Zoom TM-01 Tri Metal

3-band eq, mid cut frecuency, gain & volume. Not a big deal

I would give it a 10 just because the amount of gain, great sound and very low noise. This is kind of tricky because i used it through clean channel of a Marshall avt150x (& Gibson Tobbaco Classic 2004), it sounds good by it self but not perfect, to unleash the beast, I put a turbo tube screamer after the trimetal and before the avt, DAMN!!!! I heard a distortion like never before!!!!! high gain and low noise combined with the valve envelope, incredible...
After that, I used trimetal alone with my JCM2000 (crunchy channel) and also was Great!!! conclusion: honestly, if you are just about to buy one, consider something else to blow up this beast

On stage, I use other pedals (RAT2, MT2, or Krank Distortus Maximus etc) only because versatility, I don't want to carry extra pedals, I like small pedalboards.
On studio, very simple, I don't record anything without my TRIMETAL

No idea.

I play all kind of music, I use trimetal obviously for metal, maybe it can be use to play oldies (Led zeppelin) with a very low gain.
eleven years playing guitar and i'll never get tired of it

Easy. Takes little experimenting since there's really one sound in this.

I bought this pedal after owning the great Power Drive and the also good Hyper Lead and after reading very good reviews about the Tri-Metal. But I was a bit disappointed with it.

The Tri-Metal is definitely a step ahead from the Boss Metal Zone and the Digitech Metal Master, in the sense that you will achieve the same amount of crazy gain, but without the halfway-to-a-preamp tone overshaping both of those put out. The semi-parametric EQ is pretty awesome, but don't let it fool you into thinking this can be versatile; it's metal all day and all night. There is a LOT of gain in this.

This can sound very ballsy if you already have an amp with a good character. It's fairly good through my Crate tube amp. But it will sound like **** through cleaner amps, a bit like the Hyper Lead, but worse, since the signal is a little less compressed. It's a much raw-er signal than most extreme dirt pedals, so it needs something to round out the tone. This is why it sounds better through quality amps than comparable products. It won't do that magic tone-shaping the Metal Zone does on 20-watt amps.

Although I love the shape of the sound this puts out, the bottom line is that the gain itself is fairly ordinary and the input response is like any other solid-state metal pedal. It doesn't chunk like a great tube distortion and it relies on overdone bass to achieve power. It can be a little muddy if you have dark pickups, though nowhere near as muddy as, say, Behringer distortion.

Not to mention, there are problems with the low-end response in this unit. The wrong guitar into the wrong amp will produce severe farting. It's very unpredictable.

The Hyper Lead does a better job at what it tries to do overall. This pedal is a step in the right direction for metal pedals, that is, when it comes to the shape of the sound it outputs. But it won't necessarily do justice to your guitar, and it won't cut through a heavy mix like the Hyper Lead can.

Acceptable.

This pedal is good, but not great. There are better distortions out there, even in solid-state devices. The Sansamps, for example, produce much more convincing and usable metal distortions in their preamp emulations, even if they are plagued by ****** cab sims. The Hyper Lead is also a better pedal overall (can you tell I like it better?).

I would buy this over a Metal Zone, a Metal Master, a Grunge, or a Fabtone any day (I own them all). But I don't think I'd buy neither those nor the Tri-Metal again (even if it wasn't discontinued).

Gain, Level and 3-band EQ with semiparametric mids. Bit more difficult to get used to for beginners who've never seen a parametric EQ before (which apparently applies to a few of the reviewers here, too).

If you know how to use the EQ properly, this pedal is incredibly easy to tweak to your requirements. Feels like active EQ, with relatively little interaction between the Treble and Bass knobs - very nice. The ranges on the knobs are also huge.

So, a bit harder to control than a DS-1 if you're a beginner, but for experienced users it's just so much more versatile than distortion pedals that only have a tone knob or just hi/low EQ knobs.

Gets a 10 here because there is no simpler way to put this much versatility into an EQ.

Running either a Yamaha Pacifica 812v with Shadow pickups (great budget tip, by the way... the SH681 I've got in the bridge now blows the Duncan JB it replaced right out of the water, and for about half the price) into a Danelectro Honeytone 1.5W battery amp (running with a power supply on 12V into a Harley Benton G112 cab right now). This is my home practice setup, and it sounds incredibly good (considerin I spent about 100 Euros on it, and I'm getting 500 Euro amp sounds... :)). Sounds a little like my Randall RG100SC actually (which is no surprise - I can pretty much replace my Randall's OD2 channel with this pedal if I just run it up front on the clean channel of said Randall).

Also sounds great on my Laney VH100R's clean channel, and cuts through the mix beautifully - anyone having trouble cutting through is probably just too lazy to learn how to use the EQ properly (or is simply using sounds that simply aren't usable in a band situation). I'll be using it in this setup for the heavier songs, along with a MIDI-controllable True Bypass Looper.

All in all, a very versatile pedal with more than enough gain (though not as over-the-top as other reviews have stated, IMO), and VERY flexible EQ. Imitating sounds isn't really my thing, but the first thing I thought when I turned it on was METALLICA!!! A few more hi-mids and voila - awesome metal sound.

As for noise - definitely less than most other distortion pedals - the modelled stomps in my GT-8 are also a lot noisier. You could almost use this thing without a noise gate at rehearsal volume, but adding an NS2 oder the GT-8's built in noise gate at a (very) low threshold results in perfect "fire and forget" noise control - no unwanted feedback, no buzzing or crackling, just perfect.

And last but not least, a special mention to palm muting, because a few reviewers mentioned that this pedal doesn't chug enough when you're muting. And to them I say - learn to palm mute! This thing absolutely rips when it comes to fast chugging or palm muted single note riffs - incredibly saturated, but still perfectly clear and without the mushy low end of the MT-2... Unlike the aforementioned Metal Zone, this thing actually throws your mistakes back at you instead of hiding them in an unrecognizable haze of noise.

As they say: **** in, **** out.

My HL-01 Hyper Lead lasted for ages, and never crapped out on me despite being kicked around the floor at practices and on stage quite a lot back when I didn't have enough effects to warrant a pedalboard. Since this thing has pretty much the same casing in a different color, I'm guessing it'll hold up just fine.

Had a few problems with a Zoom G7.1ut once (one of the little LED-buttons stopped working), but that's a whole different line of products.

Website is ok, manuals available etc.

Personal support is pretty much nonexistent though - sent a few e-mails and never got a reply.

Overall this thing gets my seal of approval - a very solid piece of gear that sounds good and provides long trouble-free service. Perfect for what I need it for (practicing at home, and making my Laney VH100R a bit more brutal for a few songs) - sounds incredibly good.

Having owned an MT2, I can definitely confirm, that this is a far more versatile pedal, with a lot more balls. Not to mention it doesn't have the MT2's annoying permanent nasal mid-honk...

Would definitely buy it again (or even a second one, if I could find one :P)...

Pretty easy to use although the extreme ends of the settings are unusable, so a small amount of tweaking has a big effect. It's certainly not one of those pedals where you can turn everything up and it'll sound great.

Sounds like a very good emulation of James Hetfield's sound. It does this very well but not much else. If you lower the midrange frequency and turn the midrange level up a bit you can get quite close to a Lamb Of God style sound. Its noise level is so low it's almost inaudible at bedroom volumes. Perhaps it has some sort of gate but not one you can hear working. It does tend to make all my guitars sound rather similar but considering the amount of gain and the fact that there isn't a valve in sight this isn't really surprising. Bear in mind it is called Tri METAL and it is just a pedal so for what it is and the price of it, it is really good. I use it with a Roland Spirit 50 tranny amp and it makes the amp sound quite good.

Made of heavy metal, about 2mm thick, I used to jump on it wearing Harley Davidson boots for the chorus of Toxicity by System Of A Down and although the paint is coming off it's only because i've abused it for years. I don't think it will ever die, it's like the guy from the Halloween movies.

You read the last bit? Don't think I'll ever need to contact them.

I don't need this pedal anymore because I have acquired a Diezel Einstein but for anyone with a weak amp this thing is perfect. Also if you have a good valve amp with insufficient gain this pedal will provide all the distortion you need. If it got stolen I'd miss it, I like to plug it in occasionally and might want to use it for more industrial sounds which my Einstein just won't do (because it's fantastic)

This thing is super easy to use and figure out. Throw all the knobs to max and twist the "range" knob for sweepy, grainy, gritty, resonating type fun. The EQ is nice for getting a grip on those unexpected "lean back from the speaker" type moments that happen every now and then. You know... roll off those "ear piercing" hi-end freqs that you get with some gear.

Quiet as mouse. It just sits there in the mix waiting for you to feed it something.

Solid as a rock.

I use it for a noize project in a performance capacity running various sound sources through it. Anything that generates sound is usable. Right now I'm using it exclusively with a Photo*Theremin (via Professor Television circa 2003) but I also use it with a Monotonic Labs Type-U73 synth, a Buddha Machine and a Bleep Labs Thingamagoop and they all get huge and nasty sounding. It can take the most subtle sound and make it crazy. I would definitely get another if this one went missing.

Like it's got all these knobs and you turn them and it sound all crazy dude.

Dudester you just gotta' sound like hammers of the gods when you wail through this thing.

But seriously it has a very tight distortion that doesn't sound overly boxey and just makes your guitar sound huge. I like the wall of sound it creates and the EQ is all kinds of awesome.

Does this thing sound like metal or what...? How the hell would I know? Metal heads are total idiots; they want to take something beautiful and feminine (MUSIC) and make it something masculine because they believe music with melody is for chicks and queers. Playing metal in 2007 is about as relevant as playing barber shop music in 1964. I'm sure you metal heads won't get that since for you music doesn't start untill Black Sabbath (the only true metal band). Doesn't playing metal with a pedal make you a joke to REAL metal players anyway. Think about it...Keep thinking....You know it's true.

This pedal is awesome, just don't use it for "metal" or you will be a sad stale cliche.

Dank pedal.

This unit is perhaps a little bit more complicated than it has to be. Although it does offer a wide range of sounds

Firstly, I am a conservative rater (I cant understand why everyone gives everything a 10?!) but I have had this thing a year now and I think its fair to say that it really is the best metal distortion pedal I have tried.

I play EMGs into a Marshall JCM800 so my sound is already very sharp. I basically use the pedal to boost/augment my amp distortion. This thing is a real beast, you can get super heavy ultra biteing sound (I guess I agree with the mesa reference to some extent) which is so refreshing.

Basically I have tried the MT2, the MD2 (dont bother with this!), the digitech death metal (not bad) and it pisses all over these pedals, especially the otherwise similar MT2 which I reckon is fuzzy and muddy and very over rated.

On the downside the compression is high so it will naturally reduce sustain a little bit and makes for a slight thining of lead sound.
The 2 really important good things are

1. You can use this thing to make your shitty amp sound good on the clean setting (I use this at practice with my little marshalll solid state and it rocks).
2. It is freakishly quiet, no hiss or feedback

solid

dont know

The key thing is that I reckon most people who arent super rich and just want to get a decent metal sound out of their solid state amp should not hesistate in buying this, I think its amazing.

However, if you do own a good valve amp and you like the natural amp distortion, you should probably look more towards overdrive pedals as this thing has a real character of its own and will suck the natural tone away. I do but i still love this pedal, its a keeper
:-)

honestly, i had trouble getting used to having such sensitive controls: barely move a knob and the sound CHANGES BIG-TIME. once you get the hang of that, this pedal's versatility will amaze.

i have owned this pedal for a few years, and still havent exhausted the amount of sounds and tones i can pull form it. If you've tried other metal pedals, you know that there is a certain point where you've tried all ther sound combonations for taht pedal, well this one have HUGE range.

I've beaten the crap out of this thing for years ; dropped it quite a few times, kicked it, lost a knob covering, and this thing is still kickin like i opened it new yesterday.

havent had to call so i dunno

I play a mixed heavy style (think Demon Hunter, mixed with pantera, mixed with Project 86) and the Tri-Metal delivers on every level i have thrown at it. Of course its made for scooping mids, and thick heavy mutings, and all out HEAVY, but still can get old-school mid laced sounds as well. Fantabulous.

Its very easy to use once you know how the mid and range knob interact with each other. Its one of those discontinued ANALOG line of pedal series by Zoom, I've bought it used in mint condition.. nearly new. WHAT A BARGAIN FOR THIS PRICE!!, the previous dude just bought one coz he thinks it looked cool when it was available.. just for the heck of it.so.. no manual but u can just go get it off at their website. Good manual, some basic example settings and a few extras.

I won't stress on what sound of artists I could get out of because I never tried to sound like anybody BUT with one thing on my mind for a distortion pedal is that its gotta have the heaviest, ballsiest, most brutal possible distortion and its gotta be able to cut thru in a band situation, whether in practice or live. I use a Schecter C-1 Classic with EMGs pickups(81 bridge + 85 neck)and I play thru many solidstate amps. GUITAR>DISTORTION>AMP(clean setting) and nothing else, I don't want any other effects degrading my distortion tone and I will always use the best guitar cables.

With all the knobs set at 12 o'clock, it already got a thick metal tone with loads of gain, just work your way from there.

U'll find that turning the gain and bass over 2-3 o'clock, it becomes useless for the conventional solidstate amps. IT WILL RUMBLE like crazy. Is that a good thing? well i guess its a good thing i think because you could probably rape a 100watt tube amp w/4x12 with it.

The range control knob is excellent, i could get sort of a Peavey 5150 stuff from it, but its true character is dark and boomy.. like that of a Mesa with more definition and very tight sound. The raves about it being a 5150 in box, Mesa in box.. blah blah, TRUE!! this is the sheeeeit.

I play alot of fast complex riffs and do alot of heavy palm muting, the Tri Metal gets that out heavy as hell, its clear and it cuts thru (back down the bass and use more on the mids+treble, mind you)doing really fast tremolo picking too. I don't do much soloing but whenever I need to, i'll just have the range control and mids cocked out and its got a powerful edge and push to it.. DOES NOT SOUND THIN.

Now, for the palm muting issue.. like some of the reviewers have said about not being able to get a good or tight PM from it, I agree and also disagree with this. First I'd like to point out if you use guitars with single coils or low-output humbuckers, u'd just get an average PM sound (but let alone, this will already give u a fairly good one). A fair guitar with hotter passive pickups will get u great metal tones. However, a good guitar with EMGs will sound PHENOMENAL with it, ITS HUGE, very thick.. very tight.. very..

'B R U T A L' HANDS DOWN!!

I'd like to stress about one thing though, THERE IS NO POSSIBLE WAY WAY THAT A STOCK BOSS MT-2 could get anything near this pedal!! Quite a load of ppl have said that the MT-2 was better, probably these ppl don't know anything or haven't tried the Tri Metal enough or are using crap gear. The Tri Metal is wayyy better, what do u get from it? A noticeable lower noise floor (VERY QUIET INDEED) where as the MT-2 needs a noise suppressor to shutup and its either too weak (just to dial out the gain to get rid of the noise) or gets messed up when u crank it, u should pray for ppl to hear what u are playing thru the MT-2 in a band situation and you must be tonedeaf if you think the MT-2 does a better job in palm muting. Only one way by Keeley modding the MT-2 will probably just get it on the same league.

This thing is a bomb shelter, its got a nice weight to it and it looks great. Thick metal casing, and all the knobs and on/off switch are metal too. I doubt anyone could break it under normal use. The on/off switch is big and its very sturdy, very smooth, no clicks or pops here.. nice one!!. However I would never ever gig without a backup in a chaotic situation where people are jumping on and flyin off the stage during a death metal gig, it already convinced me that I don't need a backup but sure there'll be one of those Boss MT-2 laying around there just in case.

Don't bother, its useless dealing with them about a discontinued product for several years.

I've been playing for almost 8 years now, I'am a metalhead, I play melodic death metal and all the way to brutal death metal, deathgrind, moshpit music.. watever u wanna call it. I don't own alot of gear, coz when I buy a better gear I'll always sell off the old one once in a while. The Tri Metal is truly a keeper, if you don't want to take your amp to gigs.. then this is just the perfect thing. Comparing this to Boss MT-2 is a joke, that thing is so fake and generic.. wfk was that !@$#$^&* riff you played? COMPLETE MUSH!! If I'm ever gonna be without the Tri Metal, the Boss MT-2 will be the last thing I'll have to use (provided that they are 'provided' at metal gigs here). I also had a Line6 Uber Metal before, THIS IS A REALLY GREAT PEDAL, u can get all sorts of metal tones with a fistfull of hi-gain and huge bottom end but its a noticeable 'processed' digital sound at gigging volumes.. so it had to go. I've tried out almost every possible distortion pedal out there.. be it from Boss, Rocktron, Line6, MXR, etc nothing compares to it and it is the next best thing before owning hi-gain tube amps like a Framus Cobra, Engl Powerball, Mesa Rectos, Marshall JCM2000, etc. I'm surely saving up for one of those but till then this is what i've been hoping for in one distortion pedal, its probably the sickest lethal analog distortion a pedal has to offer. Zoom is an A-HOLE of a company that decided to end such a great analog product and went all wizardly digital. Since this pedal is discontinued, I give u my best wishes finding one, GOOD LUCK! :)

Like others have said, put everything to 12 then dial in what you want

I'm not gonna crap on about what i use but this is the BOMB. this is the distortion pedal I hoped for with MT2 but got a lot lot more. Play everything from tool (low gain) to B tuned shredding and everything in between.

This is the holy grail of high gain distortion

Its solid steel, even the knobs are steel, melt it down and sell it to china for a killing, theres that much steel in it it wouldn't break if you ran over it

never dealt with

payed OZ$75 couldnt get a better deal i like METAL and this thing is for METAL. for all you who write i like blues and hard rock and this is too much - get a TUBESCREAMER or RAT. even i have one. THIS IS NOT A BLUES/ROCK/HARD ROCK pedal it is called TRI METAL for a reason. now i no longer need my tubescreamer and rat(used as a boost for clarity on MT2) THIS IS THE SHIZNUT

The Tri Metal is very straight forward. It has 6 knobs on the pedal to help you dial in a sound. Treble, Middle and sweepable mid Range, Bass, Gain and Level. So dialing in a sound is just a matter of adjusting until you find the sound your looking for. The manual suggests you start with all the knobs and 12 o'clock and work from there..

This is where I thought I was going to be blown away.... Ive used a MT-2 for distortion for many years and I was eager to try a new sound. I thought after reading so many good reviews about the Tri Metal that this was the holy grail of pedals. In reality I found the sounds I was able to produce with this pedal to be better than the mt-2 but how much better?

My biggest issues were with the settings on the pedal. If you crank up the bass all the way the signal becomes totally useless. If the pedal sounds like crap when the knobs are maxed out why be able to max them out in the first place? So your thinking well, Im sure theres plenty of bass before it starts to sound like crap which is true but the MT-2 has a deeper wider low end than this pedal easily.

A lot of people are complaining about palm mutes not sounding good enough with this pedal. I think a better way to describe this would be to say the TM-01 sounds fine but the MT-2 sounds better. The palm mutes on the MT-2 are brutal in comparison to this pedal. There is no possible way this pedal can match the MT-2 in that department.

The TM-01 does have advantages over the MT-2 in some areas though. The Tri Metal is really quiet compared to the MT-2 which is one of the things I was looking forward to. This tends to make for a more precise and clear tone. This makes the tm-01 a worthy pedal and I would say slightly better than the mt-2 but you will lose some lowend.

I saw this pedal go for as much as 120 dollars on ebay. ITS NOT WORTH EVEN CLOSE TO THAT MUCH. I paid 59.99 and Im leaning towards selling it on ebay and getting a keely mt-2 mod for my mt-2. This is not a bad pedal. You can get a good sound out of it but you can get the same sorts of sounds out of the mt-2 with less quality. If your looking to loose some noise and some low end but gain some quality and clarity I highly suggest this over the mt-2.

You can drop this off a building and plug it in. Its got a metal case and is very sturdy.

The pedal is discontinued but the manaul is still available from their website. As far as getting it serviced or repaired? Im sure they would laugh in your face since it is discontinued.

Easy. If you've used a Metal Zone before, it's just the same. If not, just tweak with the mids and you'll be rewarded with a versatile pedal. Just be careful with the levels, it has too much of everything: bass (A LOT!!!), highs, gain, etc. Not subtle but tamable.

Whoa!!! It simply ROCKS!!! Lots of gain without noise, lots of definition, a very articulate heavy (I mean HEAVY) distortion, nice for palm muting, speed picking, heavy riffs, and smoking leads. I use it with a variety of guitars, wth EMG, DiMarzios and Duncans and it smokes with each one of them. Through a tube amp's clean channel it's just unbelievable.

I upgraded from a Boss Metal Zone and then from a Digitech Metal Master, and yes it's worth the change. It's a Modern Metal pedal, not a subtle distortion; so judge it for what it is and what it serves for: METAL!!!!

It gets 9, because it's just a pedal (a 5150 in a box if you wish) and not an amp; very impressive though. With an equalizer it just gets better!!

It looks and feels better than a Boss, or even an MXR, so... just imagine that!! The entire pedal is made of metal and weighs a lot.

Don't know, can't answer...

A modern day classic. It will be the Holy Grail of seriously heavy distortions in a stomp pedal format; the TS-808 Tube Screamer of 90's and 2K's Metal if you wish!!

If you see one, grab it without hesitation (they're discontinued)... if you want a serious Metal tone you'll like it, and if you don't, I will gladly receive it as a gift : )

Easy. If you've used a Metal Zone before, it's just the same. If not, just tweak with the mids and you'll be rewarded with a versatile pedal. Just be careful with the levels, it has too much of everything: bass (A LOT!!!), highs, gain, etc. Not subtle but tamable.

Whoa!!! It simply ROCKS!!! Lots of gain without noise, lots of definition, a very articulate heavy (I mean HEAVY) distortion, nice for palm muting, speed picking, heavy riffs, and smoking leads. I use it with a variety of guitars, wth EMG, DiMarzios and Duncans and it smokes with each one of them. Through a tube amp's clean channel it's just unbelievable.

I upgraded from a Boss Metal Zone and then from a Digitech Metal Master, and yes it's worth the change. It's a Modern Metal pedal, not a subtle distortion; so judge it for what it is and what it serves for: METAL!!!!

It gets 9, because it's just a pedal (a 5150 in a box if you wish) and not an amp; very impressive though. With an equalizer it just gets better!!

It looks and feels better than a Boss, or even an MXR, so... just imagine that!! The entire pedal is made of metal and weighs a lot.

Don't know, can't answer...

A modern day classic. It will be the Holy Grail of seriously heavy distortions in a stomp pedal format; the TS-808 Tube Screamer of 90's and 2K's Metal if you wish!!

If you see one, grab it without hesitation (they're discontinued)... if you want a serious Metal tone you'll like it, and if you don't, I will gladly receive it as a gift : )

Facil de entender el manejo.. ni necesitas el manual, Aunque no tenga gran caso... porque el sonido de este padal no es gran cosa.

Lo probe usando una Ibanez RG370DX con pastilla DiMarzio SuperDistorion en puente y una humbucker hecha por mi mismo en el brazo, conectado a un Laney GH50L con cab 2X12 y/o tambien a un Ibanez ToneBlaster 15R... lo probe agregandole un boss compressor y un ecualizador tambien boss... el asunto es ke suena muy parecido a la mierda del MetalZone 2... solo que con un poco de mayor definicion en bajos... suena mejor el OverDrive de mi Ibanez ToneBlaster y el GH50L ni se diga... sin embargo es interesante combinar TriMetal junto con otros pedales de distorsion o con el Gain del Laney o el Ibanez... En general este pedal me desepciona... me gustan las distoriones calidas y un tanto bien definidas.. este pedal no da eso... creo que necesariamente hay que combinarlo con otros pedales de modulacion y ecualizacion y otro distor para obtener algo interesante... asi solo suena a mierda...

Es bastante resistente, muy bien construido... no plastico... parece bastante durable...

Quien sabe en donde de servicio Zoom en Mexico... si se descompone o falla algo creo ke te chingas...

He leido que la mayoria le dan muy buena calificacion y no entiendo realmente porque.... Pienso que definitivamente si se quiere una buena distorsion, sobre todo para Metal, no hay como un ampli de bulbos; he probado varios pedales de distorsion y definitivamente ninguno llega a algo bueno del todo... para jugar un rato estan bien, pero despues de un tiempo el sonido "cansa" y llega a ser disgustante... en fin, el TriMetal es para mi una desepcion mas, como dije, muy similar al MetalZone con un poco mas de punch, pero igual, el mismo esteril sonido... mejor ahorren para un buen amplificador de bulbos... caros pero lo valen 100%.

6 knobs.....

Does take some time to get a good sound from it....not a good sign.

The manual is unnecessary

I compared this to my MetalZone, Tubester, Hot Tubes, Boss DS-1, DS-2,HM-2, OS-2, SD-1 and Fender Champion 30's natural overdrive.
Using a Fender American Series Stratocastor with a Dimarzio HM-3 in the bridge position.

Only the MetalZone was a close comparisson. The ZOOM TM-1 is cool. It has a ton of bass and easily put's any amplifier into whacked out bass overload. It is naturally "scooped" and all the mid boosting in the world ain't gonna change that fact.
It definitely has a more modern tone compared to the 80's sounding MetalZone.
The MetalZone has a tighter bass for palm muting E string chunking.
The MetalZone also has a sweeter high end for lead soloing.
The MetalZone has a better middle eq setting....with the ZOOM only terrible things happened when trying to move the mids anywhere from straight up.
At lower volumes both pedals require some help from my Boss CS-3 Compressor/Sustainer to achieve the sustain I like [I must always be close to feeding back to be happy].

So really, to me, the only thing going for the Tri-Metal over the MetalZone is that it doesn't have that 80's mid boost that the MetalZone has. Instead it can be used for all your Mesa Boogie Triple Rectifier needs. Limp Biscuit, Slip Knot and all that "New Metal" crap.

The Zoom does have a nice layout however and the big on/off switch works nicely.

I want to see the amplifier that can deal with all the bass the ZOOM has to offer. I can't get past half way up without the speakers going bananas!
The bass is a bit farty [loose, muddy, undefined, etc] by my standards.

I've been playing since 1969 and own several vintage Marshall half stacks.
I play blues, rock, metal, heavy metal and some newer metal stuff...like Creed.

I prefer tones closer to Van Halen III or early Pearl Jam....you know?...alot of sustain but not really a whole lot of gain.

Lately, I've been NAILING the early Van Halen sound using my Stratocastor with the HM-3 in the bridge, a Boss PH-1r Phaser, a Boss CS-3 Compressor/Sustainer with the level on 10 [most important], a Boss OS-2 Overdrive/Distortion with the drive set very low and the knob leaning to the distortion side, a Boss DD-2 Digital Delay and into a Fender Amplifier.

I'm giving the ZOOM a 7 because off it's high price compared to the comparable MetalZone.

quite easy to use, if you know how to operate a eq section with with parametric mids.
this thing's EQ is very powerful, so be genlt and patient.

by the way, the most recent contender in the metal pedal range is the line6 uber metal (...which I'll be making comparisons to regularly, especially since the metal-zone has been properly compared below...). that things has a mid-gain volume labeled "scoop"...and guess what, turning the knob UP (clockwise) decreases (scoops) the mids. what a sad insult to guitar player intelligence; to think that something will be more appealing if it cateres right into some "crank the knobs UP" to make it sound better.

THIS pedal's controls do exactly what they say they do.
the only reason it's tricky to use is because it's so powerful, and easy to get carried away.

first miracle; it's dead quiet
I only hear op-amp noise if I crank the gain past 3:00, and that's only really if the level is set to boost at that gain.
even if this thing had a gate, it's so gentle, effective and unobtuse that it's still just magical.
the uber-metal has two levels of switchable gate, which is very fast and clicky (...meant only for metal).

second miracle; turn the gain knob all the way down, and it cleans up better than any "mean" pedal I've owned (...the toneworks hyper distorion, metal zone, mega distortion, etc....)
as (very well) explained in the review below, the range of sound and response availabel from even the 1st half of the gain knob far outstrips the uber metal. THAT pedal has 3 different selectable modes of gain/clipping, with a gain knob that mostly just adds "more" to any mode.
the Tri-metal allows you to dial in EXACTLY what kind of gain response... granted there's a whole range of clean-to-slight-grind in the first arc-hour of the knob, but it's worth the delicate exploratinon.

third miracle, perfetly balanced 15dB cut/boost on the eqs...
(...well, with all knobs at noon, it's got a slight mid scoop, but still...it's just part of it being so well calibrated...).
the uber-metal is a digital pedal, so it just doesn't have the organic and smooth high end that that the all analog tri-metal has.

fourth miracle; huge bass response. plug a 5 string bass into this thing, and it'll stay with you all the way down. I've sampled drum loops with 808 kicks through this, and they still sounded "chesty"...
it's range far outreaches the uber-metal.

even with it's flexibility, this thing still reigns supreme for huge grinding "jud jud jud" stuff.
this is a VERY mean pedal.
like the reviewer below, I play in a noise metal band, and this thing is lethal.
someone reviewing the zoom Hyper Lead (the milder distorion with the same EQ) declaired they "don't undestand how anyone could need more gain..."
after comparing the two side by side myself (...on guitar, bass, and sampler), the tri-metal (while it doesn't clean up as flexibly as the Hyper Lead) just goes the "extra mile" for totally meaner sounds.

the ONLY pedal I've heard sound more "heavy" than this thing is that rediculous dano black licorice (with it's sub-octave crutch). but that thing is another beast altogether.

as mentioned below, "this is THE sound".

tough metal/aluminum chassis.
friendly accesible battery compartment.
nice big switch. very sexy shape/design.
wonderful metal knobs. so what if they aren't recessed like boss/digitech/ibanez, whatever,...the knobs, while flush with the top, are locked down to the chassis from below and above, with no wiggle or "loose, breakable" feeling to them...and that's even after dropping a snare drum on the knobbed top.

the uber-metal is a heavier petal, with silly little plastic knobs sticking (and wiggling) straigt up. I would not trust anyone, even the wiafish keyboard player, to jump on that thing.

not applicable.
pedal is, sadly, discontinued.

I've most recently been playing metal and noise.
this thing is a dirty secret weapon to me now. a perfect match.
love the sound, hate the fact that I waited so long to buy it.
favorite feature is the gain knob.
sounds great in feedback loops of my homemade feedback router (...like the eye-of-god / TSA that all the experimentalists are clamouring about these days).

...as for the "does it help me make music" question;
as a litmus test for any distortion I bring home, sometimes I dial up an out of tune talk-radio station scramble from my clock-radio, and run that through chorus, then distortion. The tri-metal si the first pedal to provide impressive results in a LONG timee (...since my blue box).

This is a follow-up to an earler review

Since reviewing this thingy a couple of years ago, I have a few more things to say about it. First of all, my earlier zeal for this product has only been strengthened. I'm pissed zoom discontinued their analog pedals. I have done a lot of recording with this thing, in three different bands. I'd like to comment on this unit's hidden flexibility since many below are calling it a one-trick-pony.

First off, I have used the TM to record 2 cds with a heavy rock band, kind of a cross between the Melvins and scratch acid with a bit of death metal thrown in. In this context, i almost never dial the gain more than 25% and can still get that chugga-chugga thing going really nicely. I play through a 1983 rivera-designed 60 watt fender concert all-tube chassis mounted in a legend transtube 112 cab with a celestion g65 speaker. My guitars are a 1972 yamaha sg85 (basically a LP special) with stock pups (quite hot) and a weird charvette purchased in japan which i've modded with a fury 50's rocker pup in the bridge as well as graphite bridge saddles. I use both of these guitars in all bands, but the charvette is definitley more suited to metal. The tm really kicks in the gain and interacts well with the concert's tube power. I find this pedal well-defined at lower gain settings. Pick attack actually means something if you don't crank the gain.

i also play in a "fuck band" which is basically noise rock/hardcore/death music. Not very pleasant. We have recorded 4- er- cds in the last year, and i've used the tm exclusively. However, i decided to experiment both with gain levels and amps, and have run this thing through a vintage jcm800 100 w head with a nice carvin 412 cab. At high gain (50-75%), this is an un-fucking-believable combination. As aggro as you could want. Marshall "clean" leaves a lot to be desired so i wouldn't recommend this combination unless all you play is death, but holy shit does it fucking smoke.

i'm also in a more melodic (but heavy) rawk band, and rarely nudge the distortion past 15% or so in this context, with the eq basically flat. On the concert with a 412 ext cab, this is the shit. the other guitarist plays into the aforementioned marshall using a boss blues driver with the gain cranked and the sounds actually complement each other well. at low gain, or even zero gain, this pedal can make an amp really come to life with some nice "classic rock" style distortion. Obviously it shouldn't be bought solely for that purpose, but it's not as one-dimensional a pedal as some have said it is.

the best "metal" pedal i have yet heard that costs under $500. If you can't afford a boogie pedal and want a more ballsy alternative to the metal zone, pick this up. it will turn your tube amp into a hight gain daeth machine. and that's what it's all about, eh?

Easy to use, however, the range took a little getting used to. Once you get the parametric-like use of this it is very powerful.

This is it. This is the sound. Unless you can afford a Mesa Rectifier, this is the pedal. I have a Mesa and this does a great job of emulating it. In fact, if you are looking for the scooped-mid super high gain sound, this pedal does it even better than my Rectifier. Yes, it is that good. It is very quiet for a high-gain pedal, heck for any pedal.

Built like a brick. Very heavy metal case. Unless you go at it with a hammer, you should be fine for years.

N/A

I have tried everything to get THAT sound that is in my head. I am never satisfied with the gain of so-called high-gain pedals. They are never enough. Modeling comes close, but I always want more tone shaping and more gain. If you are looking for the high-gain scooped sound, find one of these pedals. Pay whatever you have to. I have spent hundreds trying to get this sound. This is it.

This pedal is real easy to use. It may take some time to dial in your sound, though, because the gains get so high, it's psychotic.

I use USA Jacksons with EMG 81's in the bridge and 60's in the neck.. Currently I am running as such:

Guitar-->Boss Tuner Pedal-->Morley Bad Horsie Wah-->Zoom TriMetal-->Marshall JCM900 High Gain Dual Reverb stack. In the effects loop, I run a Boss DD-5 Delay and a Boss CH-1 Super Chorus, which is seldom on.

I really like the articulation and "tightness" feel of power chords and palm muting thru this. The Marshall's distortion has much more headroom (it's tube), but it's too loose and not gainy enough for me. The only thing I dislike is the solid state vibe I get with this pedal (obviously). Fast leads get "squashed" and don't sound as natural or cut through as much as with the amp's tube distortion. As such, you really have to work those fingers on the fretboard when soloing. So, there is a trade-off, I guess. But it's the old tube vs. solid state thing again and I see advantages for both.

Great for those fast, tight metal riffs which I could never get without the solid state / this zoom pedal stuff. Sounds super in the lower register "grind."

Good.

Never dealt with zoom. With this pedal, you shouldn't even have to read the manual, which is something most musicians can't do anyways (myself included). We just want to wail!

I think my best bet so far is using this thing for my tight , heavy distortions. For leads, I have been experimenting with the Marshall distortion on at the same time as the Zoom pedal; the tube distortion seems to add to the places where the zoom would be too squashed to.

Like others stated, easy to fiddle with. Just dial in for your taste.

Thanks to THIS site I've reviewed all opinions and had to give it a shot. The only thing that concerned me was a statement of "if you have a solid state amp save your money and buy a good tube amp". Well, I have a Roland Blues Cube 60W Solid State amp with Roland's tube emulation circuitry and was hesitant about buying the TM-01. I found one laying around at a music shop and I tried it out - I love it! I know it sounds alittle strange using a Blues Cube amp with this pedal but I like classic rock just as much as blues. I've owned several distortion pedals with several amps and this one is awesome. Another reviewer made some statement of idiots spending $125 for pedal need not submit an opinion (or something to that extent), well I'm one of those idiots and I don't regret purchasing it - I love it. I'm not really into MegaDeth or Metallica, but I do like classic rock like VanHalen, Aerosmith, Black Sabbath, etc. and most recently NickelBack. The dropped D tuning sounds awesome with this pedal. I never realized how muddy and tinny these other pedals sounded until I played the TM-01. And lastly, to the reviewer not being able to crank up the amp because of this pedal? I've never enjoyed my amp more than now and I keep cranking it louder and louder because it doesn't break up and just rocks the more I crank it up!

Like others have stated - rock and metal use (obviously, this is called Tri-Metal for a reason). I've been playing off an on for about 18 years for my own enjoyment and jam with some friends every once and awhile. I currently have (2) Ibanez RG320 guitars, Morley Bad Horsie Wah, Boss Blues Driver, Boss DS1, Boss ME6, MXR Phase90, blah,blah,blah. Like others have stated - high gain distortion, very very quiet/noiseless bypass, Oh and I'm not sure if anyone's mentioned the switch itself, but it is very smooth to switch on and no popping. I'd replace it if stolen or lost. Check one out! I give it a 9 only because of the price.

With the knobs it's easy to find a good tone. The instruction manual helps you finding the tone you're searching. The knobs are very sensitive so you have to try a lot of combinations to find THE SOUND you need.
But it's a pedal, does anything is more easy to use? Let your ears do the job...

My two setups are:
>GODIN ST Artisan signature Custom Shop, with 3 Seymour-Duncan Little 59', Dunlop Cry-baby, Boss expression pedal, Zoom Tri-Metal, Marshall Valvestate 8280 with chorus (2x40W, 2x12''hp)
>Lespaul standard Epiphone, with the same ...

First, the Tri metal is THE METAL DISTORTION PEDAL ! If you want to play blues, or something else, don't buy it.
This was born for play Metal (Megadeath, Metallica, Iron Maiden...). The sound is very very good. Nothing in common with the BOss Metal-zone. The sounding is not Thinny, no buzzing, so quiet.
If you can't buy a 100W all tube, you can get this pedal without any doubt, she have the power, the definition, the versatility that turn a basic into Hell Metal Master !

I would use it on a gig without a backup. the pedal is made with metal not cheap plastic parts. A heavy one.

I don't know, I don't use any customer support.

Basicly, I play Metal Covers, from Iron Maiden to Megadeath, So I need a lot of gain and definition. I have found that in the Tri Metal. All you need is this pedal, and a bit of reverb...
the Tri-metal is designed for heavy rock, she is reliable, simple QUIET (without any noise gate inside!), and produce a distortion with a lot of gain!!
She's much better than the Metal-Zone, but she is so Rare:you can have a lot of problems to found one.
I'am still thinking this pedal is not ZOOM. Zoom have so poor distortion effects on their Multi-effets that I could not believe that one was made by those men who use to produce cheappy bullshits.
Whatever, If you found a Tri-Metal, buy it! THIS NAME IS NOT AN USURPATED ONE!!

Very easy...drive, treble, bass, nice parametric eq for the mids, and output. Simple.

Wow. This thing really gets the most out of a 7-string. Here's the guitars I've tried this with:

Schecter Omen-7 with a Duncan JB-7 in the bridge, standard tuning. Sounds GREAT!!!
el-cheapo double neck w/7-string neck tuned down to A (KORN tuning)- Sounds unbelievable!!!
Homemade 6-string tuned down to Drop-C (SOAD tuning)w/DiMarzio Megadrive in bridge. Again, sounds sick on the lower stuff!!!
Homemade 6-string w/Bill Lawrence XL-500 in bridge (the real Lawrence, not the Stew-Mac)- Sounds WAY too harsh, no matter how I tweaked the knobs.

This thing is a BEAST for lower register metal rhythm work. It does better than anything I've tried (including a 100W Marshall head & an amp modeler) at handling the 7-strings. It is not, however, a lead pedal...too harsh in the upper register, imo, though others may feel differently. Very quiet except at the most extreme drive and output (which there is no need for; at 12-o'clock the gain is PLENTY!!! This thing was obviously meant for nu-metallers (which I am not, though I play some of the stuff), and not for shredders. It gets a 10 for metal rhythm, and a 6 for lead tone. Since it's meant for the former, I give it a 9 overall. Very nice pedal.

Just got it, but it seems VERY solid. Nice metal case, knobs, and true bypass switch...at least it CLAIMS to be true bypass; I haven't taken it apart to have a look at the switch & the wiring.

Beats me.

I play all kindsa stuff (currently working on a funk/metal project). Like I said above, when you need massive distortion and power out of 7-strings or detuned guitars, this thing rips. my other gear: Digitech Xp-100 whammy-wah, vox wah, Voodoo Lab Proctavia, original Soviet big-muff, original Boss OD-1, Boss Blues Driver, V-Amp 2, Fender ultra-chorus amp (just sold my Marshall).

This unit has been discontinued, and I would not be surpised if this thing becomes collectable in a few years. There's really nothing else that does the job this thing does. It was VERY expensive new (list was something like $170), and a quick search of the internet only found a few for about $100. I would certainly try to get another if mine was ripped off or broken; I think it's destined to be a sought-after piece of equipment. Nice job, Zoom...

As with all ZOOMs, they are easy to get a good sound from, hard to get a great sound from. It is a rather basic distortion: gain, level, treble, bass, semi-parametric mid (can change the range). Just start with everything half way (12 o'clock) and tweek for a good hour or so :P Mine didnt' come with a manual, but I bought it second hand off a friend

My main guitar is a customised ESP F-200, and my backup guitar is a customised Aria MAC-50Q. I use a Peavy Bandit 112 (80watt combo/amp head) and a Marhsall MG120 (cheap and merry guitar cabinet). I also use a variety of other amp setups at gigs and whatnot when I cant transport my own stuff. My fx board is rather big. It goes
Jim Dunlop Crybaby -> Boss NS-2 Noise Surpressor -> (in NS-2 effects loop) Boss CS-3 Compression Sustainer -> (not in NS-2 fx loop anymore) Boss LS-2 Line Selector (two switchable fx loops) -> (fx loop A) Zoom GFX-707II -> (fx loop B) Zoom TM-01 (trimetal) -> (still fx loop B) Zoom GFX707 -> (back to LS-2) guitar amp. Its much simpler when ya actually see it, its hard to describe in plain text.

The TM-01 is very strong sounding, it is fabulous. When you dont play, its COMPLETELY silent. BUT, it does NOT have a built in noise gate like everyone seems to think, its just plain old fashioned fantastic build quality using the best parts. My only quibble with it is that its hard to get a good low-gain sound outta it, and the high gain sounds are way over the top. It may be a "metal" distortion, but with a bit of smart EQing, it can do a very wide variety of sounds.

Just to stress, I use fx wisely, not like rediculous amounts of badly set modules on everything.

I would most definitly depend on it, I have for at least 30 gigs in the past year, as well as 6 hours of band practises a week for the past 2 years. I would never gig without a backup, I always have a fall back plan incase something happens. As of yet, never needed the fall back though *touch wood*

I've never had any problems with any of my ZOOM pedals, but I have asked the company about other products and little technical questions. All responses were quick, friendly, and very useful. The ZOOM website also has manuals for all of their products for those people (like me) who didnt get one or (like the person I bought it from) lost it.

I play in a disco porno-funk emo grindcore death metal blues ska jazz band (we have a wide variety of styles in our set lists), and it works for all of those styles (except blues and jazz, which I use the GFX-707II drive modules for) I have been playing for 3 years (yeah, I only a new kid, but I know my stuff and I pretty much live in my local music shop and I try everything they have)

All of my other gear is listed above (its not exactly fantastic top of the line gear, but it gets the job done and for the price i paid for it I cant complain) If it was lost or stolen, I would definitly hunt down another.

I love its sound and the footswitch, it is the most durable footswitch I have ever found, and it switches completely silently. I also love the fact it is COMPLETELY ANALOGUE, none of that digital distortion mince (I can tell a digital distortion a mile away, no matter how good it is). I dont like the crazy rubber thing on the bottom (stops it running away at a gig when you stamp on it), it fell off mine. Nothing a bit of super glue cant fix though :)

I compared it to the all famous Boss Metal Zone. The Metal Zone sounds very thin, twangy, undistinctive, cheap and digital. Even with an EQ pedal (which does vasty improve the Metal Zone), it was pretty feeble. Also tried a couple of Digitech X-series distortion things (cant remember which ones), they were ok, but still a bit naff. The Tri Metal is very powerful, very versitile (if ya know what your doing) and very nice looking :) Also, it was #20, cant go wrong for #20 can ya?

I wish the knobs were a bit less sensitive though, a very very small turn and your sound is completely different (which does make it so versitile, so I guess I shouldnt complain)

On a side note, just because something is plastic (such as.... ooo..... say a ZOOM GFX-707) it doesn't mean it will break easily. The GFX707 is very strong, mine have been through hell and are in perfect working order. Anyway, enough of my rant.

Pretty easy to use. The only knob people won't be familiar with is the range knob. This puts more emphasis on the bass side of the mids or the treble side, depending on which way its turned. The eqs are really sensitive so you can get TONS of different sounds out of it

I use a les paul into tri-metal into a Marshall Valvestate. The distortion is infinatley better than the Marshalls distortion. Its a real METAL sound. People often say blah blah is a great distortion pedal but they mean to play stuff like Jimi Hendrix, Smashing Pumpkins, Bon Jovi etc. This is a real distortion pedal for Metallica, Disturbed etc.. HEAVY AS HELL and really quiet and clear at the same time. Wish it was just a touch clearer though. Guess i,m just tough to please.

And what is all this about people saying you can't palm mute on this thing?? What a load of .... They must only have the pedal a day and haven't figured out how to use it yet. Thats what the range knob is for. If its turned below half the muting can be a little weak. Turn it even the slightest bit over half way and holy sh*t. Heavy and tight as hell.

I have been playing for almost 10 years and am not easily impressed but this is a cool pedal. Still want a Dual Recto or Powerball though

They say if there way a nuclear war the cockroaches would ne the only things to survive. I'd add the tri-metal to that list. Solid metal everywhere

Never used it

I play METAL from Metallica to Alice in Chains to Disturbed Papa Roach etc.. If you can't afford a 100 watt all tube amp or you want to soup up your existing one, get this pedal.(if you can still find one) Its as simple as that.

It's a freakin' analog pedal. Like, with knobs that rotate. How hard is that?

Note though that it has a very wide tonal range, so getting *your* sound from it may take a while. Remember to start experimenting with all the knobs in the center position, not off (esp. the level knob, tee-hee :)

The manual... it lists some presets that are okay and yadas a bit about how to use the thing.. as if you wouldn't know.

I'm using it alongside a Morley wah pedal and plug it into either a Vox or a Behringer amp. My axe is an EXP V-350, by the way.

The unit is total hush when on bypass (it does have a mechanical bypass system) and when not hitting strings, which is *awesome*.

You'd be nuts to turn the gain to maximum, it simply soars with it. Just your most beloved rythm guitar for metal players. This is *not* a blues pedal.

Solid-as-a-tank metal casing, metal knobs, seems like the bugs will rule the after-nuclear-war world (and play with it :) before it breaks. I'd sureley gig without a backup for it.

Never dealt with them.

I play rock, blues, and *metal*. It certainly is a perfect match for the last one :)

If it were stolen... I'd cry a bit and wish they didn't discontinue it.

Just get your hands on one of them before they go vintage.

Pretty easy to get used to... you'll have to tweak with the settings a bit to get it into something that works for you. I've actually noticed a few people who've posted their settings in these reviews. Its definitely not plug and play, so it loses a point

I was on the hunt for a pedal that provided an amazing amount of gain... like more gain than you'd ever need... so i've tried out a ton of pedals... a pedal i really wanted to get my hands on was a Fender Blender... although they're discontinued and any chance of finding one is pretty rare. The Tri Metal is discontinued as well, however a few stores still have some kicking around.

I have a few different setups that sound really good...
1) Fender Telecaster -> Dunlop Original Crybaby -> Tri-Metal -> Peavey TNT 115 (Yes, this is a bass amp)

2) Ibanez RG 250 dx -> Tri-Metal -> Fender Deluxe 112

3) Ibanez Ax 7221 (7 String) -> Tri-Metal -> Fender Deluxe 112

This pedal doesn't suck tone at all, and bypass is actually a true sounding bypass, which is good.. very good. I'd have to say this is the most fun to play effect i have so far... oh yeah, try playing an Ebow set on Harmonic mode on your low strings with a slight finger induced vibrato.. sounds VERY awesome! I can't wait to show it off to my band mates at next practice

Historically Zoom has been known to build pedals with Plastic casings. In 98 i bought a Zoom 505... its still alive today after many a jam session and house parties. In 2001 i bought the GFX 4, a great pedal... somehow i still haven't snapped any of the knobs off yet... this Tri Metal is built with a solid metal casing... the knobs are metal as well, very solid... i would say that this unit is 10 x more durable than traditional Zoom boxes, and even those are pretty tough. I always hear people comaplina about the zoom multi effects units being plastic, but what the hell? is the mosh pit on the stage or something? they don't break that easy.

I've dealt with Zoom support one time before when i had accidently dropped my 505 into some special mode and couldn't get it out. I sent an email to them and received a response on how to fix the problem within 24 hours. They also provide downloadable manuals for all their products on their website... very handy

I play almost everything except country.... been playing for 6 years. Other gear i own, Zoom 505, Zoom GFX 4, Zoom Rhythm trak 123, Danlectro BLT Slap echo, Dunlop Original Crybaby Wah, Ibanez Sound Tank Tremolo, Boss DS-1 Distortion, EBow. If it was lost or stolen, i'd definitely buy another one (hopefully insurance would cover it!)
I love how variable the gain is... and how quiet it is, zero noise! I would have to say the Range knob is most fun to play with so far.

6 knobs to use are all pretty easy to figure out, but a LOT of tweaking will be required to find your perfect sound, not that its difficult to get a good sound, it'll just be your personal preference.

Im using an ESP explorer and a Tom Delonge Signature Strat. My amps are a Marshall MG100DFX for jams and a JCM900 half stack for gigs. The tri metal sounds great through both but i have to admit that running it through my jcm900 gives far better results, a real raw crunch distortion, brutal. All i use in my chain is a boss NS2 with the tri metal and a boss GE-7 running through the NS2's effects loop. This thing rocks. I was tempted to buy a metalzone as the other guitarist in our band had one, but when i heard it, it just sucked. Muddy, toneless, artificial are all words that spring to mind about the metalzone but not the tri metal! i know some people on here say this thing is just for metal, but i disagree. In my band we write heavy stuff and punky stuff and this thing delivers on both, i can get a great rammestein brutal distortion when tuned down or a great kinda new found glory/offspring punk sound. It really is amazingly quiet too, with the NS2 off, and the tri metal cranked up there is a little buzz, but compared to most pedals its nothing! with the NS2 on, there is no noise at all from the tri metal or GE-7.

Its my heaviest pedal, i've dropped it, spilt cola on it, had people accidentally step on the knobs, no damage. I bought it seond hand and there were a few chips in the paint work, but it was only cosmetic.

I play metal and punk and this thing kicks arse. I'd say it was well suited to any hi-gain style of music, EQ it a bit and u can get most styles. I am curious why they were discontinued though, as i'd say it was the best distortion pedal available.

The six buttons and the footswitch are easy enough to operate. The difficulty lies in finding your unique sound. Don't be mistaken, this boy can pump out a wide range of distortions, mostly for metal. But the first few times you try, it'll be hard to find exactly what you want, which is why you have to fiddle around with the controls a lot. And with 6 to screw around with, the complexity of your sound is mirrored through your changes significantly.

The sound is great. Unless gain is turned up ALL the way, it's silent. I left it alone and didn't even know anything was on. It's that damn quiet. But it also doesn't lack in its sound. Like I said, there's a huge range of sounds just waiting to eat up your amp with this. You can go from a heavy treble sound to a dry bassy one. And everything in between. And a lot more.

I would use this without a backup. This thing is indestructible. However, this pedal was discontinued by ZOOM. I wonder why..

I play metal and this thing suits me to a tee. I know a lot of people are afraid of having all their stuff sound the same, but this solves that dilemma. It pumps out whatever you need. Buy it (if you can find it) and you won't be disappointed.

Kind of like a Metal Zone to use with just a slightly different layout.Don't put too much faith in the manual but fool around with the 2 mid controls to find your sound. The bottom end can be overpowering so I keep it slightly higher than straight up and the treble slightly lower.

I bought it about a year ago because I was mightily impressed by the sound of this box and let me tell you I'm not easily impressed these days. This isnt really exactly a recto sound but it is a contemporary high gain sound. It can sound intensely brutal and was just made for metal and the more extreme the better.Palm muting sounds awesome [if you know how to palm mute correctly that is]. Sounds absolutely crushing at high volumes if you know how to set up an amp correctly. [I'm afraid guys who pay 125 bucks for a 60 buck pedal do not qualify here:)]
Beats the Metalzone in every department even for price. This is without a doubt the best metal pedal I have ever used and I've had Boss, Dod, Danelectro, Ibanez etc. This is even better than the Digitech Metal Master which is an excellent pedal.

I think a 10 is appropriate here.

God aint making any more real estate and sadly Zoom aint making any more of these great pedals I think I have to try to find a couple more of these as backups.Cause I never want to be without one.

Can't be easyer to use . 6 knobs . What more can I tell ?

Okey listen : I play a Ibanez RG550 , my amp is a Marshall 8200 which I play tru a 1912 cabinet . My first pedal [ which I used for over 2 years ] was an MT2 , If you know how to set up your gear you can get pretty much out of this , but I got sick and tired of the same sound . So I searched for another pedal I saw ALLOT of good revieuws on Harmony Centraill about the Tri metal , So I bought it . What a mistake . The sound is to muddy when amp is cranked up . On a gig you cannot use this pedal cause you can't hear crap what you are playing . What happend to Palm muting ?? I maybe saw 2 people talk about this , does heave PM that the mt-2 does forget about it the tri metal can't handle this . If you are in to NU metal with absolutly no PM this is the pedal you need . Speed , metal , hardcore freaks better stick with the MT-2 .

Yes its very strong made out of metal i think ??? I would not use it on a gig cause its total soundcrap .

never needed it

I play mostly hardcore metal . This is not the pedal I need . End of revieuw

Not difficult to use. Usable sounds throughout its range. Manual is fine.

I play a modded Charvette bolt-on LP style guitar (bought in Japan, very unusual Charvette)w/ a single Fury 50's Rocker in the bridge, as well as a beautiful early 70's Yamaha SG 85 w/ the stock high-output humbuckers (basically a souped-up LP Special). I play into a 60 watt 112 Fender Concert (Rivera designed-1983) combo. The Tri-Metal sounds great through a decent tube amp. The dirty channel on the Concert is great for blues and classic rock a la Led Zep, but doesn't go boom enough for a real aggro metal sound. With the TM in the string, the Concert rips. Beware though- this is built for metal. It is not going to give you a subtle OD sound. It's voiced more like a rectifier and has a massive low-end boost that, when coupled with the tubes in the Concert, fucking SHREDS. I wouldn't put this through a solid-state amp- I think it would sound a bit cold. I usually only set the gain at around 9 o'clock and jack up the master on my Concert. If darkness has a voice, this is it. Nasty. I play in a band and we do alot of heavy rock as well as old school hardcore punk stuff, and the TM delivers. I am also a big fan of Death & Grind- Carcass, Napalm Death and Cannibal Corpse- this unit nails it. Plus, it's 100% analog. It sounds processed and compressed... but in a good way, in my opinion. There is, however, a strong organic component to the sound, but this might come from the Fender. I have also played it through a JCM 800 w/ a 412 and it sounds very nice, though perhaps a bit lacking in defintion. When I use it, people are always asking if I'm detuned, but I'm not. It makes even standard tuning monstrously heavy. Also, it is very quiet. I have owned several pedals- a CRAPPY Zoom GFX 707 (Yikes!), a Guyatone Steve Salas Distortion, a Boss HM-2 and a Tube Works Real Tube. This compares favourably to all of them. For a non-tube analog distortion pedal, you could do alot worse. I have also used it for recording (mic'd my amp and a Fender Stage 60- another tube amp) and it sounded almost like a wall of Marshalls.) If you contact me, I can send you a sample song and you can check it out. I have been playing since I was 14, and I'm 31 now. I am no expert, but I'm pretty finicky about my tone, so the rating below is VERY high for me.

Well built, very heavy, no fear about damaging it. Looks nice, too.

A simply awaesome pedal. Dedicated to metal!

manual.. what the heck.. it isn't even in english! who cares.... just plug it in.. and you're on your way.. as many pple have said above, twelve o clock.. and tweak your way around.. easy peasy. : ) the day '10' comes about for ease of use is when you feed a guitar sound into a pedal, and the pedal emulates the exact sound....

guitar>>>tm 01>>>>amp. i've fed an RG 450 through this, a Gib LP special. and a Gib Nighthawk.. awesome dude.. i sold my MT2 to get this pedal instead.. this is a new industry standard.. it's so quiet!! i leave my strings alone.. and what comes out? nothing! it's quiet.. really quiet.. i've got a jackhammer, and a ts-9 too.. so basically.. i've got almost every distortion i want.. except for a mesa.. then again.. what the heck....i'm happy.. it's a really good pedal, really.. throw the metalzone away.....clarity of notes..... seriously.. are you looking for ts-9 quality of sound definition? it's a fucking metal pedal.....

i would use this without a backup.....the only thing that gets to me is that the knobs turn about very easily.... so.. one knock may blast your sound into mudland.. oh well....if not, it's solid.... really solid.. full bodied metal casing.. i seriously prefer this to the MT2, by alot......

?! go to the place you bought it from.. i'm not sending it all the way to japan!

i play indie, emo, punk, a little metal and paul gilbert kinda stuff...... and blues too.. i wont touch blues with anything but my ts9.... but this pedal is really great.. seriously.. move the knobs around.. and it's really versitile.. i like this alot.. makes me like to play.... my friend bought my metalzone from me.. so i went out and bought this..a nd made 10 bux for myself.. fantastic.. i really like this pedal.. rich..creamy.. and very nice textures coming out of this little box.... buy it if you've lost your mt2.. really.. what the hell.... just buy it whether you've lost your mt2 or not..

This one can be tricky to get right. You really have to experiment to get it to sound it's best with your equipment.

Just stick with it KJ and you will soon find that The Tri Metal totally annihilates the Metal Zone when it's set just right.For starters keep the Bass around twelve o'clock or slightly higher which is plenty, Treble about the same or slightly less, Gain probably no higher than Ten o'clock.Dont scoop the mids too much but start off with both the controls around one o'clock. This should be a good jump off point for tweaking around but remember that slight changes to the settings can have quite a noticable effect on the sound. Yes the gain factor is high but it's not a fake processed sound like the Metal Zone gives.It's got real balls. It really doesn't sound its very best through a small practice amp, especially a solid state one but through a big good quality amp [in my case a Marshall Triple Super Lead 100 stack] it sounds bloody amazing.Strangely enough though everybody I know who plays guitar agrees that the Metal Zone is mainly useful for low volume practice and absolutely worthless as a gigging tool. A useful tip to control the high gain structure is to use the Volume control on your guitar.It seems obvious enough but very few people seem to do that.Since I got this pedal my Metal zone just gathers dust!

I think we all agree on that one.

I play Metal[obviously} and this pedal is just great for that. Its what it's made for.I can accept that it might not be for everybody because some people will find it just too heavy for them in which case might I reccomend the Boss MD2 Mega Distortion pedal which doesn't have the super-heavy sound of the Tri Metal but is still a really nice pedal and much much better than the Metal Zone in my opinion.Like I said before since I got the Tri Metal my old Metal Zone doesn't get used any more.

This pedal was a little on the disappointing end. There is too much gain to be usuable. I can only hear mud, when I play in a band situation, no clarity to any notes. Only if you're into the Slipknot thing I guess. I actually got better tone with a metalzone with a 6 band eq supporting it.

I'm playing a Charvel guitar with seymour duncan 59 in the neck and Duncan Distortion at the bridge. Though a Randall RG100ES. The distortion from the head actually had better gain tones with eq's in front and in the loop with a sonic max. So it's not my setup that i'm using, like I said before i've had satistactory tones with a bass metal zone with this set up also.

Oh it's definetly reliable. you could chuck this thing out of the car and off the freeway at highspeeds and still have it in great shape. It's something like 2 lbs.

Never dealt with as of yet. I've only had this pedal for about 2 months.

I'm playing a fast, heavy metal style. in the lines of recent Testament, Slayer, and Fear Factory. I've been playing for 12 years, but I'd still use this pedal for other things, not for band situations though. Good for practice amps at low volumes or bedroom wailing.

i had it about 15 months and i find its v.easy to use. the mids controls can take a bit of playin around but on the whole its a piece of cake.best place to start is with everythin in the straight up 12oclock position and tweek from there..

i got this cause i wanted a total evil distortion pedal cause i play in a death metal band and this was the heaviest and most brutal one i could find. I cant even turn the bottom up more than 2oclock its so ballsy.I still aint heard any pedal that compares for sheer inyour face . in fact it sounds like it could tear you a new one in 0.1 seconds flat no kiddin. i recently checked out the boss metal zone which i always avoided on account of it gets such bad reviews everywhere. now i know why. the metal zone sounds like real feeble shit compared to the trimetal. it just cant hang with this bad mofo of a pedal. havnt found anything else that can so far.

never let me down yet and it gets used all the time.

perfect for death metal...warning. do not buy this one for blues or bon jovi type shit.this is a metal pedal absolutely.if you like the darker heavier side of metal though it will turn any amp you care to name into godzilla.

Very easy to use but a bit hard to find your own sound as the controls are very sensitive and has a wide range of tonal possibilities.

This is the best distortion pedal i've ever tried, period. I've had a Metalzone, a DOD death metal, a DS-1, a tubescreamer and i've heard many others but this pedal really is the perfect pedal for heavy metal. This thing is like the Metalzone but with more gain, power and bass but with less mids/nasally sound. I've had no problems with doing palm mutes like the others, i think it depends on the kind of guitar you have and the way you attack the strings with your pick.

The amounts of gain you can have is awesome and you can still hear every chord ring out with clarity even if it's all the way up, not unlike the Metalzone which is very fuzzy and thin sounding. Another cool thing is that this pedal is VERY quiet at all levels of gain. This pedal is good for most kinds of metal, you can have a tight and crunchy power/classic metal tone, scoop the mids for some chugging 80's thrash or you can turn up the gain and bass to have a brutal/biting death metal tone like Suffocation/Dying Fetus/Cryptopsy, etc.

This pedal surprised me when i saw it on the store because of its solid construction and ruggedness, unlike most of Zooms' earlier products particularly their plastic multi-effects line. I feel more comfortable and at ease when i press down hard on a solid pedal not a plastic toy.

I play mostly death and power metal like Cryptopsy, Death, Dying Fetus, Morbid Angel, Carcass, Obituary, Iced Earth, Hammerfall, etc. and this pedal can do all that convincingly. This pedal is for METAL, not blues, alternative or whatever...even when the gain is at level 1, it still sounds heavy. I definately recommend it to rhythm guitarists who worship heavy, grinding metal riffs...

update of my review (Anonymous at 02/21/2003 16:55)
I was complaining about the palm mutting and after that I wrote my review, i was even more angry about that. there were no life in my sound and the bass was crappier then ever. here's the big thing : the battery that comes with the pedal is a crappy carbone heavy dutty battery. change it for a alkaline battery or the power adapter. it REALY makes the difference! I you don't beleive me, go to analogman.com (they certify my statement).
a another thing : perfect for nu metal...that's it! you can get early metallica sound (master of pupets and before...before they switched for mesa)but for those who wants to sound like wylde or tool, go get the real thing or a amp simulator. Anyway, what's the point of copying the sounds of the others? :O)
peace

No problems, simply start with all the knobs at 12 o'clock and tweak from there until you find your sound.....

I've been using the Metalzone for years, and the tri-metal definitely made my metalzone sound thin in comparison....Actually allows your guitar tone to be heard, the metalzone covers it up. Very heavy sounding....some have complained about palm muting, these people obviously have poor technique...the palm mutes sound different than the metalzone, actually heavier, and I had no difficulty getting that sound right away...some people talked about extremely high levels of gain, my impression is that it has the same, if not a little less gain than my Metalzone, but it doesn't have that tinny, buzzy sound....highly recommend this pedal to use as your heavy distortion..

just got it...."built like a tank" would stand up to any boss pedal as far as solid construction..time will tell how well the circuits stand up to abuse, but I'm guessing I'll have no problems...

have not dealt with them....

my music is varied in influences such as Neurosis, Machinehead, The Cure, Depeche Mode, NIN, etc....I use the Tri-metal to handle the heavy sections and it does so perfectly...if you like the metalzone sound but felt it was a little thin and buzzy at high volumes, tri-metal is a perfect upgrade. I play a Fernandez Monterey guitar with EMG-81 pick-up and an LTD 7-string into......Ernie Ball Vol>535Q wah>Boss TU-2 Tuner>Boss SD-2 Dual Overdrive>TRI-METAL>Boss TM-2 Tremolo>Rockson Analog Delay>Boss DD-5>Line6 Echopro>Digitech GSP-5>poweramp>Randall Cab

PS: english is not my first language...please, be cool :O)
easy of use...well, if you used the MT-2, you know how the midrange works. for the rest (trebble, gain, bass, level) if you don't know how it works, go back to school.
the instructions are clear...but who cares about it anyway? you but the battery in it, tweek a little bit and that's it

first, I have to say, I play for my own pleasure. My stuff never Left my bedroom. But, I'm playing each and every night for about 12 years...so, I know a little bit about what is a good tone :O)
I'm currently using a gibson SG special (original pickups) with a marshall 80v (8080) and my pedals setting is SG --> TM-01 --> (other distorsion pedals) and my wah crybaby GCB-95 (effect loop or in line in...).

I had couple of distorsion pedals including the MT-2 for about 8 years (8 long years!). the TM-01 is the quiet disto pedals that I nerver see! just do the test : plug the MT-2 and TM-01 and switch on and off (not both of course) and hear the difference.
for the sound...first, for you people saying that the MT-2 sucks, your not totaly wrong. but, if you are looking for a mid 80 metal sound, go get a used MT-2 and you'll be satisfy. It's noisy, but not crap. But, if you are looking for a mesa/boogie-look-a-like sound (dream theater, metallica, disturbed) and you are a university student who that have 2000$ CAN and up to spend, go for the tri-metal! you can scoop the mids even more that you what! why the tri-metal? first, it's all analog and you can hear it of you know how digital sucks. second, 3 stages circuit of distorsions, the only pedal on the market with that feature (even the new MD-2 have only 2). so, it's quiet, loud, bassy.
cons : I was expecting more on the palm mutting departement. it's better than the MT-2 but not THAT much. but that subjective...go try it.

well...it looks like a brick and I'm pretty sure it's tought as this.

support for what? da, I don't know where to put the battery???

I mainly play rock, blues, metal of all sorts and some punk. the TM-01 rocks well, can be usefull for melo blues solo and defenitely rulez for metal (da!)! like I said, I play for about 12 years and I am a vintage/tube/analog fan and I hate those digital prossesor (wow! I now have 253 different disto and they all sucks!). I realy love that pedal. for the objectif side of what is call a GOOD sound (hiss, feedback, noise, etc.) that's the best pedal ever. for the subjective side, exept for the palm mutting that is a little weak (damn, I guess I'll have to get a mark IV to be satisfied!) the TM-01 is a good overall pedal sound

The Zoom manual is bullshit. Never mind cuz most of them are shit anyway. If you can't use this pedal then you better give up playing guitar right now. There is no mysterys involved in using distortion pedals and this one is easy to use as most other ones.. But tweeking around will tune your sound to perfection.

Before I got the Trimetal my rig looked like this ,,, Gibson Flying V with Bill Lawrence (the REAL ones) 500L at the neck and 500XL at the bridge>Dunlop 535q Wah>BossDS-1>Boss Metal Zone>Boss GE-7 Equalizer>Boss CE-5 chorus>Peavey 5150>Marshall 1960 4X12 cab. It now looks exacly the same except that I got a Trimetal in place of the Metal Zone. Let me tell you guys who are reading this that I sold my Metal Zone the day I got this pedal . It's like a whole completely different level of dstortion pedal. I have to keep the gain below 11 clock cuz it's so brutal and I found it worked out best to start out with everything in straight up position and tweek my way from there. This is not a general puropose distortion. Get a Boss DS-1 for that. But if you want it Ultra Heavy this baby delivers. I could not believe how much more heavy it was than my Metal Zone.This pedal crushes every other distortion pedal out there.It sounds mindblowing wth the GE-7 after it in my lineup. Try tuning down a step and playing Metallicas Sad But True or Machine Heads Ten Ton Hammer and youll soon see what I mean. It's HEAVVVEEEEE baby!

I never seen anything so solid as this, no exaggerations. Ive used it more than a year now and no problems at all.

All I can say is if your finding the Metal Zone to be a bit lightweight in the cojones department here's your solution right here. The Zoom Trimetal. The best comparison I can think of is if these two pedals was like television cops then the Metal Zone is like TJ Hooker, never goes wrong, dependable, predictable, gets the job done. The Trimetal is like Vic Mackey in a real bad mood ,,,vicious,totally badass,and will whip the butt of any other distortion pedal you can name.

Not easy to get a good sound out of this - at first. This is a good thing because everyone's ear is different, and we all like different things. Take your time with it and you will be rewarded. Easy to use, though, it has 6 knobs, all clearly labelled. The manual is clear and concise

I'm actually using this through a bass amp, a Crate BX-50, with a MARS Music store brand guitar (I'm a bass player first). SD Hot Rails in the Neck, EMG81 in the bridge. Previously for my distortion, I used a Metal Zone and a Sonic Maximizer (both knobs cranked), and the contour control maxed out on my amp, this was the only way to get a metal zone to sound amazing. I do not need to use the sonic maximizer with this unit. The Tri-Metal can give you the most brutal, heavy, bitiest, most chainsaw/buzzsaw sounding distortions you are looking for, or even be pretty smooth if thats what you want. This thing is just about one of the best distortion pedals on the market. I can roll the volume back on my guitar and it cleans up perfectly, dig in with the pick attack a little for some overdrive sounds, damned good for a stomp box. About palm muting: I used to use a Metal Zone and palm muting was effortless on that thing (ie made me lazy), had to actually take a few minutes to relearn how to do it right on this thing, else it sounds like mud, totally unprecise, which it IS NOT, if done correctly. Palm mute it right, and you will be rewarded with some of the heaviest, most throbbing chords of your life. Even a single note palm mute sounds thick.

Reliability? If you took a Boss (REKNOWNED for reliability) pedal and this thing and slammed them into eachother repeatedly, the Boss would be crying uncle before the Tri-Metal was scratched. Low profile, metal (most likely aluminum) case, painted black, big fat button to step on, big knobs, weighs a ton.

Never dealt with them

I play heavy metal, the heavier the better (but not Nu-Metal...who the hell started calling it that? "Nu"? sounds stupid, just call Heavy Rock or something, there's too many needless genre names anyways...'sides, most of this "Nu-Metal" ain't metal). This pedal can get you almost any heavy distortion you could think of, searing, blistering leads, heavy grinding rhythms, throbbing palm mutes...damn.

Let's see... it was at my door this morning, I plugged it in, eyeballed the knobs, started jammin', tweaked the "range" knob to the right...that was it. Personally, it's the best distortion pedal I've ever used. It came with a manual, I looked it over, how nice. My ears are my manual. It's a distortion pedal, with six knobs, and it required about 1/2 a second to give me the sound I want.

I'm using a cheap($50), piece of shit strat copy, which I installed a DiMarzio Tone Zone in about 12 years ago. It sounds great, I love it, and I don't have to worry about it getting scratched, nicked, whatever like I do with my others. Anyway, lately I've been using a Bad Horsie, into a Death Metal pedal (or an Akai D1 on an A/B set-up), with an old MXR 10-band EQ, into a Morley SLVO volume pedal, into a Boss ME-33 (for flange, delay, pitch shift, etc.), into a Randall RH200 (Musicians Friend), into a 4x12 cab (vintage 30's), and a 2x15 cab (Eminence). The Tri Metal pedal obviously blows away the Death Metal. Though, I do like the Death Metal, with an eq, it does a good job (for me). My rig is noisy (ME-33 is a pig, and I use Monster Cables), but when I played with just the Tri Metal, it was pretty quiet. This pedal is THE pedal I've been looking for, I mean it. I'm not trying to imitate any artist, I know what sound I like, and this pedal gives it to me.

It's heavy, very solid, good looking. If it breaks, you can beat the snot out of someone with it. Seriously, I'll bet this baby weighs in at two pounds. It's low, wide, and heavy. It stays put. The foot button is large, round, and easy to press. The knobs seem to be pretty solid. I would NEVER gig without a back-up of anything. Remember when "Mom" asked if you were wearing clean underwear? Hehe... always have a spare, especially when gigging, it's not fun to be caught with your pants down. That doesn't mean you have to buy two of everything, improvise, you're a guitarist, dammit!!! But don't roll into a gig with just one distortion pedal,

No need yet, this is my first Zoom prduct, time will tell.

I like to play heavy metal. This pedal is THE pedal for me. I have been playing since 1984, recording (for pleasure) since 1995. I was 16 when I started playing, I was into Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, Ozzy, Dokken, Metallica, AC/DC, stuff like that. Now, 19 years later, I'm into playing some Satch, a little Demons & Wizards, a little Megadeth, some Queensryche. I have seven distortion pedals (DS-1 (Satch), Grunge ('eh), Death Metal (ok), Akai D1 (great for AC/DC, Def Leppard), Smash Box (dust collector), Rocktron Rampage ('eh), and an old Tube Screamer (needs work)), a couple of Dano's, three wah pedals (I like the Bad Horsie!), a Peavey Tube Fex with PFC 10 (needs work), Cakewalk Guitar Tracks Pro (PC, it FUCKING RULES!!!), Ibanez RG-470 (DiMarzio Super 3 in bridge, FRED in neck), Jackson RX10D (DiMarzio X2N), Washburn BT-2 (DiMarzio Evolution, sucks in this guitar), Gibson L6-S (stock!!!... oh so sweet), ESP GL-500T (Screamin' Demon), Ibanez Destroyer II (Super distortion), Gibson Flying V (mid-80's white, turning yellow, stock p'ups), the list goes on (I'm a pack-rat). If this pedal were lost (yeah, right!) or stolen, I'd buy another one. I bought this online, sight unseen, never played through it or heard what it sounds like. I liked the way it looked, and I liked what it promised to do (ah ha!). Well, this pedal is THE pedal for me, it gives me the sound I want, and looks good, too. Saturated, high-gain heavy metal distortion, this is it.

This pedal is very easy to use if you know what your doing. The range and mid are perfect to tweak the sound of distortion you want.

DAMN.....this is probably the best distortion i could ask for from this pedal (on it's own) it took me about half an hour to tweak this pedal just the way i wanted it too. AND IT SOUNDS FUCKIN AWESOME! I gave it a 9 because it does get a little muddy with everything cranked....i wish it went to 11...

I would use this without a backup because this thing could not be backed up. You would have to back it up with another Tri-Metal pedal (at least i would at shows)

I play metal with melodic and dissinant undertones (Tool, A Perfect Circle, Sevendust). This is the perfect pedal. I've been playing for about 5 years now. Attach this pedal with a Boss Delay and your fuckin rockin with some crazy sounds. If i lost this pedal i would buy it again, if someone stole it i would give them a fork in the eye.

The distortion on here cannot be matched and i suggest you buy it!

This pedal is great if you wanna go for the Pantera/Iced Earth sound.....but the problem is that there are 4 knobs..and personally that would take quite alot of tweaking to get the sound you wish to get..
Zoom added a setting in the booklet which i always use.
The manual is just like the normal booklets you find when you buy electronic gadgets..

i'm using American Traditional Stratocaster -> Zoom Tri-Metal - > Marshall AVT 20..Fantastic..i'm addicted to the sound this beast produces...
Amazingly for a heavy metal distortion pedal, there is not even a single noise thats comes out....
If you wanna get the metallica/pantera/iced earth sound, don't bother searching other pedals, you would need this..NOTHING ELSE..

It would survive even a plane crashed one it..
So far i have been using this pedal for all my jamming session, and it has not failed me.so no backup for me,

Never dealt with them.

I play anything that is rock n roll...i play metal too and this is an excellant pedal for metal..but not very good with other stuff such as blues or punk.(IN MY OPINION)..
i have been playing for about 3 years now..i have a DOD thrashmaster and that is just thrash..
if it was stolen, i would certainly buy it:)

preety easy to use, but it will take you a while to get the exact sound you want. I dont think anyone should need a manual for this beast

im playing an ibanez rg270 fitted with a DiMarzio evolution in the bridge into a crate g120c. This thing produces unbeleivable sound, if you think a boss mt-2 is a badass distortion, you havent heard this thing, its so creamy + chunky , massive tight lowend with nice trebble, i use this to get good low end crunch for bands like new found glory ( i know this is a metal pedal, but i use it in a punk/emo band)

i dont think you could break this thing if you tried

this pedal is great for any style of music that demands fat chunky gain soaked guitars

Alot of tweaking possibilities here which means that a lot of trial and errorwas involved in getting the sound I wanted. But when I did....WOW!

The sound of this pedal definitely leans towards the rectifier sound. It's dark and imposing,brutal and everything that a heavy metal pedal should sound like.Palm muting works great for me so I don't get why some reviews have a problem there. The bass is really chunky and powerful and I can get unbelievable sustain if I whack the gain levels up. Really quiet too. I don't know if its got a bulit in noisegate and I don't really care. This pedal sounds totally awesome for Thrash and Death Metal. Just don't buy it for an all purpose distortion . It's a metal monster.It says it's made in Japan but that's a lie. This ferocious brute was made by the dark lord on his dark throne in the depths of Mordor!

I can hardly believe how solid this pedal is, and from Zoom of all companies too! It will last forever unless you destroy it by casting it into the fires of Mount Doom.

This is easily the best distortion pedal around just now, but remember. ITS ONLY FOR METAL!! ( did I say that already?)

This thing is very easy to use.

Okay here we go. I went looking for the ultimate distortion pedal. I started with the visualsound jekyll&hyde pedal that at the time I thought sounded killer. Then I went to the fulltone distortion pro, thinking that this high end company would supply me with all the distortion I could ever need.Wrong!!!!! Then I went to the boss MD-2 nu-metal distortion pedal. I thought that this pedal was the end all of distortion pedals until I tried the trimetal pedal. I shit you not this is the best metal pedal of all time, that I have tried.The bottom line on this pedal is options. You can dial in a shit load of sounds from this thing. Oh and the palm mutting thing, I don't have a problem with this at all. Palm mutting is awesome!

This thing could survive a Iraqi scud missle attack.

overall I love this pedal. this thing rocks.I am in love with this pedal!!! The control of this pedal is unbelievable.The fulltone distortion pro totally sucks for metal,the boss MD-2 totally and I mean totally sucks compared to this!

6 knobs: gain, treble, middle, range, bass, level.
the "range" knob adjusts the crossover point for the "middle" knob.

this pedal has tons of gain. the tone is excellent, and it's variable over a huge spectrum thanks to the "range" knob. the pedal blends well with an amps distortion but sounds best just used through the clean channel (or the drive channel with only a small amount of gain dialed in).

the tm01 has incredible sustain, i can hold a chord for 10 seconds with no problem. i suppose the neck-thru guitar helps, but it adds lots more sustain anyway.

solid. can't see it breaking.

n/a

i bought both the tri-metal and the dod fx86b death metal pedal. both are high-gain distortion monsters, but here's the differences: the tri-metal has more bass and has a far greater adjustable range. the fx86b has slightly more gain, but it's alway on the verge of feedback, and there's no adjustment knob for gain, just level(output volume) and 3 eq knobs.

the zoom is far quieter than the dod. the dod compresses the signal and has ever so slight digital artifacts (synth like sound) on the high end. not objectionable, but still perceptable at times, especially low volumes. the dod does the scooped mids better than the zoom because, ironically, it compresses the signal (cuts the bass especially). the zoom does the scooped sound well too but sounds like it has a little too much bass freqency range when a/b'ed with the dod.

actually anyone who wants a high-gain pedal should buy both of these, and with the zoom at $59 and the dod at $49, why-the-hell-not!

but if i was going to buy only one, the tri-metal is the one i'd get.
why? cos the tone is better and it has a gain knob.

i wouldn't say this is very easy to use, but its not the worst ive come across by a longshot, however, getting the sound you want may take a while.

for amps im using marshall avt50 head w/ a 412a cab and the guitar is an esp ltd 255. this is all but completely silent. the treble is a bit 'fizzy' sounding regardless of the gain. the bass and mids are pretty rich in general and the sound is the slightest bit processed. this may be part of the sacrifice of having an extremely well defined low-end, though; every note is heard and none are muddied over. i wouldn't recommend this for your zep or nirvana cover band, but if you're gonna play some morbid angel and the like, this will easily give you as much crunch as you need with only a little patience.

its solid metal and has a better feel than any boss ive ever seen. ive had no problems ever after two years. i would never gig without a backup if i could help it, but my backup would just be another one of these.

I just want to add a few further comments an observations to my review sent in on 11/08/2002.

* The Tri-Metal definitely does not have a built-in noisegate, and Zoom don't claim that it has. The manual states that it's built around a low noise circuit. That was my mistake. Apologies if that misled anyone. In practical terms though, it doesn't reallymatter because whatever you want to call it, it works very well.

* It does have a true bypass inasmuch as the input signal isn't affected when the pedal is switched out. Neither I or any of my guitar-playing friends can detect any significant degradation when the pedal is in the signal path.

*The Tonebone Hot British I only know by reputation. The Bjf Dyna Red is a pedal that I was fortunate enough to have an extended loan of earlier this year. It's a superb pedal (and so it should be at over $200 - The Hot British is also over $200) and very versatile, but by no stretchof the imagination is it a heavy metal pedal. Mainstream rock is where it excels. I compared the Tri-Metal with the Boss MD-2 when I bought it because firstly , it's in the same price sector, and secondly the guy in the store recommended it to me( paid to push Boss pedals maybe?) as " Boss's new metal pedal" That was his description though Boss's own descriptions back it up. Whatever anyone else may think of the MD-2 in any other application, it falls short as a metal pedal which is what it's being marketed as, so don't blame me for any shortcomings that I found in it.

* The idea that your sound will mysteriously vanish into a band mix is a bit of a myth, a half-truth if you like. Any pedal will do this if the sound is overly scooped either by it's own controls or with a separate equaliser pedal.The solution is simple. Just dial in more midtones. You don't have to stick with a scooped sound if you don't want to. I gig with this pedal regularly and it not only cuts through, it cuts through with real presence and authority in a way that few if any of it's competitors can manage. I used a Smashbox until about a year ago. It was a good pedal and I liked it enough to return two of them to the store,until I finally got one that would keep on working after a few days use. While it was terrific for playing Iron Maiden, Judas Priest and stuff like that, I just outgrew it when I started to play my own material and needed something heavier. But it's still a good pedal even though I don't really use it much these days.

* I don't have any problems with fizzy treble unless I dial it in too much and overscoop the midtones so I can only assume that these things are dependant on the rest of the equipment that other people are using with it. The fact is if a pedal works with your equipment then that's fine. If not, then it doesn't really matter what anybody else uses. It just doesn't work for you. The Tri-Metal works for me, and it works incredibly well. I can't say any more than that.

this is an update of my review below:
if just realized that they lowered the prices for the tri-metal also down to 59 $. Now, that's what they should have done right from the start: For 59 $ this is a good deal!
so don't let them get you rip you of and shop around a little.

Fairly easy to use, but it takes a lot of tweaking.

Desite its many knobs, it has basically only one sound: Super high gain, scooped metal. It has a tight bottom and there is a slight compression, which isn't bad at all.
The cons:
No internal noise gate, no hardware bypass (Zoom is lying about that!!!), buzzy treble that can't be dialed out and it doesn't react to the guitar volume knob, which means it is not very dynamic and lifely.
I'd say this is a good one after all, but the price is ridiculous. Zoom has lowered the prices for all of their analog range of pedals already (from 99 $ to 59 $), but not for the tri-metal, which is a shame!

Seems reliable, time will tell...

Not available

It is ok, but not that great. The biggest con is the buzzy treble IMO. I prefer the Ibanez Smash Box, which has a better range of sounds and is more dynamic and lifely for a lower price.

Fairly easy to use. The trick being getting used to the range control for the midrange. Along with undertsanding that the bass, mid & treble act like active tone controls. Which means you wont be maxing them out. Has a good basic manual. The the basic settings I ended up with for myself arent exampled. The Tri metal works very well for the main purpose I got it for. As an excellent overdrive/distortion pedal for bass guitar. Had used a Marshall Jackhammer before, but the tri metal is much easier to get great tone from & handles bass better then the Marshall pedal.

I use a BC Rich NJ series Mockingbird with active electronics & an ESP LTD B104 passive bass. Amp is an SWR LA15. With the tweeter disconnected. The tri metl is very quite. Is fairly easy to get great sound from. Lets me get my own tone well. I set the SWR tone controls with bass at about noon to 1 oclock; mids to allmost all the way down & no higher then 7-8 oclock, treble to about 1 oclock. On the tri metal I put treble at about 1 oclock or slightly less. Mids at around 9 oclock or slightly higher. Range at about 3:30. And bass at about 10 oclock. Gain at 9-11 oclock, level around noon to 1 oclock. This gets me great tone both with the Trimetal on and off. Can get a great moderate overdrive to all out heavy distortion with it.

Build is excellent. Should hold up with no problem. Also likes the easy access batery compartment. When not useing the Tri metal I use a Zoom Player 3000B.

No experience with the company except thru thir website & haveing gotten other gear made by them. Never had a problem with any Zoom gear.

Plays a blend of electronica & thrash, black & death metal. Would replace the Tri metal with same unit if lost or stolen. Adds well to music making. Compared it to prev used Marshall unit allready mentioned. The Zoom works better for bass. Has a heavier, more driven sound then the od settings I use with my Zoom Player 3000B. Loves the tri-metal for when just wanting to use a seperate distortion/overdrive pedal by itself. Got it on sale thru americanmusical.com so was excellent value.

There a lots of knobs to tweak and fumble, but at the end of the day it's all the same.

This is your typical scooped mids 80's poser metal sound. As it lacks mids, you'll never get close to that Recto thing. This might impress the "inexperienced ear" at the start (mine too!), but use it in a band and you'll get lost in the mix everytime you step on it.

Seems reliable, time will tell...

Don't know...

I was impressed enough to buy it, but had a hard time setting it up with my amp (Marshall JCM 800) and dial out the superficial fizzy treble. But when I got to the gig last night and hit that baby for the fist time, my sound disappeared completely!!! It was impossible to set it up so I could cut through the noise my band is making. I'm sure the boys are still laughing!

Good layout, but the range of the knobs is a bit too muh, so you need lot's of tweaking.

I used it with a Plexi 100, Hiwatt DR-103 and a Fender Dual Showman. For the amount of gain, the unit is not very noisy (but there is some noise, of course. Contrary to popular believe, it does NOT have an integral noisegate, like the Smash Box!). This is a high gain metal pedal that can be compared to the Tech 21 GT-2, Ibanez Smash Box or Boss Metal Zone (do not compare it to the MD-2, whole different animal). To put it short, the TriMetal is a great unit. Heavy dense distortion with a tight bottom, scooped mids and blistering highs. Not unlike Rammstein or Pantera. I think it's a little to processed and superficial to get a Rectifier or Triaxis (Metallica) sound out of it. Which brings us to the weak points of this unit:
1.The midrange. It is a parametrical one, but not a real broadband range (more like a narrow wah-wah range). You can't boost the mids to a natural level, you'll only get a honky telephone sound. Besides, boosting the mids increases the noise to an unbearable amount. I would have liked a more natural broadband midrange.
2. The treble is very very fizzy. Turn up the gain and it becomes even more fizzy. This is way too much. You can't tame these highs with the treble pot wich is in the wrong frequenzy range either, too sad.
3. The gain is an all or nothing thing. If you turn the gain down, the sound becomes dull, strangled and choked, not very pleasing.
4. As others have already explained, there is a kind of overload, unmusical distortion if you turn the bass or the mid knobs past 3 o'clock. As this baby has enough bass, this is not a major concern.
5. The palm muting problem. Some folks complained about an unnatural sound when palm muting, not unlike a string buzzing on the frets. I noticed this effect, too, when using guitars with low output PU's (Fender Single Coils or Vintage Humbuckers), whereas I had no problem with EMG's or Duncans Jeff Beck, Dimebucker and Screamin Deamon. I think it is a design flaw. This unit has 3 gain stages in series that need to be pushed a little. If you turn down the gain or use low output PU's you may get some problems.

Overall, this is one of the best high gain pedals on the market, that's hard to beat for the price. But be warned: There are lots of controls, but there's just minor usable sound changes because the range of the knob isn't very well chosen. If you don't like the pedal from the start, don't buy it.

This seems very reliable. I ususally give Boss pedals a 10 in this rating, but this one is even better. Very heavy and tough construction.

Grat pedal, that has only one sound (metal with scooped mids) but this sound is one of the best in teh non boutique area (if you're looking for a more convincing tube like high gain sound you should look for the Tonebone Hot British or the BJF Dyna Red). If the treble wouldn't be so fizzy and the mids had a more usable range, then this thing would be almost perfect.
Keep in mind the amps you're gonna use it with:
Because it has so much gain, it almost begs for a strong and clean stack with lot's of headroom. With my Marshall it got too mushy for my liking, the Dual Showman was ok, but the Hiwatt delivered (with a little tweakin I could almost nail Pantera's Far Beyond Driven sound). But then again, everything sound wonderful in front of that unmatched king of amps, doesn't it ;-)

Don't confuse this pedal with Zoom's plastic digital multi-effects units. This is one of Zoom's new analog range and it's made out of solid metal. Very tough and very heavy. Six control knobs are laid out in an easy to understand pattern and as they have been described so many times in previous reviews I'lll leave that for now.This pedal looks like it's been designed from basic principles rather than being just another Boss/DOD clone. It has a broad and flat profile which gives excellent stability. Battery access is very quick, the best I've seen, but I'd be even happier if the cover was captive rather than loose.The jack sockets are on the top edge rather than the usual side edge arrangement, which seems like a pointless feature, but that's just a minor quibble.

To get straight to the point this is the best distortion pedal I've ever used for heavy metal.The only one that can compete with this is the Sansamp GT-2 wwhich is a lot more expensive and I marginally prefer the sound of the Tri-metal anyway. There may be expensive boutique units which are even better but this one is in competition with the Boss/DOD/Ibanez sector of the market.At the time I bought the Tri-metal, I compared it with a Boss MD-2 Megadistortion and comparisons with that pedal are revealing.If anyone should think that this is an unfair comparison , let me quote from the Boss Effects Guide Book, Vol 16, page 18: "...perfect for crushing 'new school ' metal sounds." and here's another one from the Boss website: "Produces extreme low-end distortion for modern metal and hard rock." I think it's plain from these descriptions what Boss's intentions are for this pedal so I think the comparison is both fair and appropriate.
The first thing that you notice about the Tri-metal is that it has absolutely outrageous levels of gain. Even at zero setting it's still pretty high and unless you have very weak pickups, I can't see that you would need to have it up higher than a 9-10 Oclock position(Thankfully the integral noisegate means that it's also hiss-free).Likewise with the Bass control. The sheer amount of bottom end power means that you'll probably never need to have it set anywhere near to max. Two knobs give parametric control over the midrange, one to select the center frequency and one to emphasise the level of cut or boost and although I read somewhere on another review page that the Trimetal "has" scooped mids as if that was a fixed tonal parameter, this is actually only one option among the multitude of settings you can select. I guess that guy hadn't actually used one which is a shame .It's very like the midband eq section of a Metalzone but with an even wider degree flexibility. This is a mixed blessing because although the tonal options are huge, it does need a good bit of experimenting to nail the exact sound you want.The Bottom end is tight, deep and powerful and seems to have a natural roll-off characteristic which contributes to more tubelike sound. In comparison the MD-2 has a softer, slightly distant bottom end which sounds like it's been designed with a sharp cut-off point making it sound more processed, less natural though perhaps superficially impressive to the inexperienced ear. The Trimetal achieves the seemingly contradictory feat of sounding both smoother and more aggressive than the MD-2 at the same time. Put simply, it's a more cohesive,unified sound whereas the MD-2 tends to blur the individual notes of a distorted chord. Unlike other reviewers I haven't had any problems with palm muting. If you're used to the artificially enhanced palm-mute sound of a Metalzone where the pedal seems to do the work for you it's probably just a case of spending a few hours sharpening up your technique, although you'll never get that same processed,percussive snap that is a Metalzone trademark due to it's inbuilt compression.
So is this a "rectifier in a small solid-state box" prospect. Well, not exactly. I don't think thatANY solid-state pedal can reproduce the true sound of an overdriven tube amp. What the best of them can do though is to offer credible alternatives and the Tri-metal manages that feat with considerable presence and authority. Like the Boss MD-2 it's recognisably an attempt to create a rectifier-ish type of sound, but ironically The MD-2 falls short in those key areas where the Tri-metal excels. It has a genuine high-gain characteristic, taut and extended low-end performance, tremendous tonal flexibility and is equally at home with rhythm or lead duties. It seems as if Boss have been content to rest on their laurels here, while Zoom have definitely raised the bar for distortion pedals at this price level. The usual question that comes up about distorti

It's one of the toughest pedals you will ever see. The build quality is beyond reproach.

It's a real shame that these new range of Zoom pedals are probably going to be disregarded by a lot of those very people who would appreciate them most, just because of the association of the Zoom name with cheap plastic multi units. I feel that if these pedals had the Boss logo on them they would easily outsell any other metal distortion pedal out there. They really are that good. I can't imagine many guys who want a heavy metal distortion pedal trying one of these out in a store and not wanting to take it home.So don't be put off by the name.

This pedal has six different knobs, for Gain, Level, Treble, Mid, Range, and Bass. Once you start messing with it you should be able to get a sound you like within a short amount of time, assuming that you are going for a saturated metal sound.

My setup is as follows: Fender 70's reissue Strat w/ Vintage Noiseless pickups and a Seymour Duncan JB Jr. in the bridge position->Boss Tuner->Tri Metal->Vox Wah Pedal->Mesa Boogie Nomad 45 (4x10). my effects loop includes a Boss Chorus, EH Small Stone, Boss Tremolo, and Boss DD5 Delay, for now.

My amp is very versatile and with my guitar and my spares I can get a wide variety of clean, pushed, dirty, and overdriven sounds, but the only thing that i need that i could not get was a saturated distortion, which i use a lot. my pickups are not very high output, even the humbucker, so the amp's distortion wasnt cutting it for the high gain stuff. i mean, i have a mesa boogie, and while it's very versatile, it's no triple rectifier when it comes to pure distortion.

you have to mess with this pedal a bit, but once you do the sound you are looking for is in there somewhere. i would say that you could use an EQ very well with this pedal. there are some drawbacks to the bass and treble that other people mentioned, but it is damn quiet and with some tweaking it really rocks.

There is nothing about this pedal that i dont trust.

I play a HUGE variety of music, and my influences when i write (regardless of whether or not im writing for my band) are radiohead, foo fighters, smashing pumpkins, soundgarden, tool, death cab for cutie, jawbox, at the drive-in and a lot of other varied stuff.
for my purposes in my band i plan on using this pedal a lot. it works well, even though i dont play what you would consider metal. it's just too much of a mutant baby of a bunch of different kinds of rock, but i love having a really heavy distortion.

I've been playing for about ten years, and through all the problems i've had with getting the sound i've been looking for out of my gear i have a feeling my days of searching for a good high gain distortion are over, and the timing couldn't be better. If someone stole this pedal I would definitely buy a new one or steal it from someone else. If you are into playing metal (just please tell me it's not nu metal) or you just want a really high gain for your own purposes like me, you should definitely check it out, and compare it to other pedals so you can see for yourself how decent it is.

Very easy to get any sort of heavy metal/Hard Rock sound out of this baby . . .

Holy cow . . . this pedal turned my Fender Twin into a Mesa Boogie Triple Recto . . . really! I can't believe the sound this thing produces through my tube amp . . . and all with no noise! I also put a Tube Screamer in front of it and turned the gain down on the Tri-Metal and the level and tone up on the TS9 and WOW classic crunch ala Marshall! Everything from Pantera to Black Sabbath.

Like other reviewers . . . I have already dropped it onto a basment floor . . . nada . . . not even a paint chip!

can't say

This beats any Boss pedal hands down! If someone were to try and steal it . . . I would grab my EH-Small Stone and chuck it at them boom'o'rang style, they would not get far! From what I can tell, this is the best analog METAL/HardROck pedal you can buy, next to having a mesa boogie triple!

Easy as cake.

I love this pedal. I'm primarily a keyboard player, but I play guitar too. I needed a distortion pedal so I got this one. It is very very nice. I've played it with different guitars and different amps, and it always sounds pretty good. It's noiseless, and has more gain than you will ever need.

I dropped this thing from about 3 or 4 feet on concrete. The bass knob came off and so did the rubber bottom of the pedal. I just put the knob back on and glued the bottom back on. The pedal still works fine, and it's made of metal like a lot of others. If you take care of it, you won't have any problems.

I haven't tried the other pedals in this line from Zoom, but they've all gotten good reviews. If you play metal or are looking for something really powerful, go ahead and get this. Every guitar-playing friend I have is jealous of this little box.

I could understand what the six knobs but it took me a while to get used to the mid controls. Theres a lot of fine tuning available but it takes a little while to get it just right.

First of all there's no noise because of the built in noisegate unless you turn the gain full on, and theres no way you could ever use that much gain. Take note this is a very high gain pedal, no good at all for smooth overdrive. It's made for metal, no doubt about that.It's a bit of a shock coming to this after using a Boss metalzone MT-2 for iver a year. This is like a Metalzone on steroids. No need to us a seperate EQ pedal because this handsome brute has masses of bass power, so much that I can' turn it up beyond 2 O'clock, also have to take care not to use too much treble either.This pedal sounds much more like a real powerful amp than the Metalzone. I'd say that this is a metal pedal for grownups and the MT-2 is for kids. Just be careful not to dial out too much of the midtones.

All those brainwashed morons who say stuff like *It's a Boss so it gets 10/10 on reliability* are in for a shock when they see this thing.if Boss pedals rate 10 then this thing rates about 25. No fooling.Excellent battery access too.

This is the premier heavy metal pedal on the market at the moment IMHO and I recommend everyone who plays metal to give it a try.

It has the basic knobs, everything seems to be where it should be. It's fairly easy to find a good sound - just leave the knobs in the center position! The manual is decent, at least it's fool-proof.

My setup is very basic: Kramer striker FR400s --> ZOOM TriMetal --> peavey special 112 (160w). The pedal makes almost no noise, so now I don't need to buy a boss noise suppressor, which I would have needed for my MetalZone. This thing produces lots of gain, and it sounds very saturated and has lots of bottom-end. I can't twist the bass knob more than 12 o'clock, because the bass gets distorted when palm muting. But on the other hand, who needs more bass anyway?? The TM-01 is much more suited for (modern) metal then the metalzone (which sounds too fuzzy) is. I don't know why the f*** I ever gave the metalzone a 9 on sound quality.. I take it back! this thing gets a 9 because of the bass thing. I don't really want any specific artist's ssound, I just want a sound of my own. I once managed to get a good metallica sound tho (like in "so what").

It's heavy and sturdy, It feels dependable. I don't think that the footswitch could ever let me down, like the one on the metalzone did. I would definetly use this pedal on a gig without a backup. I treat my gear well, so I expect it to last. And since my old plastic Zoom 505II hasn't let me down, I really don't think this thing will.

Haven't dealt with them.

I play metal, and this pedal is made for that style. Been playing for 3 years, so I haven't got too much experience with distorsion pedals. I have had a marshall jackhammer, and I have a boss MetalZone. I have tried many other pedals, like the DS-1, ibanez SmashBox, danelectro FabTone, Dunlop MXR distorsion, Metalzone with GE-7... This thing beats them all. At least when it comes to metal.
I would not buy it again if it was stolen, but that's because it was so expensive!!
I wish it had two mid knobs and two range knobs. And also a range knob for the bass. Then it would be the ultimate distorsion pedal.
Overall it's a great pedal for metal.

This is a complex piece of equipment, and it's gonna take some time to get a great sound out of it. it's just like any other high quality effects with lots of knobs on it. it took me about a month and a bit to get a sound i'm proud of, but now it's there, i couldn't be happier. well i could, but that's not the point

i like to think of this thing as a mini mesa/boogie markIV. it has heaps of gain, and it has lots of mids. and it takes a long time to get a sound you really like. but once it's there, you love it

only troubles i had with this thing are the gain is really fizzy unless it's below 8. but at 8 this thing still belts out gain like you wouldn't believe. not as much as the beloved MarkIV, but for 240 bucks i'm happy to sit back and enjoy it. another thing is that the fizz factor comes in when there isn't enough mids in the sound. for all those so-called metalheads who are actually just nu-metal junkies, don't be afraid to add some mids in there, it will do you a world of good. and the gain...you don't need full gain. it's no wonder you people can't get a sound that normal people can make any sense of

but yeah, anyway, my mids/range setting is 3/5.5 respectively. there's plenty in there, but too much, as it does get too boomy when there are too many mids in there

and don't be afraid to co-mix the sound from the pedal with your amp. you can get some great colour in your sound by adding or taking frequencies from your amp AND your pedals. if the amp is good enough, the clean sound won't suffer too much, and if you're playing metal, chances are you won't need it enough for it to make too much impact anyway. don't get me wrong, i live for metal, but lets face it, metal=distortion. so before you throw out this poor pedal, give the amp's knobs a whirl. and another thing, don't add too much treble. that's what the amp's presence knob is for. clarity of high notes

i don't abuse my gear. i love my gear, it treats me well and i give it the same in return. but accidents do happen, and this pedal is indestructable as far as accidents go. if you hit it with a car, yes, it will break. but humans also break when you hit them with cars. if you are stupid enough to let this pedal get broken chances are you have more money than brains. no offense was meant in the writing of this review :D

As i've said, metal is my style, and if you don't have enough money for a mesa/boogie, then this is the pedal to buy. unless you like fizzy bullshit, in which case you could buy a metal zone (i've had one of them too). but this is cheaper than a metal zone, and you can get fizzy bullshit sound from this unit too. so really, there is no excuse whatsoever. you must all buy this pedal. hahaha (grovel at my powers of deductive reasoning :D)

but yeah, on a serious note, this is one hell of a distortion pedal. there probably isn't a distortion pedal on the market that could beat this thing. it has serious gain, and a seriously good equaliser, so there isn't much it can't do. but to get a perfect sound to your ears, it's going to take some time sitting down in front of the amp and twisting all the knobs on the thing. and don't be afraid to experiment with the amp's knobs as well, they have as much power over the sound as the pedal itself does. and beware, bad pickups sound BAD thru any setup, most of all this one. make sure you have decent pickups. the better the gear is, the better this pedal will sound. i'm stuck with duncan designed HB-103's at the moment, but duncan's are better than nothing, and so it sounds pretty awesome for me right now. but add some emg's and i'm sure it will be better. please email me if you have any questions at all about this thing. i'll support it no matter what crap you have to deal at it :)

in conclusion, well done Zoom. you've come a long way from your plastic digital multi-effect pedals

Easy to use, but difficult to get a good tone out of it at first; bear with it though because after a while mucking about with settings you can get a killer distortion which kicks the tube Dist on my Marshall AVT150h.

Very quiet and ultra high gain, i found that it can be too fizzy if you dont watch the treble control - the eq on this thing is very difficult to manipulate. Really good tone once figured out though, i had to lower the gain on the clean channel of my AVT to stop it sounding mushy. When sorted this gives the best metal distortion i've so far heard from a stompbox.

solid, heavy and cool looking. built like a brick outhouse.

n/a

i'd give it a 9 outta ten, as long as you expect it to be a pretty much one-trick-pony, you'll get the tightest nastiest distortion this side of planet boogie.

It's damn easy to use. Other than the Range control, which I'm still not entirely sure what it does, it's all basic stuff. The manual does suck, since they probably had a crappy translator. The default settings are fine to get a solid sound out of it, but I like to tweak, so I fiddled with it a lot, and still am. You can always get a good sound easily, but it's really hard to get the perfect sound out of it.

Setup: Epi Les Paul Standard (w/stock pickups) or a Fernandes Vertigo Deluxe (w/Seymour Duncan Custom Custom Neck, Pearly Gates Bridge) through the Trimetal to my Reverend Hellhound.

The sound quality is pretty good. I was looking for something to push the Hellhound a little harder, and add some gain since the Hellhound doesn't quite get me to Soundgarden and Tool in terms of distortion.
Since most buyers will probably only play distorted, no switching to clean or anything, I suggest setting your amps gain to half or so, the pedal Gain really low and then increasing the pedal's Level control to add more distortion and less artificial gain. The gain of this pedal sounds pretty fake, and I don't like it, so just use your amp's natural distortion by just using the pedal as an EQ and output boost. It'll act like having hotter, higher output pickups, and you'll get more natural distortion that way. Do this especially if you have a tube amp, so you can get that really solid tube distortion. Through my Hellhound, it sounds really great using it this way. When I turn the amp gain down, and the pedal gain up, I can really hear how fake the gain on this sounds. It's not really too great as a traditional distortion pedal. Palm mutes are okay though as far as I've used it. And Tool PMs a lot, so of course, so do I. So, the pedal's distortion I give it a 3, but I'm able to get really good distortion out of my amp with this pedal, so I give it an 8 for my purposes.
Oh, and as far as I can tell, when its off, it doesn't suck tone away from your amp. I'm pretty sure it has true bypass, but I don't remember. It doesn't really matter though, because it doesn't suck tone, and that's all that matters.

The battery life is pretty good, and its solid metal construction. Its heavy enough and the button is good. I have no complaints here.

I get the impression that you'd have a hard time finding getting a hold of anyone on the support lines, and an even harder time finding someone who spoke English, based upon the manual. I haven't dealt with them though, so I have no opinion.

For what I needed, it did the job very well. I can get Tool and Soundgarden out of my Hellhound with ease. If you need a straight up distortion pedal, I'm not sure if it's too great. The distortion sounds artificial, not at all like good, traditional amp distortion. For solid state amp users, you'd probably be better off just investing your hundred bucks in a better amp, but for tube amp users, you might be able to use this. It worked well for me to get a load more amp distortion that I could have before. I really like the way it overdrives my amp.

Very easy to use. Simple, and good.

I very disaponted about this effectm, first.
Very distort (ok, this is natural from a distortion pedal, BUT this is
not that distortion, this is the bad side!!! :))))) in maximal bass, and gain options.

I try to return to a shop, becouse this is a pure shit!

BUT!!!

After that i realized that this pedal has a very special setup!!!!

Sound perfect until 2 o'clock positions, in BASS, GAIN, and LEVEL.

But after this position (2 o'clock) the sound will be a true shit!!

So:

THIS PEDAL SOUND COOL UNTIL 2 O'CLOCK POSITION! (BASS, GAIN, AND LEVEL SETUP) After this: some really bad distortion...

But if you agree this rule, this is one of the best pedal in the _whole earth_ FOR METAL.

TRY:

Treble: 2 o'clock
Middle: 11 o'clock
Range: 1 o'clock
Bass: 2 o'clock
Level: "1 and a half" o'clock :)
Gain: 2 and a half... :)

Sound is very very very cute.
But try some other position for treble, becouse every guitar is different, in this case.

And try to use this pedal before your fauvorite multieffect.
And keep your secont distortion (in a multieffect) in 1/3 range.

Bloooooooowwwwwwwwwwwww!!!!!!!!!! :)

Like a tank. TRUE. Like a 303 :) But this is more... :)

I don't try

Very very good! But don't use the bass, gain and level AFTER the 2 o'clock position.
NEVER. EVER :)

But this is near the BEST!!!!!!!!
Like a women: BEST, but need special setup. *)

"Tri-Metal - the new god"

Also this is great for adding extra power for your favourite effects, too.

So peace... :)

quite easy to use, solid construction , better than boss battery replacement, smooth operation, manual is typically sparse.

unfortunately what the other reviewers say about the fizz or trebleyness is true and really is aweful at first espically if your looking for a good metal set up. it sounds like the parametric settings on the treble have been badly done and you cannot adjust this on the pedal. however after a few hours changing eq's and making different patches the treble fizz can be eliminated (the range dial must be all the way to the right too). after this the pedal sounds quite good, its very smooth sounding with quite a bit of distortion.
the bass can also be problematic and easily distorts, also the tone of the pedal changes at different volumes, but when you get a good set up it does sound good.
as others say it's very quiet, and with my set up(guitar>wah>trimetal>boss gt3>laney tf400>celestion gt12-75 cabs)i can get a resonably close pantera sound, and it can be used for both palm muting and solos, but it tends to be better at one or the other.

solid metal casing, quite long battery life, no back up needed

been playing 8 years, had the pedal about 2 months. its good for metal after alot of eq changing and tweaking due to the treble, not much variation from metal though. it seriously needs parametric eq's for treble and bass too. excellent smooth distortion unlike the metal zone.
i paid #55 for it from a uk website, i don't know if it would be worth the full #85 some places are asking for it. for the price i got it for it definately beats the metal zone but has less changeability. if stolen i would try other pedals but i dont think they would be better than this for metal.

The TM01 has six knobs ie gain,level, treble , bass and two for midrange.These last two are what give a lot of options to the character if the sound. One is a centre frequency and the other is a cut/boost control - a kind of parametric eq arrangement. The amount of cuty and boost available is much more than similar kind of features on say a Boss MT2 or a Marshall Jackhammer for example.It takes a lot of twiddling about to settle on a sound and there is a massive amount of gain available too, much more than you could ever actually use in a live situation, even if your pickups are low output. Still it's useful for extremly low-level practice when you want a long sustain and after a while you can use the controls instinctively without too much worry.

I'm currently playing an BC RICH Warlock with a Marshall JCM900 head/2 Marshall 4X12 cabs and a variety of pedals. I play mainly thrash metal,Slayer, Pantera, early Metallica and I've used a Boss MT-2 Metalzone as my main distortion pedal for a couple of years.I wasnt actually looking for a new pedal when I bought this , Ijust went in to get some strings and there was another guy trying out the TM01 and I just could not believe the ferocius tone he was getting I went back to the store the next day,tried one out, bought it and I have to say that comparing them side by side, it completely kills the Metalzone.I can get an incredibly aggresive scooped sound that i was always struggling to find before and now this has become my distortion device of choice.

Its as solidly made as anything else I've ever seen and the large rubber-covered base area means it doesnt move about. Ido gig with it and I've relegated my Metalzone to backup status so I always have that in reserve. Make no mistake though. i'd be getting a new Tri-metal as soon as I could, the next day if possible. The Boss just doesn't do it for me anymore.

I don't know much about the company except that they produce cheap plastic multi effect boxes.This pedal is another matter though,it looks, sounds and feels like a totally professional product.

This pedal is a perfect match for my playing style. I can get the sound I've always been after and after months of use I'm now getting round to finding other sounds as well. It seems to have a huge tonal variety on offer.

Quite easy to use. Nice range of sounds.

I play an all-mahogony Yamaha SG-85 (early 70's, beautiful guitar)through the TM-01 into a Fender Concert 60 watt tube amp from the early 80's. This thing sounds great. I play very basic heavy music through this unit. A nice dark, brutal sound is easily achievable. Very heavy bass. Though my band is quite heavy, I never need to dial this thing up past 50% We just recorded a CD and I used the TM-01 for all the guitar tracks. Through two Fenders (mine and the producer's) this pedal sounded sweet. Lots of harmonics and smooth as hell, but able to engage in some serious shit kicking.

Nicely put together, but I haven't had it for too long, so...

No opportunity to know...

I've been playing guitar for 16 years and have never been too big on effects. I've owned a crappy ass Boss HM-2 as well as a decent Real Tube. Because I'm playing music which requires a lot more heaviness than the bluesy, but very nice, overdirive provided by the Concert, I needed a suitable pedal. Sounds great blended with the natural distortion from the amp's clean channel. Also, very quiet. If you like metal, grindcore or just plain kick-ass hard rock, try this thing out.

Basic and straight forward! Play with the thing and don't give up after on sit down, it will come, just play with it alittle.

The best and closest, I've found without having a stack! I own a Zoom 505 (the sound is there, just play with it), DOD FX101 (has it's moments) and FX100 (awesome pedal for crunch), Boss HM-2 and DS-1 (both give great sounds), and a DOD equalizer helps at times. And all of this either goes to my small ibanez amp or my randall, both have there own voice.

A tank except for the knobs, one fell off and I super glued it back on! Kickass!

No need yet!

I play it all, as long as it has guitar. I own a Les Paul Special HD and an ESP M-II, they both rock with this pedal. They both are unique with this pedal, the ESP has a hotter bridge pickup. It's got balls, major balls! Only thing more KicKass, would be a Mesa-Boogie Full Stack. Good for Metal and Beyond! Always remember, you are the true essence of your guitar sound, the pedals are just flavor! The only thing better than playing guitar is sex!

There are a lot of knobs on this but its the standard four band eq. I like it because it ain't a one trick pony; you can evoke all kinds of distortions out of it, but it is obviously one pedal.

Incredible. I use it with a couple crappy korean esps and washburns and a line 6 spider. It is quiet and the only problem is with some settings, the mid can get very muddy, so all you have to do is boost the treble and lower the mids and it sounds awesome. I use it with a Flange, a Roger Mayer Lanik Modified Vox, Fender PT-10. It is awesome, especially for the price.I have been through a visual sound jekyll and hide, dod death metal and grunge, boss mt-2, boss hyper metal, a line 6 distortion modeler, and a rocktron rampage. The Rampage had more crunch but this thing has the smooth tone- awesome pedal.

This thing is comfortable, low, with extremely sturdy feeling knobs. I trust this thing more than any other dist. boxes I have had. If i gigged, id skip a backup, this thing just feels so sturdy.

This is the best dist. ive encountered, and it covers the range I play. I dont aim to sound like a particular band, but i dont want to mutilate their songs either. I listen to metallica, zeppelin, weezer, grunge. Thats what I use it for and it sounds good for all. Like said above, it beats all the others I've had, and whatever you do, stay away from the boss hyper metal. Great pedal!

This little devil is easier to tweak than the Metal Zone cuz it has a good eq response. My only complaint is the manual. Its very limitted. Like,they didnt explain thoroughly how "middle range" do to the sound. And I find their English grammar a bit awkward to understand.

I use a Frernandez Dragonfly Pro with Tone Zone PU ->a two output splitter box(the other connected to my px1 acting as a tuner/back-up)->Vox Wah->ax100g->CE-5chorus->clean channel of my AVT 50.

Gaaaaiinnnn so much gain. If your a alternative,punk or hard rock player look elswhere. Metal heads get this!!!.I play hardcore metal hmmmm welll actually anything metal(thrash,death,NU)and it nails them all. Just remember to keep down the middle and increase the treble and bass if you want a suffocation type tone ala metallica(My set.treble=6 middle=2 bass=7 middle range=5 or 6 gain=8or9 level=8).It even makes a crappy amp sound huge. In order to get a good sound,you must first spent time tweaking this baby because its all their. And for palm muting, i dont know about you guys but for me it has plenty of low-end voicing. Maybe because my pick-up is a Tone Zone which already has plenty of that. It also has a very good bypassed its very transparent.

I certainly can. Its construction is also the reason why I choose this thing. Its made of metal and it looks killer. Actually I hate zoom floor based multi-effects unit(3030,505,505II etc.) but im impressed with their construction like the plastic 505. I have seen some being kicked,dropped,wet,dusted but it still works fine. Here in our place/country(Phil) most of the players here use multi effects especially zoom proucts becuase its cheap and an Asian product so its largely distributed and easy to aquire.

n/a

Im a person that prefers new products rather than buying old ones. I think its worth the money. I've been playing for 6 yrs. Im a rhythm guitarist in our band and defenitly im no guitar virtuoso. My job is to give a nice rhythm sound to keep the crowd pumping and the Tri metal helps me with that eheyyyy. I dont owe much gear cuz i wase'nt interested in playing before, not until I started a band when I was 15 becuase of Nirvana and STP. =)Then i was influenced by Pantera,Slayer,Korn,Sepultura by my bandmates. I also play alternative,funk and when the price is right-mainstream music(POP,R&B,Disco???) waaaaa.
I compare this to other metal dist, all of them sound good but I pick this one because its durable,gainy,nice lowend,cheap and has a good three band EQ. Metal zone-old,thin-sounding;SM7-not durable,;Korg Hyper Dist-delay time when switching the pedal,low volume;GT2-not much gain,my friend priced it to much,second hand.
Also this thing is good for playing in low tuning and I advise that the level must be more than 7 to even up the sound when bypassed.

Very easy pedal to set up. You can dial in a good heavy sound in a matter of seconds.

75 & 77 Ibanez Law Suite Les Pauls with Dimarzio Air Classics in both postions into a Mesa Boogie Maverick 2x12.

Very quiet pedal even at high volumes. You can pretty much get sounds from 80's hair bands, metalica, exodus, Pantera and even heavier. Not a blues or classic rock pedal. Sounds very cool with a danelectro cool cat chourus.

This is a very well built pedal. metal housing seems very strong and I wouldn't worry about using it without a back up.

nver dealt with them

If you are a true metal head this pedal will be all you need. If you play differn't types of music( Blues, Classic Rock ) then you will need another overdrive cause this thing shreds and is heavy. The only reason I give it a 9 is because nothing is perfect but this is pretty close. It seems Zoom finaly made a great sounding pedal.

I have a Jackson Soloist with and Emg-81 as well as a KH-2 with an 2 emg-81's on the bridge. I play through a danelectro 7 band eq and Marshall jcm 2000 tsl 100 with a mesa 4x12. My i tune my guitar to C#. One of the biggest problems i saw with this pedal was that when you cranked the bass or treble controls it seemed like it sucked the tone straight of out it. When i put the bass or treble controls past 7 o'clock the pedal started breaking up like a Digitech rp7 cranked through a stack. I left all the controls except gain at 12 o'clock.

if your a nu-metal guitarist that doesn't palm mute, PRAISE THE LORD. If your into heavey crunchy metallica esque palm mutes, find a new pedal :(. Just like you, i read all these reviews and thought "my god, my searching is over". I was wrong. If it sounds too good to be true it usually is. I only wish this pedal sounded too good to be true. I only read 1 other review where someone mentioned plam muting with this pedal. He said it sucked. I agree. The other reviewers must not have plam muted enough to realize that this pedal is seriously lacking in that area. Its very hard to explain the sound this pedal makes when you palm mute, but i would compare it to when your action is too low, which mine isnt, and your strings collide with the fretboard. Its not a clean crunch sound, and it sounds VERY hard, like there is insane amounts of treble with a complete deprevation(loss) of presence. Some of the good things about this pedal are that it is the quietest distortion pedal ive heard(except with the gain cranked, great construction of pedal, and the true bypass is a true treat.

I cant see this pedal having any mechanical problems in the future.

Havnt talked to zoom yet.

I have been playing for about 5 years now and i dont think ive seen any other pedal have such good distortion sound SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
bad when you palm mute. It sounds like sometings wrong, but i know there isnt. Its simply a flaw in the pedal that some people can deal with. I cant. I played this pedal with 3 different amps as well as 3 different guitars. It amazes me that only 1 other person said anything about the palm muting flaw. This pedal was not made to palm mute and consequently it sucks ass at it. For five years i have been searching for the perfect distortion. Throughout my searching i have noticed one thing, like many other metal guitarists that i have talked to. If i like the palm mute of the distortion im testing i ALWAYS like the sound of the distortion without the palm mute. But if i like the sound of the distortion without palm muting i dont always like the sound of it palm muted. Thats exactly how i feel about this pedal.

it's pretty easy to get a good sound. bass, treble, middle, range, level and gain.

i play an ibanez SA160 with 2 EMG SA's and an EMG 81 in the bridge, through the tri-metal, to a DOD EQ, to a crate mx120R solid state. it is very quitee. this pedal/pickup combo has given me the tone i have been searching for. this pedal is PERFECT for death metal, grind metal, anything heavily heavy. i also tune low (B E A D G B), and the pedal has very good low-end voicing. the search is over for now. i would compare the tri-metal/EMG 81 combo with scooped mids to Suffocation type-tone

seems reliable, it's built likea god-damn tank. seriously. actual metal casing. thick metal.

haven't talked to them

this pedal is perfect for death metal. i have been playing for about 5 years, have tried Boss MT-2, DOD deathmetal, ibanez smashbox, and several amplifer-distortions, and this baby blows them all far out of the water.

This thing is easy. I don't usually use distort pedals because I don't play guitar (shock horror I play Bass; that is NOT a request for bad jokes about my intelligence you egotistical guitar players). Even for bass finding the sound you want is easy and the booklet comes with some good tips for beginers on how to set it up. Do not leave it plugged in though because the battery will DIE. My bass works the same way so I'm used to it but do watch out for that (or buy the AC adapter).

I use a crafter guitar and an sb-101 active 4 string from the bass collection. Even when playing fast riffs with a dropped D the quality is great. The tripple gain circuits work best with active if you want a really throaty sound. It works well at high volume as well(I normally use an 800 watt amp with a 15" driver so trust me on that). Sounds good at gigs as well. The true bypass is dead clear as well.

The thing is in a die cast steel box. The switch and knobs are all metal and it's survived my bedroom for 4 months. In short THE BUGGERS BOMB PROOF.

N/A

I play the sort of classic metal you get from Ozzy and Metallica but I will listen and play almost anything except punk and nu-metal. I have been playing for 8 years so I do know what I'm talking about. I love the feel of the foot switch itself. The whole box is well designed. The only problem I have with it is that finding it on a black stage is a real bugger with stage lights and strobes going.

very easy to use. Simple LOGIC.

fender with Seymour JB Jr (bridge) > TM01 > GE7 > DD2 > Peavey Prowler.. No noise whatsoever..amazing. BEST for HEAVY metal especially for death/grind (from metallica to Obituary to Napalm death) The gain from this pedal is awesome. FAT & BEEFY. Almost perfect. Say good-bye to MT2, GT2, DOD. This baby KICKS AsS.

Rating: 10+

the heaviest casing I've ever seen. even the knobs are metal. good rubber-stop action at the bottom and nice wide foot switch for better access on gigs.

;-)

I was never impressed with any ZOOM products before, especially their Compact pedals series (505, 505II, 606, etc).. But this TRI-METAL Hits the CORE...

The best!!!

muy facil de encontrar el sonido ideal

o he probado todo tipo de distors como el Line6, MT-2 metal zone y rat, y la verdad es que el ZOOM Tri Metal es la mejor de todas.

el manual esta muy bien pero la neta no hace falta leerlo pue es muy facil de usar.

-tengo una fender tenecaster, jackson, ESP y Les Paul con amps mesa booguie y marshal.

- no hace ruido y eso es raro en este tipo de efectos

-siempre da un sonido perfecto para metal DEATH y Black.

es un tanque!!!!!!!!!!

soy de mexico y tiene garantia por un a?o

yo toco Death Metal y Progresivo y ha sido la mejor compra que he hecho.

si lo pierdo me compraria otro

tengo 15 a?os tocando la lira

Very easy to use. 6 Knobs: High, middle, bass, range (for middle), gain, level. Parametric EQ. Serves its purpose well. Power on if input plugged in. Even in bypass does it do this. If you forget, then you wasted a 9V. Put down to 8 because of this feature. Bypass works well otherwise.

I use an Epiphone Casino(P90s kill!) as my main, but usually use a Carvin TL60 with C22 and M22, coil-splitters and claro walnut top for heavy stuff. Use a Hot Rod Deville 212 for everything. I live in the country, so no need for small amp for practice. TriMetal is heavy. No other word for it. Only way to get small amount of gain is by turning amp to 2, guitar to 1.5, gain 0, level .5, and still distorted. USe it for AC/DC with gain at like 9 o'clock, mids up. Impossible to get a blues overdrive. No way. Use a tubesreamer for that. No noise unless cranked. For an awesome metal tone, put amp up to just before it breaks up and then hit the pedal. Works best there. For what its supposed to do, it works exceptionally.

Its metal cased. No breakable parts. Say more? Even if it did break on a gig, i would just tubescream at full.

Never deal with Zoom

I play everything from VH to BB King to Acoustic Alternative. For metal, does the job without any help. If thats what you're looking for, then found your pedal. If not, look elsewhere. Wouldn't by it again, would save money for tube-driven overdriver.

Took a little bit of getting use to for the first five or so minutes. After that it was all systems go. The manual seems to be badly translated to me.

I use either a Jap telecaster or an old Les Paul into my setup then into a Peavey Bandit amp.My setup is:Boss CS-3 compressor / Boss SD-1 overdrive(for boosting) / Boss DS-1 distortion ( for warm,clean sound)/ProCo Rat2/ Zoom Tri Metal/Zoom Ultra Fuzz/danelectro 7band Eq / Boss CE-3 Chorus /Cry baby.

I like to use a lot of different distortions so I don't have to start twiddling nobs between songs to get a different vibe going. I bough a zoom 505 last year to have as a bit of fun, I loved its distortion but it's not a practicle pedal, you couldn't use it to gig with.

I use to use a Ibanez Smash Box ,but when it kicked in I looked into a few new pedals that might replace it. I was just about to buy a Boss Xtortion when I seen this beauty. It's great for giving you anything from hard edged metal to a fat sounding thick distortion. At 1st I did have probloms playing at high volume levels but my extra EQ took care of that. It sounds great for leads with a hard edge especialy if you kick in some chorus with it.

When I bought this I was so impressed I went back the week after and tried out its brother The Zoom Ultra Fuzz. I always liked fuzzes but never owned a fuzz pedal before, seemingly after checking this baby out I also purchased it.As for the Tri Metal, well My favourite distortion was a Rat2( which I also think is pretty darn good)now It's this little beauty.

It's great for gigging nice size stomping switch.AS for the Body it's made out of metal and couldn't be harder even if you gave it viagra

I e-mailed Zoom about 3 times about my 505 .I'm still waiting. Pitty there support can't match there newly established equipment.

I play mostly original material . My style would be like: Guns n'Roses, Aerosmith, Nirvana,Metallica,etc. This is just heaven for me.I've played for 6 years now and in that time I've had a lot of distortion pedals, some good, some rubbish. This is just brilliant. The only other pedal that I think can hold a candle to this is the Rat2 but it has no eq built in.

I've had guys come up to me since buying this and asking me how do I get that sound? The only complaint I have is that for a novice it might take a while to figure it out especialy with the manual being rubbish. At the end of the day this pedal is G.R.E.A.T.

very easy to use, there are some presets in the manual but it's easy to get the sound you want by your self.

my setup: ibanez rg7620 into boss ns-2, in the loop of my ns-2 are: jim dunlop cry baby wah -> boss os-2 -> ibanez sh-7 -> boss ns-2 -> zoom tri metal -> boss ge-7 -> ibanez ph-7 -> boss ac-2 -> ibanez cf-7
-> amp (marshall valvestat 30 watt stereo)

together with my eq it sound great! you can get a good heavy metal sound

yes you can depend on it. it is build like a tank.
I would always have some back up on a gig but I'll take the chance.

never dealt with the company

I play mostly metal. for real metal this is the pedal you need.
if it was stolen or lost I would buy another one.
this pedal is way better than the metal zone. and it's affordable, true bypass, almost noiseless.

Very easy to use, I have A LOT more control over the sound than I do with any other pedal. You can control the gain, level, mid, treble and bass all in one single little pedal.

The sound is way more clear the the DOD - Metal Dist. and the Boss - Metal Zone. I had a very bad experience with the ZOOM 505, it was like playing inside a cereal box with wannabe sound effects, so I really didn't expect much of the TM but ZOOM has really outdone itself with this one! It's also very quiet so you don't get a head buzz after playing with it.

The box looks very sturdy and the nobs are all steal... for once. Way much better than their plastic 500 series or the plastic nobs on the DOD. I would use it for a gig, although if I were to become rich and famous I'd rely on better equipment... then again, everyone would.

I play heavy metal and hardcore, and this is absolutely perfect for me. Even if you play more of an alternative rock style, I'd recommend it, but you have to be aware that it isn't called Tri-METAL for nothing. The only con I have is the price, it's a great pedal, and better than the DOD that's for sure, but over here the TM costs 40$ more than the DOD Metal Distortion and the only avantage it has over it (although it's a great advantage) is that the sound is more clear and less noisy... but then again, I'm really cheap, so you can dismiss what I have just said.

I bought this effect used, and so I never even got a manual with mine. But after about ten minutes I had figured out how to get something like what I wanted and actually, very little has changed since then. IMO, what could be more straightforward than plug in, turn on, and fiddle around with the knobs for a few hours until You're happy? The EQ is very good and responds well... The only hard part is to get some of the fuzz out... It gets a 9, since all stompboxes are easy to use, and since the parametric EQ can be a bit to get one's head around. I'd love to know what the Q setting is!

I use a Vester Custom Shop with a JCM900 at all times, neither has never failed me. (not a typo)

I find that the Tri-Metal works very well with my rig, it has plenty of gain and on and on, and it's very quiet. So I'll deliver the pros and cons. Bad news first.

CONS:

Annoying "fizz" in the distortion, like that on the GT2... Maybe it's part of the effect, but not one I like. Not very warm sounding.

The level knob seems to change the voiing of the effect, which is bad, since turning it to where it sounds good is way too quiet and makes the clean sound totally over the top when You switch it off.

The bass distorts when pushed beyond three o clock no matter what the rest of the pedal is set to (then why have anything beyond three o clock on the knob?)

You WILL need an EQ or something to boost solos, the TM is geared toward low end voicing. Oh, and forget about rolling the volume knob to get a clean sound... Waaaaay too much gain for that. but that could be a pro.

PROS:

Built in noise suppressor. This is the quietest pedal I have ever tried! Take Your hands off the strings when not playing anything and it's dead quiet! Makes for great "stops" in music without any hiss (remember DOD?) or string noise. Very good indeed.

True bypass, which makes for an extremely transparent effect when playing clean...

Very wide response parametric EQ gives You a good tonal range in what is usually a category of pedals that just plug and chug...

Finally one that sounds good cranked! All pedals are good at bedroom volumes but with this, I can gig with a clean conscience and forget about EQ.

Amazing gain (THREE stages!!! THREE!) and tone (Analog, by ZOOM? yes, and great to boot). This pedal has singlehandedly thrown out any semblance of a chance for the MT-2 of DOD pedals to catch up. it dishes out rougly the same amount of gain as the GT-2 on Cali hotrodded settings, which is saying a lot. This knob will not disappoint, and, also, the knob IS twistable, which is to say that the pedal gets good tone when used as a light distortion (no fizz). Oh, and forget about rolling the volume knob to get a clean sound... Waaaaay too much gain for that. but that could be a con.

As a side order, I don't play 7 strings, but for those that do, the TM contains a special distortion circuit which turns on when it detects extra low frequencies. This should do wonders for 7 string players with 6 string pedals. Good thinking!

Hard to think of much else, as always I concentrate more on faults... But i did fall in love with the sound very much indeed, I was thinking back and forth between this and the GT2... It's every bit as good, and really isn't another MT-2 or 86. Try it out and if these names I just put down ring a bell I know You will like it. I pretty much tried everything I could get my hands on... For retail price, it's a deal. For 60 bucks, it's a steal. It gets a nine for studio quality distortion, not quite reaching to the stratosphere (But a DOD would get about 6 by comparison)

Haha, if anyone ever told me that I would every be giving a ZOOM pedal a good reliability rating I'd smack him in the face and thus render myself the innate moron. Somewhere along the line someone over at Samson/ZOOM had a major personality disorder and did a turnabout of epic proportion (all us victims of the 500 series know about the high tech wizardry of scissors and glue associated with the ZOOM name). They started making analog effects in sturdy metal boxes... A great idea. This thing is built well. The knobs have resistance, the switch feels robust (remember DOD?), the power outlet in the back seems stable enough and the box is almost indestructible. I have no complaints in the reliability department. I would not hesitate to use this thing live.

The day I need it, scratch my Reliability rating... I've never dealt with ZOOM since amazingly I haven't been able to break my 508 yet.

Well, in closing, let me remark I wouldn't be caught dead playing NU-metal, but I get caught all the time playing the Tri-Metal by ZOOM. This pedal gives me exactly what I'm looking for. When soloing, I play a lot of fast runs and sweep arpeggios (with EQ, mind You), and the tones never blend and mush together. I've been playing it for a while now and I have never really had a bad experience with its truly huge sound. Maybe the fizzy treble knob, which is useless at anything past 2 in my taste. Otherwise, all the tones stay clear and sharp, and the midrange EQ can really give a "super vintage"-y sound to the pedal, as well as the standard big dipper scoops. It is NOT a booster. It is an attempt at a rectifier in a box. Since I'm not too crazy on the gain and volume of my amp, I've had no difficulty w/ a tube amplifier (JCM900). Just don't turn the pedal's volume up, use the master volume on the amp instead and You'll have no problems with sharp tones. I would replace it with a new amp, or give an extra listen to the GT2... But I got it for 60 bucks, so I am shutting up and loving this pedal. I really think it deserves a shot, so try it at the shop and write back to me what you think. My grandchildren will probably be able to play this thing good as new. It really will be one of the great ones in the future. Good job, ZOOM.

Truly a piece-of-cake! Very easy to get the sound you desire. No trickery or "hip" sounding names for the control knobs.

OK, I've tried quite a few distotion pedals, and liked several of them. Until now, The RAT was my favorite. I'll even admit to liking the MT2 Metal Zone. Those days are gone. There's a new sheriff in town - The TRI METAL! Believe it or not, this thing actually has more gain than anyone could use! Even you death metal types. Ah, but that's not the kicker, this pedal is quiet! Really! A distortion pedal that barely hisses? DOH! I love it!

Metal case + analog = bulletproof

No need yet

For screaming metal - you've met your match! Buy it!

bloody awsome. anyone who can't use this is in need of glasses. its a few nobs c'mon. its simple

i dont play gigs but if i did id use it. and see if it really does sound good cranked. otherwise i guess there is good old digitech rp7 for me but thats not as ballsy. this thing is killer !!! metallica sounds never sounded this good before. id easliy ut it above a marshall sound. it rocks !!! paml mute i recon is incredible. and solos sound really panteraish. which i love. so im very very pleased with its sound quality.

well its a brick. its reliable.

this is killer. if u want the marshall sound, but dont have a marshall, then get it !!! price is reasonable but u gota luv the sound u get *drool*

Only George W. Bush couldn't use this pedal, I got a Korn tone out of this in 2 seconds, Fear Factory (Soul of a New Machine & Near- Demanufacture) in about 3 minutes. I like the fact that tweaking this pedal isn't stopped by lack of range but instead it stops where your amp rumbles like a madman.
With a little tweaking you can get almost any tone.

It's almost perfect, only complaint is palm muting, which could be a little more intense.. with a decent amp sim pedal played to line-in you get this almost real studio quality sounding distortion. Only noisy when you don't play but press that round switch that is impossible to miss and voila! no noise at all!

YESS!! Finally the endless Zoom product developement tests showed them that iron is infinitely more durable than cheap ass plastic ;)
I never play pedals with batteries so dying pedals are not my case...

Mailed Zoom about my 505 and after 6 months I still haven't got any answer... sloppy, if not arrogant.

Pedal to the Metal!!! Infinite gain and sustain.
If only it would have a kickass palm mute sound...

TIP TO ANYONE WHO OWNS BOSS METAL ZONE: Trade your MT-2
to this pedal and enjoy (I did)

And since I play with a 6-string Yamaha EG-112U downtuned to B (standard 7-string tuning) this pedal really is the perfect distortion for me and anyone else who use low tunings (with 7 or 6 string guitars)

Forget about Boss Metal Zone, it's a memory from the 80's, welcome the 21st century, buy a Tri Metal.

The Unit is extremely easy to use. It has controls for level, highs, lows, mids, and mid range. Very similar to the metal zone, except not as knob-sensitive. Manual describes a few useful settings, and you go from there.

My rig is as follows: Modified Fender Std. Strat and Modified Epi. Les Paul through a Marshall AVT100 combo. The only effects I use are an Ibanez SM-7, and a Dunlop Wah. I play heavy-alternative, (TOOL, SMASHING PUMPKINS), Prog Rock, (DREAM THEATER) classic rock (HENDRIX AND ZEPPELIN) and Metal, (METALLICA, MEGADETH, SABBATH) I've owned plenty of distortion pedals, (Boss SD-1, Boss OD-1, Boss DS-1, Boss DS-2, Boss MT-2, Pro Co Rat, Electro Harmonix Big Muff Pi, DOD Death Metal FX86B, Ibanez SM-7). Out of all those pedals, the only one I've been able to stick with is the SM-7, which I've kept through 3 amps. The TM-01 is best described as sounding exactly like the metal zone with a hell of a lot more crunch, gain, and utterly silent. You can simulate Metallica's sound on Master of Puppets and Pantera's Cowboys from Hell within a second. The built in noise suppressor is great, but isn't enough to make it an amazing pedal. I know, I know, all of you people who write reviews after this are gonna be praising the crap out of this thing just like the MT-2, but most of you guys haven't been playing long enough, or just don't have much real live gig playing experience to judge these pedals on their full potential. The Tri Metal is a great pedal for playing in your room or with some friends, but on extremely high volumes this thing gets muddy as hell! Can't hear a single note you're playing! I think this pedal would work best with Solid State amps, because it provides a very thick tone and wouldn't do well over any pre-amp distortion that's already in the signal. No clarity when playing, especially in chords that require more than 3 notes...As for shredding, it does a decent job, but just sounds too processed for my tastes.

This thing is just as solid as any boss pedal on the market. Like a rock. I spilled some water on it accidentally, and it still worked fine a couple days later.

Haven't dealt with em..

If you like that over processed, enormous high gain sound on a fairly small amp, I say, go right ahead and get it. Not a very diverse pedal, you have gain, gain , gain, and yet more gain, expect it all sounds the same. If you want a reliable pedal for exclusively heavy metal playing, buy this, if not, search elsewhere.

Five knobs and a big-ass switch... took me about 10 seconds to get an awesome sound out of the beast.

I use a peavey 'nathan cavaleri' model, into the tri metal into a peavey bandit 112... This thing rocks, no noise at all. I play mainly metal, which you have to remember; THIS THING IS BUILT FOR METAL! If you want bluesy crunch, LOOK ELSEWHERE!!!! You can get awesome gain out of this thing, anything from metallica, tool, papa roach (especially the sound in 'between angels and insects') I love this unit... theres a really mad bonus, if you pump the bass right up, you get this uncontrollable rumble, WICKED! easily stopped by dropping it back a notch... If you turn your guitar down, theres bairly any noise at all!!!!! This pedal is from the first line of analogue circuitry pedals from ZOOM, it kicks ass... they should have been building analogues from the start!!!

Solid as a tank, but it sucks on the batteries... something like when you suck down a smoke after you've finished a gig!!! Get a 9 volt adapter and you'll be cheering!

Haven't dealt with that side of things, and by the looks of it, i wont have to...

If you like metal, get it... its got tonnes of gain, in my opinion it beats the BOSS MT-2, its got all the same features... but its HEAPS more quiet... looks better, and sounds better, if you see one, try it out!!!

Just turn the knobs

Its like a Boss Metalzone except voiced with more bass. Its also fuller sounding, and you can take away the treble for a NU Metal Type sound. It has no noise with my setup at all. Unlike my other distortion pedals that would hum or hiss.

We'll see.

Don't know.

Its great for practice, or screwing around with, I don't know how it would do on stage or with a band.