boss metal-zone mt-2 pedal seek a soulmate

  • Thread starter Thread starter gaud2029
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357mag said:
What? Sell the Marshall and get a Peavey?

QUOTE=357mag;3228882]What? Sell the Marshall and get a Peavey?
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Yes that is good advice IF he wants to use the Metal Zone pedal as his sound.

I was wrong in my earlier post about the Valvstate Marshalls, they are solid state. I was thinking AVT's for some reason. Been a while since Ive seen or heard of the Valvstate.

I completely agree with above posts that tube is the way to go as I personally use Hughes and Kettners.

I will repeat one thing about that Pedal. It can be a very good sounding metal pedal with the right amp. I cant stress enough that it needs a very flat sounding solid state amp with ALOT of headroom on the clean channel. I used to use this as a backup and for practice so I didnt use my tube life up and I didnt want to leave my expensive gear in a studio a long ways from me.

In real life, I dont know if they even make a solid state amp now a days in any brand that would live up the above statement. They all are "modling" themselves after Line 6 with built in effects, a super heavily voiced preamp, super heavy digital distortion already built in so adding a MT-2 to that is just over kill and will not sound good.

Maybe a Tech21 amp has lots of clean power and a uneffected pre-amp, maybe a Carvin solid state amp? Peavy's XXL amp was a good one for that but I dont think they make them anymore.

All Im trying to help the OP with is if he want to contine the use of the MT-2pedal. If so then you need to find an amp that will fit the pedal. Becuse no matter where you set the EQ on this pedal flat or not, it has a prevoiced sound to it right from the get go that will only work with certain amps. That is if you want it to sound good and it will sound GOOD with that type of amp.

All the bad comments about this pedal is probably because it was not matched up with the right gear. The users probably just tried to use it with whatever amp they currentely had resulting in a bad match up of gear.

You can stick the MT-2 in front of any amp, but what amp will it sound really good with and get you a useable live or studio sound? That is the question for the OP isnt it? The answer to that question is a solid state amp with a flat sounding clean channel with lots of headroom. Also, This is to get you above bedroom level volumes. If you are jamming with a band you need this type of amp with this pedal to get you a decent sound to cut through the mix and not feedback.

Im darn near temped now to do a recording with my old practice set up and post it. Maybe I have an old recording Ill try to dig up.

Alrighty then. Good luck.
 
a friend of mine modifies these pedals and makes them way more flexible
no i'm not advertising for him
u can look him up, humphreyaudiomods
 
357mag said:
What? Sell the Marshall and get a Peavey? Dude nothing works as good for hard rock or metal than a Marshall. Nothing. Period. Millions of pros use them on tour and in the studio. Enough said on that.

Boss pedals are pretty good sounding pedals. I've used a lot of them. But the Metal Zone is not one of them.

As far as balls to the wall crunch goes solid state amps and this includes the AVT line have plenty of balls. I ran the gain on my AVT50 lower than what I had the gain set on my DSL50. The AVT's are very crunchy sounding.

Having said all this I will say however that tube amps give you the smoothest tone but be prepared to take out the credit card.
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oh you mean like zach wylde?
im pretty sure the OP probably isnt going to have 90% of his riffs made of pinch harmonics and 45 minute HEAVILY wah-ed solos.


how about something actually... GOOD...?
 
Kingofpain678 said:
oh you mean like zach wylde?
im pretty sure the OP probably isnt going to have 90% of his riffs made of pinch harmonics and 45 minute HEAVILY wah-ed solos.


how about something actually... GOOD...?
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Marshall amps are good, once you spend a decent amount of cash on them.
 
I have an old MT-2 pedal I keep around to scratch the ocassional 'metal itch'. My secret for using it is that I only use the level and gain on the metal zone keeping the EQ completely flat and instead use a boss GE-7 EQ pedal to shape the sound. It can take some time tweeking everything, but I can usually come up with some pretty decent tones. The 7 band eq really lets you fill out the sound. I'd be interested in what the keeley mod could do for the MT-2 though.
 
Actual Sound SAMPLES

Well guys and gals, what do you think of this?

Im not saying that this is the greatest tone ever, but it sounds pretty damn big to me for what it is. Opinions will vary.

Here is a picture of my set up(again not what I normally use just old gear I still have from over the years).

1- 25+ year old 50 watt solid state Peavey Studio 50, all original speaker. All EQ's on amp set flat.
1- Boss MT-2 Metal Zone. Level at 12:00, High at 10:00, Low at 2:00, Mids 12:00, Mid frequency at 3:00, Gain at 3:00. All previous settings are at "O'clock" possitions.
1- Shure SM-57 placed center of cone.
1- Schecter guitar with Duncan JB, bridge position.
1- Boss BR-1600 Desk Top recorder.

I recorded one track left, one track right, panned them hard L and R.

On the MT-2 I addjusted the Low EQ settings as follows, L track I cut the lows at 3:o'clock, Right track I maxed the lows as far as it will go.

This is a raw track. I did not EQ anything, I did not add any effects, no verb no chorus, I did not do anything other than use a compressor to raise the volume of the track up 5 db's so you could hear it better. It is the sound of the amp right into the mic straight to my recorder.

I do notice some digital crackling due to me not having the mic trimmed enough. I just did a quick setup for this post.

You can hear a sound sample at a quick Myspace page I set up just to post a sample.

http://www.myspace.com/metaljsoundsamples


Let me know what you think. Again it is all opinion. Im certainly not advocating for this set up. Just trying to get you all to think about what your preconcieved ideas are about this pedal.

has your opinion changed at all?



Put on your engineer and producers cap and ask yourself. OK this is what I have to work with as raw tracks. Can I work with it and make it sound good for a METAL band?

Have fun !!!!

Oh Yeah, remember the amp is an solid state amp with a flat sounding clean channel with alot of headroom.
 

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philbagg said:
Marshall amps are good, once you spend a decent amount of cash on them.
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your right, they are good. for certain sounds.

marshalls kick ass for rock. but for really heavy tones they just dont sound right to me. but hey this is all opinion right?
 
hi everyone, and thank you for your post, especially metalj who posted a recording sample of this particular setup.

I finally bought a multi-effect pedal this week-end, couldn't resist.. I took the digitech rp255, not the best, not the worse I guess. But at least i can "touch" a variety of sound a lot more vast than a single amp and 1 or 2 stompboxes.

so my setup right now is mt-2 -> rp255 -> valvestate amp (mgx 15watt or valvestate vs265)
I stop the mt2 when I'm using the rp255 and bypass on the rp255 when I'm using the mt-2..
 
should have just gone with metalj's setup or something similar.

he seems to be getting a pretty good tone. its not too late to take that digitech back...
 
in case you didn't follow this thread, I already have the metal zone .. to be honest, I think my sound is quite good with both marshall..
 
metal zone issues solved

My Metal Zone works just fine for the type of music that I play which is kind of doom/death/grind/sludge - metal. I use a 200 watt solid state that reacts really good with a metal zone. I know where to put all my amp and pedal settings and I'm using a crappy peavy fender guitar and my tone is utterly bone crush heavy as fuck. I use an overdrive pedal to push my amp to the limit and color the tone of my MZ to make it sound brutal as fuck. Scooping the mids sounds like shit though. I crank the mid on my amp and pedal. I crank the highs and bass and use a noise suppressor between the mt-2 and overdrive and when crank that sucker up it sounds metal as fuck. I'm not happy with my guitar and noise suppressor though. The boss noise suppressor sucks. I'm getting an isp noise decimator pedal. Those work really good and don't bite into your tone. I'm also getting and mxr eq pedal. Those things are needed to boost the bass on the metal zone. People do do that you know. Also I will be getting a metal guitar with active pickups. Once I get all 4 things I'm so there. I can't give away my settings but I can tell you that the mids and highs and bass are up and the volume knob and distortion knob are cranked all the way. :D:cool:;)
 
oh yeah one more thing

If any of you are trying to sound pure underground metal, you have to crank the metal zone vol knob all the way or else you'll just sound like nu-metal. :laughings:
 
This thread is fairly old...

and you're using a bunch of overdrive pedals in front of an SS amp?
Mind posting a sample of your awesome tone?
 
second on not turning the gain past noon. mess with the parametric eq. that really changes the character of the amp it is going in.

i just use mine with the sample metal setting. a big part of getting a good sound with any pedal is just managing the in and out levels.

I would just play with what U have and not listen to the haters. One day U can buy ur self a nice AMERICAN made rig.
 
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