Messages

Love it.  I especially liked the way you used the Fender amp-style bezel with your LED for that touch of vintage class.  Great image from the beer bottle label, too.  Magnifique!

How did you get the image to make the lebel?  Scan?  Found an image online?  Anyway, it turned out awesome.

I really think it is a huge market of entry level players, same as the DS-1 (which will always be #1 because of its price).

The pedal has a marketable name, "curb appeal" to new players who want to "shred", its relatively cheap (compared to many pedals), and so on.

I knew 4 dudes with MT-2s in high school. 2 ibanez players, a BC rich player, and a Jackson player. All with cheapo under-20W solid state practice amps, who desperately wanted to play metal riffs without the need for practice or proper tools. The mindset is an effects pedal is all you need to replicate THAT tone.

Of course, it all sounded like crap, but if folks are having fun who cares. Boss certainly doesn't seem to mind the pedal has become a meme for lousy sound.

I agree with you about any market coming from entry level players, although I came to my conclusion a bit differently.  I thought about when I first picked up the instrument and how I felt and what I wanted.  Mainly I wanted distortion.  I think my (admittedly fuzzy 15 year-old) logic went something like this: in the music I was listening to all the guitar sounds were distorted, right?  How do they do that?  Oh, pedals?  That makes sense!  And I can get a pedal!  Awesome!  So, my birthday comes and I have a bit of money so off I go to the music store.  I sit haplessly in front of that demo board, baffled by my options.  So I just start stomping through the lot.  And of course I'm playing through some cheap 15W solid state amp with the volume on 1.5, so my impression of each pedal is incredibly misleading.  I distinctly remember thinking that the tube screamer was the worst pedal in the universe.  Blues driver?  Sounds like wimpy mush!  But the Metal Zone?  Hey!  That sounds like distortion!  It's so heavy!  So much gain!  And the EQ knobs actually offer some control! 

When I was 15 I bought an OS-2 this way, but I could just have easily picked the metal zone.  I think that's what sucks a lot of new players in.  Context matters, and a lot of the pedals that really do sound good only really sound good when they're used properly/at stage levels.  But on your crappy 15W crate, the metal zone probably has something going for it.

Serves me right for not reading the marketing print.  Thank you.  Though I'd still love to see a full list of sales figures.

Yeah It was mostly hearsay and marketing that I pulled the "2nd best seller" figure from. That and empirical data of how many I see in the used pile at my local shops.

It appears Boss doesn't actually publish sales figures though, annoyingly (though not surprisingly).

Yeah, those are exactly the lines on which I was thinking--I couldn't believe that Roland would give away trade information that was of obvious commercial value.  Frankly I'm still a bit surprised they revealed as much as they did.  If you had asked me which Boss pedals were the best sellers, I never would have picked the MT-2 in second place.  Aentons suggested the Blues Driver, and I think that would have been my guess, too.  Blues Driver or SD-1.

Does this suggest anything?  Is Roland just messing with us, or is there a huge untapped market out there for high gain distortion?  I think I'm still skeptical.

Hey, somnif, where'd you find a source on that?  I would like to look over a sales list for their line, see what people are really buying.

It's in the Boss marketing verbage from the link at the beginning of the post. DS-1 is first. I wouldn't be surprised if the BD-2 is third.

"For over 25 years, the MT-2 Metal Zone has been one of the most popular and influential compact pedals in the BOSS lineup, with overall sales that are second only to the venerable DS-1 Distortion."

Serves me right for not reading the marketing print.  Thank you.  Though I'd still love to see a full list of sales figures.

I typed out a first reply to this, but it devolved into a long and overly detailed recounting of my Catholic upbringing.  Too much information.  Suffice it to say, I was raised Catholic, and Catholics aren't allowed to have joyous music.  Though it warms my heart that others have had better experiences.

The mt2 is like their 2nd best selling pedal. Mostly going to high schoolers thinking the name means instant metal godhood, presumably.

Hey, somnif, where'd you find a source on that?  I would like to look over a sales list for their line, see what people are really buying.

Maybe it's down to seeing Goldeneye before the Dukes of Hazzard, but I always think of Georgia the country first.

LOL.  That's as good a line as I've seen in a while.

"The genuine BOSS and Roland Dimension effect is back"

Probably a dig at Behringer.

That is how I read it, too.  As much as I would like to think that the people at Roland are secretly shaking their fists at anonymous solder jockeys like us, I somehow just can't believe it.

But I want to believe it!

Those meters are super cool.  Whenever I look at them I always want them, but realistically I can't justify it.  If I even start thinking otherwise the Scottish half of my blood rears up and reminds me that I'm too damn cheap to pony up the money for them!

I am actually very keen to get the DC-2w assuming the price isnt horrific...

I would have been eager to climb on that bandwagon (sharing your price concerns), but I just finished a Blueshift not too long ago.  Hard to justify now without major alterations to the circuit, and I think that would be an exercise in missing the point for such a beloved circuit.

I'm ashamed to admit I'm mildly interested in their MT-2 as well.  I always liked the idea of the metal zone--the 3 band EQ with parametric midrange is just such a sensible way to make a distortion pedal.  It works pretty well on the shredmaster.  But, of course, it sucks.  It really, really sucks.  Can they find a fix for that? 

My snarky answer is that if you have to ask this question you should just spend the five bucks and buy the proper part at small bear.

My more helpful answer is: my semi-educated guess is that it will probably work.  If you look at the datasheets you'll see they're both relatively high dark off resistance, fast on, medium-slow off.  The only significant differences seem to be that the C6 takes a bit more juice to hit the lower levels of resistance, and turns off slower (which will give you a longer decay envelope).  So long as you're okay with a bit less responsiveness and the longer decay time, I think it will work fine.  They really are pretty similar devices.

LM stands for linear monolithic. Linear is roughly analogous to "analog" in this usage, and monolithic as they use a single piece of silicon.

Learn something new every day
Kinda new to the hobby, hence the newbie questions. Thanks a bunch, much appreciated!

+1  I appreciate finally knowing what LM stands for.

Great builds.  Clean inside and out.

I second the question about the toggles--I was wondering the same thing.

I'd also like to know your source for those stamps.  I've seen them on quite a few builds over the past 2-3 years.  I think they look great.  Minimalistic, functional, attractive.  Where did you get them?  Any recommendations?  And what do you do for ink?  I would expect that to be an issue with smuding and running, etc.  How do you deal with that?  Clear lacquer?

Yeah, I saw that too a couple weeks ago.  It's sad to see the place go.  I always thought it was one of the best of the early pedal sites.  Good information, selection of circuits, and discussion.  He'll be missed.

I agree that the explanation and commentary about the internet was interesting, too.  I think a lot of us have felt similarly, especially in the past few years.  But while I largely agree with his diagnosis of the problem, I don't think I accept his conclusions.  If the quality of information on the internet is bad and getting worse, then I fail to see how removing one of the better sources is going to make things better.  His logic is kind of like preventing a hospital from practicing reckless medicine by burning the building to the ground.  Things aren't great, to be sure, but if that's the his suggestion going forward, you can count me out.

I hope you do that video comparing the DB and the TR--that's a good idea.  I'd be keen to hear (or not hear) the difference.