Ibanez MS10 Metal Charger

Works just like any analog guitar pedal

I like the sound quality a lot - after modifications. In stock condition there is not much to talk about - just a dull and annoying sound like any bad fuzz box. After consulting various people, cut off diodes. I took off just the diodes D5 and D6, leaving the rest as is. That made all the difference in the world. Surprising. I do have a TS9 and the sound clearly comes from the same vein but has much more gain. After getting this box - and they are cheap - I don't know why some people want add more gain to their TS9's. To me, this is it, plus more usable sounds because of the eq. I have a number of overdrive / distortion boxes like TS9, Marshall BluesBreaker Mk 1, both solid state and tube home made overdrives (FET+ Germanium, tube EF86, tube ECC86 based). But I have been missing a more distorted 80's type of sound that I would like to use from time to time, thick and creamy, a little like for example in Mick Jagger piece Lucky in love. A modified MS10 seems to do it for me. I mainly use Yamaha Pacifica solid-body with PAF pickup, to a 6W Class A tube amp with Celestion Vintage 10 that a friend built for me, this amp somewhat resembles early Fender Princetons, I guess from '50's. Sometimes I use a Marshall compressor first before distortion boxes. I will not give this a 10 since I have heard a few and built some myself to know that there are some great sounds out there, but for a certain type of song this seems to work very, very well. Without mods I find it pretty useless.

Looks fairly reliable. Probably not as tough though as the 9 series, since the jacks go directly to the PCB. I had to fix a problem in the input jack before using it. But it was pretty easy to fix though.

Most of the time I fix problems myself. I am usually helpful and friendly so that works ok :-)

Overall some eq settings do not work with my instrument so I guess one can get way muddy sounds from it too. But maybe those could work with some other instrument / amp combination. Since these things for most bit cost next to nothing, I think it is great value as starting point for modifications. Considering the price, I will give it a 10. Without the mods this would be around 3 or 4.

Distortion devices are usually not very difficult to deal with. And while these knobs labeled DISTORTION and LEVEL (= Volume) are really quite self- explanatory, those three tone controls called ATTACK, PUNCH and EDGE are not as simple a matter. ATTACK actually is a pre- distortion tone control (the same circuitry that is placed post-dist in the TS) with a more or less neutral setting at 12 o??clock. So start out from there and use it either to calm a signal too shrill by turning it counter-clockwise, or OTOH to brighten a signal to dull by turning it clockwise. I usually have it around 1 o??clock. Now PUNCH and EDGE are post-distortion controls with PUNCH controlling the low end and EDGE high mids and treble. I usually set both to max as a starting point and reduce both just enough to get rid of too much oomph and shrillness, resulting in values of around 3 o??clock for punch and 4 o??clock for edge. Now that you know it??s not even that difficult, is it?

Okay, time to admit that me, too, has tinkered with this pedal??s circuitry. I think that the stock sound is quite good, actually. The only real shortcoming is its lack of output level. It??s funny but it seems like the more you distort your guitar sound, the more sheer volume you require to cut through. My `69 Marshall (50 watts, usually enough) never sounded lower then when I tried Boss?? HM-2 with it. So this is a serious complaint. Some people here nag about the full on distortion this pedal produces, comparing it with the Tubescreamer series. That??s so silly! This thing is called METAL CHARGER, not OVERDRIVE. If you want a TS, get a TS. TS 10??s, 5??s and 7??s are all really affordable.
Before I tell you what I did alter, let??s shortly have a look a the basic building blocks of this distortion unit, shall we? First off there??s the input buffer, of course. Interestingly the efx input is also being fet switched, assumingly because there would be some serious bleed through without it. Next is the Attack tone control around an op-amp, followed by two soft clipping stages, which in turn are followed by a pair of hard clipping diodes. Then there are punch and edge eq??s, the volume control, a fet switch and the output buffer. Not the usual bipolar transistor, but an op amp.
Now those people recommending the removal of diodes one through four tell you to convert those soft clipping stages into simple amplification stages. Well, what??s the point in that?
Here are my mod??s: first of all, replace diodes 5 & 6 (the hard clippers) with leds. Less hard clipping, higher output. Secondly, lift one side of diodes 3 & 4 off the board and solder them to a 0.1 ceramic disc capacitor, with the other leg of the cap going back to where those diodes once terminated. An idea I??ve stolen from the Big Muff Pi. This gives a clearer, more balanced distortion. Step no. three: replace diodes 1 & 2 with four germanium diodes. Two and two of these will get their legs twisted and soldered together in order to have them run in series. You could also leave diode 2 in and replace only diode 1 with Germanium, resulting in a soft clipping stage with assymetrical distortion. I found the resulting sound a little to lame and upped this stage??s feedback resistor from 4k7 to 100k. You could get even more by inserting 220k like in soft clipping stage two. If you find the resulting amount of distortion to tame, forget about daisy-chaining those GE diodes, replace the silicon ones with one germanium type each. For still more distortion replace diodes 3 & 4 with GE types. Last thing I did: I replaced the 1uF coupling cap that comes from the input fet switch with a 0.47 cap. If that seems to radical, try anything inbetween. Why? because 1uF lets a lot of low frequencies pass, giving a lot of intermodulation distortion. Also I found the punch control to insensitive. Now a lot of low end is being attenuated and the resulting distortion is smoother. The punch control brings a lot of low end back in AFTER the signal has been clipped.
The result is quite astounding: a hefty distortion which clears up nicely when you turn down that distortion knob. Ever lowered SUSTAIN on a big muff? There??ll be a point when the sound plain sucks (well, a big muff ain??t built for that, so no complaint). Not so with my modded MS10. You get real dense distortion that is never unpleasant. I??ve a/b-ed it with my FatCat (a RAT clone) and found that, both pedals having the distortion control on full tilt, the amount of distortion was about the same, yet the MS10 had a far more controlled sound (which is, of course, not always what I want). It??s a high gain distortion pedal, so don??t critisize it for what it??s meant to be when what you really want is an overdrive. If, however you like the sound of two tubescreamers in series, this here MS10 could be an interesting choice for you.

True, then 10 series weren??t as sturdy as the nine series. But they??re way better then the so called tank series with their plastic housings (or DOD stompboxes, for that matter). Considering the shortcomings in the 10 series?? construction it is surprising how well they hold up. Which does have a lot to do with that stair case shape of those Ibanez and Boss pedals, I think. So while I do think they could have done better, I have to admit that they??ve done well enough to make these pedals pass the test of time.

I quite like the Boss Heavy Metal HM-2 pedal that I??ve got. It produces a whole lot of fizz that can be shaped into a variety of nice distortion sounds with a little help from a graphic eq. Same can be done with the Ibanez Metal Charger or any other distortion device for that matter. What makes the ms10 stand out in comparison is that it does produce decent sounds without the use of post-eq. Having modded the metal charger as described above gives this pedal a character very much of its own: a dual soft clipping device with just a touch of hard clipping, where every stage adds just a bit of distortion instead of one stage clipping the signal flat. Now if you only wanna play power chord riffs and/or single note solos, the stock pedal is absolutely fine except for that lack of volume boost. Which a graphic eq following in series could make up for. If, however, you want to play more complex harmonic structures than 1-5-8, I highly recommend a little bending of the original circuit, especially replacing diodes 5 & 6 with leds and lowering of the input cap. For a high gain distortion pedal this one is really very versatile, stock or not stock. Considering the prices these go for I would even go so far as to calling them a trade secret.

Quite simple

Without any modifications, I would give 5 points to this one. It was awful, and I could't get any decent sound out of it. Just horrible chainsaw effect. I tried to play metal with it.

So I forgot this pedal for about 10 years...

But after I did some modifications like suggested here, sound got a lot better. Now I am using it like Tubescreamer. In front of guitar amp it gives me good overdrive and fulfills the lak of attack of my Mesa/Boogie V-Twin. It's not suitable for hard metal, but still gives quite enough good drive for example old school metal. (Iron Maiden, Mot??rhead etc.)

The mod goes like this:
Remove diodes D1, D2, D3 and D4. That's it!

I'm not convinced about it's reliability. On the other hand it hasn't let me down ... yet. I have used only like 10 hours after the mod.

I use this pedal, when I play rock music in a cover band. We play music from bands like Deep Purple, AC/DC, Bon Jovi, CCR, Lenny Kravitz etc.
I've been playing about 15 years now. Mostly metal.

My setup is like this:

Guitar(Ibanez RG-620) -> MS10 -> Mesa/Boogie V-Twin -> Boss PSM-5 Power supply & master switch -> Line6 POD XT Live (switchable on/off with PSM-5)-> Marshall JCM 900 Amp

I'm also playing in three other bands, and I'm not using MS-10 in these band. (They are melodic metal and death metal)

I would compere this to Ibanez TS-9. Quite close.

If it where stolen, I wouldn't buy another one, because I have almost as good stompbox model in POD XT Live.

Usual gain (called distortion) and level control and 3 other conrols:
punch (bass and low mids), attack (very high mids), edge (ear piercing trebles).
Distortion, attack, punch and edge influence each other, so it is not easy to set the sound you want. What i miss is a usable mid control. The frequencys controlled by attack are too high for my taste.
The range of each control, regarded seperately, is ok, but they could be a little more linear imo.

I did not like the distortion character, neither original nor modded.

It has lots of gain, but the distortion sound is to harsh and mushy the same time, overly compressed, undynamic, artificial and transistor-like imho. I did not like the sound at all.

Therefor i tried a modd: cutting off diodes 1 to 4.
With that mod the dynamics became much better, now it reacts fine to the volume control of my guitars, but the basic distortion character didn't improve.
Modded i can't rate it higher than 6.

Imo unusable in front of a clean tube amp, not very convincing in front of a slightly overdriven tube amp.

Another down sside of the MS-10.

It is made cheaply, pots/knobs seem really cheap and the foot switch doesn't work reliably. Often i have to kick it 2 or more times to turn it on or off.
Unusable for stage use.
I have another pedal of the 10 series (compressor CP-10), and its foot switch works better, but also not as reliable as it should work.

I can rate it only 4. If it was newer, i'd rate it even worse.

no idea

It doesn't sound good, it is not reliable, therefor the best possible rating i can give are 4.
Even if it would sound good (what it does not) it was hardly usable because of the unreliable foot control.

It is easy to get sound out of it, but to get a decent sound is not to easy.
In addition to the usual gain/level controls it has 3 further controls:
attck, edge and punch. These 3 knob behave like an interdependend EQ,
one for bass and low mids, one for trebles, one for very high mids.
And the interdependence of these 3 with the gai/distortiuon control make it more difficult than e.g. on a marshall overdrive pedal to find your sound.
I have no manual, firmware doesn't apply here.
Gain (labeled distortion) and level work as they should, but the eq is quite dissapointing.

I seek for my sound, not teh sound of a certain artist.

Unmodded the effect quality is rather bad, in my taste. Too compressed and un-dynamic, either too mushy or too harsh (very hard too find an overall-ok setting). It is not very noisy.
I play (better: played) it in front of tube amps with gibson-scale mahagoni 2 humbucker guitars like 2 Burny Les Pauls or a Dean Sarasota Std.
As i wrote, the unmodded sound is in my ears rather bad. I was very disappointed after i have read several good reviews. Drive level was o.k. (from middle overdrive to almost high gain drive), but sound wasn't.

Then i read about mods: cutting off sdiodes 1 to 4. I had nothing to lose (but a bad pedal), so i tried it.
In deed, this improved the sound a little. It became more dynamic, less compressed. Now it reacts rather fine to the volume control of my guitars and to the way a hit the strings.
Nevertheless, it still doesn't sound good.
Still either too bassy or too harsh, still the distortion character is not good, too transistor like and artificial, still remarkably worse than a chepo pedal like Digitech Bad Monkey.
It is usable (but not too good) to blow a slightly overdriven tube amp a little (or more than a little) hatrder, bit it sounds really bad and annoying in front of a clean tube amp.

After mod i'd rate it 6 from 10. Befor modification max. 4 of 10.
All in all 5 points.

After the soudn the reliability is the other down side of this pedal. Built really weak and cheap. Especialliy the foot switch is unreliable, therefor it is unusable on stage.
I have another Ibanez Pedal of the 10 series (cp10 compressor).
On the cp10 the foot switch works a little better, still not good enough for stage purposes. On stage a foot switch has to work at the first kick, exactly in time. On the Ibanez 10 pedals it sometimes takes 2 kicks to turn the pedal on/off, my MS10 sometime needs 3 kicks.

The knobs and the chassis seem very cheap and not exactly built for eternity, therefor only 4 points (and this does regard thatthe pedal is not new, a new pedal would get 1 of 10).

no idea

An overdrive/distortion pedal with 3-band-EQ is a d*** good thing.
This spedal could be a good pedal with:
- easier to fix EY
- good (or at least ok) sound
- reliablity
The pedal has nothing of that, even after modding it it doesn't sound ok.
I have read several good reviews 'bout this pedal. Either mine is a 'monday model' or defect or the MS10 is just sh*t.
I highly recommend to test it befor buying it.

5 controll,
distortion, level, edge, punch, attack.
Edge, punch and attack are kinda EQ, interactive and its hard to find the right blend.
Edge and so on also influence the amount of distortion.

For the difficulty to adjust it right, i can rate it only 6.

I do not care for the sound of artists, i do not want to sound like some artist, i want to sound like me.

Setup: full tube amps (Engl, Fender Tweed Clone), mainly mahagoni-guitars with gibson-scale and 2 humbuckers, e.g. 2 Burny Les Pauls. Hardly ever reverb, no other effects.

Sound quality: i did not like it at all. It sounds too compressed, too artificial and too in-articulated for my taste. No beffy sound there, no classic distortion or overdrive tones, more like a fuzz, but not a good one.
I tried to mod it (cutting off diodes 1 - 4). Makes it sound a little better, but still not good. Unusable in front of a clean amp, not too good in front of a slightly overdriven amp. A little better than unmodded, less compressed, less fuzzy, but still not good.
A little bit noisy, but not too much.

Sorry, it doesn't sound good, it sounds remarkably worse than a 40 Euro digitech Bad Monkey or other cheap pedals, therefor only 6 points, and this contains some good will.

It is about 15 yars old. Built relatively cheaply.
On/off switch doesn't work reliably at my pedal, therefor only 4 points.

No idea.

Imho this pedal is not worthy to buy. No really good sounds, reliabilty is not as should be.

It has 5 controls: the usual drive and level, and in addition 3 controls for:
- attack (upper mids and drive)
- edge (mids and trebles)
- punch (vass and low mids, also influences the drive)

It is not a 3way EQ but a little like 2 drive circuits for different frequency ranges and treble contour control. the controls act interdependent, what makes it a little tricky to find the right soudn for you. But: it makes it versatile! 6 points for easy of use, one extra point for versatility, that gives 7 points.

I have to separate:
un-modded it doesn't sound good. Not really bad, but alsonot good, in my ears.
The drive character is o.k., but is a little too compressed for my taste, not really dynamic. Level should be higher, and lower drive setting are only possible if you turn down punch and attack.
All in all it sounded too artificial, transitsor-like, un-dynamic and un-musical too me. 5 points (because it is not really bad).
But i have to confess, i did not test it very long unmodded.
I didn't really like the sound, so i fastly modded it.
Mod: remove the diodes d1 to d4 (just cutting them off).
This REALLY changed the sound.
Now it makes lower drive settings possible, it acts way more dynamic, it sounds a little like a better tube screamer ts-9 with enhanced EQ possibilities, more bass and really good dynamics. You can go from clean to decent hard crunch just with the volume pot of your guitar. Each pickup setting sounds clearly different, it doesn't sound artificial but tube-like. Output level is a little better now (but could be still more). Now it can be set to totally clean, but because of too less level it can't be used as a clean booster.
After mod: 8.5 points.

That makes all in all 7 points.

It is from the 80s.
It is not built like a tank. Controls seem not very stable, but the main disadvantage is the switch, which is not very reliable.
It often takes 2 or 3 kick to sqitch between bypass and effect mode.
Therefor i can't rate it higher than 6, if it was not that old i'd rate it even lower.
I wouldn't ig with it. Maybe a replace of the foot switch could solve that problem.

no idea

After mod it sounds good and versatile. It offers a lot of possibilities to adopt it to your guitar or your taste, and drive sounds are good. Now sounds roughly like a tube screamer with enough bass.

Without mod it doesn't flash me soundwise, and the reliability is not as it should be for a brand pedal from Ibanez.
Therefor only 6 points, all in all.
I like the modded sound, but if it was stolen i wouldn't buy another one.

it's pretty easy to use. 5 controls,
first is the amount of distortion upto and over silly amounts
second is volume when on
third is attack which makes it sound smoother when rolled back
punch is like low frequency whallap
and edge is high frequency wallap.

This has a great sound on it's own sometimes i stick a compressor on
before it.
It's slightly better for lead than rhythm.
I use this with a parker with single coil/humbucker (coiltaps).
It's a bit noisy on full gain as it is doing what is asked for.
I've used it straight into a hi-fi amp (surprisingly good),
a peavey bandit and a marshall valve head and cab (half stack).
It's always good, but with the marshall i let it do less work so
that i can marshall up the sound a bit.

I had one for years and damaged the in connector by using a really
thick guitar lead and jamming it past the power socket ( with
a power socket thing in ).
The battery connector thing is a bit frail.
Everything else is solid.
I have 3 of these. I bought one in about 86 and damaged it a bit so
I bought a replacement which was modded ( I hate the modded ones ).
Just by a tube screamer if that's what you want. (I have a tube screamer as well). So I had to buy another on ebay so that I could use it live.

I play rock and blues stuff like that. This thing as far as I'm concerned is for rock solos. In that respect it excells and makes
other stuff like the various Boss metal and distortion pedals look
like a heap of junk. ( I have some of these also ).
Remember that when this was new it was about ??75 in 1986? and the
equivalent boss stuff was ??40. Now you can get yourself superior
ibanez series 10 pedals on ebay cheaper than the boss ones?
Strange and true. Except for tube screamers (series 9), people really wet themselves over those.

N/A

This is a fun pedal to play around with. Very dynamic! I would not consider it heavy metal as much as I would consider it classic rock. In other words, more Judas Priest/Kiss than Van Halen.

***QUESTION*** I am very interested in converting this pedal into a TS-9 (but with the extra knobs for tweaking!). I have seen reference to this mod on this board. Can someone post a real layman's description on how to do this? I have heard that you just have to take out a few diodes, however, I don't think I would know how to tell D1 from D2 or D3 just by looking. Also, if you take out the Diodes, do you have to re-soder the connection?

20+ years old and running strong, much like all of my Ibanez Pedals!

Very impressive actually. I had trouble with my Ibanez Chorus (CS 505 I believe it was). That pedal was a good 25 years old, and, Ibanez was still able (and willing) to send me a schematic!

A fun pedal to play around with. A no brainer for the the 40 or 50 bucks it will cost you on eBay.

I wrote a review for the MS10 yet, but this is my second MS10 that i want to use in Live. I modify it immediately to test the improvements of the mod.

Is easy to use it, and it's very easy to mod!!!
Just open the box, take a solder and remove 4 diodes in the center of the board (D3 - D4 - D5 - D6).

After the mod, it becomes more easy to use and obtain wonderful sounds!
The EQs and all the levels seems to work better and give more colour at the sound.

Unmodded MS10 create a good amount of distortion, but too much muddy at high levels, noisy, overcompressed, it seems to denature the amp then the guitar sound, it lose some cranck shadings/frequences of the amp and some guitars like les paul.
An example: it was well for strats solos, but my '69 Les Pauls seems to be a stagg, sounds too much shrill without a "body" (for example gzzzzz sound instead of Grrrrrrr in the chords) and punch don't change it.

After the mod there's NO LOSS OF DISTORTION in my 1959slp!!!
The gain is more linear and it excites the features of the guitars and pre-tubes, bass break-up very well with gibsons guitars and don't need to be "punched".

When i plug my '69 les paul in the modded MS10, and it to my '73 jmp plexi, i discover a TRUE MARSHALL DISTORTION and i can't stop play for 3 hours!!
Recently i substitute the GT ecc83s (really, selected sovtek 12ax7wa) with JJ Tesla Ecc83S in V1 and V2, Ecc803s as phase inverter.
Now the sound is more marshall like and the modded MS10 amplifies this improvements!

Now it get a pile of distortion (more than the jcm2000), it's more warmest, round tone, the EQ works better, it get finest sound with the strats, cranckest sound with the gibsons with more liquid solos, infinite sustain without feedbacks also with volume at 10, better slide effects....and, it's very important, PURE GUITAR and AMP TONE!!!

It's the best "marshall in a box" that i never heard!
I tried the TS9-DX (modded "plus" by keeley) of a friend (paid 160 euros) and it was awful compared with my second MS10 paid 46? and modded by myself in 5 minutes!

Now I use these settings
Distortion - 9
Level - 3
attack 3
Punch, edge - 1

With this setting i obtain all marshall tone only adjusting the volume of the guitar, from jimmy page - slash to zakk wylde, from Stevie Ray Vaughn to Malmsteen.

The mod don't take positive effects in solid state amps (this is a "pro" pedal), but you can get a good mod distortion replacing the 4 diodes with leds ;)

...I have also a MXR D+104... it was good for some rock tracks, specially using the bottleneck...
But i don't think to carry it in live (now I don't use it anyway), the D+ bypass is awful and the modded MS10 become good also for the slides (removing the muddyness), has the triple amount of distortion and the thent of MXR noise!

I think to modify the mxr to obtain less noise but, the modded MS10 has anyway the triple of distortion, more controls like EQ, better sound, better bypass. There's no comparison!

I open it...
Heavy box, good PCB, solders and pots. Very good!

As said yet, the internal slot is too much small for my 9V Rechargeable batteries.
Normal batteries fits OK but has only 3 hours of life.

Now i try to use GBL AC-DC 1A adaptor, but i'm forced to put 4 electrolitic capacitors of 220uF in the output for remove the AC buzz.

Can Ibanez support a pedal modded by myself?
It's easy to repair like a toy.
There's 1000 schematics on internet!

I'm opening a website, i will include schematics and photos of useful mods.

Thanks to Jerome for the first photo of the mod.

Simply the best!
You can have it used at ridicolous prices, after the mod you can discard and replace any overdrive, distortion pedal, compressor, BBE Maximizer with only one pedal!

I bought two MS10 (Live + Studio) and i haven't regrets.

I'm playin` different kind of blues/ bluesrock sometimes soul/ funk music.
From B.B King to SRV, Clapton and C.Santana.
My setup (I love it): Fender US Lonestar Strat (Pearly Gates HB in parallel)+ MIJ Strat with Texas Specials, Dunlop CryBaby, Rodenberg GAS 828, Ibanez MS 10, Boss PS-2 (using only for delay), Fender Deluxe Reverb - very fine amp, the best I ever used - playing guitar for almost 25 years playing gigs in clubs or on small stages.
In the past I used BOSS SD-1, Roland GP-8, Hughes Kettner Cream Machine and a Marshall Amp. Have sold all of it!

I think it's quite easy to get good sounds out of it, especially using it with the Strats and the Fender Deluxe (tube amp!!!).
I`m having the "made in Japan" version of the MS.
Received it with box and manual. The pedal was in excellent condition. Looks and works like new.

Well. Here is my review.
It's an IBANEZ pedal! TS like with his own character, up to heavy distortion.
When I saw it on ebay, first of all I read the reviews on harmony central!
Although some guys recommend a modification, i have to say if you are lookin for a overdrive(!) and distortion pedal with a maximum range of slightly overdriven to screaming lead sounds, this is a good choice. Also there`s a big amount of tone tone control options with the potis ATTACK, EDGE and PUNCH.
A powerful sound with nice harmonics and girth and of course enough distortion, for blues/ rock players, i`m not a metal head!
My GAS 828 is more TS-808 like, more midrangy, perfect for traditional Blues and Fusion stuff for my ears.
The MS reminds me of SD-1 but with much more power (punch!).
But it`s easy to produce also sounds like SRV`s Pride and Joy with the MS 10.
I'm still working on a C.Santana like sound, but it sounds great so far!
Reducing ATTACK makes the guitar sound more violin or flute like, if you know what I mean!
The tone control is also very helpful, to find your right position in the mix - I'm playin` with a horn section!
...some kind of "old fashioned" modelling unit!
Try one if you can, it`s very much fun.

Ibanez quality. The unit is about 20 years old.
It looks/ works like bought yesterday!

A fine unit for a nice price. Maybe even a quiet tip. Keep on playing!

I bought this effect used, without a manual, but the MS10 is very easy to use, 5 knobs:
Distortion
Level (Volume)
Attack
Punch (Bass)
Edge (Medium high frequeces)

After 5 minutes of tries, you're sure to obtain every sound you want!!!

I have a 1984 version, The sound is GREAT and i love it!!!!!
Ibanez create a very good pedals!!!!
I use it with a 1959slp with GT valves on pre-power, 1960ax greenback speakers cab, les paul '69 deluxe with seymour hot rails in the bridge, fender mexico stratocaster ash body with dimarzio pickups, greg bennett av3 with seymour seth lover on the bridge.
The pedal has a lot of settings that i can play from the "vaughan style" blues to the heaviest 80s - 90s metal!
I use settings
Distortion - 10
Level - 4
attack, punch, edge - 10
and i obtain, with the avion, a identical PURE "KISS" SOUND, with a lot of cutting edge screams!
With the les paul, the sound spaces from gary moore to ratt/scorpions genre (listen blues alive, invasion of your privacy, crazy world for understand).
But the maximum performances i have with the stratocaster because it's "equalized" favoring the medium or high frequences, tipical of "thin" guitars like fenders, jackson, esp.
Ideal for malmsteen - axel rudi pell style (my guitars plugged in the ms10 sounds better than the axel rudi pell CD/Live tracks).

However, if anybody want better performances and tone with les pauls, or for obtain a similar slash sound, you can get it using a cab with AV30 celestions.

Also i used settings
Distortion - 6
Level - 5
attack - 9
punch, edge - 10
for bluesin' or play country riffs, dirty-clean slides with bottleneck, "overdrived" solos, half-distorted crunch or 70s rock style.

It can be little noisy at high levels, especially with low quality guitars or pickups plugged in, but for my needs or guitars the pedal is OK and i don't want to mod it yet.

Very sturdy stomp box, i think no one have troubles with it....
However the internal slot is too much small for my 9V Rechargeable batteries.
With normal batteries it hasn't problems but i prefer rechargeable stuff or DC adapters.

If you want to use adapter, use high quality power supply or it can cause annoying buzzes!!!

Personally, i use a 220-12v PSU for old AT PC's limited at 9v by a 8ohm resistance for all my pedals, it works perfectly!!

I never need support....

It's simply to understand how many sound you can posses in a small, green, sturdy box.

The distortion can be from quiet to hard, from bright to very cutting, is the best pedal i never heard and it kicks off the boss pedals in every way.
It has 4 JRC4558D (the ts9 contains one) chips that produces a very analog high quality sound.

A bit trickier than pedals with only 2 or 3 knobs, as the controls are somewhat dependant on each other. But if you spend enough time playing with them, you'll find something good. Watch the punch and attack buttons particularly, as they shape the sound more subtly.

Using an Epi Les Paul, tried it with tons of effects and by itself. "Pristine" isnt' what I would use to describe the sound, really. The name "Metal Charger" implies high voltage rock beast, and thats what this baby is! I've read about the mods people have done to the pedal, but I'm refraining. Everyone wants to turn this into a tubescreamer for some reason, Lol! I've already got one of those, I wanted METAL! This isn't you super-sludge metal, its more focused on the lower-mids and high freqs. Does have a nice, thick high gain sound. Not at all processed or cheesey. I played this into a roland jc120, and also a fender hot rod, the hot rod def. sounded better, I just don't like those rolands, they can't handle distortion so well...anyway. Screaming leads with the gain way up, level even, attack and punch both at 3 oclock and edge just a hair shy of 3. Thick rhythm with the gain at 3 oclock, level and edge even, attack and punch maxed. Some people think the clipping diodes hide the JRCs, but they're there to clip! The whole thing together makes a nice mass of noise. Can do good palm muting, leads, rhythm. Just depends if you like the overall sound or not, some will, some won't. I do though, hehe

Very solid, that battery compartment is nice! I would put the 9V adapter input more centrally between the two other inputs, as if you use too large of a cable you can't plug the adapter in! Solid other than that...this pedal is quite old and in totally good shape.

n/a

I play various kinds of guitar based rock. I"m not a metal head, but I like being able to include metal-like parts into some songs. I like palm muting and the occasional crazy solo in what otherwise sounds like straightforward pop/rock, for example. I like stuff thats all over the place. I play lead in a band, and this is my effect for 'punching' up my level, and sailing above the mix live. This pedal is good for that, sounds pretty shrill at bedroom practice levels. But, if you open it up, and play it high volume, that's where you really hear those 4 JRC opamp chips! Do the mods if you want a beefed up tubescreamer, but this is a very cool pedal in its own right. Yeah, there's noise, welcome to the world of high gain! Metal zone? noise. DOD - noise out the ass! Boutique pedal may reduce noise some (some...) but then you're paying like $200. This is a fine high gain distortion pedal.

There are 5 knobs and each of them makes an extreme change in tone when turned even the slightest so it takes a long time to tweak to your desired tone. I'm using it before a DS-1, keeping both boxes switched on at the same time for a thicker and smoother tone. I use the two pedals together as one box to achieve one desired tone, therefore I have to mess around total of 8 knobs to get my distortion tone.

When I first got this box it took me literally days of constant messing around to get my tone. At one point I even had to write down what I had all the knobs set to so I could remember where all the good settings were at.

I got this pedal basically for free from a guitar trade shop. I came to the store with a busted up, no name wah pedal and he basically gave me the cheapest item in his store (he was selling straps for more than this pedal) I played through it and of course it sucked big time. The sound was muddy, distant and very noisy. Basically unusable. By itself I would give the pedal a 3 or a 4.

Checking the reviews for it I came across the mod. Basically there are 3 circuits in the pedal with 2 diode pairs in each running parralel to each other. Some clever dude figured out that cutting 2 of the circuits would give you a smoother more controled distortion tone, comparable to a TS-9. I had nothing to lose so I got myslef a pair of needle nose pliers, opened it up and broke diodes 3,4,5,6 and covered them with tape. The sound was much smoother now. Not metal, but much better non the less. At this point I would give the pedal a 7.

Still not satisfied I tried using this in different combinations in my loop with different settings. Finally, by accindent I put it in front of my DS-1(A truly terrible distortion pedal) and put the level knob all the way down to about a 3 and all the other knobs to about half. To my amazement it completely transformed the sound of the DS-1. All, and I mean ALL, hiss and background noise disappeared. The sound of the distortion which came out thin from the DS-1 was now thick and smoother, like overdrive from a Marshall. It was much more responsive to my guitars tone knob now and I was able to go from hard rock distortion to overdrive and then a dirty sparkle just by turning the knob down a few clicks. The combo of the DS-1 and the metal charger is the most intergral part of my rig and creates one of the most distinct distortion tones I've ever heard.

Not sure yet. I've only had it for a month or so but I'd be very surprised if it lasted given how much I messed around with it.

Old discontinued pedal that I'm sure Ibanez would rather forget about. didn't have to deal with them

I've been playing about 10 years. I play a 1983 American Stratocaster Elite and a Gibson Sg through a Roland GP-100 into the Metal Charger/DS-1 pair into a Fender Bassman 100.

I am very lucky to have stumbled on this little pedal and its mod. It has, in some respects saved my rig, which I have been very disapointed with in the past. Its ironic that with all this expensive equipment a cheapo $10 piece of shit could turn it all around. I use it more as a noise surpressor, volume boost, or EQ than a distortion pedal. I'd even say its more of a tool than a pedal. Truly great stuff. It is however highly unlikely that another person could replicate these results. I got it to work more through chance and trial and error than anything else. If you find one cheap go ahead and get it. It lends itself to modding very well and through some work you can customize it to make your sound.

Indeed The MS10 takes a bit of tweaking but after you find what you want it's a very good pedal.

I don't think you need to have the distortion set to max to get a good sound out of a pedal.The MS 10 is a great proof of that.I Use the Distortion a little past the middle,the level set half way and the attack and punch set to max with the edge setting between the 4 - 5 o clock position and To me this is a great distorted sound, awesome for rythm work.
It works nicely with the ibanez cf7 for a cool spacey flanged distortion.I got an epi les paul custom with a an sh-5 on the bridge and a strat with duncans and I really like the sound of this thing.It truly is brighter than contemporary distortion pedals but still packs a punch!great crunch rythm sound

I use it with the ibanez dc 5 adaptor and haven't had much of a problem with it.I'm not a pro so I can't tell for sure this is a gigworthy stomp box or not but for a hobbist like me it does its job well

I like a little bit of everything that's guitar oriented,so I dig a lot of different stuff from softer music,from modern,alt rock,etc.
My brother in law gave me this pedal and I'm really grateful to him for that.I really like the dynamic range you get from this pedal,with distortion a bit past half way you can simply use the guitar's volume knobs to change from a nice sparkly "clean" tone to good crunchy rythm sounds.for alt rock sounds this is very useful imo

It?s difficult to use. There?s 5 buttons: dist, level, attack, punch, edge. The three last are complicated to understand, but after you got it, you can customize great sounds.

I used to have this pedal for more than ten years. It was retired and forgotten on the box since 1996 when I bought my first Zoom. Reading the others reviews on these page I found the guide to modify it. Even I was going to sell it, I tried the mod, taking off the diodes 1,2,3,4. It?s easy to do, and it brings a great sound. I don?t know if it?s identical to Tube Screamer, but is very near. Now, I simply can?t use a tube amp without the Ms10 giving more punch and rage on input.

I use these settings, with a 9v alcaline battery, cause with a power suplly it?s very noisy:

level 5-7
dist 6-7 (more than that brings a lot of feedback)
attack 3-4
punch 4
edge 3-4

Plug it on a tube amp at high gain overdrive and get mad!

I never used it in a gig after the mod. Before the mod I never would use it, cause its sound was terrible and noisy. Live, I use a Zoom 2020 or a POD 2.0 pluged on the return line of a amp.

I?m sure that the MS10 will be great on the next record I do, now that it ressurected with the mods.

I play Death/Thrash Metal, and otherwise someone said, It?s possible to get great high gain/Thrash Metal sounds with Ms10, if you do the mods. I have a Gibson Flying V anda a Jackson RR3 with Seymour Duncan JB on the bridge. I will never search for another overdrive/distortion pedal again, maybe a Sansamp, but it?s another way.

The stock Metal Charger isn't difficult to figure out, but getting a good sound out of it is another story. It was very muddy and it took me considerable tweeking time to get anything decent. After the mod, it's the complete opposite. It's almost hard to make it sound bad.

In a word - WOW! What a difference these mods make. The muddiness is totally gone. It's been replaced by a warm, round tone that sits perfectly in the mix. I've used it with both a Peavey Classic 30 and a Vox Pathfinder, and it sounds great with both.

Using Brian's instructions, I did the mods myself. I'd never soldered anything before in my life, so I'm not sure how reliable this pedal will be long-term. That's the only reason I'll give it an 8. But it sure seems to have gone very well.

This is where Brian gets a gold star. As a mod newcomer, I had a number of dumb questions. Brian answered them all quickly and thoroughly. He also passed along a couple of extra tips. It made the whole experience a lot of fun.

I play classic rock, and the MS-10 will now be one of my mainstays. Just a short time ago I was going to sell it. I can't believe this is the same pedal. That's how much of a night-and-day difference this mod makes. Since I bought Brian's entire mod package, I can hardly wait to tackle my Boss GE-7.

First of all, this review refers to the "3 to 6 diodes mod" (thanks to Giancarlo, very helpful and friendly moreover!!!). Anyway, the three trimming knobs (not merely affecting the eq actually) tend to make the tweaking long, but if you push them all close to max you can't go that wrong.

The unmodded pedal deserves a 4, not more. It's virtually unusuable at high gain because of noise, and even at lower gain you get a hyper-compressed, unnatural tone which totally disguises the 4 JRC4558 chips in it.
After the mod, well it nails my TS10: noise is reduced, boost is improved, distortion sounds much creamier and clearer (with more drive when maxed), even if it lacks a little bit of transparency in high frequencies in comparison to TS. Very good overdrive-soft distortion range, anyway, it definitely gets above the average. You can taste the JRC's in this way..

I don't wanna talk about it... Had it for too short.

Ibanez who?

I bought this as a backup to my TS10 and TS9, but I didn't like it at all and I was considering to sell it. After the mod, it stands on its own and has a really nice personality. As I said, very good soft distortion: my TS's are maybe still more suitable to my ears and my playing style as overdrives themselves, but if I wanna push things a little forward in terms of gain, MS10 has become a better option...

easy to dial but you will need a lot of patience to get a good sound out of it. The 3 eq buttons seems to interact with each other.

First I would like to really tell you guys (and girls) to do the modification removing the 1,2,3,4 diodes ( just unsolder one leg of the diodes and cover it with a small tape, very easy) as the guy with Ibanez JS 6000 under my review did. Thanks a lot man!!
Differences: The noise goes down to a "normal" level when the drive is at max. Muddyness almost gone. More volume. Dynamics comes alive even at high gain. I've been able to get almost any kind of sound that I like/need (not for death metal). Very versatile. Much better than the ts9s that i tried.
Some of my setting:
top drive: level 5, dist 10, attack 0, punch 3.9/3.8, edge 3.8
ts9 like: level 7, dist 6/7, attack 3/4, punch 3.9/3.8, edge 3/3.5
I hope you like it and share yours too.

Bought used but it shine as new. I think the owner never used.
I think it will last more than me ( I hope).

My musical roots came from 80's pop/rock and heavy metal stuff.I've been playing pro for 15 years.
I'm thinking to buy another while it is cheap to use if this one goes away.
Very nice. Try it.

This pedal really kicks Boss Metal Charger's ass. I played it for about 3 years (still got it) and nothing compares to it. The sound is versatile and you can play from blues to heavy metal and even things like Metallica on it. I LOVE IT !

The only problem is that if you don't have a good power supply it can be noisy but that's easy to fix with an alcaline battery. I played it on a Marshall Valvestate 100Watts and it blowed me away. Right I don't use it becose I own some other stuff but it's in my "precious gear" collection.

It is damn reliable if you use it with an alcaline battery. It goes on for almost 20 hours with one 9V battery.

It never had any problems at all

I play rock music (stuff like Metallica, Anouk, Guano Apes). I also own a Boss ME8, a Jim Dunlop Cry Baby wah pedal, a Yamaha 421DL, an Epiphone Les Paul Lefthand and a Cherry CB50 Bass Amplifier (for a fat sound).

It's easy if you turn the eq knobs all the way up. Then you adjust gain and level. As the eq's are extremely effective there are many settings that are not so useful... But it's not too hard.

Okay, if your looking for metal try something else. This machine competes in the tube- scream league.

I play an Ibanez JS 6000 (mostly in single coil modes) through CryBaby--> MetalCharger --> Boss DS-2--> MXR phaser (from'82) ibanez DCF-10 --> Boss DD-2 --> small vintage Marshall combo.

I modded my MS 10 as well- following Jerome's advice taking out the diodes 3,4,5,6. But I didn't like that sound. It produced a harsh fuzz-type distortion , a little like a broken loudspeaker- membrane.
So I put back the diodes 5 and 6, and took out diodes 1 and 2 instead. That sounds much better. Indeed, there is much more volume than in the unmodded pedal, and there is practically no distortion at very low gain levels. This makes it sound very much like a TS- 9 to my ears. Great for boosting tube amps or adding edge before a distortion pedal. It really reacts to your volume pots and to your fingers!
I find the noise level is incredibly low!

I am not yet too happy with the sound at higher gain levels; it still is a little muddy, but for low gain settings this pedal is superb.

As I said, the eq's are incredibly effective. There is no other pedal or amp where I would turn all the knobs fully up, but with this pedal your best off doing this.
But you can create deftones-intro- sounds by turning the gain all the way up and the bass all the way down. Your amp will sound like a cheap radio until you disengage the metal screamer and switch on a really fat distortion pedal.
This pedal is really great!

No complaints so far- and I have the DCF-10 for much longer without any problems.

I never delt with Ibanez.

I wass looking for an overdrive which really reacts well to your fingers and plectrum. For the money that I got it I don't see the point in buying a tube screamer. It has 4 of the JRC 4558 chips that were used in the TS-808, so get it if you can.
I would certainly try and grab a new one if it got lost.

It takes time to realise the different colors you can get + the tone is realy difficult to adjust as there is no traditional bass treble settings. Attack Punch Edge interact together... Globaly I have the edge at around 12, Level at 12 too. Distorsion at 1 oclock minimum.
Attack and punch at high level....

The original sound is like a normal Fuzz, no metal at all, but with a lot more settings, you can get an overdrive sound too.
Sound is muddy when you push the distorsion. This is because there are 4 (four!) JRC4558D opamps + 3 pairs of distorsion diodes inside.

Thanks to Giancarlo in Italy for his tip of removing two pairs of diodes, these are D3 D4 D5 D6. This is the first basic mod to do.
Then it's a very good pedal overdrive till soft distorstion, but no metal. I did change the last pair of clipping diodes D1 & D2 for two small 3mm standard red leds. This gives more output power and a different tone (not at all more agressive, for me more subtil, I preffer). Then I did remove two OP JRC4558D IC3 & IC4, replace them by DIP8 sockets. Then I did try a lot of OPamps, there I have to say there is a risk of oscillation if you are not carefull in the choice... You can get till a realy powerfull hot metal sound with a pair modern chips like the BurrBrown OPA2134PA or OPA2604PA and still can use it as overdrive with dist at 1 oclock. Moded MS10 respects the original character of your guitars & pickups. The next mod for me would be change the good resistor to get more bottom end (I know where to do this on the TS10) I you know how, send me a mail !

Never had any problem with my Ibanez pedals.

I play rock & rythm & blues, since a few years, I have a Tubeworks tube driver (moded) A Marshall guvnor old model (moded) An Ibanez TS10 (moded) Another MS10 (not allready moded)

I am very very satisfied with the original MS10, the possibility to mod it easily. My "Metal Charger" is now a real one ! (+ an overdrive
tubescreamer like)

Just found one of these today. Used to have one over ten years ago when i was recording primitive funk rock nonsense on a four track. I bought it again for a specific reason, and having tried a few other pedals, this is the one i realised i wanted. basically it is in my set up IN FRONT of the wah wah for that soft pyschedelic 60's sound. the setting i use is: distortion almost all the way up, level all the way up, attack about 1/3 up, punch and edge ALL THE WAY DOWN. although the sound is really weak and weedy, the fuzz sustains enough for it to work really well.
well, just thought i would share that with you all, as i am very happy to have found one of these pedals again.

other pedals i am using at the moment are: jim dunlop cry baby, ibanez FL303 flanger, DOD FX50b distortion/overdrive, MXR phase 90, Maplin Echorder.
Anyone have any interesting suggestions for how to chain these together?
This site has been really useful when it comes to buying gear. You feel like you are going into transactions with your eyes opened to any possible glitches, and are able to make a decision on wether or not you are prepared to put with those glitches.
Hope that everyone continues to make valuable contributions to a very useful site.
Regards. x

This puppy's not as easy to use as other distortion pedals because of it's extra features. In addition to level and distortion, it has 'punch', 'attack' and 'edge'. These are eq controls but are unlike the typical low, mid, and high cotrols found on other pedals. It took about 15 minutes to find 'my setting' however you can't go wrong with all controls at 12 noon.

It's not as 'metal' as the name suggests. Unlike a Husquevarna chain saw, it has a warm, albeit aggresive sound. At extreme settings, low end is a bit soft for angry, dark, death metal. Regardless, there are A LOT inbetween setting which are very usable for hard rock.

To me, the best settings started with the distortion, 'edge' and 'punch' controls set to about noon and the level and 'attack' controls set at 2 o'clock. This gave a nice, 80's-metal / hard rock sound that works well for a lot of songs.

It works best when used with an overdrive pedal. With a Sobbat Drivebreaker 2, the results were brutal; a very crunchy, in-your-face, hard rock sound. It also worked well both a Tubescreamer and a Peavey Accelerator Overdrive (great pedal). Also, leave your heavy reverb / delay / modulation at home. Light amount are okay but beyond that, the signal becomes muddy.

I think this is a good pedal for for leads and metal-crunch hell - it's not perfect but it's pretty darn good. Turn down the gain and it classic rock heaven (or pretty close). HOWEVER, I'm only gonna' give it an 8 because it introduces a lot of color to your guitar's signal. Yes, this is almost certainly by-design and the color it adds is pretty cool. However, I feel that color could be a bit more defined, if that makes sence. Perhaps a little clearer with more definition...

My test gear was a heavily modified SF Fender Bassman and a 2x12" cab loaded with Vintage 30's. Guitar is a US Strat w/ Duncan's.

Plastic control shafts and knobs, plastic foot pedal, PC board-mounted jacks. Typical commercial quality. I'm pretty careful with pedals and was lucky enough to find an under-the-bed special so it will probably outlive me.

A very good hard-rock / "light metal" pedal. Look elsewhere if your into satanic, axe-weilding, kill-your-neighbor's-cat metal.

I give 8, because you have to spend a lot of time to find YOR sound by turning the 5 knobs ... but if you're patient then WOW !!!!!!!!!

Hey guys ... thank to give me an idea to remove those diodes !!! It's incredible, but now this little box is far superior to my TS-10 ( Made in japan !!!) which I considered as really very good ( even better then TS-9 ! ) It's not so noisy at all, but pushing disto to maxi have no sense ... best soft drive on 10 - 11 o'clock, lead drive set to 3 ...

had no problem ... ( I give 8 ... if you're 2m and 150 kg not so sure :-)

... never needed ...

By an easy modification you can have a cheap but GREAT "TS" sound !!!! But if you'll looking for a METAL effect, you'll certainly find better .... I give 10 for "TS-all numbers you want" with 5 knobs!