MXR M116 Fullbore Metal Distortion Pedal Reviews

The name says it all. It's the most saturated high gain pedal out there, and properly tweaked, it flat out crushes. It will nail Tool. I mean NAIL it. Or Dime bag, and even Accept Balls to the Walls tone. Here's some tips. First, the cleaner your amp signal, the better it will sound. It needs very little, if any treble. Turn it all the way down, and maybe add a little if you really want it to cut. The frequency knob affects EVERYTHING. You may have a cool tone, but if you adjust the frequency knob for a different flavor, you may want to fine tune the other knobs. It will really affect the gain tone if you have it turned up past noon, so be aware of that. Honestly, this pedal doesn't really need to have the gain past noon. If you go past that, it can get kind of fizzy unless you have it dialed in just right with your amp and guitar. The scoop mode is brutal scooped, but some guys want that And Justice for All static buzz. The nose gate is KILLER! There's also an internal adjustable trim pot so you can dial it in exactly to your taste. This is a metal one trick pony. It won't work as a clean boost like maybe the Metal Zone can, but why would you want a metal pedal used for that anyways? It's not the most versatile, but for what it is, and around $ used, it's think it's the best thing out there.
ps... For reference, here's my setting that for Metallica's Disposable Heroes, and The Patient by Tool

This pedal sounds awesome, l was surprised by how clean it sounds - having so much overdrive. It's a great sounding and easy to use heavy metal pedal!

1 - this pedal = Metallica And Justice For All's tone.
i love tools that make it easy to get right where i wanted to be, quickly; added bonus when it's low cost.

2 - This pedal is also excellent for a lot of what i call Nordic metal, and for Industrial.

3 - never use its "scoop" pushbutton, as many have reviewed it's too extreme of a scoop.
and with mids at noon it's still slightly scooped -- put mids at 2 o'clock, now it's as at noon, adjust from there.

4 - try this with gain at zero, this is an extremely good tone for intros, bridges, outtros, and that the eq and timbre will still match your tone when you dial the gain back up.

I have told mxr they need to revamp this great pedal:
- remove the scoop button
- set mids 2 so that noon is noon, not 2 o'clock is noon.
- ...and then paint it, semigloss/flat black? aged copper or brass? gothic font? give it a new name?

Always been a fan of MXR, but this pedal is the Best of the best. MXR really made it possible to accommodate guitar crunch and Bass Balls. Thank you MXR. This was the pedal I had been looking for, for a very Long time. Cheers to MXR and always SweetWater.

...And this is the thing about reviews. You have to find the one that answers your question. I wanted a very deep, dynamic heavy metal tone and have tried many pedals (thanks for your patience, Cameryn). I found that using the HK red box in my PA system simply enables cab sim without all the trinkets which actually messes up the tone. When I add this pedal, there is clean metal. I can do whatever I want to its tone with impunity. The other pedals and cab sims seem to have fought each other to a zero-sum game. Just ask Cameryn, I'm a thorough researcher. More importantly, I hope this helps as I don't write reviews often for the aforementioned reason, but felt like you need to know this little factoid.

If metal is your game, than this quite simply is your pedal.

This is so amazing I use it for all my recordings and live performances and the noise gate work wonderful I totally recommend this to who ever want that extra push if distortion in the playing

So far,,,,I'm impressed,,,I have a Ratt,,,which I love, and I don't need 3 distortion pedals!; although I do want a big muff pi....but I'm cool right now with this bad *****.!!;;;.

Picked up a DSL100HR not long ago and really like it but it was missing some heavy gain. This took care of that and with a ton of adjustments available to dial in your sound. Great product!

In my experience, this pedal is unmatched with regards to the amount of gain. It is small, durable, and easy to use. This pedal is for metal metal only in my opinion. Others need not apply. MXR seems to put much R&D into their pedals. I have never been disappointed with MXR pedals. Awesome pedal!

Everybody thinks it's too much distortion. You got to turn your Distortion down on your amp then adjust your distortion on the pedal. It will sound terrific. And you will love this pedal. Thank you.

I have seen a lot of negative reviews online about this pedal, but as a fan of all kinds of metal going back to the late 80's I can honestly say that this thing does what it claims. Out of the box, it duplicates that tight scooped sound that started with Anthrax's "Among the Living" and Metallica's "And Justice For All" albums...a sound that continued through the Pantera legacy into early Deftones albums and beyond. It gives you THOSE exact sounds. After exploring this pedal with my Les Paul, I discovered that adjusting the Gain knob can give you a ton of other classic metal sounds. Rolling the distortion back gave me a similar sound to System Of A Down, as well as a lot of other killer sounds that I couldn't compare to any other band but were simply amazing. It has a tight bite and a very functional midrange knob (it does turn to the right, folks) as well as a gate and a scoop button if you want to remove all of the mids and make your speakers rumble in pain. For this price, you cannot beat the absolute metal sound that will explode from your speakers. If the phrase "The Big Four" means anything to you, stop reading this review and add the M116 to your cart.

If you're into metal you should know this pedal dominates and eats the lunch of lesser pedals...And ALL other pedals Are lesser pedals. Don't like playing rythm and stopping to make adjustments when playing lead? I have the solution: buy another Full Bore pedal. It's searing intensity and take no prisoners aggression leave pretenders to the throne put in chains and sold to the Huns! Metal or no metal at all wimps and posers leave the hall.

You will not be disappointed in this pedal. Its 100% bad to the bone.

I just got this pedal and it is very versatile, you can get tones from old school metallica to judas priest, my personal settings are: FREQ One o'clock GAIN Two o'clock LOW 11 o'clock MID 12 o'clock HIGH 3 o'clock

i got this pedal roughly two months back!
absolutely love it. the built in noise gate is an added plus. and you can dial in whatever tone youre looking for!

If your looking for the absolute heaviest sound, this pedal is for you. It's the most complete distortion pedal I own. The built in noise gate allows you to really turn up the gain as much as you want.

This pedal like some others are meant to be played through a 100 % CLEAN Channel without any onboard the amp distortion of any kind. Otherwise it's like two identically matched fighters who will get nowhere. Any amplifier distortion will really mess up/defeat the intended effects of the Fullbore pedal. This is why more than likely people who have complained in the reviews about the "SCREECHING SOUND " don't like the pedal. Read the directions thoroughly to get the best possible results. I like this pedal soo much that one of the two I now own are in a vault should the first one get stole. I DO like it hat much. ONLY PLAY THIS PEDAL THROUGH A 100 % CLEAN AMPLIFIER CHANNEL !!!!!! And then you'll see how mind blowing incredible it truly is.

I have two of these because I liked the first one soo much I wanted to have a second one just in case the first one was ever stolen. This is by far the very best hard core heavy metal sound I have ever heard in my life. I have been playing guitar for over 50 years and have played soo many; none as good as this for that really deep dark raspy metal tone. Just think of the very dark and heavy lead/rythm and bass riffs in Ozzy's Countdown begun soundtrack from the Black Rain album and the dropped D bass run in Ozzy's No More Tears and the lower end bass riff in Sabbath Bloody Sabbath. The only thing I found as good as this is the EVH 5150 pedal, but only when I want to have Eddie's sound. The controls overall are very responsive; just imagine a 4 cylinder engine ( your amp ) and then you add this pedal. It's like that little motor except with 14;1 compression, turbo and nitro meth all in one little neat package. You could hurt yourself if you're not careful ! Subtle effects like chorus and phaser are useless with this. I use a Holy Grail or comparable reverb and a flanger effect once in a while. That's it !

This is indeed a distortion pedal with ample adjustments.

The gate works very well, the tone options are limitless and the metal tone is amazing, you better have a strong amp with a good set of speakers to handle this monster.

I use 3 pedals to get my various overdrive tones I like, but I still needed something with the "mid scoop" sound that was completely ridiculous... well here you go, it even has an adjustable noise gate thingy.
So until you get a grid melting 100 watt full stack, use this to do your metal ear damage. Not kidding, this thing delivers.

If your expecting some little overdrive pedal, this is not for you. The name says it all, Full Bore Metal.
MXR designed a metal amp, and then, squeezed it into a foot pedal.
The controls are very powerful, as mentioned in other reviews. It doesn't take much of a turn to really boost each frequency and function on this pedal.
There will be no one turning all the knobs on this baby up to 10.
I dialed up a very clean Mesa single rectifier tone on my Kemper, and then hit the pedal.
It went from a chimey cord/note picking humbucking sound..to a slamming triple rectifier sound..with the gain set on 30.
As we all know, there is no 30 setting on a Mesa, or on any amp, but with this pedal.......there is now!!!!!!
Try this experiment....set your amp as clean as you can get it, then, set the MXR Volume to 3 o'clock, Frequency full left, Scoop button on, Gain full left, Low just a very slight nudge, Mid 9 o'clock, Treble 9 o'clock,.......now your ready.... play your crystal clean sounding intro chords and notes, and then hit the button..... think kinda Mark Tremonti kicking into the first heavy chord after the intro on Higher when the bass and drums kick in. It's that kind of heavy when you hear it.
No hype to this pedal. (and it has true bypass, and the noise gate is seamless)
Just watch the video that Mitch did of it thru a super clean Fender amp, he demos a couple of overdrive pedals in the video, and then, demo's this beast about mid way thru the video... when he kicks on this pedal...the sound that you are hearing is for real...no studio tricks.
My jaw dropped the first time when I heard it on the video, and my jaw dropped a second time when I kicked it on for myself.
So, you can either drop a couple of grand buying a metal head just to get this sound, or, you can order this beast of a pedal from Ed Nystrom like I did, and still have enough money left over to buy another guitar to add to your collection instead of a one trick pony 2000 dollar metal amp head.
And don't forget about the free candy suprise with every purchase!!!
They are putting it in bags now, personally, I prefer digging around in the shipping box for it like a squirrel, the bag just takes all the fun out of finding it, kind of like just handing a kid all of his Easter eggs in one basket and telling him here's your Easter eggs bubba, instead of letting him go out and have fun and dig under all the plants and bushes for all of them one by one.

Just the tones you get from the main knobs are more than I've ever worked with in a heavy distortion pedal. I used to play on a Boss Metal Zone, but now this is my all time favorite. I set the distortion around 10'O-clock position then back it up on an overdrive channel. Add in the mid-scoop and the world is in your hands. The saving grace to this pedal though is the built in noise gate, seriously. You wont ever need a noise gate pedal with the built in features on this. You can literally crank the distortion and overdrive to max and pump the volume up, and with the noise gate, not hear a **** thing other than crunch.

It's my suggestion that you start out with minimal settings the first time you use this pedal. It has killer low end for some super crunch. The mid control I don't really care for, it took me a little while to figure it out. The high is screaming when you max it out. Every control on this pedal is super sensitive and super responsive. This has to be one of the hottest pedals I've ever used! Once again it is very hot!

It doesn't matter if you have humbuckers or a single coil pickup with this pedal. It works best with amplifiers that are good with distortion. I have a spider 3 line 6 amp and a standard telecaster guitar. This pedal makes it sound scary mean and the noise gate is great when you set it up and if you've played telecasters you know what that means. If you don't get a sound you like off of this pedal you've either given up to easy or you don't like metal. If you're only going to buy a few pedals and don't want to worry about noise suppressors this is a must buy. You won't be dissappointed.

I really like this pedal! Even though its gain levels are really high, it doesn't sound raspy or artificial. The EQ is fantastic, and gives you a lot of usable tonal range. Highs aren't shrill, bass isn't muffled, and mids are gutsy and well-defined. The noise gate is very transparent, although the pedal doesn't seem to really need it. It tightens both ends of the frequency range when you are really hammering the gain, though, so it does have its uses. The scoop function is spot-on for shredding and, unlike most that I've tried, this pedal sounds great without it engaged. It has a huge range of mid-frequencies, which is great for old-school metal (or hard rock, with the gain backed down) . I
I am extremely impressed with this pedal. (So much so that I've since bought two more MXR's, which are also great.) I'm really surprised that it doesn't cost a whole lot more!

It's not straight forward to get a good sound out of this pedal which is why I took away half a star.
Here are a few tips:
1- Use it with a slightly overdriven amp, not a sparkly clean amp.
2- Boost the mids, don't scoop.
3- keep the gain under 12 o'clock. believe me, that's more than enough.
4- Put the FREQ knob in the middle position and slowly adjust it to your liking.

I found that what works for me is to start with a touch more than unity volume. Then I roll the gain in just to where it ramps up (around 9:00). I can deliver a fair amount of bass and still stay tight yet huge (around 3:00). The highs go COMPLETELY off. Then I give it a touch of mids (say 1:00-2:00) and put the frequency leaning slightly to the upper mids area (also 1:00-2:00). The upper midrange push compensates for darkening the would-be-shrill top end. Scooped mids may sound brutal when you're alone in your geeky bedroom, but not so good in a live mix. When I set it this way I get huge bottom end, upper midrange clarity, smooth single notes and ample pick attack with gain at 9:00-10:00. The less gain the better to retain articulation. I have an MXR El Diavolo OD to kick the Fullbore over the top thereby creating a three channel rig. Noise gate is still perfectly effective even when I'm stacking it like that. Remember: don't hesitate to completely turn the highs off. It isn't fizzy this way and the top end retains clarity if you pump the mids just a whisker. Just a whisker, my sneaky friend. Besides, I think that if you REALLY need more high end, it's better to deliver it from your amp. It's less inclined to get raspy that way. The high eq knob of the pedal was surely designed to accommodate the brightest AND darkest of amps. When I kick on the boost in front of the Fullbore I get controllable, usable feedback when sustaining single notes at bedroom volumes. It's quite sick, bub.

I'm not that big of a metal guy, but I do play some songs where I need a bit of crunch. I had tried the Pro Co Rat first, but I found that I couldn't get a decent tone without adding a lot of noise. I found that I had similar issues with the other overdrives that I tried. I settled on getting a noise gate to take care of this, but when searching for a noise gate, the Fullbore Metal came up, and at the price point, I decided I would give it a try, and I've been very pleased with it. There is so much distortion on tap in this box and a lot of options. It has a 3-band EQ, separate volume, and gain and a separate frequency knob, so if you take your time, you can definitely dial in the sound that you want. My clean tone is the Xotic EP Booster going into my amp with the drive of the Strymon Deco in the effects loop, and with the Fullbore Metal added after the Booster, I am getting the tones that the Rat couldn't handle cleanly. While the amount of noise produced by the pedal is tolerable, the noise gate really puts this one over the top in terms of usefulness. I have tried using a Behringer noise gate and the Zoom noise reduction on my Zoom multistomp. I was never happy with the Behringer, and I found that I needed different settings for each gain type with the Zoom. The Fullbore Metal, though, seems to have just the right threshold, and it even works when you bypass the rest of the pedal, so if you place it at the end of the drive section of your board, it's basically two pedals in one. I use a Big Muff for fuzz and J Rockett's the Dude for overdrive, and it transparently cleans up these tones, as well. Overall, I am completely happy with my purchase of the Fullbore Metal, and it has well exceeded my expectations. The only reasons that I am docking a half star is that it really is just a distortion and can't get an overdriven tube type sound. Other than that, there's really no cons with this one.

I was a young kid in search of a distortion pedal that didn't sound like a Metal Zone. Well, I was really looking for a Tube Screamer-style drive, but ended up with something very different (and much more useful for my applications).

I was in a used-guitar store and stumbled upon this. When I heard it in the store, I was absolutely blown away. I took it home and spent more time tweaking the EQ settings and was even more satisfied with it.

This is basically an entire preamp designed for metal. The mids are oh-so important in shaping the tone so use that knob carefully. I was able to get a near-perfect recreation of Dimebag Darrell's (Pantera, Damageplan) tone from this pedal. The noise gate is one of the best features of the unit, considering how much gain there is. The only thing I don't really like is the mid-scoop button; it's honestly really pointless, considering the pedal has a scooped enough sound to it.

At the end of the day, this is pretty much the best distortion pedal you can get for this price if you want an American sound. If you're even reading this review, just get it. I guarantee you'll enjoy it

(I promise I'm not sponsored by MXR)

I am on a never ending search for tone. I am closer than I have ever been before. The sweepable midrange and very quite circuitry make this pedal.

This is my first, and maybe last, Distortion pedal. Dropped a weak 9-volt battery in it (all I had on hand), and it still had enough juice to make the Blackstar Fly3Pak combo kit sound like a full-blown metal rig. Very simple to use, easy to dial in just the right amount of everything to get tones you hear all the pros using. Thanks again to Nathan Parker for making the magic happen.

I was looking for a good metal pedal for my 65 Fender Deluxe Reisue. I have tried many and had got a flabby sound out of the speaker when cranked- not with this pedal! Very versatile! Not a one trick pony! You can go from heavy distortion to hard core metal with this one! Not a big fan of the noise gate but other than that- this pedal is the bomb!

I am writing this review quite a few years after purchasing this pedal. It has stayed on my board for some time, at least for at home use. It has a ton of versatility and is proven reliable, I would say mine is over 7 years old at this point, as a modest estimate.

My only issue with this pedal is I find the tone to be a bit too "sharp" for my tastes. Kind of that ear piercing frequency some may enjoy, but not for me. One day I'll get around to replacing, but heck it still works.

If you want warm blues or classic rock tones, move on. If you want that nasty growl from the 80s metal core music, then hit the buy button now.
Put this thing in front of a nice tube amp on the clean channel and let it eat. I run a MXR eq in the loop to boost this into a fat metal lead sound..It is a no BS shred pedal, but use it on a good tube amp for best sound..

Great pedal. Bad user.

Ended up eBaying this, now I regret it...now I know better, but the pedal's gone.

I bought this pedal to do one thing, play aggressive, angry music. And MXR really hit it out of the park there. Very Dimebag Darrell-esque tone when played loud through a quality amp with all EQ's at noon. I don't think I'll be stepping away from this thing any time soon. It's also worth mentioning putting a noise gate on a distortion pedal is a tremendous idea, and I have no idea why that's not an industry standard. Super useful.
That said, this pedal isn't exactly what I'd call versatile. The name says it all, FULL BORE METAL. That's pretty much all you get. Even with the gain set to zero, you're still met with a formidable crunch.
Bottom line: If you want serious metal insanity, this is your pedal. If you want something more malleable, get something else.

If you want a pedal that will rip your face off, kick your dog and steal your girlfriend then this is probably it.

The gain moves in to sociopath territory. Of course you can always back off on it and... well, not much changes. It is still scoopy death metal madness. The mid control is tricky, I guess I need to play with it some more but it's still very easy to get a Djent tone out of this pedal. It isn't versatile but I don't think it was designed to be. I think it's meant to turn anything you plug into it into the sound of meth and cigarettes.

I don't know how much or often I will use it, it's more of a novelty but it's nice to know that I'm covered when I need to sound like I imagine Tonya Harding would sound if she were a pedal.

If you're wondering whether this pedal can DJENT or not, rest assured it can DJENT beyond your wildest dreams! Sounds awesome with the gain cranked all the way, and the built-noise gate feature is genius. Think of it as Dunlop's take on the Boss Metal Zone, except it sounds better and is sturdier. :)

Very good it sounds great

Sounds awesome, 3band EQ allows you to have many different sound options, From a real chunky to a clean sharp metal edge sound. The scoop works fine(would be nice if it was a foot switch) I already have a EQ in my chain, so I really did not need the scoop. The noise gate works too, but it does get in the way of long sustains. I did not expect much from the noise gate anyway, most noise gate pedals are over $100.00, so to have the feature built in, I did not expect it to very good, It isn't. Like I said I did not expect it to be anyway. Overall nice pedal, sturdy and well made. The Metal sounds are real nice and I am always happy with Sweetwater!!

When i first used this on my 15-watt amp I was so happy. This sounded amazing and the noise gate was awesome. If you put your guitar volume down the sound would cut out quicker than you wanted to with the noise gate but it was okay because if you're playing at a normal practice volume that's understandable. When I hooked it up with my tube amp and used it as the only distortion it made some weird screeching noises even with the noise gate on and only when I turned my guitar volume down would the screeches cease. I thought I was going to have to scrap this and I was disappointed that I had to find a new distortion pedal to use. I decided to try it one last time and when I combined this pedal with my tube amps high gain channel it sounded perfect. There was little to no feedback and the tone was amazing. I would recommend this to anyone. Even if you're just starting to play guitar or have been playing for quite some time. I just wouldn't recommend this as the only thing you use as distortion if you're gigging and playing loud. That being said. Since you can play at a normal volume and this wouldn't give you any trouble as your only distortion source; I feel like this would be amazing to use if you're recording guitars. Just ask Mr. Brenden Small himself!

I own a Fender Bassbreaker 30R and needed something to get it into full on metal territory. A friend of mine owned one of these from way back in the day when he was playing through practice amps and lent it for me to try out. I ended up instead splurging to get the Waza Metal Zone instead. My main type of music is metally punk/melodic hardcore, think Strung Out, Propagandhi, RKL, Cro Mags etc. For that stuff I'm using an LTD EC1000 with Seymour Duncans; JB in the bridge and 59 in the neck.

This pedal does have some pros though over the basic Metal Zone, which I'll list below:
-Better sounding overall gain stage. I like the flavor of the gain of the Fullbore more than the standard Metal Zone, but not more than the custom mode on the Waza Metal Zone.
-The noise gate seriously works well and is actually fairly adjustable. Definitely could clear up a pedalboard by being a two in one.
-Handles drop tunings a bit better than the standard Metal Zone, doesn't get as murky, though IMO I think my Fender amp doesn't help.
-Scooped mode seriously scoops the mids if that's your thing. Think deleting the mids almost entirely from your signal.
-Built like a tank. I could throw it into a wall and it'll be just fine.


The downsides though:
-Way too much gain overall, even when the gain knob is off. While the gain on the Fullbore sounds better on its own, its simply too much. Great metal tone usually comes from a high gain amp using as little gain as possible, simply not possible with this pedal. There's also little discerning the gain knob all the way off and the gain knob all the way up, not a problem with either version of the Metal Zone.
-Same problem as the standard Metal Zone, the mid controls are simply too adjustable and aren't amp like. I have tried more expensive high gain/metal pedals, namely the Keeley Filaments, and it does not have this problem. Having as much control over the mids as you do is the reason why this pedal, and the Metal Zone, get the bad reputation of sounding like a swarm of bees. The custom mode in the Waza Metal Zone does not have this problem.
-Scooped mode sounds artificial.
-The other knobs don't seem to do much as far as control range.

Where this pedal really shines is that it replicates 90s metal tones perfectly. My first thoughts plugging this in was even in the regular mode it sounded like Dimebag's tone the Cowboys from Hell onward Pantera records with all the knobs at 12 'clock. Playing around with it a bit more I was in Machine Head territory, a bit more of tweaking after that I was rocking Chaos AD Sepultura, and with a bit more tweaking after that I was nailing the Chop Suey and Suite Pea by System of a Down. I was even able to somewhat recreate early death metal tones (think Obituary and the first few Cannibal Corpse records) with the Fullbore, but I never could get good 80s thrash metal tones which is essentially what I'm looking for out of a high gain pedal. For this the Waza Metal Zone, and I think even the standard Metal Zone, will do better. The more expensive high gain pedals like the Filaments and Wampler Dracarys will do this even better.

I think if you're looking for a certain type of metal sound, namely the 90s metal tones when solid state amps and 5150s dominated the metal scene, this will work. I personally have never been a huge fan of either of those approaches, I'm much more into the Mesa Boogie or Marshall sound, and this pedal doesn't get anywhere close to those sounds. Unless you really like the 90s metal tones, splurge extra and get the Waza Metal Zone or one of the more expensive high gain pedals like the Filaments.

Nice metal tones, noise gate is a plus, sweeping mids are a great thing to have. Highs EQ control is to harsh for my liking, but good sound nonetheless. Built like a tank!

Like all MXR Pedals, this puppy is a well built pedal. The noise gate works very and there are lots of tonal control capabilities. But for me I found the FullBore Metal too edgy and over the top for my tastes. I typically keep my EQ on my amp at twelve o'clock. Once I enabled the the FullBore Metal pedal, out came the most edgy and grainy sounding noise I've ever heard. No how much tweaking I did with the gain and EQ on the pedal the results were only slightly diminished. I suppose if I EQ'd my amp tone control I could have corrected most of the harshness but that would leave my normal channels sounding muddy when I wasn't using the FullBore Metal pedal. I'm sure this is a great pedal for the right musician trying to get his or her sound but again this is not for me. The MXR Custom Badass ’78 Distortion is more my style. Again, I must be getting old!

This guy produces one tone and one tone only - a highly scooped modern tone that will dominate any amp. If you are looking to sound like a early Metallica album, this pedal might be for you. But it cannot do anything else. Highly distinctive and entirely inflexible, I doubt this pedal will appeal to most guitarists.

It's a solid distortion pedal but for the price it seriously lacks on the low ends and even on my ibanez rg8 and my dean 7... in versatility and diversity of the tones you can create definitely not deserving of it's high price tag.. I would definitely recommend a metal master from DigiTech before this, a much cheaper and more flexible and resourceful pedal capable of just as much and then some giving it a significant advantage over the full bore by mxr.. it's just an average distortion pedal

No usable tones. Sounded like a cheap solid state amp. Tried it through 4 different amps and direct in to my interface with amp modeling software. Cold over compressed squishy tone. Returned immediately and bought the MXR EVH 5150 overdrive pedal and couldn't be happier. Thanks to Nitish at Sweetwater for fast return and replacement order.

Not good. Fuzzy, and solid state sounding.

If you want a sound that will make you cry from extreme high end... then buy this pedal. It cant produce "classic metal" or even thrash metal tones. If you like the tone in "Hammer Smashed Face" then this pedal will achieve that for you. it is very fuzzy and unclear.

sounds terrible. mids are too scooped and sounds very raspy.

it sounds like rubbing a can on concrete. Don't buy. It is way to raspy sounding.

This has the most turd sound ever. Don't buy it. It is worse than the Boss M-2 Metal Zone. It is just garbage.