Boss Metal Zone - The King Of Versatility?

Is this the most versatile distortion pedal of them all?

Life too short for long YouTube videos? Please see the ‘Interesting bits and go-to sections’ information below.

Welcome to the show! If you’re here for heavy tones and metal, you’re in entirely the wrong place. There shall be no metal here today.
Nevertheless, we all know that the world-conquering, massive-selling Boss MT-2 Metal Zone is an opinion-divider. It’s also much misunderstood, not least by us back in March 2016 when we gently poked fun at it. But, we all grow up eventually…
Well, all of us except the MT-2 perhaps, which is still unashamedly thrashing and scooping its way to superb heavy tones the world over. But. What about these two Blues-Soccer Dad Boomer Benders, eh? Is there anything this much-maligned monster of metal can offer guitar players of more, erm, oldfartist tonal preferences?
We think so, and we’re here to prove it along with the help of a few old-school gain classics.
And yes, we use the Waza version throughout in this video: enjoy!

Pedals & stuff in this episode…

• TheGigRig Three2One

• Sonic Research ST-200 Turbo Tuner

• Boss MT-2W Waza Craft Metal Zone

• ProCo RAT 2

• Nobels ODR-1

• J Rockett Archer

• JHS Muffuletta

• Strymon Volante

• TheGigRig G3

Amps in this episode:
Marshall 1987x with Zilla Custom 2x12 / Celestion Alnico Ruby speakers

Tone King Imperial MkII with 112 cab / standard speaker

Interesting bits and go-to sections…
0:00 Intro playing
0:50 We’ve been here before
1:40 Today’s question
4:21 Let’s hear the Metal Zone
5:45 Today’s amps
6:38 Crazy powerful EQ explanation
9:25 Hard clipping explanation
11:25 RAT vs Metal Zone
16:10 ODR-1 vs Metal Zone
19:20 Malcolm’s SG
20:45 Muffuletta vs Metal Zone
25:20 Mick’s Klon approach
26:16 Archer vs Metal Zone
34:14 ODR-1 & Archer vs Metal Zone
42:08 Closing thoughts

Guitars in this episode:
• 1965 Fender Telecaster - no video yet
• Fender Custom Shop ’62 Relic Stratocaster - no video yet
• 197-something Gibson SG Standard - thanks Malcolm!

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[esbee]

I‘ve said it 20 years ago. This pedal is magic. They laughed at me at the time. Now, I am officially right 😂🎉

[GrahamSouthall-fpch]

Thanks guys! I'm 55, only been playing for 12 months. Bought the metal zone (my first pedal) after seeing Simon Neal on the show! At first I thought I'd been ripped off. After watching this and spending time playing around with, I now love this thing. Thank you.

[Pandamasque]

0:11 Mick's pick control is only rivalled by his hands-free glasses control. I'm in awe. It always looks so effortless!

[prestonbuchanan]

Thank you all so much for the positively-minded content you put out. I have watched you go down so many rabbit holes for the past few years and I have tried out some great pedals thanks to you. In this process I have discovered something about myself: I just don’t hear the pedal nuances like you do. But, that’s ok. I love playing guitar. Even if my new overdrive sounds a lot like my old overdrives, sometimes stepping on a new shiny rectangle with different knobs rekindles my desire to push farther into playing. I keep watching this channel because I love YOUR love of guitar, even if I never plan on running anything close to a wet-dry rig.

[bluesful]

Regardless of whether one's ears perceive the Metal Zone to be close or not to the targets here, there's no doubt (at least to my ears) that the Metal Zone sounds great here, and is quite versatile.

[ERWebster]

It's nice to see you guys do it justice. It's been such an oddly maligned pedal, a product of being far too popular and ending up in the hands of people who didn't know how to dial it in I suppose.

[Bullittbl]

Everything I ever believed has been taken away! A freaking metal zone can get THAT close to all those pedals. I need to lie down.

[AndyDemos]

Interesting bit about the pre-gain mid bump! Maybe there should be a Rock Zone with soft clipping and the same EQ 👍🏻

[kennethmeldrum]

That was an absolute feel good episode! Thank you for giving the Metal Zone some love.

[erichufschmid]

Warren Haynes had a Metal Zone on his board for years! I bet if John Mayer put one on his board it would be worth $3000 ;-) Great show guys!

[mathisto]

Love this episode! My first pedal was a Metal Zone and I had much fun. It will always hold a special place in my heart ❤️

[robyates]

Great show. Sometimes we don't need to keep adding pedals (as much fun as that is) but instead experiment with the ones we have, even those gathering dust from our early years.

[wabisabi]

The Metal Zone was waay ahead of it's time when it was released. 🤘

[Adventuresingearland]

What an astonishing pedal. Really enjoyed the 'in the background whilst working' viewing of this episode. Looking forward to the 'headphones in detail listen' later on. Presumably we'll just have JHS Josh's 4 x Metal Zone pedal board moving forward.

[marktanner]

So glad you did this on a much maligned pedal. Parametric EQ can be hard to get your head around but once you do and then start putting it into EQ loops instead of into the front of the amp it is a pretty cool pedal

[mattw.]

Really interesting vid. I noticed early on that the Metal Zone always had more compression than the other pedals - even at at lower gain settings. When you stacked the ODR-1 and the Archer, the signal became noticeably more compressed and the sustain increased, allowing that wonderful feedback. At that point, I knew the Metal Zone should be able to do a pretty good job of creating that tone. Was not disappointed!

[Themrmaad]

I've been using the metal zone 2 since it was first released with my Strat this way. It can be very musical when you use "Less is more" strategy. It is very, very versatile especially with a Strat. The Tele tone's on the video were great. Really cool seeing you guys using it for non-metal tones. :)

[stuartchapman]

This pedal is a lot better than people realise. It has a full blown channel strip eq, with parametric mid. It's basically nearly ever distortion in one box. I must admit I was foxed by the whole para mid thing when presented with my first "grown up mixer". Once you get to grips with it, it's awesome. I love the Rat, HM2, DS, Guvnor Keeley Screamer but the zone does it all.

[LCA]

Back in 1999-2000 I got a Metal Zone from a friend for some days and decided to read the manual and setup the pedal as recommended by the factory. I was very into Oasis back then, and there was a preset called "brit rock" or something.

I remember being very impacted by the tone. It was so similar to Noel and Bonehead tones. I was having the Oasis tone for the first time. I was just a teenager, with no experience in tone setting at all, with a crappy korean Squier in a huge bass amp, so that was very revealing to me.

I never bought the Metal Zone criticism, always thought it was unfounded, based on the grunge/punk wannabes who had no time to turn the knobs and experiment the settings, the EQ.

[DavidRavenMoon]

As someone who uses a Metal Zone for non metal (post punk/alternative), I can say it’s a very versatile pedal. I think in these tests it sounded better than the Rat and ODR. It had better definition. Muffs sound like Muffs.

I use mine mainly for solos. I don’t run it into a clean amp. My Marshall is set for a crunch tone.