Don't buy this. Just don't.

This is a meme pedal. This can definitely ruin some ears. This has more sensitive eqs and knobs then a ER therapy session. It's sounds like a thousand bees and a sawmill. Trying to chug this. Forget it. Buy something else. Trying to EQ and Amp this to save is just dumb. Tried it. Its terrible, only use this if you are stranded at Sea.

Preferred Settings + Usage:

From Gear Setup

Eh

Not great as a pedal, I’ve been using it as a way to split my guitar chain into two outputs. When I do turn it on, it’s too trebly to actually get a decent tone out of it. It also may just be age but the actual off-on stomp only works half the time.

From Gear Setup

One of my favourite extreme metal pre-amps!

To confirm the rating, it's only 4/5 instead of 5/5 because of the lack of range. This pedal will do death metal and death metal. If you want to get real ambitious you can even use it for grindcore! There's also the harsh noise applications, but I'm nowhere near qualified to talk about that. For the heavy music side of the fence, this guy only has the speed for extreme metal. I wouldn't use it for thrash, classic doom, trad metal, most hardcore/metalcore, etc. What you see is what you get with this, and the most prominent thing you see is the words "DEATH METAL".

With that out of the way, this thing is an absolute extreme metal monster. No gain knob. Where we're going, we don't need gain knobs. You get a volume and a full BMT tone stack, which is more than enough for this. The EQ section is VERY powerful, so make adjustments with caution. The mid knob is really what makes this pedal surpass it's Grunge cousin. Where the Grunge had a gain knob (that truthfully didn't do much), the mid control helps you shape the tone into a variety of different extreme metal use cases. Want a classic 90s North American scooped sound? Turn everything up til it sounds good, back the mids off a bit, done. Want a chainsaw-y sound that gets somewhere in the ball park of the HM-2? Crank those mid and volume knobs, then set the bass and treble to taste. Want something a little more "trve"? Turn the bass down, and maybe put the gasoline away because you're scaring the children.

I mentioned "pre-amp" in the title as that's how I'm currently using mine. It was designed as a standard distortion pedal for the front of the amp, of course, but as a pre-amp directly into an effects loop return is where this puppy really shines. You can get some truly brutal tones by using this as a pre-amp, so if you haven't tried this I highly recommend it!

In conclusion, this is a phenomenal pedal that will serve any extreme metal player well. The DOD models are also great, but can be expensive if you don't actively hunt for a deal. The Digitech model here sounds just as good and can be had for dirt cheap.

Preferred Settings + Usage:

Bass fuzz

Well, there aren't many uses for this pedal to be honest... you either play noise music and you need hell of a lot of distortion, or you are after that specific chainsaw-like guitar sound. But I found a quite interesting way of using it. Why don't you try it as a fuzz pedal on bass? Yeah, It doesn't sound that great, and there's better alternatives for bass fuzz at this price, but nonetheless, 3-band EQ is a very useful tone-shaping tool, cabsim-like output makes it easier to record bass straight to your audio interface, and the amount of gain makes your bass tone excruciatingly brutal. Just give it a try.

Preferred Settings + Usage:

There are better Distortion Pedals

I got one for free and gave it a try. It is not my style of sound tbh, you can get some useable tones out of it, so you might give it a try because they are not very expensive on the used market. I took the enclosure and put a tube screamer circuit in it.

Unique pedal that deserves a look

Took a chance and definitely enjoy the high gain thrashing this sucker puts out. Make use of your guitars volume and it’ll control the aggression and clean up slightly. Stack it or throw it into a dirty Marshall and have even more fun. Great unique pedal.

Harsh Noise pedal

One of the coolest Harsh Noise pedals to own. I like to combine it with the DS-1, it sounds brutal.

disaster

If the aim is to get the most horrific sounds possible, then I guess don't turn it down if it's a gift. I got this for free from a friend back in our days of playing in a black metal band together. It certainly worked okay in that application, but understand that this pedal is 110% treble, screeching feedback, and digital fizz. It sounds like shit and has zero practical use besides intentionally making bad noise. 5/5 stars for bad noise, 0/5 for usable tones

Harsh noise pedal

Like DOD FX86B, but looks not as cool. But it has 2 outputs, so it's better

Good pedal, but it was my dad's and so it was really old and stopped working right after probably 15 years, then I got fixed up finally and sold it

Good pedal, but it was my dad's and so it was really old and stopped working right after probably 15 years, then I got fixed up finally and sold it.