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wwhhhaatt « Black metal »
Published on 04/28/11 at 07:38Labeled as a distortion but I think the HM2 is a cross between distortion and fuzz sounds. Standard boss enclosure with 1/4" ins and outs, 9v power jack, and knobs for level, gain, high, and low EQ
UTILIZATION
I bought this pedal used and did not get a manual but with only 4 knobs it's easy to figure out what you need to do. For me the set-up consisted of plugging in the ins and outs, hooking up some power, and setting all the knobs to ten. Metal.
SOUND QUALITY
Like with any Boss pedal you get the buffer which can be a love/hate kind of thing. Personally I don't see the problem with Boss buffers until you start hooking numerous Boss pedals together in series and then you get some noticeable tone sucking. I always like to have at least one buffer in my chain whether it be from a pedal or from a dedicated box and the Boss pedals always seemed to be fine for this use.
The EQ seems rather limited with only high and low adjustments but it actually cover a wide area of sound. You can get a decent distortion sound or a pretty traditional black metal sound out of it with minor tweaking. I used this pedal mainly to send my distortion over the top and it excelled at it. With all knobs on ten into your amp's distortion channel you get a sound similar to an amp about to explode which is just what I was looking for.
OVERALL OPINION
There are far better options out there for a main distortion box but at 40$ this is a great noise maker. I have done some mods to the pedal to try and get it more useable for a wider variety of sounds but always came back to the stock sound. It's an older unit from a time where high gain distortion just didn't have the balls you get with today's gear. At one point I had three of these but I've sold them all off but one because its nice to have around when you want that terrible old school black metal sound
UTILIZATION
I bought this pedal used and did not get a manual but with only 4 knobs it's easy to figure out what you need to do. For me the set-up consisted of plugging in the ins and outs, hooking up some power, and setting all the knobs to ten. Metal.
SOUND QUALITY
Like with any Boss pedal you get the buffer which can be a love/hate kind of thing. Personally I don't see the problem with Boss buffers until you start hooking numerous Boss pedals together in series and then you get some noticeable tone sucking. I always like to have at least one buffer in my chain whether it be from a pedal or from a dedicated box and the Boss pedals always seemed to be fine for this use.
The EQ seems rather limited with only high and low adjustments but it actually cover a wide area of sound. You can get a decent distortion sound or a pretty traditional black metal sound out of it with minor tweaking. I used this pedal mainly to send my distortion over the top and it excelled at it. With all knobs on ten into your amp's distortion channel you get a sound similar to an amp about to explode which is just what I was looking for.
OVERALL OPINION
There are far better options out there for a main distortion box but at 40$ this is a great noise maker. I have done some mods to the pedal to try and get it more useable for a wider variety of sounds but always came back to the stock sound. It's an older unit from a time where high gain distortion just didn't have the balls you get with today's gear. At one point I had three of these but I've sold them all off but one because its nice to have around when you want that terrible old school black metal sound