DigiTech X-Series Metal Master

the sound is pretty much set right out of the box...the only time u can get bad sound is turning down the morph knob to 0..sounds like an am radio....

im using a fender stage 160 which sounds good as fuck with this pedal..the distortion is thick saturated with the right amount of mids already added....theres also no high fuzzy noisy shit u cant get rid of and this doesnt sound "vintage" which is perfect...

ALRIGHT NOW HERES THE FUCKIN PROBLEM..I BOUGHT THIS USED AND 10 MINUTES LATER IT STARTED TO MAKE HELICOPTER NOISES...THEN I COULDNT GET IT TO STOP UNLESS I UNPLUGED BOTH CORDS...WELL PLUG THEM BACK IN AND THE FUCKIN THING WONT TURN BACK ON!!!...SO I HAD TO UNPLUG THE BATTERY EACH TIME AFTER EVERY 5 to 10 MINUTES OF PLAYING...THATS TNOT THE WORST PART..I TOOK THE USED PEDAL TO 2 MUSIC STORES THEY TESTED IT AND CONFIRMED "IT WAS FUCKED!!" SO..... I BUY A BRAND NEW ONE...and the FUCKIN PIECE OF SHIT DID THE EXACT SAME THING!!! i DONT KNOW WHY NO 1 ELSE HAS HAD THIS PROBLEM.SOMEHOW I SEEM TO HAVE GOTTEN A BATCH OF THE FAULTY PEDALS HERE...BUT 2 in a row?? THIS THING IS WORTH BUYING BUT IF IT DOESNT FUCKIN WORK HOW THE FUCK CAN I USE IT!!
I ALWAYS LOVE TO HAVE "potential tone", tone that sounds great but i cant FUCKIN USE!! but im going to buy a 3rd pedal (I HOPE THE SHIT WORKS)

i emailed them, havent recieved a response yet

8 for a Great fuckin sound BUT WOULD BE NICE IF I HAD ONE THAT WORKED FOR MORE THEN 10 MINUTES......

this will be a short review as the pedal was designed for one thing, more or less, and its dead simple to operate. thick and evil distortion with no bells or whistles. the manual is sparse and rightfully so

I am somewhat of a pedal hound, and in my righteous wisdom I employ a Boss LS-2 line selector pedal... which kicks ass for comparing similar pedals side by side. twiddle a knob, hit a chord, kick the switch, hit another chord through a different pedal, all going through the same guitar and amp at the same time with the same settings.
now I have no idea why, but I also own a new digitech DF-7 Distortion Factory (among several other distortion and OD pedals) and immediatly upon recieving my XMM today I pitted it against the DF-7 in a little grindfest shootout.
I THOUGHT the two would be nearly identical in sound... this is not the case. Ive found the DF-7, while it does have an abundance of sounds on tap and a broad eq spectrum, to be a little noisy, a little brash, and generally digital sounding.
now of course both pedals do sound slightly digital, because they are, but the XMM's voicing is much more musical sounding.
the lows are tight and punchy and the highs dont have as much fizzle as the DF-7. in short it is an Excellent pedal for all of your violent metal stylings. Ive had all of the boss, dod, and digitech models and Ive got a good handfull of boutique models, and aside from my Love Pedal Blackmagic, which is the One Ring to Rule Them All... the XMM is the one I will turn to for groin kicking intestinal spillage in a distortion. basically Cannibal Corpse in a box.
as a caveat however, I will say lead tones through either pedal leave much to be desired. the XMM juices out some nice harmonics certainly, but ultimately my humble shredocity doesnt have the pleasing sting and sag that a good analog distortion provides.
also, this pedal will not preserve your guitars pure tone, but if you are using it for the purpose its designed for that probably doesnt matter anyway.
I give it an 8 because it does what it was built for extremely well.

feels solid. never had a problem with digitech pedals before.

see above

great metal distortion pedal, probably the best one available at this time for this price. loads better than many others, and has a better crunch than more expensive digitech multiFX processors. I cant put my finger on it, but theres definately something very likable about this one.

Theres not too much to say about this ,is as easy to edit as makin scrambled eggs.
The manual is good but you dont need it.

This pedal is to play Heavy metal 80s tone and thats what i play so dont bother telling that "This not sound like Korn, or linkin park""
I use it with my Marshall AVT 100 and believe me, i can get real warm fat metal distortion that will make you headbangers proud,also classic 70s distortion, i can go from DEF LEPPARD to Megadeth or Stryper and even death metal,trash sounds , i also own a Peavey Envoy 110 and sounds great there too.
Can be just little noisy as every distor pedal but just in the super high gain settings.
But believe me this thing is far superior than the Metal ZOne because this pedal has more distortion modes.

Built like a tank , yeah i would use it without backup

I never dealed with them but i guees theyre good

As i said before i wanted real Heavy metal,Trash distortion and this one gives me all that, been playing for 5 years now, what i like most about it is that when soloing it dosnt sound weak it sounds real.
If stolen i would buy another.
I choose this instead of a metal zone which i think its good but not have this 3 types of distortions.
It shurely make me inspired and very happy i feel like playing trough a Marshall jcm 900 or as playing with slash`s gear.
Just try it with a nice amp like a marshall or peavey

Could it be easier? Well, yes and no...let me explain.
Volume knob--self explanatory. Low and High (EQ) knobs. Easy-breezy. The morph knob is where things get complicated. You can fiddle with the thing for a couple of hours looking for exactly what you want. And then that can all change in an instant by tweaking the EQ knobs.
Usually my favorite sound comes from the volume at the 10 o'clock position, bass all the way up, volume at the 3 or 4 o'clock position, and the Morph knob at just a little before 12 o'clock. If you want an '80s heavy metal sound a la Slayer look no further, but the versatility of this pedal extends to newer metal--I'll refrain from calling it nu-metal, something I really feel is an insult...anything with a hip-hop-like spelling isn't worthy for my ears.
The manual is the same standard little booklet for all X-series guitar and bass pedals. Each 2-page section shows you how to get different sounds as compared to other famous pedals in the same category. But this is all just a starter; find your own sound by fiddling.

Honestly, out of their little suggested presets in the booklet, the Boss one I think sounds the best. But really, having never used a Boss DS-1, I don't know how close the sound is. What I can tell is that, through the right amp and with the right guitar, you can get a very Guns 'N Roses-ish sound. My own axe is an Epiphone G400 w/maple neck and EMG-81 (bridge) and EMG-85 (neck) pickups, so it's far from difficult to replicate a Les Paul sound. Some of the more middle-intensive warmth is lost, due to them being active pups but even more importantly being more metal-oriented hot pups, but distorted or overdriven this is really unnoticeable and I like how the Metal Master isn't dependent on mids like a Marshall; it's more like a Crate or a Mesa/Boogie in that it caters to a more bass- and treble-intensive sound, especially fun when you crank it through a bass amp; using a simple Crate BFX-15 15 watt bass amp, I can get some very loudly-thumping grindingly-loud sounds that never touch on harsh. That's how I like all my music to sound--with emphasized bass that's well balanced with the treble and is relatively low on the mids...not so low as to be thin and lifeless, just at the edge where if there were more mids the sound would get dull and muddy.
As I've said before, I use a Crate BFX-15 15 watt bass amp, and it sounds great with this pedal, using either output--either the normal Amp out or the CIT Equalized out. The Equalized out jack is meant to plug straight into your recording source without the need for a mic'ed-up amp. I believe that the EQ is modeled slightly after a Marshall, but again it never grows muddy or overly-warm with mids.
As much as I like this pedal, it does contribute a rather nasty amount of noise--even as quiet as my pickups normally are (even though they don't quite add up to Fender's new Samarium Cobalt Noiseless pickups in their new American Deluxe Series guitars) I hear it all loud and clear with the Metal Master. Compared to how loud my pickups are when you play them, as compared to when the guitar is idle, though, as long as I'm hitting strings the noise is virtually non-existent.
One thing: it might be the amps I'm using, which are a Fender Mini Deluxe or Marshall MS-2 9-volt-battery-run practice amps, but when the morph knob is turned exactly to the 9 o'clock position, artificial harmonics are a bit easier to sound out, but feedback is also EXTREMELY easy to induce.
Aside from just being a distortion pedal, I've found this pedal to be useful for other things. My favorite purpose for this pedal, even beyond being a distortion stompbox, is exploiting the CIT modeling. Let me explain: my neighbor moved out about 2 months ago, and he couldn't figure out how to get his Crate BV120H head and Crate 4x12 100 watt amp combo out to texas in his Chevy Tahoe. So he left it with me. I've been happy, and even though I said my pickups don't suit a warm-toned amp, the mahogany of my guitar begs to be heard, and it just plain isn't out of the Crate. So I hook the Metal Master up to the power source, place it as the only pedal in the effects loop, use the CIT modeling out-jack back into the effects loop of the amp, then turn on the effects loop and 12dB volume pad. Then I just use the amp's own overdrive; because the CIT modeling out-jack isn't tonally transparent (the EQ effects the signal whether the pedal is switched on or not) it makes the amp sound a bit more like a Marshall, but with a bit of the less-mid-presence that I said I liked about Crates. Of course I could probably skip this if I swapped the tubes out for some warmer ones. But I found it's a good idea, and so I propose it to others with effects loop in- and out-jacks on their amps to do the same.

A simple 9, because, even though the thing is built like an anchor on a Nimitz-class carrier, the Nimitz would go longer on a 9 volt battery. Okay, that's an exaggeration, but really, these things eat batteries up. I can't remember how many batteries I went through before I wisened up and drove my ass down to Fry's for a voltage-selectable, interchangeable-tip and tip-polarity adapter. It's a little fun when you let the battery run out, you get a stutter effect of the signal constantly cutting rapidly in and out, but its fun for maybe 2 minutes until you realize you can't switch the pedal off now.

I haven't had to deal with Digitech, hope I don't have to. I've been so pleased by the Metal Master and how well it's built that I now plan on buying a GNX4 or, even more likely and even more preferably, the brand-spankin'-new GNX3000.
I've read a lot of reviews and consumer-posed questions, even on Digitech's own website, of people wondering what the stuttering or rotary sound is after about half an hour play, when I knew from the start.

Great pedal, very useful, not just for distortion but also for that CIT modeling.

Very easy to get massive amounts of 'metal' gain from the get-go. The morph feature is nice to. This is the first super-high-gain pedal I have heard that does not sound 'nasally' and 'mid rangy' like the Boss and DOD. This is a very nice pedal if you want smooth, creamy massive, gain. Most other pedals have a lot of mid-range, like your wah pedal is stuck in the middle, but not this one. It sings!

I play through either a Crate Vintage Club 60 or (now) a neat little Peavey Classic 30. This pedal turns both conservative amps into a massive metal machine. To really experience this pedal, you MUST play thru an all tube amplifier in the clean channel. It really sounds AMAZING on my Tele's neck pickup. Superb singing sustain. Also, this pedal is very quiet and very well built. The level control is nice, 'specially on a tube amp where you can kick up the clean volume, drive the tubes and use the pedal's level control to control the output. I have to give this a high mark for the sound quality. It's not versatile, it's full-tilt super high gain, and it does a helluva job at it. If you want 'blues tone' get a blues driver. You won't get anything but super-massive-high-gain singing sing-sing from this pedal.

Don't know. On;y had it about a week. Seems VERY well built. It's heavy, and I can't see any plastic anywhere. 'Tis all die-cast metal.

Never had to deal w/them.

I play anything from blues to pop to 'brown sound' (Van Halen) to Ritchie Blackmore tone. My amps can cover the blues and pop/rock crunch tone, but to send your amp over the edge of super-high gain, this pedal does the trick. Nice EQ, not midrangy or nasally. Very sweet, singy sounds especially thru a tube amp set on the clean channel. I am very impressed that this pedal can turn my Telecaster into a big, fat, sustainy beast. Therefore, if you're looking for a pedal that's a one-trick pony metal, brown sound, woman-tone beast, this is the one. I really can't find any faults about it.

this is an update from a post some months ago
easy to use more gear needed to get right sound.

when i first got this pedal it fell short of the sound i wanted but i thought it had potential. first of all get a noise gate i use ns2 and it is ok next you must get some eq like boss ge7 this makes the sound so much better.if i turn the ge7 off it sounds shite and would probably throw the m.m. in the bin.
ive had loads of gear over the last 20years zoom.boss.korg e.t.c.and spent a fortune,but looking back ive never been totaly happy with the sound.now at last this is it for the first time i am totaly happy with my tone.

had no problems so far.

nope

i play prog metal, dream theater and symphony x, slightly cut the mids on the ge7 base at 0 treble at 1 and ive got the most wonderful symphony x sound. i have an ear for tone and this is as good as it gets for the amount of money spent.
boss ns2-metal master-boss ge7-boss ch1 into 2 marshall 30 watt valvestates. pete back hand made guitars,like ibanez with locking trem only a fucking 1000 times better.
i would buy the whole lot again cos ive been searching for 20 years for the right tone and this set up is the best ive found i intend sticking with it.
just to recap i dont think this pedal would be any good on its own,same as any other distortion in my opinion but used with gear above it transforms into one hell of a sound and far better than multi effects ive had in the past.

There are 4 knobs... - what should be difficult? ;)

I am using an ESP Grass Roots-Guitar and a Korg Toneworks AX100G as 'booster' and noise-gate (before the MetalMaster), after that there's a Peavey 2x80W Amp. There's not much noise (I use the Noise-Reduction from the AX100G). I can't understand how anybody can say, there would be 'heavy noise' with this pedal - do you use a wrong AC-Adapter?!?

I have tried the 'direct-recording' with the extra 'Mixer-Output' (=cabinet-emulation). It sounded far better than my Line6-Pod II!

The Morph-Knob is great. You can get nearly any distortion - from heavy-metal to death-metal-sound. The Lows are powerful and the Highs and Mids make a 'clean' sound.

I have tried a lot of other distortions before and sold most of them again... Few pedals are as good as this one (e.g. I recommend the Ibanez Tone-Lok SM7 to blackmetallers too).

Seems to be very robust, never threw it against the wall ;)

Never dealt with it.

This is one for metal-fans.

Very simple to use, literally plug-n-play! Lots of great sounds instantly available... if you know how to use them.

I do not own this pedal but did try one out at a Guitar Center in Ventura, California. I played it with the cheapest Ibanez strat (the ones they have out to demo effects with) going into a tiny CRATE amp... after a few minutes of noodling, the store manager came and asked me to "TURN IT UP" 'cause it sounded so good.
Sure, I've been playing for a long time and have my licks down, but I've gotta say this little pedal really CRANKS and added a lot to my jamming! Bottom line, it made the $200 worth of equipment I was playing sound amazing. Now, I already have my dream tones at home so I don't need this box, but I highly recommend it to anybody wanting to add a serious range of hard-rock/metal sounds to their arsenal.

Unfortunately my experience with other DigiTech products has been dismal... they tend to die for no apparent reason... even if you don't even touch them.

I wish I had this pedal back in the days when Metal ruled the world and I was going nuts trying to squeeze a decent lead tone out of a Tom Sholtz Rockman and the then available Boss pedals... man, Boss distortions just suck in my opinion.
Anyway, competent players will easily be able to get awesome sounds out of this bad boy... less talented ones will just bitch and moan and will have to continue searching for that ever elusive box that'll make them sound good. Just don't blame it on the pedal.

simple as you like..

pretty poo. you really really need to check it out before you buy it. it's very noisy and i've tried to record with it and it sounds terrible. to be honest i haven't found a decent metal so i can't recommend one. i'm not a boss man either but The metal zone is better than this...

the only thing goin for...it does seem pretty solid.

Haven't delt with them..

I love and play all kind of metal and some other stuff. and before anyone says any thing i only tried to use it for metal..
I really don't think this thing is worth buying. if it was your first pedal you'd think it was great but believe me, If you've played for a while and tried to use something like this on stage with a big stack you'd stink. all these guys given it 10 is bull. i'd only read the reviews that give it a lower rating. it's your own choice though.
my advise don't through your money away...

Very easy to use

This thing is the loudest, noisest piece of shit on the fucking planet... Anyone who thinks that they can make music with this God forsaken pedal either has poor musical taste, or they don't hear the static. Go get the other X-series rock distortion pedal insted.

I don't think you could ever break this thing, I've thought about throwing it across the room but realized that it would break whatever it hit rather than itself...

The batteries don't last too long on this pedal, but it's all good, just get the AC adapter if you have any problems.

I know I could depend on these guys.

Honestly, don't waste your time with this kind of distortion, it's too loud and squeaky for anything. Instead of using insane distortion, learn how to play really great, challanging clean music; you'll impress a lot more people and will still be able to hear after you are 30.