Boss HM-2 Heavy Metal

Rare shot of Johnny's pedalboard from the '86 Nottingham gig. The pedal case is a Boss BCB-6. From right to left is a PSM-5 followed by a GE-6, OD-2, TW-1, HM-2 and the CE-2 on the end. Below is a mock-up of the pedalboard.

According to the lot notes from Bonhams auction house website, Eric Clapton used the Ibanez HD1000 Harmonics/Delay, a DBX 160 compressor, a model SDE-3000 Roland delay, a Dyno-My-Piano Tri Stereo Chorus, a Boss CE-1 chorus, and a Boss HM-2 Heavy Metal pedal for his Bob Bradshaw rack system in the mid to late 1980s.

Used on his solo album *About Face* and Pink Floyd's *A Momentary Lapse of Reason*. In a 1984 issue of *Guitar Player Magazine*, Gilmour said the following of his sound: "At the moment, the sound that I'm using a lot of the time is going through a Boss HM-2 Heavy Metal to a Boogie amplifier to a [MXR] DDL and then on into a regular Fender amplifier....I use a DDL on it...because I find it stops the fuzz box from from sounding like a fuzz box. It smoothes off the unpleasant, raw frequencies that you get from the fuzz box. Then you get a nice sort of sound.”

Daron got the "black-orange heavy metal effect" (Boss HM-2) with 14 (1989), the editor mentioned Boss MT-2 wasn't even out at that time (release date was 1991). The "well known" fact, that Daron used a MT-2 at one point in his career is not true. Daron still uses the HM-2 at home for tracking new song ideas.

"a BOSS HM-2 Heavy Metal seems certain (replaced by a BOSS DS-1 later in the year?)"

A late photo of Shawn's rig contains this pedal.

According to Guitar Geek's rig diagram, Butcher used Boss HM-2 Distortion pedal.

This trio are some of the most important elements of the live show. Bottom is an Elektron Monomachine; middle is a Behringer keyboard used to trigger sound effects, vocal samples, hits, sweeps and other 'ear candy' the band like to fire off on the fly, and top is the Roland Juno 106, routed through a guitar pedal. "They love that Boss Heavy Metal Distortion. It's kind of the signature sound in 'Chemical Beats'. You bosh that over the 106 and it just sounds filthy — a horrible, dirty, angry thing.”

Probably used a HM2 on the Dark Recollections album.The guitar tone sounds alike the classic Swedish tone.

In this video, Ola Englund demonstrates how to get a Swedish death metal tone with a Boss HM-2.

taken from his IG account

> Backstage 1992 PURE European tour, Gothenburg, Sweden. Taken by henrik persson and supplied by Tomas Lindberg (At The Gates) who both hung out with us that night.

In this live picture, you can see Dwayne Goettel's synthesizer(s) plugged into a Boss HM-2 Distortion.

He uses an old Boss Heavy metal distortion pedal but again with really specific EQ and the distortion seriously rolled of so its never fizzy in tone

Adam Franklin uses a Boss HM-2 Heavy Metal Distortion Effects Pedal, shown in this Guitar Geek's rig diagram.

Quoted from an 1993 article

"I mainly use a DOD Classic Fuzz, but I also have a Boss Heavy Metal Pedal" - Alternative Press

On the floor that's what appears to be a BOSS HM-2 (the only pedal around with that design at the time). Bolt Thrower seemingly never used one on guitar (surely not in the early days, at least), so it should be what Jo Bench used. It could have been a rehearsal or such, but still, that's proof she used it at least once.

BOSS HM-2 guitar pedal to the max to bring some Sunlight! I’ve been playing now two years in Insomnium and we’ve had one (1) rehearsals and we had three (3) rehearsals with OG before going to studio to record ”Beyond”. It’s mostly that in OG i wrote and demo record the music ready at my home studio and send it to the other guys to polish, arrange and rehearse ready at home. Old men livin’ too far away from each other without too much spare time, that’s the reason for this.

"The tone was created by heavily detuned electric guitars (To B) used with a maxed out Boss HM-2 Heavy Metal Pedal and the DS-1 Distortion pedal into a Peavey amp."

An HM-2 can be seen on Justin York's pedalboard, in this Twitter image.

At 4:17 you can see him setting up his pedals, One of which is an HM2

Blackie uses a BOSS HM-2 pedal as can be seen in this live photo taken July 23rd, 2010 at the East Brunswick Hotel in Melbourne.

Steve used the BOSS HM-2 Heavy Metal Pedal on Broken Wings and some other songs on 1985's "Welcome to the Real World" album. Postby markmod » Mon Feb 20, 2006 7:58 pm Hey Guys, Steve is a pal of mine and I thought I could give you some information. Yes, he recently moved to Nashville, and he goes back and forth to Nebraska, where he owns a hunting preserve. Steve is an avid hunter and sportsman. His early Mr. Mister rig consisted of Jim Kelley and Dumble combos, split into stereo via a modified BOSS CE-1, with a Korg rack delay into the FX loop of the Dumble. A BOSS HM-2 (Heavy Metal) pedal was used on "Broken Wings," among other Mr. songs. This was all before his first Bradshaw rack. Steve mentioned that his big influence during the Mr. Mister years was guitarist, Jamie Oram-West of the FIXX. All those splashy, effected, and compressed chords came from that influence. Some years ago, I did a couple of tech jobs for Steve when he played out around Los Angeles. He had a small rack with pedals (fulltone stuff, a red snapper, among other things) through a modified Bogner Shiva head and 4X12 cab. His guitars were usually a white reissue Strat and a reissue goldtop Les Paul. Switching was done via Bradshaw 2X4 and RS-10 MK II. His studio rig is another story, he uses a larger rack and multiple heads and cabinets. Steve is pretty secretive of his set-up and doesn't give up much information. However, I have seen it many times and have played through it. Out of respect for Steve's wishes, I will not give up any of that info, just the older rigs I can discuss. Thanks for understanding. Last edited by markmod on Sat Jun 28, 2014 7:21 am, edited 1 time in total.

An HM-2 can be seen in this Instagram photo

You can hear this pedal on many songs of "Soulside journey", the first album od Darkthrone. It not clear if on the next albums was used but on that one it is obvious. It is very unique kind of sound and in those times it hadn't any alternative.

He uses that effect in his pedal rig. The only black pedal from Boss that has orange knobs is HM-2 Heavy Metal. Highly recommended :)

In this picture you can see the BOSS HM-2.

"Armed with nothing but cheap amps and cheaper axes, guitarists Leif Cuzner, Alex Hellid, and Uffe Cederlund leaned heavily on the grinding distortion of the HM-2."

The Boss HM-2 Heavy Metal pedal is seen here in the top right, partially obscured.

Explained and shown in article with rig.

Due to the years of him being alive and to the unmistakable look of this pedal, the photo clearly shows proof of him using an HM-2.

Very power sound, read, beautiful harmonics

"I have a boss HM-2 heavy metal pedal"