DigiTech X-Series Metal Master

It had 4 knobs. I repeat it has 4 knobs. The first one is the volume, pretty much, of the distortion pedal. The highs are treble, the lows are the bass, morph is pretty much a mids level. It's the easiest thing to use. You just have to mess with the levels.

AMAZING! I put everything on full except the level, which I leave off. It really just boosts my clean channel and gives it a brutal distortion. It's the only thing I use in front of my amp. Only pedal I use at all. Crate GX130C Head is my power amp and my Behringer 4X12 (nuts), all with the metal master in front. Man it's crushing.

I've had the pedal for a year, thing owns. I use the adapter pack so I don't have to worry about batteries running out or the sound changing due to power loss. It's gonna kill everyone.

None

No other words can describe the brutal sound that I get out of this bad boy. Jesus Christ would smile at my tone.

Pretty simple. Morph knob basically produces midrange sound when turned to the left, and scoops the sound as you turn to the right. Not so much morphing about it as scooping.

Well I'm using a crappy setup, so that might explain SOME problems with the tone.

This thing only dirts up the high-end. The entire low end is so uncrunchy and so muddy that I can hardly imagine this thing living to its name. The highs definately got some roughness, but are extremely thin and wimpy sounding. Kind of like a really sharp plastic knife.

The thing is affect by a horrible case of carpet distortion, that is, it does not change with what your playing. You would get a similar effect by putting a broken tv next to your microphone along with the amp, and squeezing the signal hard through a compressor.

Well I threw it against a wall one day. I threw it against a wall a few other days too. Seems to fare pretty well with that, so I guess a 9 here.

Never tried, so can't contribute.

What style of music do you play? Is this a good match?
I play lots of different stuff. Not really alternative, but an alternative to alternative. Just kidding=P

How long have you been playing? What other gear do you own?
I've been playing long enough to know this thing sucks. Only good piece of gear I own is a nifty Fender bassman, which does a good job of hiding this pedals problems.

If it were lost or stolen, whether I bought it back or not would depend on my income at the time. Right now, Hell nah.

what do you love about it? What do you hate? What is your favorite feature?
I like that it works. I like that it has some power. I don't like that I could have gotten much better for cheaper. My favorite feature is the treble knob, cause its the only thing the box does well.

Did you compare it to other products? Which ones? Why did you choose this one?
Compared it against a friends DOD grunge, (which a remake is now being produced by digitech) with the grunge you easily get more bang for your buck.

Anything you wish it had?
I wish it had a self destruction switch. That way I could throw it at the neighboors dog and run next it scares the bejeezuz outta me.

Does it help you make music, or does it get in the way?
It helps me make music because its the only distortion pedal I own.

a semi-decent pedal to use. Controls for Low and High a Volume knob and a positively ridiculously useless "morph" knob. IN my opinion the diffirent knobs only give u 2 tones.. toneless buzz, and a tin-can like feed-back ridden screech. BUt i did give it and 8 because even an inbred hamster could operate this "thing".

Theres so much i could say about how terrible this pedal sounds so i'll start with the positive features. When the amp is turned down dreadfully lowit sounds pretty good. but when playing with the amp up to an audible level this box sounds like...for lack of a better word..crap. The massive abount of gain makes it impossible to distinguish different chords and the extremely high treble doesn't at all sound like the low end, chunky metal sounds of today. If i turn down the treble and crank the bass up to 11 it gives me this very unappealing, "playing in a tin can" type sound. to sum it all up...this box plain old screams a very un attractive scream.

I play mostly metal music and have stepped on this thing like a gorilla and it hasn't died on me yet...so i suppose it's somewhat reliable.

About a 3 months ago i sent a message to digitech via e-mail.. The message simply asked what kind of adapter should i use with the box..i still haven't got a response yet..

If u are into toneless garage metal punk like stuff...this is your pedal..if u think this pedal will give u metallica,slipknot,godsmack like tones...forget it..

I own a fender strat with seymour duncan humbuckers..a line 6 spyder II 212..and Frantone Fuzz box (excellant box)..and that piece of crap metal peasant thing.

IF it were stolen i would give the thief a big hug.

I love the fact that if i encounter a hip-hop lover i can probably paralyze him with it. (this thing is built like a tank)

I despise about 90% of the box's functions.

I chose this box mostly because i only tried it with very low volume and as i stated before, it sounds good with low volume.

i wish it had much move low end chunkiness. the sound is just too high and painful..

Last thing...IF U WANT TO PLAY LOUD AND CLEARLY DO NOT GET THIS PEDAL...but don't take my word 4 it..go out and try this pedal at concert volume...you'll see....i think..

if u know of any distortion boxes to suit my needs instant message me at Leadfender420

Fuckin simple...but it does come with instructions for all the retards.

i like the morph knob which give you a nice smooth distortion.
i play a BC Rich Warlock NJ and use a 10w practice amp and a 75w Randall RG75DG2. Never cuts out, no noise, no static, just clean distortion.

i have used this at a few gigs without problems. of course i have to use the AC adapter, because this little fucker eats batteries.

i had a problem when i purchased the pedal. it was making a weird rotary sound. i went onto the Digitech website and looked through the message boards. tons of people were having the same problem. all i had to do was take out the battery and use the ac adapter, and its been wrking great ever since.

I play mostly Death, Black, Prog and Grind:
Abazagorath, Dimmu Borgir, Burzum, Dub Buk, Horna, Windir, Immortal, Ildjarn, Darkthrone Between the Buried and Me, Ion Dissonence, Shadows FAll, The Black Dahlia Murder, Grand Belial's Key, Must Missa, Otep, Morbid Angel, Circle of Dead Children, Children of Bodem, Mastadon, Mnemic, Satyricon, Nile, Chimaira, Himsa, Finntroll, Atreyu etc...

So after searching around for the right distortion, i came across the Metal Zone, and said "nice!" then the guy at the guitar store showed me the Metal Master, and Dam! its very versitile. you control the amount of distirtion, and this one goes past 10!

Simple...it comes with instruction on how to get 4 different types of distortion. Tour of Hell is a good one.

Souds great, clean heavy distortion.

The only problem i have had with this pedal, is not being able to turn it off or back on......unplugging it works great! if your going to use this pedal, fuck batteries....your gonna wanna pick up an AC Adapter with this.

i emailed Digitech with my problems and recieved a reply 2 weeks later....too bad the pedal was brought back a week earlier. They told me to get it replaced, i did, same shit.

I play mainly heavy music, (Cannibal Corpse, Suidakra, Fintroll, Dimmu Borgir, Kataklysm, Black Dahlia Murder, In Flames, Lamb of God, Emperor, Ildjarn, Burzum, Dark Funeral, Opeth etc... so that was the reason for buying this pedal...it was very versitile in adjusting to the amount of distortion i needed. i wasnt getting a good sound with a DOD, so i switched. This pedal gives me a good sound, but not for long. Such a faulty product should be recalled and fixed.

Good sound, bad pedal.

This things pretty easy to use. Morph is pretty cool. you can overdrive to a searing crunch.

I play my Epiphone Les Paul With EMG's Through this into a Randall Titan and it works out okay. This thing sounds okay but it lacks what a good pedal should have: Muscle. That's why I prefer BOSS. For the same price, you can have A BOSS Metal Zone Pedal which is better in my opinion. Don't get me wrong, I like the tone of this pedal but it's lacking a "soul" in some sense. I'll give it a higher rating based on the Razor tone.

This things fucken' tougher than all hell. I bet I could throw it off the Allenton tower and it would still work.

Never dealt with them

It's not bad. I prefer BOSS but this thing carries it's own. This thing cut through the mix when I was playing against a Peavey 5150 so, I'll give it some credit.

it's as simple as it looks...

I only bought mine a week ago, at the start i had to play with it for quite a while to get a decent sound. personaly i don't think it's much different to the metal zone - i don't think it's the heavest sound out there but it's not bad. i recommend just haveing a go of a few pedals and just pickin the one that has the sound your after. it is a tiny bit noisy as well. all in all not bad but it's not as heavy as some of the other reviews suggest.

so far so good. it's only out of the box a week though.... here's hopein. it does seem very solid though.

don't know....

it is a decent pedal. hard enough to get the sound i was lookin for. alot has to do with the settings on your amp as well though. try it, you like it, you buy it, simple! think it's crap don't. i haven't giged with it yet so i'll just wait and see what the feed back is like on that front. if it got stolen i'd have a good look around and see what else is on offer.

I think the Morph knob is really just a pre-programmed mid-modifying knob, as I can get many of the sounds it provides with my EQ and a specific setting, but it makes getting a good sound so much easier plus some extra. And that's where this pedal aces. You get a good package with this, and all the sounds are at the turn of a knob. And, like someone else said, the Low and High knobs on this thing work beautifully and are perfectly set for metal, as opposed to the Boss tone knobs that I always find to be boosting too many high mids and not enough higher frequencies and defined lows. As long as you have a decent amp that doesn't tend to boost those high mids excessively (i.e., NOT my friend's Roland jazz chorus amp), this pedal works great in about any situation, with an EQ-pedal or not, although it will require a slight amount of tweaking when switching amps, but that's a given. The only thing that makes it slightly frustrating is the Mixer output, which is nice but needs better implementation.

I play an ESP LTD EC-100 into this, then a Boss GE-7 and a Peavey bass amp (and I've tried it with others of better quality, this one is temporary). The sound quality of the normal output is great, with fine sustain. There is a frequency somewhere in the mids that seems to be over-accentuated and that pisses me off, but only a little, sort of a slightly hollow sound, especially with the Morph knob at 12h or less, but it might be from my guitar (hard to tell). It's more noticeable through the mixer output. There is some noise, but nowhere near as bad as my MD-2 or the FX86 (though don't put single-coils through this, at least not without a noise gate). Go over to the digitech website and listen to the flash demo. That's exactly how it sounds on its own using the mixer output. I use it mostly with the morph knob to the right, the high knob at 3h and the low knob at 1h. If you've ever listened to "Slaughter of the Soul" by At The Gates, that's pretty much the sound I get, though with a simple turn of a knob I can get a more 'traditional' scooped metal sound for things like Children of Bodom. The rightest Morph settings are extremely useful for getting that deep death metal downtuned sound without actually downtuning your guitar. I've also gotten a very unique metal sound I can't really describe by putting the dist. knob all the way to the left and EQ-ing it like mad after (can't remember the settings, though). The distortion is far from fuzzy. It's very 'clear', and the level of gain is set perfectly. I have no complaints about the lack of a gain knob, because it's ajusted so there's no fuzz and yet stays heavy enough (i.e., the metal zone has a gain knob, but everytime I hear it it sounds like the player can't tweak it right to minimize fuzz). Pretty much all the sounds are real metal, but if you EQ it right, the counter-clockwise settings on the morph knob can get you some rock and punk sounds. In jamming situations, you can get sounds that blend in as well as sounds that cut through, though not excessively. I have recently played with this live for the first time, and even though my sound was not perfect, it was extremely clear and went very well with my style (there was a lot of feedback when not playing at that volume level, but there was a shitload of gear involved so it probably can't be traced down to this only). Everybody else was using Metal Zones at that show except me, and I was one of the few who didn't get that fuzz in their sound, and it cut through generally better and had much stronger low end. But sadly, no, it won't preserve your guitar's sound though. I mean, you'll notice the difference between single coils and humbuckers, but the definition will remain the same. In fact, the first time I used this, it was while shopping for a new guitar, and this made it hard to distinguish character in them. And I tried at least 6 or 7 through this. But I'm not looking for subtle nuances in a death metal pedal, so it's something I end(ed) up ignoring. Let's face it, if you listen to Cryptopsy to try to find the subtle tones in the guitarist's riffs, you're probably missing the point.

I compared this to the Boss Metal Zone (slightly fuzzy, has nasal quality to it), Danelectro Black Coffee (not horrible, only average, was cheap though), the Boss MD-2 Mega distortion (horrible pedal for guitar which I have owned for two years, far from metal, fuzzy; not bad for bass though), the DOD FX86 Death-metal (too limited and noisy, plus you can get its sounds with the MM) and the Danelectro Fabtone (great, and I almost bought it, but for my applicatons, the MM seemed more suitable). In general, despite its overwhelmingly high price, the MM beats them all. I still wouldn't call it perfect though. The palm-muting sound, no matter what setting, tends to stay the same, sort of like a 'chink' sound like someone said, very metal and great for grinding, but I haven't managed to get that 'rolling' kind of pm like I once did with my

Have had it for half-a year, no problems yet. The switch is a little annoying though, like some have said, DOD-like (i.e., too small and the spring too rigid). I like the knobs though, they have a nice feel to them, and it's survived well up until now. I use the adapter I was pretty much forced to buy from the store (that warranty crap again).

Well, I haven't talked to them, but I bought this pedal full price and the store didn't even have the box or manual, which sometimes disturbs me, knowing this was 200$ canadian with the adapter (and on sale?!?!).

For metal, this thing is great going into an amp. You can't go wrong with it, whether you have an EQ pedal or not (though don't put it through a rock amp if you don't). The only thing that pissed me off was the mixer output which some people are bound to love anyhow, and the ridiculous price I paid for it (and it was the lowest-costing digitech pedal I found!). I would only buy this again if I found it much cheaper, otherwise, I'd get a Fabtone if I can find one or try a Zoom Tri-Metal or Hyperlead if any are still around. The bottom line is that I could live without this, but it would make getting a good metal sound much, much harder and costly.

Pretty easy you just gotta play around with it. The manual is good. It actually gives you four suggested settings to play around with.

I play an Ibanez RG to this to my peavey xxl 2x12 combo it sounds wonderful. I went online and looked at the digitech artist pages and it showed jack owens(cannibal corpse) setting and i dialed it in and adjusted the lows and level and got a WONDERFUL METAL hint METAL distortion. If your gonna try to play hendrix with this dont go on here and give it a bad review. With my set up its not noisy at all. Not gonna give it a 10 because i dont think any distortion pedal is a 10. This is just my distortion until i can afford a high gain boogie or diezel. Only bad thing is the level is pretty much a volume and it has no mid control.

Seems to be built pretty good. Dont kno where the battery goes tho because i dont mess with batteries in pedals just get the adapter. Doesnt slide around. I would gig without a backup.

havent dealt with them yet.

I play metal and hard rock. Classic rock every now and then but my amp handles that distortion. Ive been playing about 2 1/2 years and finnaly got a very good distortion with this. IF it where stolen iid buy it again and a back up just in case. I wish it had a mid control. Sounds like the metal zone with a more balls out approuch to metal distortion.

easy to set up but you will never get quite the correct sound
without more gear,see below

pete back guitar with duncan pickups and gotoh locking trem. best guitar ive ever played.boss ns2.metal master.boss ch1.and soon to come
boss eq7.going into 2 marshal valvestate amps.
this pedal is so noisy it was useless,i did not think even a noise gate would tame it. however the ns2 solved all my problems.
I tune down to d to play symphony x stuff and this pedal is just superb for big chords and palm muting i have got a decent sound from it.not totaly happy with it on its own i dont think you can eq it enough but when the boss eq comes i think it will be great.the most brutal distortion i have used.

NA
only had it a few weeks,ok so far

i play metal and learning to play neo classical shred.ithink the metal master will be great for the job but you must use a noise gate and some extra eq because in my opinion its not quite good enough on it own.i would buy it again cos with a bit of tweeking its gonna be great.been playing over 20years and have never had as much distortion
sounds great with the d tuning.