better than they say

personally id ont understand the hate, its a really good pedal esspecially with the overdrive, it dosent quite have as much punch as i love but still amazing

From Gear Setup

You Need to EQ and Amp the S out of this to get something good.

Everyone has this pedal that i know of under 25, it sounds like a sawblafe on some and a boombox on others. It's really your starter pedal as a teenager. But most people sell it off after rendering it useless and we all know it and then they regret it. Its a pedal that has a classic sound but standardalone you are not gonna get it unless you have a mesa boogie and a Marshall amp cabinet or simmilar gear. It sounds like a Ds-2 on crack alone. I got to EQ this with my EQ700 and fine dialing my amp, booster and minieq doubler this got real good real fast. Buy the waza craft if you want to use this, don't look at the price tag.

Preferred Settings + Usage:

From Gear Setup

alright

its a metal zone, yeah. the distortion sounds very nasally, the EQ is kinda sorta, and the tone is alright I guess, just put an eq pedal In front of it, and you've got a pretty good sound

Don't listen to the naysayers.

The Metal Zone has become a bit of a meme within the guitar community. Many often deride it for being a "can of bees" or being "ALL GAIN NO MIDZ", but it really is in how you use it. I think a lot of the misconceptions come from it being one of the most common "baby's first pedal", and with the very powerful parametric EQ it has quite a steep learning curve. Granted, if you want some bitey blues overdrive or crunchy alt rock distortion, there's probably better options for you. However, if you're looking for heavy tones, this little fella can give you quite a few. It's actually turned up on more records than you'd think: from being the primary distortion sound on Acid Bath's two albums, being used as a front-amp boost on Crowbar and Cannibal Corpse albums, and even as a lead tone by Prince. You can even hear it used by a handful of Rock artists like Allison Robertson from The Donnas and Larry LaLonde from Primus on the "Tales From the Punchbowl" album.

You'll see these things kicking around at various yard sales, pawn shops, etc, so if you see one for cheap I definitely recommend grabbing one and having a bit of fun. If you're a beginner player looking for plug-and-play heavy tones, I'd recommend looking for something a bit more user-friendly: the Boss DS-1/DS-2, TC Electronic Dark Matter, EHX Metal Muff, or my personal favourite Ibanez Super Metal (see my review of the old SML model). If you feel comfortable yielding a parametric EQ, jump in and ignore the echo chamber. There's lots of fun to be had!

Preferred Settings + Usage:

Mighty EQ - lots of sounds to be achieved

I just can't chime in with the Babydistortion lullabies and meme stuff with this one. The truth is, it doesn't sound that good in front of a clean amp, despite you can get some good sounds from it in this setting as well. It's best used as a pre amp in the FX Loop of an amp. Then you can get quiet many different sounds from it. The distortion is always on so there is no clearing up with the volume pot, I'd like it when it could be set to no distortion at all and only be an EQ-pedal, but I am sure there's mod to achieve that (I think it's from Brian Wampler). The range starts at dadrock distortion and goes up to the often quoted angry bees in a can. I use it with a Mooer Radar and got some nice sounds out of it, for example I simulated the sound of an EQD Acapulco with it. You can hear a little difference but it's not much. I will try out some different settings but with the mighty para-EQ it is pretty much the Bad Monkey of High-Gain distortion.

Depends on what you want…

… but I honestly love this pedal. It’s got lots of EQ shaping possibilities and great tone. I roll the distortion back to 12 and this thing still sounds savage, but surprisingly clean. And in my experience, it sits in a mix beautifully. There are other pedals that probably sound “better” when run solo, but we all know that the mix is all-important! Worth a shot, especially if you can get one used and cheap like I did!

Preferred Settings + Usage:

Always great.

The Metal Zone pedal is one of my favorites I've ever used. Nice, crunchy tone, with a big beefy sound. I am a huge fan of this pedal.

Sadly, I no longer have my Metal Zone, but am hoping to get a replacement soon. Cheers.

The Top "Love it or hate it" Pedal

Disclaimer: I gave this pedal 4 stars instead of 3 because I have modified mine substantially. So buying one stock will not be the same pedal that I know this to be.

It gets a lot of grief over being a crummy pedal, but then again there are players that say it's all in how you use it. While I feel as though I exhausted my knob-tickling options in stock form, it may have just been the gear combo I was running it on, or maybe I didn't do my due diligence and work hard enough to unlock that magic, golden sweet spot people claim is hidden in there. I my opinion it shouldn't be that hard, nor should the sound shaping be so limited in anything you would consider a great pedal.

After increasing the gain, a little headroom, and giving the EQ sweep a major extension, this pedal is able to be ran into the front of a more modestly priced solid state amp and sound decent enough to shred on. It doesn't make it sound like a $4000 tube amp, but it's redeemable with a little bit of work.

What I'm really trying to say here is that some pedals are easily upgraded, while others simply cannot be saved and are trapped in mediocre mode eternally. If you are just getting into pedal modifications, find some popular mods on the internet for this pedal, and try the Keely mods on the Boss DS-1 to get some experience.

A great addition to a pedalboard

I have been using the MT-2 for many years now and all I think that every guitarist should own this pedal. The quality of this pedal is pretty decent compared to other Boss pedals, but by far the biggest advantage that this pedal has over every other distortion pedal, is the number of tones you can create with it. From AC/DC vibes to Djent, this pedal has it all

My First Pedal

I cut my teeth using this pedal. It's got tons of parameters to play with. It's because of this pedal that I wanted to learn about tone...mostly because the tone on this pedal is horrible, and I never want to hear another used ever again. Because it inspired me to play, I will give it more than one star. But I won't give it more than two because of how badly it sounds without mods.