Boss MZ-2 Digital Metallizer

"7"....a bit more "complicated" than the average Boss pedal knuckle-brainer is used to, but still, you don't need a manual to figure this one out...

"10"....actually a '9' but I wanted to give this pedal its due. I see some of these '2' and '3' ratings from all of these supposed metal/rock gods here. Usually if you read reviews that have proper spelling and decent grammer it's a good indicator of the mentality of the player/reviewer. Anyway, the standard distortion sound is great/high gain but not over the top--a heavy overdrive. I don't use the effects settings as they cover up the basic distortion sound too much for my taste. The distortion plus effects settings are interesting in the fact that when you go thru the dist/doubling or dist/chorus or dist/'flange' (one by one) you can hear the sounds of Ozzy, Dokken, Yngwie, etc. You'll instantly know what I mean when you flip thru the preset sounds (if you lived thru the '80s metal rage). A "9" for distortion alone.

Boss reliable ? Uh, YEAH....

Never had to...Boss pedals never break down....

A "9" for distortion. I won't rate it with the other effects (such as dist/chorus or dist/doubling) to be fair, as those sounds are very dated sounding with the presets (very 1986-87).
Nice heavy overdrive with very good definition.

Its pretty easy and all of boss pedals are easy.Its easy just go and change it to the sounds you like to here.If its metal rock.All boss pedals are easy.

Fender 15G it has a lot of dist. that amp.Guitar a squier Srat.Not noise at all and it takes a little of the distortion away but it takes the unwanted distortion that sounds bad with a band and so you can hear the notes and chords.Best for Lead guitarist and a little rythem sounds best with power chords and barre chords.All boss distortion pedals are awesome,they have the heaviest sound ever next to marshall Super leads and Mode Fours.Buy one.Sounds like metallicas heavy deep sound and all boss metal pdeals are deep sounded pedals.#1!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Its a boss pedal there all strong!!!!!!!!

I bout it at Boss Dealer very kind dealers!!!!

I play Metal good for metal.

mmmm past gear review folks, as far as I can recall this was somewhat simple to use as most Boss Pedals, but had an Chorus effect on it, so I dunno. Easy, but not the easiest pedal Ive ever seen

good if you want to play Queensryche or other "soft" Heavy Metal in general, but if you want it CRUNCHY FORGET ABOUT THIS PEDAL !!! I had it for a week or so ( many years ago, when I was in a quest for a good Heavy Metal / Thrash Metal distortion ) and I remeber that the built in Chortus effect was Great,but the distortion itself sounded too week for my needs. sounds great for leads, but if you try to play Metallica with this it will end up sounding like Van Halen ( even with EQ pedals after it ). after a while I knew I would need to sell this pice of crap so I did it. reccommendable only for Van Halen/Angelica soft Hard rock / metal in general

Boss

Don't buy this pedal ( despite of the "Metal"(izer ) name on it ) if you want to play Real METAL STUFF ( old Metallica, Iron Maiden, Nucelar Assault, older Deliverance, etc ) but if youre into Vai, Satriani, or more progressive/Aor stuff, its a good choice

levle and drive ,push and pull level high than drive overdrive drive over level distortion right the tone is kinda mid range 4 knods the thickness in the chours doudle is allone worth the price of admission in my books even in one channel. knobed complete control no menu's nice and small if you got a lug a bunch,heavy but strong.

direct of a westone so far on to a pc/mac computer system saturtion and drive are crap unless you can control them and just noticeable differeces and importion to maintian character.IMHA>Thier is a great 12-18 fret sound sound and a second rythmic guitar sound in thier. I like the double similar to the cho mod but to many people uses that on stage when the go out of tune under the light.Drive other effects with it or bus it to get a modern chrunchy sound with little effect it's got alot of push I'd say I've got 20 or so boss effect unit 4-8 distortion units some are better if your looking main stream but this has some sweat spots , no I'll not going to start to eat chocalate bars for every meal, but thier is some good tone on this thing if you can present it.

old as I am still working good just tell her you'll pay the bill ?

thier all asshats but that's okay nothing ever go'es wrong maytag man just kidding, But i think thier synth department is kinda behind no the 80's won't happen again.

I won't over uses it but one of the many distortion over drives, sweet high end solo/melody,thin well seated rythmic setting I can get two maybe 6 use-able unds it's a boss I like it some times.

Well, i made a review for this pedal (my first) and I love it. Now I'm using it working with a HM-2 Heavy Metal. Both very easy to use.

Using an Aria Strat (S/S/H) and a Meteoro 30W Combo. I linked It before the HM-2, setting then like this:

- MZ-2:

15% volume, Full tone, full drive, any effect

- HM-2:

75% volume, lows cranked, 50% highhs, 5-15% distortion.

When the MZ-2 is on normal mode or doubIII, it's very interesting for rhythm, and the leads are very cool when on the chorus modes. The HM-2, when on this set, gives the sound a brutal low end, a la death metal. I found this set not noisy, even on high amp volume there's not much feedback. The only problem is sustain, but i will probably fix it with a CS-3. Very good for heavy metal, even to the extreme sides.

No problems, BOSS builds tanks.

Very good for metal.

Bought this thing used, but it's so straight ahead there's no need for any manual...

I used this pedal with a Marshall AVT50 combo.
Not sure why some people found it noisy. My amp that I use for bedroom jamming is right next to my TV and yet there's no buzz from my set up (humbucking fender strat, planet waves cable and patch cords, and an assortment of Boss effects: DD3, CH1, OC2, RV5)..note the lack of any noise suppressors.
This is not really a metal pedal as far as I can tell, it's just a very warm sounding heavy overdrive pedal.
Very nice warm tones right out of the box.

I have very good expriences with Boss pedals. They never break if you treat them well enough. Will depend on them for sure.

No reason for this

I play mainly soft to hard rock and this pedal suits me to the T.
I was glad I found it in a studio and the guy was willing to let it go.
Boss stopped making this many years ago.
I don't use the chorus and doubling mode thoough since I have dedicated delay and chorus pedals.

Dead easy. Mine was made in about 1987 and the manual / box are long lost. Needless to say I didn't need them.

It sounds much better than I expected. A great high gain sound, but it's versatile so mess about with the drive / tone and you'll get a lot out of it. Although I would say crank up the drive and enjoy.

I actually REALLY dislike metal music, just reminds me of the horrible local 'alternative' night at The Ritz in Manchester, full of sad skulky 14 year old skater / goth style people (who laughingly refer to themselves as 'punks')... sorry sorry, I know not ALL metal is sh#t, if you're a proper metal fan you probably loathe these people just as much as I do.

.... Erm, anyway, what I am trying to say is even though I hate metal and it's cliched subsidiaries, I love using this for a rock tone.

The doubling / chorus effects are useful in the sense that you can thicken up the sound without needing a seperate box. Or, have your delay / chorus boxes set to something else. Great!

The FUNNIEST thing is when the batteries run out. In fact they only last about 10 mins in here, a PSA is a must.

What happens it it starts stuttering and swaying and sounds REALLY cool if you;re a noise merchant. Sounds like a Robot dying, honest. Excellent!

The batteries are a concern if you don't have a PSA, unless you WANT to achieve the weird stuttering effect. Although, should this come under Reliability? I dunno. They do warn you on the bottom sticker however.

I do like it. I like it a lot. I owned a DS-1 and a DS-2 and didn't particularly like either of them. What's oddest is that both those are suppoedly the 'Nirvana' sound, but I actually found it easier to coax Nirvana tones out of this. Go figure, as they say.

Seriously, it's not exactly one of their more 'sought after' pedals but just you wait, one major artist will name-check one and this pedal could well command premium prices. It's cool as hell (in a REALLY cheesy way!) and much more interesting than a Metal Zone or DS-1 or 2.

One of my favourite distortion pedals, and I have owned all the Boss ones, and a lot of MXR / Electro Harmonix / Ibanez / Dod, etc stuff.

Can't go very wrong with level, drive, tone and mode selector.

Can't say I understand those who slam this pedal. I have six Biss overdrive/distortion pedals, and this is by far the one with the greatest high gain sound. Whereas the DS-1 has a Marshally, scooped mid tone, the MZ-2 sounds like a Boogie Rectifier, with lots of mids. In fact it's best conceived as a OD-2 Turbo Overdrive on steroids, with more gain and more bottom end - exactly what the OD-2 has always needed. I've had numerous tube preamps in the past - JMP-1, V-Twin, Quad-X - but this pedal actually sounds better in the high gain department. It's tighter than all of them, for instance.

One little thing: When you switch the pedal on or off, you'll get a little burst og the clean guitar signal, when the sound changes, which is a little annoying.

The digital effects are not too much to care about. OK, but not everyone likes chorus or "doubling" (really a short delay or two), and you can't adjust their parameters, so you either like or don't like them. I run it without.

Sturdy. One of the two output jacks' nuts are missing, though.

Never dealt with them.

A great pedal for Boogie-style high gain sounds. Will make your rig sound expensive. Underrated and far better than its reputation. I wish Boss would put this distortion circuit into a new pedal.

Simple enough, you'll understand it.

This is just a really ODD pedal to say the least. now, i have a broad range of genre's of music i listen to, but deep inside im all metal. and when i say metal, i mean REAL metal. i do not watch mtv, i do not listen to radio stations that play anything from the past 3 years, because to be honest-there is little skill there. i know my tone farily well, and this pedal is quality. the gain is of a different character than i've ever heard-it's saturated, but not for the likes of some of my favorites, like the great metallica + megadeth, because this pedal does NOT have the big thump thump palm mutes you need for that. but what i use this pedal for, black metal, it's unbeatable. it's distorted quite a bit, but still retains great character as i mentioned, and it does not mud up at all, which is important. the 2xing and chorus effects are acually pretty damn cool. the 2xing effect adds a real neat BF-2 boss flanger metallic sound, which it's famous for. so you can get that metallic tinge without flanging. the pedal, also, if you turn down the drive all the way and your volume knob quite a bit, can get clean light chorus.im using a hotrodded 91' jap strat(which emg's and oujiaboard finish, yeah, im a kirk fan) and this pedal sounds great. it's really in your face. i would label this the mercyful fate pedal, because it get's their ryth sound down real well. anyway, i reccomend!

It's a boss. sure they chip paint, but the swtches are solid and quality.

as i said, im a metal guy, and this pedal is good stuff. i dont think you will be dissapointed with it. i just recorded slayer's "raining blood" with it, which that metallic twinge i was talking about, and it's definity unique and a good addition to a collection. this was the blue label japan model btw.

Yeh quite easy to use ...

Yep this baby sounds worse than the girl who sits accross from me at work and tries to sing - it just irritates the shit out of me.
I tried to dial in a workable sound but couldn't even do that - everything sounded so over done it just wasn't funny. the chorus effect is weak and not intense (if you think it is your an idiot)thats why chrous pedals are separate (and dont even get me started on those little multi effect shit boxes)

Yeh it is a Boss, so granted that it is expected to last a long time, as a matter of fact the next time i pull this thing out when im 50 (just to have a laugh at how stupid a pedal can sound) i expect it still to work.

Yeh they have a good rep over here & very easy to deal with

this thing is the worst pedal Boss have ever made, its early digital crap - so your sound is probably going through a 3bit convertor, and this thing eats batteries like there is a shotage scare or something, that moron below who said he went on holiday and came back & the light being on & shit - that is the biggest load of crap i have ever read, what a tosser, ask anyone who has a digital pedal will tell you straight up that a battery will only last a few hours. Don't listen to asswipes who try to tell you different (we all know now who's been taking the drugs, err all the kiddies, but that homo humper fudge packer below has it affecting his head)