, but hey if your playing hendrix, DONT GET THIS PEDAL!!!!
This pedal would more likely appeal to those who listen to cannibal corpse or like 80's metal.

Jackson DK1, Ibanez RG7321> Boss TU2 tuner> Digitech Whammy> PH 3 Phase shifter> Boss MT2 Metal Zone> KFK 10 band eq> Crate 220 watt solid state head.
The pedal has a strong crunch especially with an EQ. For me it almost always sounds great. Im not sure how it sounds through a tubed head though. I think this distortion is very good.

Hey its a Boss.
those things are nearly indestructable.
Ive had mine for 5 years.

Hey its a boss.

I play Thrash/Death/Black metal so this pedal does it for me.
if it were stolen, lol id probably steal someone elses.. hahaha
but yeah id definately buy another one.
Like I said this pedal sounds good, But it sounds soooo much better with an eq.

Not the easiest one, but u can do it after 3 or 4 months angry with it. lolol..

I play with two amps.. One Marshall in the rehearsal studio and a Hughes & Kettner at home.. I'm considering switching them, 'cause the Marshall simply won't do... Though I turn and turn the knobs, it simply sounds like crap.. Back at home, with my Hughes, it sounds just amazing.. Can't explain that, it just does! Never understood Marshalls anyway!

Don't know, haven't start giging yet..

the problem with this pedal doesn't look to be the pedal itself, but with what are you playing it. Sometimes it sound great, other times U wish to throw it at your dealer's face... thing I wouldn't buy it again if I lost it, I'd prefer to have one more versatile, one I could play anywhere and maintain the same sound quality I get with my hughes..

Setting the mid eq seems to be a real chore for some people. Just leave them straight up is my advice.

With an old Les Paul Standard or Custom and an old Marshall Super Lead or Mark II this is my favorite pedal, for over 15 years, now for anything from Judas Priest to Megadeth.

I play live and loud and I never have had a problem "cutting through the mix".

Nu Metal players will not like the Metal Zone as much as say a Line 6 "Ubber" pedal which really cuts the mids but is horrible for solos.

Even at ear bleed levels I still have no problem at all with feedback or noise. Just don't turn the gain all the way up.

I've tried dozens of "metal" pedals over the last 20 years. This is still my favorite. It's tight as all hell and my solos are fast, tight and well defined.

15 years old and still sounds like new.

A perfect pedal is all the support I need.

I play 70's and 80's metal and if Boss made not this Metal Zone I would maybe use an old style Marshall ShredMaster pedal. The old Zoom TR-01 would be my 3rd choice.

I see a lot of people don't like the Metal Zone but decline to say what they use instead. Why is this?

People talk crap about God as well...

Go figure....

The MT-2 is very tweakable. I have tried many other distortion pedals and have not beeen able to scoop the midrange as easily as I have with the MT-2.

The MT-2 has thick,fat and smooth distortion. I use a Gibson ES-335 though a Roland Jazz Chorus 120 and it sounds spectacular. However, I must keep the volume "level" down on the pedal or I will geet some feedback. Others have commented on this problem and say that the MT-2 is not designed for playing live. I dissagree. If you mike your amp through a PA you will not have feedback or noise problems with the pedal. I do not try to emulate any guitar god. Mysound is my own.

I may use this pedal at a gig, depending on the accepted genres of the venue. The construction is solid enough.

N/A

I play Jazz, Rock, Blues, ect. I have been playing 27 years. If it were stolen i would replace it. I was going to get the Big Muff, But this pedal was better harmonically. Its great when I palm muffle my strings. The highs are clear and intence. I also use a Tube Screamer clone (Arion) for overdrive. With these two pedals I have all the bases covered.

Very straight forward, more knobs on it than some distortion/overdrive pedals i guess, but overall it's pretty intuitive

This is where I whole heartedly agree with a number of other reviewers. This pedal is the bees-knees at bedroom volume through a practice amp (which is the sort of setup i was using in the music shop when i tried it and brought it) but don't *ever* think you can use it live. This pedal will not cut through the mix at all unless you crank the volume to ludicrous levels, in which case it'll hiss uncontrollably, deliver ear-bleeding uncontrolable feedback and create an aweful percussive 'thudding' noise as you fret notes. I've not been able to get a tone from this thing that'll sound good *and* cut through the mix - and it seems other people have this problem too, utterly, utterly frustrating. If you never leave your bedroom and want a nice satisfying heavy metal distortion pedal then go for it. If you want to use this pedal live, with a band - just forget it!

Solid as a rock

Great for any 'bedroom eddies' out there, but utterly useless in a band situation - especially if you play lead and need to cut through the mix.

This beast is kind of hard to get the sound you want it within the first weeks of use. After you get the hang of the thing you can get virtually any kind of heavy metal sound with it.

I use Meteoro(Brasilian Brand) amps and Bc Rich guitars and the sound is simply awsome. Palm muting with this thing is simply jaw-dropping. The only problem this pedal has is that it CAN get noisy and produce a lot of feedback.

Jumped on it quite a few times, never broke. Even droped water on it once by accident nothing happened. Boss=Tank for real I guess.

I play mainly new metal and combining this pedal with my B.C.Rich 7-string Warlock it simply sounds awsome. Played live quite a few times and people simply gazed at the guitar and the awsome metal sounds I got from this pedal.

bloody difficult to get anything that sounds even remotely good-then you find something n go yeah thats cool..........but then u realsie what a big pile o shit it is

ok i use a peavey wolfgang->weeping Demon->peavey 5150 with an FX loop consisting of nobels preamp booster->boss Ns-2->EHX holy grail..............ok so ur probably thinking-why the hell has he bought a MT2 when he has a 5150???good Q really-i used to have a fender tiwn reverb and needed to expand it slightly-got rid of the twi but the pedal stayed in a drawer somewhere-recently got it out n thought-yeah ill give this a go-sounded piss poor ahahah

i remeber the day when i got rid of my twin and thought im never usin a fckin boss pedal again.....played a gig and before the gig i was pretty happy with the tone i had-it had balls and was pretty decent really-took me ages but i found the tone i liked out of it.....so we played this gig and my frined recorded iton his vid cam-the other guitarist in my band was using a JCM900 SL-X which i thought sounded shit at practice and thought my MT2 was the shiz....so we watched the vid back and as i thought one guitar sounded shit and one sounded freakin amazing...i started to take the piss outta te guitarist in my band n then a part came where i play somethin different and the amazing sounding rig played daves part and the mingin fuzz i could hear was actually my rig.......basically it sonds great for bedroom players but as soon as u et it into a gig the only thin that ppl can hear is some mingin trebly fuzzy overtone that sounds like u arent even changing notes.....and then for tapping.........pleh it reacts the same way to ur playing as ur clean would....pathetic-im gonna give it a 3 coz it sounded pretty good in my room and at practice-when turned up tho-OWCH p.s JCM900 SL-X cranked-holy crap-sounds terrible at ear friendly volumes-cranked its awesome-i prefer the 5150 tho

didnt break once-still isnt broke

N/A

i play in a metal/punk sorta band and i love my meta guitar tones.......but this.....well i personally am ashamed to say that the music i like can be associated with this p.o.s.i rate the boss MT2 along with a zoom 501 and hmmmm, i think possibly a behringer V-amp may possibly equal this in terms of tone...........hated it-live it sucks-i used to use it in prac but no more-i use a HK tube factor now for practice-the MT2 started to soun bad in practice too....once that frequency presents itself u continue to hear that and many more mingy fuzzy overtones and u realise that it sucks bigtime-dont buy this pedal if u wanna do gigs........seriously now u might aswell buy a zoom 501 coz they sound pretty much the same live-the only thing ur audience can hear is a proper nasty fuzz-its shocking-get a 5150 or infact just buy a fairly decent amp......then use a HK tube factor-and use ur EQ to give u the "heavy tone"...u will see wha i mea if u ever try one-its not obviouly over fuzzy and over distorted but instead ois clear-crunchy AND has plenty of sustain-its an extra 100quid but if ur gonna do gigs and cant yt afford a mesa/5150/TSL then go with the HK preamp...its awesome

3 coz its ok for bedroom guitarists who dont know any better

It's a very versatile effect, you can get a good range of sounds out of it, covers anything, maybe not perfectly but gets the job done. Maybe it takes some time for you to learn how every knob affects the sound but once u've got it, you can play with it and find your sound.
The manual has some nice settings, but i've never used it.

I usually take both mids to 9 o' clock, bass almost full and treble at 4, i play a lot of metal, specially TOOL and even if this will not give me the mesa distortion, sounds pretty well for me. But i also play punk, and soft rock and this little fucker has all covered.

When mixing it with other pedals.... + crybaby? U can get virtually the same sound of Kirk Hammet, let's say for example in Fuel. + flanger? a lot of crazy sounds, but don't expect to get the Adam Jones Sound just by mixing this 2 guys, it's pretty hard. + delay? the basic stuff, but if you have a DD-3 or any other with a Hold function you can create a "virtual" rythm guitar and start soloing.. amazing.

If it wasn't for the reliability...

Ok ok... everyone's like "yeah boss = tanks" etc etc but i disagree...well it lasted like 2.5 years, but now i'm getting a new one, because the input and output jacks are all screwed. I get this terrible fuzz and even a loss of signal if i move the cable. Even if it was by mistake, and just a little push, this shit can go mad. Last saturday, in a gig, happened. I couldn't take it anymore, so it's now dumped in my house. I opened it and checked the soldernig, they were so irregular, so i covered them well, but the problem persisted *and* the switch didn't work anymore... ok the switch problem's for me maybe, but the jacks are the same, i can't rely on this one anymore for live play.

Before this failure, and not that important, the switch wouldn't stay on or off when depressed. I think because of so much use. I just opened and sticked a piece of sponge so it would be pressed harder, and problem solved.


I bought it new, i took good care of it, always carrying in the box, using good cables, one or two falls, but i'm dissapointed this happened.

Anyways I have fuzz, delay, flanger and chorus, all BOSS and they don't have problems... yet... i hope they last more than this one.

I'm not from the u.s. so i can't get official support.

The time this one lasted, everything was perfect, was my core sound, cuz i cannot afford a nice amp like a mesa boogie or marshall.. (well i do have a 15 w. marshall :P) and i will replace it as soon as possible, i cannot live without it... (musically speaking), so i'll give it an 8 cuz the reliability. It fucked up the gig... the song... damn!

Generally Boss pedals are exceptionally easy to setup, but that's not quite the case with the Metal Zone. It takes a good chunk of time to find the best EQ settings available. After that there's a simple on/off switch. Bought my Metal Zone used, and without a manual. Doubt that a manual could help much with EQing though.

I ran this pedal through my Fender Blues Junior with a low-end Washburn upgraded with Duncan Designed pickups from a C-1 Classic. I've used it with other pedals, and by itself. Either way I could not get a great sound from this pedal.
I will admit, I haven't found a pedal better suited for palm-muting, but playing chords, even power chords, doesn't sound good.

Thin. Lifeless. Those seem to be words that best describe the sound. I thought this pedal would own, but it just bores me. Obviously, you can't quite expect a Mesa in a box, but this just wasn't great. Compared to the thickness of the Big Muff pi, this is weak.

If there's one thing Boss gets right, it's definitely reliability. I don't think that this pedal actually _could_ break. I've used it live many-a-times.

Never talked to Boss. Never needed to.

4 knobs, 2 are split into 2: level knob, Low and High EQ, Mid EQ and Mid Frequency, Distortion. It takes some fiddling to get the right sound but once you get the hang of it you'll be dailing them in no problem.

I use the following set up:
Epiphone Supernova>Loooper>Vox Brian May Special (Treble Booster)>Boss GT-3>EH Double Muff>Boss MT-2>EH Small Stone>Fender Twin Reverb 65 Reissue
Many people seem to hate this pedal but I can't understand why, I can only think they haven't spent enough time tweaking the sound and getting used to the quite sensitive EQ. With just the pedal on straight into my amp I can get some great distortions ideal for thrashing the guitar a bit. I usually only play rhythm but stick some reverb and delay on and there's a lot of potential for a meaty solo. When I use the Vox Brian May as a treble booster it changes the pedals sound completely, I have to compensate by altering the EQ but the growl I get is immense. Palm muting it will rattle all the windows in the immediate vicinity and make you want to chug along all day. It is a little noisy but nothing excessive for the type of pedal it is. Give this one a chance and it won't let you down. You do need a good amp though.

I've had it ages, it's built like a tank and I'd happily jump on it all day and be confident it would last me through a gig.

N/A

I play many styles, this is really only useful for getting BIG distortion, don't try to get a light crunch out of it. It needs a bit if patience and a good amp to makle it sound it's best but it's a very useful tool for any rock guitarist, the only pedal I'd replace it with is the Robert Keeley modded version (if only I had the cash!!)

its quite easy to use. if you can't figure it out... then my friend... you have a problem. the manual is good, as are all boss manuals, the sample settings are kind of hit or miss.

here is where i have mixed feelings. the sound quality... where do i begin? when i first got this pedal, i loved it. and part of me still does. for a small amp, or playing at low volumes, this pedal is amazing. it has a great distortion tone, and a great sustain. but when you play this at high volumes... then you run into problems. there is so much hiss, and high end... that its almost unbearible. also.. unless you almost max out the lows at high volumes... this thing has no guts at all. its rather a weak hissing machine. so if you are a bedroom, or basement hero... get this thing. you can get many great distortion tones, and you can emulate your heroes. but when you try and gig with it, or use it seroiusly... you get a weak, hissy tone.

its built like a tank.. like all boss pedals. but you do run into problems if you dont keep everything in check. if the inputs get loose or anything such as that.. .there is horrible noise. but take care of your gear and you wont run into that problem.

never had to deal with them. but i hear good things.

i play classic rock, jam rock, blues, Christian contemporary... ect.
this pedal... would work if it had guts at high volume. some really cool tones are created. ive been playing for almost 10 years now. i own many high end guitars (g&l, gibson) bottom line, if you are going to gig with it, look elsewhere...

Okay this pedal is slightly more complicated to use that others but it ain't rocket science. Ten minutes is all it should take for you to get used to the set up (unless you decided to go and dive straight into it without glancing at the manual).

Okay here's where people are going to have different opinions. Sound is subjective, ussually by comparison to what other things you've heard and used. Granted I've only been playing a year and don't have much money to spend but it does exactly what i want it to do for the price. METAL. Maiden to Metallica to Pantera it handles really well. I've read a lot of reviews by people playing for 15+ years saying its crap. Well thats because you have had time and money to buy all the end gear like Marshall DSL 100 stacks!!! A $100 pedal won't replace that.... OBVIOUSLY. But it wasn't designed to. This is not the best pedal ever meade but it is the most suited to metal in its price range. If you want a great Metallica sound and your on a budget... this is for you. However, if you can afford big ass valve stacks and $5000 guitars, buy them instead, I would.

It's damn near indestructable.

n/a

This thing is great FOR METAL. Now yes there are better ways to go about it.... but not for $100. If you've been playing for only a few years buy this.... if yoour a veteran... get the real expensive stuff.

First off, the controls are marginally complicated, and the manual is not all that helpful.

I'll give you some backround on my situation. I'm in a band that plays alot of Sabbath covers, but we can be anywhere from Neil Young to Zakk and I'm playing a Gibson SG through a Marshall 60W Combo. The built-in over drive on the amp is great, but it is more classic rock-ey, and I needed the Iommi tone, so I decided to pick up a distortion pedal. The guy at the store said he uses the Boss Metal Zone and with a bit of tweeking it can go anywhere from Zeppelin to Dimebag, and should have no problem getting Iommi like tones, AC/DC like crunch or Hendrix like fuzz. I tried it out and got some so-so tones, but he reminded me that it needs a lot of EQ tweeking to get the right sound. I bought it and messing with it for hours and coulden't get anything. The manual had some examples of tones like Metal, fuzz, hard rock, British Rock, Classic Rock, etc. but it only really gets two tones: a wayyyy to distorted metal plam-muteing rythem with and unbearable, ear splitting treble, or, when the distortion is redused on the hard rock and classic rock settings, a ball-less still ear splittingly trebaly noise that is to weak to even listen to. I have spent hours in the past week trying to find my own tones, but I'm still just getting these two in various forms. When the bass is turned up anywhere past 12 oclock the amp sound like an elephant taking a dump, and the cringe-indusing treble still sounds like fingernails on a chalk board. All in all this effect sounds nasty, tinny, and weak.

It's a Boss, you can run over with a semi and it would be fine. It gets a 6 because the folks at Boss decided to play it cheap and use crappy little brittle plastc tone knobs that you can literally pull right of because they didn't even bother to glue them on. If I were to gig with this (god forbid) I would gig without a backup and consider it a miracle if the thing fell apart.

Never had to deal with them.

Completely useless for anything other then cut-mid chugga-chugga nu metal. If you want an Hendrix, AC/DC, Zeppelin, Sabbath, Metallica, Megadeth, Maiden or Priest like tone, this will not help you at all. I have been messing with the controls for 6 months and gotten nothing listenable. No matter how much you mess with the mids they still sound completely cut. If you try to do tapping solos you may as well play unplugged, it has little to no sustain. If you use a wah, chorus, flanger, etc. forget it, any kind of wave changes through these effects will be completely lost. I recently gave up and sold this on ebay and bought a Musician Sound Design "Paranoid" Iommi Fuzz Box, which will be arriving shortly. I can already tell you that if you want a CLASSIC metal tone along the lines of Sabbath, Metallica, etc., the Paranoid will be better because nothing can be worse then the MetalZone. If it were stolen I would thank the person that took it and laugh at their frustration while trying to get a tone out of it. I may seem to be too harsh on this box, but I am merely telling the truth about my experience and trying to save you from my fate. This thing is a piece of crap, unless you want a nasty, thin, digital, tinny tone and a waste of good money.

Its simple... fiddle knobs and step on it :P

Obviously this is the section everyone cares about (and seems the bit with most disagreement)... so lets sort out some basics :

1. If you want an insane metal sound that rivals hammet or king... go by a Gibson, make sure it comes standard with EMG81/85's, run it into a $4000 mesa boogie recitifer or top end marshall and start smiling! - but dont start comparing that setup to a stompbox!

2. If you just wanna have fun in ur own bedroom or impress ur mates at a small gig with an otherwise weaker amp/guitar then this pedal is perfect...

I have recently stopped revolving my world around metal, sold my les paul and ibanez and picked up a fender stratocaster USA so i could get the most out of ripping off gilmore and knopfler.

but i still find myself recording a heavier type of music (not metal anymore though) and jamming along with my metallica and guns'n'roses cds and of course softer metal i can play without drop tuning my guitar... for this purpose i needed something to give the fenders single coil pickups more balls... and the pedal hasnt let me down

It does require a bit of tweeking to get a good sound and is very noisy unless i use 2 pickups at once (as is normal for SCP's) but it improves the sound quality at higher volumes a lot (my amp is the Roland Cube 30Watt).

I also cant play leads on this pedal as all the tone is lost in the process...

I have managed to get a decent sound for playing along with Opeth, In Flames, Metallica etc but ONLY rythym parts and I now think this pedal is better suited to hardrock sounds rather than metal...

So overall if you think u need the MT-2 pedal to improve the sound of a $10,000 rig maybe u need to accept its more a talent issue and thats why the MT-2 isnt doing what ud hoped!

BUT if you need to improve the power in a smaller solid state amp or give some balls to SCP's than buy this pedal!...its cheaper than a professional set up and perfect for what it was built to do!

those ppl who rated the sound of this "1" have probably tried to break it in a fit of rage... so im sure they'll agree tt this thing is built like a tank!

that said it eats up battery power quickly and got marked down... so make sure u unplug the input lead!!!

Never needed help

This pedal was built to improve the distortion of an amp or guitar that wasnt designed for metal... it wasnt built to be a substitute for the real tube amps nor for the talent of kirk hammet...(like some reviewers here tend to think)

so if u just need to boost the power of a guitar/amp or remove the static or oscillation from the distortion of a crappy amp than this pedal is perfect and should leave u impressed.

It is easy to get a decent sound out of it, thanks to their handy literature, however, to get a good or great sound requires a much more substantial investment of time, patience and endless knob-tweaking. It took me somewhere in the neighborhood of 90 minutes to get a sound I could live with, but then again, I was trying to use it to make a Crate GFX-212 sound like a Fender Roc Pro 1000, no easy task regardless of the equipment. I am getting closer, but expect another 9 or 10 solid hours of doing nothing but tweaking in order to get there. No idea about Editing patches or mods or firmware, but the manual is somewhat useful for a starting point. The only issue I have with the dials is that they turn too easily. I wish there was some way to lock them into position or that the pots turned with more resistance, like the DOD Ice Box, for instance.

This is with an Ibanez RG470XL and a Crate GFX-212 amp. The pedal is not particularly noisy, though it does send the amp into gales of feedback, which is kind of interesting. This pedal runs the gamut of sounding like complete thin needly crap to razor sharp tones, but I have found it sounds better with the distortion turned down to about 60% and a great deal of tinkering with the EQ knobs. I keep Level on about 75%, which seems to work out ok. I have to account for the slight modeling I am doing with the amp itself, because this stompbox will be the on and off switch for clean w/chorus+reverb to distortion and it also has to mask the chorus+reverb and somehow get it all to sound together similar to my Fender Roc Pro 1000, as this is my backup gear and I don't want to stray too far from the sound. So far, it is getting fairly close, but I still have a ways to go.

It is a Roland, which means that anything short of a nuke dropped directly on it will not harm it. I hope I never have to use it for a gig, but if I do, I know, just like the Crate, that I can rely on it.

Roland is not the easiest of companies to contact, but their equipment is usually so great that it doesn't matter. Their manuals and videotapes are usually very helpful, but when you start getting in-depth, the internet will be your best bet.

I play metal, blues, rock and punk and it takes an unreal amount of playing with those shifty EQ knobs to get a sound that works well for all of them, but I'm here to tell you that it can be done. Sure, in conjunction with the Crate GFX-212, it will never sound as good as the Fender Roc Pro 1000, but it is making a fair simulation and as a backup, that is all I ask for. This pedal sounds better than every other pedal out there, at least all the new ones and is the only thing that even got close to the GP-100, the sound of one of the settings of which I was trying to find. If it was lost or stolen, I would get another because I know it will be reliable and consistent and behave as I would expect it to behave. As I said, I hope never to need it, but if I do, I know I can count on it.

I find it pretty easy to get a good sound out of this pedal.
Sample sounds get you started so you can tweak from there.

I play a 1988 Les Paul Custom Shop Showcase Edition eith EMG 85's. I converted them to run on 18 volts for more headroom when I am playing clean.
It's pretty quite for a distortion pedal.
I use it with a Peavey Classic 30.
It is easy to dial in classic rock, older metal al Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, etc... wtih this one. Generally speaking i run the level to match the clean channel when I switch it off. Bass between 2-5 oclock, High about 12 oclock and both mids near 12 oclock. I run the drive between 7 and 9 oclock. The louder I am playing the more towards 7 I go. Anything over 11 or 12 oclock on the drive even at low volumes and it gets to buzzy for me.

Bullet proof. My brother has one of the originals and it is still going strong nearly 20 years later.
No back up.

Never had to deal with support.

I play rock, blues, surf, and oldies.
I have been playing 25 years.
I would replace it. For the money I have found no better.
If you are looking for a soft distortion that will even out uneven playing technique while articulating the notes look somewhere else, if you are looking for old school Marshallesque tones for the seventies and early eighties that force you to develop your playing dynamics and accuaracy, this is for you. If you look at the guitarist that are most admired for their tone they have higher actions, bigger strings and a cleaner signal. Until i can afford multiple plexi's and a place to play them cranked ala Angus Young I will stick with my MT-2.

Easy. For some reason mine didn't come with a manual, so it took me a while to figure out how to use the "MIDDLE" and "MID FREQ" knobs. But I downloaded the manual from their website... Turn bass, highs to taste, you don't really need to turn distortion past 12 o' clock. Turn level so your distorted volume matches your clean volume. Then step on it. That's it.

I love the big heavy rhythm sound I get from this pedal! I use this with a strat with EMG DG20 pickups. Bridge pickup, with SPC set all the way up, and EXG set all the way down. I get the best sound when I send the mt-2 directly into my amp's effects return. Understand one thing: this is a metal pedal. I wouldn't call it versatile. Some people say you can use it for blues and stuff, but I don't know, I only get one sound from it: metal rhythm. If you expect to get good lead tone suitable for different styles, don't get this pedal.

You know what everyone says - It's a Boss. Oh, by the way, DON'T expect to use batteries, it kills batteries quick. You need the Boss PSA power supply - and get the PCS20A power cable and the TU2, NS2 or LS2 pedal so you can power multiple (up to 7) pedals from one power supply.

don't know, but I like that you can download their manuals.

Great pedal! But again, it's not versatile: it's a metal pedal (duh). I also considered the Digitech DF7 Distortion Factory, but I impulsively just bought this one. My solid state 50w amp has really really bad distortion, so this definetely helps, BUT.. I'm still searching for the right lead/solo tone, and I'm wondering if you can actually achive good tone from pedals (v.s. a good/tube amp). Anyway, Enjoy!

easy to use just twising the nob's make a big difference to the sound so you know what yer working with.

great pedal i runned it through a marshall AVT 100 and it sounded like a full valve amp...ever better i still think the only bad thing about the pedal is it has so much gain it give's off alot of feedback, but a boss NS-2 should fix that i would think, other than that gr8 metal sound. i play (metallica, pantera, trivium, killswitch, machine head,....anything metal get my drift)

good soild pedal like all boss pedals

One great pedal never had much of bother with it except the feedback, give me the metal sound i wanted through a pre amp.

It's a little harder than most distortion pedals, with the parametric EQ knobs instead of the usual three. The suggested settings are good to start with, if you know what you're doing you start with everything at 12 and spin 'em back and forth.

I'm using primarily humbuckers, in parallel and split. I find humbuckers in series sound great clean, but muddy up when the distortion is applied. All Mesa Mark amps. I like speedy runs, and the Rectos are not for shredding. Sorry, kids.

I originally bought this trying to get a pedal setup for a small Mk II combo that would duplicate the searing lead tones I get from my Mk IV. The distortion channel on the Mk II just doesn't do it (although I think I can get it modded by Mesa to Mk IIc+ specs, just more cash). But it didn't work, just a cheap fizzy pedal that sounds better in the bedroom than at stage volume. So I tried using it as a dirty boost, dist down and volume up. It had some possibilites, still just a little too transistory for my amps. I had an SD-1 modded by Robert Keeley that really boosts well, only with a huge amount of tone suck in bypass, not Keeley's fault, just a shitty Boss buffer. It really helps tighten up some of the muddiness that Mesa's have, tho, so I figured I'd get it modded, knowing that the pedal sucks tone when off and leaks distortion when off, too, but it might have its' uses. Listen carefully, it really screws with your clean signal.

At the time, and still as far as I know, only Keeley and Indyguitarist mod the MT-2, so I downloaded all the sample soundfiles and played them back in loops, comparing and listening for what I might like. To me the Keeley clips sounded kind of nasally, of course the mids were scooped to appeal to most of the MT-2 buyers (can't play leads with the mids scooped) but the Indyguitarist mod seemed to have more girth to the sound, more fat in the midrange. Just what I was willing to take a risk on, so off it went to Indyguitarist, for the Bogner/Diezel MT-2 mod. Fast turnaround, same as Keeley, but when I got it back there were some unexpected benefits I couldn't believe. See my review under Indyguitarist for my review of the modded pedal.

Boss pedals have been around since the '60's, and the originals are still working. You might not like their sound, but they are bulletproof.

Never needed Boss factory support. With all the people modding these things out there, you can get it fixed by someone, and quick.

For what I wanted it for, this thing stock sucks. If you're on a tight budget and need something that approximates a metal tone, this is about the only thing available that'll get close. Even Rocktron admits their new pedal is a ripoff of the MT-2 circuit. Maybe the Line 6 UberMetal would be better, but I'm concerned about their reliability. I won't tell any of my stories, but I know I won't be buying anything Line 6.

But if you do have one, get it modded. Personally, the Indyguitarist mod exceeded my expectations by far. And one very favorable surprise.

Easy enough to use,there's no mysterious combination you can dial in that makes an important difference anyway.

I use a couple of Les Paul Customs one with EMG 81s the other with stock Gibson 'buckers and an old Jackson Soloist SL2H fitted with Seymours (JB/59) . My main amps are an Engl Powerball and a custom hot-rodded Marshall JCM 800 and I use them with a pair of VHT Fat Bottom 4x12s so I know only too well what "brutal" distortion means. I'm not going pretend that this pedal gets anywhere near that kind of brutality because it doesn't. It's nothing more than a badly voiced, cheesy-sounding stomper and may be ok for you if you only ever plan on wanking around in your bedroom like a lot of guys want to do but if you want to gig anytime soon your gonna be needing something that won't embarrass you when its time to step up to the plate. The thin sound seems to get praise mainly from very young guys who have no idea what a really heavy distortion sounds like and who think a line 6 Spider combo is the absolute bitch. Or much older guys who think its cool to exaggerate and mislead those younger guys (could be some of those older guys have hearing damage maybe?) Plug this pedal into a cheap solidstate practice amp and if your inexperienced enough you may be superficially impressed because you have nothing decent to compare it with. But plug it into a big powerful tube head like a JCM 800 or a Dual Rec and you'll quickly realize that its the quickest way to emasculate your sound. No real low end...bland, nasal mids... glassy, fake-sounding highs.... the best way I can describe it is that it sounds like what those Queer Eye For The Straight Guy advisors would reccomend you should buy i.e. tidy, polite, tame and minus your balls. And you can play around with the fancy EQ all day long in the vain hope that a good sound is only a tweak away but it never comes because it just aint in the pedals nature. Metallica sound my ass. I can fart a better Metallica sound than this pedal can manage. Sure enough, theres plenty of sustain on tap but no hint of preamp-style saturation as some people seem to imagine. I tried 3 of 'em in the store and they all sounded the same so it wasn't a faulty sample. I tried the metal zone in the store with Peavey, Mesa, Marshall and Crate amps and it just doesn't fly. They all sounded much better without it and even the guy in the store agreed . To me no pedal (at least no solidstate pedal) sounds anywhere near as good as tube amplifier distortion but I'm not totally against distortion pedals on the whole, only the bad ones and this has to be the worst I've ever heard though admittedly I haven't heard them all. I shudder to think what could sound worse. I only tried this thing out of curiosity on account of all the rave reviews its had on here. But they turned out to be wrong. Maybe you could find a limited use for it if you play in a cheesy 70s glam rock covers outfit but for heavy metal? Forget it. This pedal is wrongly named and you couldn't pay me enough to use one.I wont give it the lowest rating because I just thought of a worse sounding distortion unit namely the Danelectro Fabtone but the Metal Zone runs it a close second.

I use other Boss pedals and they've never let me down electronically or mechanically.

If you really need a distortion pedal for metal and your on a tight budget, do yourself a big favour and give this one a miss and get yourself a Digitech (formerly DOD) Grunge pedal. Don't be fooled by the name. Your Metallica/Pantera riffs will really kick out with this one. It's a lot cheaper and has a chunky, powerful, ballsy sound that cruelly exposes the Metal Zones weakness in this area. Of course that idea won't appeal to brainwashed Boss snobs with their sweeping "Boss is best" mantra. But if you have an open mind give it a try. You wont be disappointed. Even better still (much better!) if you can afford it buy a Tonebone Hot British and you wont look back, at least until you can afford a decent amp setup.

Es un pedal realmente f?cil de usar, debido a que trae los controles que se esperan para un pedal de ?sta categor?a.

Tiene un sonido muy bueno, si entiendes desde el comienzo que no debes llevar sus controles al m?ximo. Por ejemplo, el controlador de la distorsion, debe ser utilizado m?ximo en un 65% ? 70%, porque de all? en adelante lo que genera no es mayor saturaci?n sino un poco de ruido adicional. El pedal ?no genera ruidos desagradables. Tal vez no es el sonido devastador que esperar?as en una distorsi?n, pero es muy bueno si se sabe mezclar con los demas pedales. En mi caso, ayudo al sonido con un poquito de ganancia en mi amplificador de tubos, un buen compresor, y tal vez un delay a unos 20 milisegundos.

Puedes confiar en que es un pedal que no te deja solo, como casi todos los pedales de BOSS. La caja met?lica es buena, el switch de encendido no falla, y los conectores de pila y de alimentador de energ?a son buenos. Funciona muy bien en garajes, conciertos medianos y estadios llenos... Siempre y cuando no abuses de los niveles.

It's not at all difficult to get a ridiculous, saturated tone from this pedal. It's got a few more knobs than most other Boss pedals, but frankly the gain knob makes little difference, because 99% of the people I know who own this pedal just keep the gain all the way up anyway.

The name says it all. I run this through a Hot Rod Deluxe, which does not have the greatest drive channel by any stretch, and I am instant Metallica with this pedal. I play a Strat Plus and an Epiphone Les Paul Extreme through this, and I get CRAZY distortion and sustain with either of them. Personally I generally just turn up all the controls, then roll off the treble 1/4 turn and scoop off the mids about half to 2/3 and I've got perfect metal tone. Switching on and off is flawless, no click or pop whatsoever, and mine is almost 15 years old. To me, Metallica/Megadeth/Slayer, their tone, while slightly varied, let's face it, they all sound pretty much the same. A quick turn of the mid control one way or the other and you've got any one of them.

Built like Fort Knox. A sledgehammer couldn't dent this thing.

One of Boss's more expensive pedals, but if you're a metalhead/shredder, worth every cent. I've since grown out of the whole metal thing, every now and then I'll get together with the old hardcore band and keep the whole neighborhood up, but as far as that goes this is the only pedal you'll ever need if you're into that kind of thing. Without question the easiest to use, best-sounding metal distortion you can buy. Don't waste your money on trendy DOD pedals, this is the only one you need. It can match AND surpass any of the "Death Metal," "Grunge," "Pro-Rat," "Big Muff," or any other "metal" pedal available. An ungodly amount of gain can be achieved with this pedal alone, but you can REALLY super-saturate your tone by placing behind a compressor, and then cascading the MT-2 into a booster pedal like a Blackjack. And yet the MT-2 will NEVER cause you to lose signal. It stops on a dime, Helmet-style. Even though I don't really play metal anymore, I would likely STILL buy another one if anything happened to it, just to have one around, it's THAT GOOD.