Several of you requested for a way to put a switch to turn this mod on-off and go back to standard at any time, so I made a follow up video with the proccess of adding that switch detailed step by step. You can check it out here! ruclips.net/video/qpiwOw2g3i0/видео.html Hope you like it!!!!
I don't completely understand. If you mean to desolder the components from the pcb, I use a solder sucker. As the name says it's like a small pump that sucks the tin when its melted so you can take the components. Hope it helps!
No distortion pedal is meant to be used in the loop, if you have the manual for the MT2 you'll see it plugged in front of the amp. That's a sort of workaround some people figured out to get a different sound but I find it really impractical, specially if you use more pedals or drive from the amp. I have a Marshall DSL and bypassing an all tube preamp and using a cheap transistor pedal to replace it sounds like a really bad deal to me but hey, if it works for you there's nothing wrong with it!!
Inspiring tracks it’s just something new to try. I like it in the loop of by valveking as a different distortion. The front of my solid state marshall and I don’t use it in my engl fireball.
@@Hypnotica420x HAHA right. I had one for the longest time. I typically used it in front of the amp on a clean channel. Then found the tone I liked and left it alone for like 10 years. Then apparently its been garbage this whole time. While Id rather play than nit pick gear all day.
Just dis this mod the other night. Watched your video amd followed the steps. It gave my METAL zone a completely different sound. I was finally able to dial in some sweet low end swoops amd crunch. Thank you for the inspiration!!
Haha, Thanks!!! I'm touching different guitar related topics like setups and recording to see what the people likes to watch, but I'll definetly go back to do some pedal videos in the future. Thanks again!!
@@InspiringTracks about c24/c20 caps... which one is boosting the highs and which one is boosting the lows? Basically, if I want to make it darker, which would I cut out?
C24 (the clear film cap) is in charge of the high boost and C20 (the blue tantalum one) of the lows. If you want to make it darker take C24. I don't recommend cutting it just in case you don't like the results, it makes going back to stock much more difficult
I saw this a few years ago, thought about doing it, but I've had the pedal for almost two decades and couldn't bring myself to do it. However, today I stumbled across your video and did it. The sounds is dramatically different and a lot more usable for me now. Maybe in a few years I'll do the conversion that makes it switchable. Thanks for taking the time to make this!
I have done this mod on several MT-2 pedals and every time the results are amazing! It's not the same as a Waza, but in my opinion it's better. I actually sold my Waza MT-2 and kept my modded pedal. Thank you!
This mod really works! I had an old Metal Zone sitting around unused from when I was in high school in the 90s. I never really did much with it for the past 20 years. I played it a bit before doing the mod, just to re-acquaint myself with the sound, and yeah, it's not something I'd use any more. The difference after the mod was immediate. I didn't really find any "bad" sounds as I tweaked the dials, everything's much more usable, whereas un-modded it was very easy to dial into some shitty tones. I might actually consider putting this on my pedal board, now! This mod truly is addition by subtraction!
Мне не помогло. Звук меняется совсем немного - меньше слышно паразитные токи, поэтому поставил конденсатор на свое место Возможно дело в моем усилителе и вместе с педалью все звучит гармонично
The subscribe placard in the pedal body lol. Awesome. Wow, so simple. . . adding fresh solder like that BEFORE grabbing the sucker. Makes it so much easier. Great upload!
thankx!!! So much for the tip...my Metal Zone has been collect'in dust for years,Was always to hard to dial to the right tone....At my home studio-man cave I use a Fender champ silver face 1971 with a ole Fender Baseman 60 combo solid state amp,that i took out the the amp section to cut down the cabinet added a Vintage 30,looks killer like a Fender mini stack,The Fender Champ has no pre gain so i needed to run pedals,Have tried many with lots of great sounds n tones that i love from Tube amps.But now that ole Metal Zone has found it's way back in my home setup.Plus i like to create my own stuff so...this was right in my wheel house.....Your new Subscriber, Happy Guitar Pick'in!!!
The more I learn about the Metal Zone the more I realize us guitarists are used to operating from ignorance. Most of us are guilty of it though it makes life harder than it has to be to believe this pedal should sound like a million bucks right out of the box. This pedal is still one of THE most versatile and ahead of its time devices at our disposal. In its stock form it can be used to do everything from true clean jazz lead boost, to djenty metal, but it's a learning curve. Go to the Boss website and check out the manual - essentially, most mods just lower the gain, though that can be done... with the turn of a knob. Also, getting an idea of the mid sweep: it's sensitive and can even a bit left or right can make things sound weird. It takes time to dial in tones that are useable to the player, though for 30 dollars in a used case at GC, this thing is unbeatable. Also, I must say: both of mine are modded by Johnny at Alchemy Audio. He and his wife do amazing mod work and I love installing better parts from a quality standpoint. That said, just reading the manual can get you the sounds you need: I promise.
@@davewilliams2405 Respectfully, I don't agree. I think out of the box it "can" sound harsh at bedroom levels but not on stage. I had Johnny at Alchemy Audio mod mine and they're awesome. The mods help but, essentially, they're just taking a hair off the distortion. All a person has to do is turn the distortion "down". I've shown people how to do it and had people shake their head in disbelieve. Check out the Direct Recording videos that show you how to get Vai, Satch tones by. matching the Metal Zone with an American Sound Joyo pedal. I'm telling you, the pedal, even stock, just needs a precision hand.
I came up playing in the 80s and used an MT2 quote a bit. I got great sound out of it. To be honest, it made me question myself when people bashed that pedal, but no one bashed it until they saw it lol.
Awesome man, thank you so much for sharing this tip!! :) I did the mod and it worked like a charm, now my MT-2 is interesting again, after years of abandonment :) You rock!
Bro, you are a genius!!! Took me the better part of a day to build up the COURAGE to do this (I've owned the pedal since the 90's and have Never fully committed to the sound). Took Less than 5 minutes (I still need to replace the LED) and now I have a sort of Fuzz sound!! TRULY AMAZING, thanks.
Great mod and demo. I love the ninja movement sounds and the way the MT2 pedal is carried like a first person shooter weapon! I guess a Waza Craft mod needs to be done by a deadly ninja. :)
Nice and simple. The best mods! It's sounds like a low pass filter cap was removed. Maybe just replace with different value cap. I liked your led swap awesome man! Rock on!
I just tried this mod today. Wow, what a difference! Now it's much more usable and it maintains the great tone shaping EQ section. Wish I had known about this mod years ago, like in the 90's right after I bought it, LOL!
I changed the diode clipping to asymmetric and increased the value of the cap for the bright eq control as well back in the days when I had one of those. The distortion becomes less waspy and more chunky and the bright control becomes usable.
No distortion pedal is meant to be used in the loop, if you have the manual for the MT2 you'll see it plugged in front of the amp. That's a sort of workaround some people figured out to get a different sound but I find it really impractical, specially if you use more pedals or drive from the amp. I have a Marshall DSL and bypassing an all tube preamp and using a cheap transistor pedal to replace it sounds like a really bad deal to me but hey, if it works for you there's nothing wrong with it!!
The amount of signal going to the tubes is regulated by the level pot of the pedal (wich can go all the way down to zero) so you can run your preamp tubes as cool as you want. I think it sound that way because it was born in 90's with Pantera being THE metal band of the moment and they tried to replicate that sound in one box. The thing is that Dimebag playing that sound blow your mind in pure awesomeness and a teenager with a shitty amp, like me at that moment, is and absolute ear bleeding torture haha
@@jensenparker5504 You can add one :D Literally few weeks ago i have added fx loop to my small 15W Fender combo. It was easier than i thought. But yea...without specific instructions found on some spanish-speaking forum i wouldn't undertake this upgrade, at least alone. Second thing is that my combo passed its warranty period years ago so i was free to interfere into PCB layout. So still not all amps could have an fx loop.
Dude, really great idea for testing it with adding video how you playing, then add a track in bg and just video of using effects eq to dial it like while live-playing. People should test effects like you did here instead of just one sound/chord without looper. Subbed :)
Glad you liked it! Maybe it's a little more recording and editing work but a think it's clearer that strumming a chord, tweak settings, strum another chord, tweak settings again, etc. Thanks!!
Excellent mod. Thanks ! Never liked half cocked wah sound of MT-2. I tried removing other post distortion gyrator capacitors C20 C24 but like yourself settled on only C35 pre distortion gyrator cap removal. I play an SSS Am standard strat.
That's great! Its worth trying, in the worst case if you don't like it you can resolder the cap and go back to stock. Please don't forget to sub, I have some other cool tutorials in the making!
I did the mod this morning and I got so excited, I removed C25 instead of C35. Closed it and tested it. Sounded better than the stock MT. But when I rewatched your video and it was C35, so I soldered C25 back and removed C35. My question is, what's the C25 for? LOL
Haha luckily you desolder instead of cutting! C35 is in a mid boost circuit BEFORE the distortion happens so it affects the gain and distortion characteristics. The other two are each one in a low and high boost circuit AFTER the distortion (now I don't remember wich cap is high or low, is in the video) so the effect is more subtle and gives a final shaping to the tone. In this precise moment I'm editing a follow up video about adding a switch to turn the mod on/off, please subscribe and tap the bell icon to get notified when its released!
My experience: I ran the mod exactly like this great movie shows. It's a bit hard to hear what the difference would be in my own setup. It didn't work for me. I have undone the mod. The blue LED does indeed look very spectacular, but it is so bright that you can't see where the buttons are :-) To put a resistor in between was going too far for me. This pedal is filthy in original design. That's what I think it should be. The modification does indeed provide nuance, but I have enough other pedals for that effect. Great movie, easy to do (if you know what you're doing) but it just didn't work for me. I find the MT-2 original nice, dirty and risky to work with. Thank you for the video which gave me confidence to get started.
Well, that´s pretty easy to do. Sounds much better than before. Thank you:) By the way, I like your funny Video Style and yes, what a lovely Dog, ........nice !!!
The Gibson SG Standard might be the best rock guitar of all time. The tones it puts out are amazing. it always seems to be right in the sweet spot. I LOVE the 490T and 490R pickup set as well. I think they might be the most underrated pickups that Gibosn uses in their guitars.
Hi, thanks for the mod (remove C35)! To my ears it retains the mighty MT2 high gain sound, but without the strange wha-like mid hump. For me the beez in the treble were never a problem taste wise. I am not a metal head so this was never my main sound, but my hardest distortion for solo or some hard hitting power chords. For that some beez is not a bad thing, the treble for me is controllable enough with the stock eq. However, a lot of it is also in the pedal- amp interaction. The old stock MT2 sounds killer over my clean Vox AC120 (a vintage twin style tube amp), somehow it likes this mid hump (I'll get another stock one for that in case I ever have to play a stadium;-p). But for my smaller amps (that break up more easily) the mod makes the MT2 way more useable. Anyway thanks!
0:15 That's where you messed up. The metal zone doesnt need modification if you use it in an actual Effects Return for a solid state amp. It will always sound bad when you plug it directly into the input of an amp. Go watch Ola Englund's video on the metal zone, and then you wont have to ruin your metal zone by doing this to it. Edit: I do, however love the blue light and will probably throw a green one in mine. Still an awesome video! Subscribed!
All of us have watched Ola's video and is awesome as almost everything he does and off course I also tried it but the loop thing is more like a fun experiment to do in your bedroom than something with a real world application. He is bypassing an all tube preamp on an expensive Satan amp and replacing it with a cheap transistor pedal...that's something I really don't want to do every day. Is 100 times more practical to mod the pedal and throw it on the board to use it just like any other distortion. Having said that I you prefer the loop thing that's absolutely fine! Nothing wrong with it. I prefer the tubes of my Marshall as a preamp. I'm glad you liked the video and a lot of thanks for subbing!!!!
@@InspiringTracks Yeah that's true, everyone has their own preferences! Thanks to you, I opened up my Metal Zone and found out it's a Keeley mod!! I only spent 50 bucks for it used and I'm seeing Keeley modded metal zones go for over 200 bucks!
Cool work, man! And I'm having the same crazy love for changing the LED into blue ones. More than that, I feel a little bit small about the 3mm LED on my BOSS SD-1. I will drill the hole into a 5mm one. Hahaha!
I have one of the EARLY Keeley Metal Zone mods. It has a bizarre 3-way toggle below the “dist” knob that looks like he salvaged it from an old Soviet T-34 tank. Sent him some pics and he confirmed that “that sure looks like one of the first ones from maybe ‘01-early ‘02?” It does one thing and it does it exceedingly well. It can turn a decent clean amp into a fucking flame thrower. Makes my silver face Twin sound like an old two channel Dual Rec. The old Mods turn up on Reverb every now and then. All of the old Keeley stuff (that he laid hands on) is just different. Exceptional and different.
Is there any room to drill out for a mini toggle switch? If so it seems you could desolder one leg of the capacitor and run a jumper wire between the desoldered leg and the board with an inline switch. That way you could switch between original and modded modes. Does it seem feasible?
@@InspiringTracks I was thinking this too. It might be a good idea to do a video on how to mod a pedal with switches to turn off certain controls in a pedal. ie those capacitors.
I like that the before and after were compared in the video, but I wish they were using similar settings when you bounced back and forth between the two.
hey i just got a Boss Metal zone and did this mod and i am super happy! it freakin works and the pedal is really versatile now. its like a wide range distortion pedal with a very powerful 3 band EQ, its like a 2 in one pedal
Hey, i'm sorry but i open one of this pedal and i notice that the capacitor you removed its not the c35 but the c34, the position you sinalized with pen it's the c34, or i'm crazy? because i compared with mine. PLEASE I NEED HELP !!
Maybe is a different board revision, some others commented something similar. Dont worry, remove the one labeled on your pedal as C35, is that cap without any doubts
I bought the MT-2W awhile back and I never even use the "Custom" settings. Hell, I don't even touch the mids and I enjoy the way it sounds. Kind of wish I just bought the MT-2 40th instead.
No distortion pedal is meant to be used in the loop, if you have the manual for the MT2 you'll see it plugged in front of the amp. That's a sort of workaround some people figured out to get a different sound but I find it really impractical, specially if you use more pedals or drive from the amp. Having said that if you like how it sounds in the loop thats absolutely fine!
Everybody saw that video haha. It's a sort of workaround, the pedal isnt designed to be used that way, check the manual. I have a Marshall DSL and bypassing an all tube preamp and using a cheap transistor pedal to replace it sounds like a really bad deal to me but, as I said before, if it works for you there's nothing wrong with it!
It may not have been intentional that it was "designed" to be used in an FX Return or clean power amp. A lot of cheap '90s distortion pedals were like that, they made a preamp in a box with no thought put into the fact that you are piling up two tone stacks together which usually results in fizzy can of bees unless the pedal is designed to compensate for that. You can try this, for example, with AMT preamp pedals. Put one into the front and it sounds horrible, just like metalzone.
I like the original because the band Nails is really keen on using it to get their buzzsaw guitar tone, as well as said tone being the hallmark of Swedish Death Metal. However, this mod I think has brought the Metal Zone into the modern era.
I agree it has a more modern sound after the mod. And I'm by no means an expert in the genre but I've heard that the famous swedish chainsaw sound came from the boss hyper metal and not the metal zone but I can be totally wrong
I think the Metal Zone gets trashed because people don't know how to dial in tone period. Have you ever gone and seen a cover band? Anyway all these things are just tools. The Metal zone I can make sound great in stock form right in front of a Fender Clean amp. I 'll admit dialing in tone is a art form and is not easy. It takes years of experience and even then it's still difficult. Patience is what comes to mind. Tone is also personal so we don't all have to agree.I don't own one anymore but after watching this video I kinda want to pick up a used one and try this mod out. It's a different approach on its sound. The Waza version I have not tried but now I also would like to . I own several Waza pedals and they are all incredible organic sounding pedals. The Blues Driver is crazy good as well as the best in the business to me Analog Chorus. Then there is the Analog Delay that is a step above the rest. I love that pedal. Thanks for the video this looks fun.
Thanks Daniel, I'm glad you liked the video! I also like the stock pedal but it has an almost coked wah mid boost present all the time that I find pretty annoying and this mod gets rid of that. IDK how close it is to a real Waza, circuit wise there's a lot more going on on the real deal and I thinks it must sound better but it also costs significantly more too. Oh and I agree, the waza blues driver and chorus are killer!
Awesome! I just ordered one. I'm gonna cut a leg on the cap and solder a couple wires to each cut end, attach them to a mini toggle, drill a hole somewhere and install toggle...bam on/off Waza Craft.
Thanks Robert! I love it too, its really easy to make jokes about it but there's a reason because Boss have produced millions. And with a few tweaks it can be totally awesome. Cheers!
Great Video. Great mod. Not only did it improve control over my metal zone, when I roll the guitar volume back a tad and you have a DS 1 with a better EQ. Thanks
Absolutely! And you'll get the 2 modes just like the real waza. There's room for a mini switch at the sides of the led. Maybe I'll make a short tutorial about it, it should be a pretty easy mod
@@paulandrews331 why buy a pedal when you have one that just needs to be modified. While I believe in capitolism, I also believe in saving money and not wasting it for shire wastefulness.
ChaosCityForever it was kind of a joke, the average person like myself isn't gonna be able to do this so instead of trying and fkng it up I would just buy the waza and be done with it
Having removed the C35, my metal zone started to sound dirty like Marshall Jackhamer. So I lowered the C35's nominal value by 4.7nf. Now the MT2 sound has become less nasal but with the same density of sound
I'm kind of confused. You said "remove C35". But on the video you're actually marking on "C34" and removed "C34". I've checked my mt-2 board. It is "C34" you removed. Which one is correct? C34 or C35?
Remove C35, the one marked with the yellow circle. Removing C34 has a way more dramatic effect turning the pedal into almost an overdrive (a horrible overdrive) but is also super easy to revert so you can try you like it
Ahh me pasé toda la cuarentena con tus backing tracks y me enteré que eras de acá hace poco por los reels del Rotary miniatura. Groso! @@InspiringTracks
Wow really cool. I bought an mt-2 as a joke. Now it's a usable things haha. Thanks. I just walked downstairs and yep. 5 min later it's like a high gain overdrive. So in new great on the clean channel of my triple rectifier too.
Absolutely! Some other comment asked about the factibility of adding a switch to turn the mod off/on like in the real Waza, wich I think is totally doable. Right now I'm more into setting up properly my guitars and doing some tutorials about it, when I'm done I'll look into the switch/different caps thing. Cheers!!
@@InspiringTracks I'm looking into getting a Metal Zone Waza OR a Fender Pugilist. Any experience with either, or advice for a beginner in this field? Great video! Thanks!
Changing the clipping diodes is also a great mod to do! For this video I wanted to keep the mod as simple as possible for people with basic tools and knowledge but is also worth trying a diode swap. Cheers!
I been using one since the mid 90s and rule #1 was never have the gain past noon. We used to get great tones out of it. #2 eq carefuly or else its crap.
Thankyou VERY VERY much for the tutoria! I do the mod, and now my zone is like a complete different beast, sounding SO much better so thanx again & greetings from finland!!! :D :D :D
Maybe you got lucky and you amp plays nice with the MT2. In my all tube Marshall DSL that nasal wah like sound was present all the time and I find it pretty annoying. I really like the overall sound of the pedal but that little thing was driving me crazy. Indeed removing this mid boost is the only mod performed in this video, I didn't find the need to perform more involved mods like the Diezel, etc. Check the electricdruid link in the description if you want, there is an awesome analysis of the MT2 circuit and the insane pre distortion mid boost gyrator filter with something like 20db or more of gain. Cheers!!
Exactly, just remove the cap and leave the space empty, this disables the part of the circuit behind it. If you later want to undo the mod, just solder the cap back in it's place
Subscribed! The work you put in to planning and editing this video is ridiculous. Right up my alley, but it would be cool to hear the before as well as the after. Maybe it'll be in the sister video about the switch? And maybe toggling those other cap mods you mentioned?
Thanks a lot for subbing, and in fact it took a lot of planning/filming/editing work to make this video. Thanks for appreciating it! By popular request a follow up about adding a switch is definitely coming soon. Tap the bell icon to get notified! Cheers!
Just did this mod last night. I used to use one back in the 90's, and liked the sweet spot, but it lacked some on good bottom tones. After the mod, the bottom got a good deal fatter, and the whole pedal was overall better in tone. Not so shrill anymore. To give it a good testing, I ran it side by side with a Friedman OD-BE through a Boogie. You could pretty much get the Metal Zone to sound like a slightly lesser cousin. Great mod. Makes the Metal Zone a realistic choice. Thanks.
That's great! Is nice to see it tested in a great amp and put against some some other nice pedals. I agree with your thoughts, the mod doesn't take away the character of the pedal but it makes it more useable and a valid alternative to other pedals. Cheers!!!
I used a Metal Zone for nearly 10 years, ages ago. It sounded decent through my JCM800, but was always not quite as thick as I wanted to get. The one I just modded sounds much better through a good tube amp. I still haven't tried it out through a solid state amp yet, but I'm sure it will sound better through one of those also.
I noticed that you’re showing the removal one or possible 2-3 caps depending on what one desired tone-wise. I’m supposing that these caps are in parallel with a resistor as part of an RC network? Otherwise would not removing the cap break the circuit if no shunt is installed to bridge where the cap(s) was previously in the circuit?
Each one is part of his own gyrator circuit wich boost highs, mids and lows at different stages of the distortion chain. You can find an awesome and detailed analysis of the whole circuit in the link I posted in the description and see exactly wich function performs each cap
Inspiring tracks -Very good sir. I don’t think I’ve heard of the term “Gyrator Circuit” before. I’ll definitely check out the info you’ve so kindly linked. Thank you.
still sound thin, but better now that you tamed the high end a bit the main problem with that pedal has allways been its poor frequensyrange (even in fx return) i've tried they actually did a lot better job with the metalcore pedal BOSS ML-2 and for you Ola E fans out there.. check the video where he puts the ML-2 in guitarinput on hes mesa and you will probably forget that metalzone and all its mods pretty fast ;p
I prefer it in the front too. The effects loop thing is really dependent. Basically the pedal has an insanely sensitive EQ and can do a tonne of different tones if people spend tine with it.
@@kyleperkins2596 Why Seymour Duncans? There are pickups a quarter of the price that sound as good or better (Use your ears and listen... and NOT go by hype and bullshit!) I replaced a pair of JB and Jazz with Irongear pickups. A 'Blues Driver' neck position and a 'Dirty Torque' bridge position. Transformed my Schecter C1 Classic. £30 or $40 each. Try them, there good! Wire them in with a push pull switch with wiring for parallel/series for each pickup ditch the tone control, go to a 3 way not 5 way switch and have 2 volume pots instead. your tone variations will expand and have infinite blending variations, finally fit the dimarzio treble bleed components to each pot to stop the tone getting muffled when you lower the volume...
Seymour's are great pickup's there Pearly Gate's sound amazing,But my choice are Di Marizo super distortion's are my go to's...MY gig'in rig JCM 800 n 1960a cab and my stock 1972 Les Paul standard,for my bluesy stuff...But then when i get nasty i grab my 1985 SG loaded with Di Marizo's super dist. The equipment that was the go to standard of the day,I use and play with a lot of stuff,My Father was shop foreman and designer for Micro-Frets guitars,Bill Lawrence also worked there, my dad and him came up with many creative pickup designes, n held many pations, Shhhhh, but i still have many prototypes they were trying to create,and a pickup winder to explore with the art of custom designer creations. Iv'e tore many pickup's apart counted the winds and gage of wire and experimented in changes,some good some not so....I cruze RUclips all the time check'in out stuff like i found here.
@@kyleperkins2596 EMG'S.... Im not going to go there,but the noisey need'in a Noise Gate J--k Iv'e ever had the pleasure to posses.To each his or her own,but not for me....let the bashing begin......I'm out.....
Several of you requested for a way to put a switch to turn this mod on-off and go back to standard at any time, so I made a follow up video with the proccess of adding that switch detailed step by step. You can check it out here! ruclips.net/video/qpiwOw2g3i0/видео.html Hope you like it!!!!
You are an angel
Great thanl you
what is the tool you use to punch out the already soldered parts?
I don't completely understand. If you mean to desolder the components from the pcb, I use a solder sucker. As the name says it's like a small pump that sucks the tin when its melted so you can take the components. Hope it helps!
@@InspiringTracks oh ok! Yes that's what I meant! It looks like it's punching a little hole :P thank you for the quick response!
I've been using the Metal Zone since 1993. I had no idea it was "controversial". Never had an issue with it.
Try it in your fx loop if you got a tube amp
@@jonathanfarmer5458 be more specific, use it as a preamp to you amps power amp.
No distortion pedal is meant to be used in the loop, if you have the manual for the MT2 you'll see it plugged in front of the amp. That's a sort of workaround some people figured out to get a different sound but I find it really impractical, specially if you use more pedals or drive from the amp. I have a Marshall DSL and bypassing an all tube preamp and using a cheap transistor pedal to replace it sounds like a really bad deal to me but hey, if it works for you there's nothing wrong with it!!
Inspiring tracks it’s just something new to try. I like it in the loop of by valveking as a different distortion. The front of my solid state marshall and I don’t use it in my engl fireball.
@@Hypnotica420x HAHA right. I had one for the longest time. I typically used it in front of the amp on a clean channel. Then found the tone I liked and left it alone for like 10 years. Then apparently its been garbage this whole time. While Id rather play than nit pick gear all day.
Just dis this mod the other night. Watched your video amd followed the steps. It gave my METAL zone a completely different sound. I was finally able to dial in some sweet low end swoops amd crunch. Thank you for the inspiration!!
Wow, thanks a lot! I'm glad this video served you as inspiration and keep rocking your "new" MT2!!
I subbed twice! Lol. Awesome presentation, do more of these mods please
Haha, Thanks!!! I'm touching different guitar related topics like setups and recording to see what the people likes to watch, but I'll definetly go back to do some pedal videos in the future. Thanks again!!
@@InspiringTracks about c24/c20 caps... which one is boosting the highs and which one is boosting the lows? Basically, if I want to make it darker, which would I cut out?
C24 (the clear film cap) is in charge of the high boost and C20 (the blue tantalum one) of the lows. If you want to make it darker take C24. I don't recommend cutting it just in case you don't like the results, it makes going back to stock much more difficult
I saw this a few years ago, thought about doing it, but I've had the pedal for almost two decades and couldn't bring myself to do it. However, today I stumbled across your video and did it. The sounds is dramatically different and a lot more usable for me now. Maybe in a few years I'll do the conversion that makes it switchable.
Thanks for taking the time to make this!
I have done this mod on several MT-2 pedals and every time the results are amazing! It's not the same as a Waza, but in my opinion it's better. I actually sold my Waza MT-2 and kept my modded pedal. Thank you!
After removing the C35 my metal zone started sounding dirty like Marshall Jackhamer.Although this may be what my maple guitar sounds like
This mod really works! I had an old Metal Zone sitting around unused from when I was in high school in the 90s. I never really did much with it for the past 20 years. I played it a bit before doing the mod, just to re-acquaint myself with the sound, and yeah, it's not something I'd use any more. The difference after the mod was immediate. I didn't really find any "bad" sounds as I tweaked the dials, everything's much more usable, whereas un-modded it was very easy to dial into some shitty tones. I might actually consider putting this on my pedal board, now!
This mod truly is addition by subtraction!
Мне не помогло. Звук меняется совсем немного - меньше слышно паразитные токи, поэтому поставил конденсатор на свое место
Возможно дело в моем усилителе и вместе с педалью все звучит гармонично
Done! Works great for me, less fizzy sounding, more useable and controlable heavy distortion ! Thanx for the great video!
That's great! I'm glad you liked it!
The subscribe placard in the pedal body lol. Awesome. Wow, so simple. . . adding fresh solder like that BEFORE grabbing the sucker. Makes it so much easier. Great upload!
compare it it to a real wazacraft model
thankx!!! So much for the tip...my Metal Zone has been collect'in dust for years,Was always to hard to dial to the right tone....At my home studio-man cave I use a Fender champ silver face 1971 with a ole Fender Baseman 60 combo solid state amp,that i took out the the amp section to cut down the cabinet added a Vintage 30,looks killer like a Fender mini stack,The Fender Champ has no pre gain so i needed to run pedals,Have tried many with lots of great sounds n tones that i love from Tube amps.But now that ole Metal Zone has found it's way back in my home setup.Plus i like to create my own stuff so...this was right in my wheel house.....Your new Subscriber, Happy Guitar Pick'in!!!
That's great! I'm glad now you can enjoy your metal zone, and that champ must sound great! Thanks a lot for subbing. Cheers!!
Love the intro and also that you added before and after sound samples. Subbed. Great job!
Thanks for your support, I really appreciate it!!!!
The more I learn about the Metal Zone the more I realize us guitarists are used to operating from ignorance. Most of us are guilty of it though it makes life harder than it has to be to believe this pedal should sound like a million bucks right out of the box. This pedal is still one of THE most versatile and ahead of its time devices at our disposal. In its stock form it can be used to do everything from true clean jazz lead boost, to djenty metal, but it's a learning curve. Go to the Boss website and check out the manual - essentially, most mods just lower the gain, though that can be done... with the turn of a knob. Also, getting an idea of the mid sweep: it's sensitive and can even a bit left or right can make things sound weird. It takes time to dial in tones that are useable to the player, though for 30 dollars in a used case at GC, this thing is unbeatable. Also, I must say: both of mine are modded by Johnny at Alchemy Audio. He and his wife do amazing mod work and I love installing better parts from a quality standpoint. That said, just reading the manual can get you the sounds you need: I promise.
Out of the box is garbage. After this mod it sounds waaaay beter
@@davewilliams2405 Respectfully, I don't agree. I think out of the box it "can" sound harsh at bedroom levels but not on stage. I had Johnny at Alchemy Audio mod mine and they're awesome. The mods help but, essentially, they're just taking a hair off the distortion. All a person has to do is turn the distortion "down". I've shown people how to do it and had people shake their head in disbelieve.
Check out the Direct Recording videos that show you how to get Vai, Satch tones by. matching the Metal Zone with an American Sound Joyo pedal. I'm telling you, the pedal, even stock, just needs a precision hand.
I came up playing in the 80s and used an MT2 quote a bit. I got great sound out of it. To be honest, it made me question myself when people bashed that pedal, but no one bashed it until they saw it lol.
The mt2 came out in 91
First time I subscribed for creativity alone haha. Some well placed masking tape sir.
Haha thanks a lot! I'm glad you've found it funny
same here
Awesome man, thank you so much for sharing this tip!! :) I did the mod and it worked like a charm, now my MT-2 is interesting again, after years of abandonment :) You rock!
That's great! I'm glad you're having fun with your metal zone again. Cheers!!
Bro, you are a genius!!! Took me the better part of a day to build up the COURAGE to do this (I've owned the pedal since the 90's and have Never fully committed to the sound). Took Less than 5 minutes (I still need to replace the LED) and now I have a sort of Fuzz sound!! TRULY AMAZING, thanks.
Great mod and demo. I love the ninja movement sounds and the way the MT2 pedal is carried like a first person shooter weapon! I guess a Waza Craft mod needs to be done by a deadly ninja. :)
Haha thanks. I wanted to make something funny and different from the other gazillion mod videos out there. I'm glad you liked it!
Nice and simple. The best mods! It's sounds like a low pass filter cap was removed. Maybe just replace with different value cap. I liked your led swap awesome man! Rock on!
Thanks! I'm glad you liked it!
Lmao I was so skeptical but the second I played my first chords with this mod I just sat in my room looking at my shity amp amazed at the sound.
Haha really awesome to hear that. I'm glad you liked the sound of the mod!
Same.
awesome playing and sound as well, bravo Sir!
Thanks!!!
I loved the sound effects when grabbing the pedal, plugging it in/unplugging it. Great vid, and great editing
Thanks! I'm glad you liked it!!!
I just tried this mod today. Wow, what a difference! Now it's much more usable and it maintains the great tone shaping EQ section. Wish I had known about this mod years ago, like in the 90's right after I bought it, LOL!
great mod. and the subscribe insert made me laugh so loud I had to watch it again
AND SUBSCRIBE :)
Haha great, mission accomplished! I'm glad you liked the video and thanks for your support! I really appreciate it!
I subscribed at that moment😂😂😂
Haha great, thanks!!!
Me too haha
I changed the diode clipping to asymmetric and increased the value of the cap for the bright eq control as well back in the days when I had one of those. The distortion becomes less waspy and more chunky and the bright control becomes usable.
Would you mind telling us which cap is the one for the high control?
My MT-2 is now GREAT, and it took about 5 minutes- counting the 40w warmup of the Weller. Thanks so much!!!
that was the coolest subscribe trick i ever saw . you have developed an editing style , i love that ! so cool pal . all the best w. the channel !
Haha thanks! I'm glad you liked the channel and thanks a lot for the good wishes!!!
Or you can just plug it in the fx return loop of your amp...
Right! With some screamer as a boost sounds killer.
not all amps have an fx loop
No distortion pedal is meant to be used in the loop, if you have the manual for the MT2 you'll see it plugged in front of the amp. That's a sort of workaround some people figured out to get a different sound but I find it really impractical, specially if you use more pedals or drive from the amp. I have a Marshall DSL and bypassing an all tube preamp and using a cheap transistor pedal to replace it sounds like a really bad deal to me but hey, if it works for you there's nothing wrong with it!!
The amount of signal going to the tubes is regulated by the level pot of the pedal (wich can go all the way down to zero) so you can run your preamp tubes as cool as you want. I think it sound that way because it was born in 90's with Pantera being THE metal band of the moment and they tried to replicate that sound in one box. The thing is that Dimebag playing that sound blow your mind in pure awesomeness and a teenager with a shitty amp, like me at that moment, is and absolute ear bleeding torture haha
@@jensenparker5504 You can add one :D Literally few weeks ago i have added fx loop to my small 15W Fender combo. It was easier than i thought. But yea...without specific instructions found on some spanish-speaking forum i wouldn't undertake this upgrade, at least alone. Second thing is that my combo passed its warranty period years ago so i was free to interfere into PCB layout. So still not all amps could have an fx loop.
Dude, really great idea for testing it with adding video how you playing, then add a track in bg and just video of using effects eq to dial it like while live-playing. People should test effects like you did here instead of just one sound/chord without looper. Subbed :)
Glad you liked it! Maybe it's a little more recording and editing work but a think it's clearer that strumming a chord, tweak settings, strum another chord, tweak settings again, etc. Thanks!!
Wow. So simple. Great contribution!!! It sounded great and is super simple.
Your one hell of a player on top of it all.
Thanks !!!
Thanks Bryan!
Excellent mod. Thanks ! Never liked half cocked wah sound of MT-2. I tried removing other post distortion gyrator capacitors C20 C24 but like yourself settled on only C35 pre distortion gyrator cap removal. I play an SSS Am standard strat.
That's great, I'm glad you liked the mod, I think it makes the pedal play a lot more nicely with single coils
The first test of this almost sounded like a HM2! DEFINITELY will try this! Also I'm going to sub lol
Thanks Julián! I really appreciate your support!!! Do it, you won't regret it!
So happy with this post. I still have my Metal Zone, inside the box, not using it and looks brand new. I gotta try this.
That's great! Its worth trying, in the worst case if you don't like it you can resolder the cap and go back to stock. Please don't forget to sub, I have some other cool tutorials in the making!
Subscribed! 🤘🏽😎
Thanks for your support Garry!!!
I did the mod this morning and I got so excited, I removed C25 instead of C35. Closed it and tested it. Sounded better than the stock MT. But when I rewatched your video and it was C35, so I soldered C25 back and removed C35. My question is, what's the C25 for? LOL
Haha luckily you desolder instead of cutting! C35 is in a mid boost circuit BEFORE the distortion happens so it affects the gain and distortion characteristics. The other two are each one in a low and high boost circuit AFTER the distortion (now I don't remember wich cap is high or low, is in the video) so the effect is more subtle and gives a final shaping to the tone. In this precise moment I'm editing a follow up video about adding a switch to turn the mod on/off, please subscribe and tap the bell icon to get notified when its released!
Came here looking for modded MT2 samples, subscribed cause of that poisonous groove. Killer tracks bro!!
Thanks Gabriel! I'm glad you liked the tracks!
That settles it. I need someone to turn my knobs while I’m playing. THAT’S The game changer.
That will be super cool!
You should be nominated for a nobel prize for this wizardry!👍
Haha thanks!!!!
My experience: I ran the mod exactly like this great movie shows. It's a bit hard to hear what the difference would be in my own setup. It didn't work for me. I have undone the mod. The blue LED does indeed look very spectacular, but it is so bright that you can't see where the buttons are :-) To put a resistor in between was going too far for me. This pedal is filthy in original design. That's what I think it should be. The modification does indeed provide nuance, but I have enough other pedals for that effect. Great movie, easy to do (if you know what you're doing) but it just didn't work for me. I find the MT-2 original nice, dirty and risky to work with. Thank you for the video which gave me confidence to get started.
OMFG, I just laughed out loud when you played a chord!!! Hahaha! The bees!! That was great! very entertaining and funny!! : )
Haha thanks! I'm glad you had fun watching it. I hope the bees are tamed a little with the mod!
Well, that´s pretty easy to do. Sounds much better than before. Thank you:)
By the way, I like your funny Video Style and yes, what a lovely Dog, ........nice !!!
Thanks! Glad you liked it!
The Gibson SG Standard might be the best rock guitar of all time. The tones it puts out are amazing. it always seems to be right in the sweet spot. I LOVE the 490T and 490R pickup set as well. I think they might be the most underrated pickups that Gibosn uses in their guitars.
Yeah, I really love my SG
Hi, thanks for the mod (remove C35)! To my ears it retains the mighty MT2 high gain sound, but without the strange wha-like mid hump. For me the beez in the treble were never a problem taste wise. I am not a metal head so this was never my main sound, but my hardest distortion for solo or some hard hitting power chords. For that some beez is not a bad thing, the treble for me is controllable enough with the stock eq. However, a lot of it is also in the pedal- amp interaction. The old stock MT2 sounds killer over my clean Vox AC120 (a vintage twin style tube amp), somehow it likes this mid hump (I'll get another stock one for that in case I ever have to play a stadium;-p). But for my smaller amps (that break up more easily) the mod makes the MT2 way more useable.
Anyway thanks!
0:15 That's where you messed up. The metal zone doesnt need modification if you use it in an actual Effects Return for a solid state amp. It will always sound bad when you plug it directly into the input of an amp. Go watch Ola Englund's video on the metal zone, and then you wont have to ruin your metal zone by doing this to it.
Edit: I do, however love the blue light and will probably throw a green one in mine. Still an awesome video! Subscribed!
All of us have watched Ola's video and is awesome as almost everything he does and off course I also tried it but the loop thing is more like a fun experiment to do in your bedroom than something with a real world application. He is bypassing an all tube preamp on an expensive Satan amp and replacing it with a cheap transistor pedal...that's something I really don't want to do every day. Is 100 times more practical to mod the pedal and throw it on the board to use it just like any other distortion. Having said that I you prefer the loop thing that's absolutely fine! Nothing wrong with it. I prefer the tubes of my Marshall as a preamp. I'm glad you liked the video and a lot of thanks for subbing!!!!
@@InspiringTracks Yeah that's true, everyone has their own preferences! Thanks to you, I opened up my Metal Zone and found out it's a Keeley mod!! I only spent 50 bucks for it used and I'm seeing Keeley modded metal zones go for over 200 bucks!
Cool work, man! And I'm having the same crazy love for changing the LED into blue ones. More than that, I feel a little bit small about the 3mm LED on my BOSS SD-1. I will drill the hole into a 5mm one. Hahaha!
WOW 😮 that was REALLY COOL 🙏🏼🙏🏼
Thank you for sharing your knowledge.
I'm glad you liked it!
I have one of the EARLY Keeley Metal Zone mods. It has a bizarre 3-way toggle below the “dist” knob that looks like he salvaged it from an old Soviet T-34 tank. Sent him some pics and he confirmed that “that sure looks like one of the first ones from maybe ‘01-early ‘02?”
It does one thing and it does it exceedingly well. It can turn a decent clean amp into a fucking flame thrower. Makes my silver face Twin sound like an old two channel Dual Rec. The old Mods turn up on Reverb every now and then. All of the old Keeley stuff (that he laid hands on) is just different. Exceptional and different.
Keeley stuff is amazing
Is there any room to drill out for a mini toggle switch? If so it seems you could desolder one leg of the capacitor and run a jumper wire between the desoldered leg and the board with an inline switch. That way you could switch between original and modded modes. Does it seem feasible?
This is a great idea and totally doable! There's a little room at the sides of the led, I think you can fit a mini switch there without any problem
@@InspiringTracks I was thinking this too. It might be a good idea to do a video on how to mod a pedal with switches to turn off certain controls in a pedal. ie those capacitors.
I did remove the C35, did some EQ adjustments and the sound is much better. Thank you!
Is great to hear that, I'm glad you liked the mod. Cheers!
I like that the before and after were compared in the video, but I wish they were using similar settings when you bounced back and forth between the two.
hey i just got a Boss Metal zone and did this mod and i am super happy! it freakin works and the pedal is really versatile now. its like a wide range distortion pedal with a very powerful 3 band EQ, its like a 2 in one pedal
Man it sounds a lot better! Totally subscribed to your channel. It may be possible to add a little switch to turn the mod on/off? Cheers
Thanks a lot for your support! And yes! Indeed I'm working on a follow up video about adding a switch. Stay tuned!
Hey, i'm sorry but i open one of this pedal and i notice that the capacitor you removed its not the c35 but the c34, the position you sinalized with pen it's the c34, or i'm crazy? because i compared with mine. PLEASE I NEED HELP !!
Maybe is a different board revision, some others commented something similar. Dont worry, remove the one labeled on your pedal as C35, is that cap without any doubts
@@InspiringTracks Thanks man !
i Like the custom Waza Craft logo you created for it
Very interesting video and cool playing! :-)
Glad you liked it!
Ha! What a great blues tone. Did not see that coming!
I like to plug my metal zone in through the FX loop of my DSL20 Head, But your giving me ideas! Awesome video man
Thanks, I'm glad you liked it!
Now I can dust it off and give this a whirl
I bought the MT-2W awhile back and I never even use the "Custom" settings. Hell, I don't even touch the mids and I enjoy the way it sounds. Kind of wish I just bought the MT-2 40th instead.
Hey bro fantastic video can you do one for the Hyper Metal by Boss?
Thanks! I'll see if I can get one to do some mods
this pedal is made to work like a pre-amp so you must plug it in FX Loop
No distortion pedal is meant to be used in the loop, if you have the
manual for the MT2 you'll see it plugged in front of the amp. That's a
sort of workaround some people figured out to get a different sound but I
find it really impractical, specially if you use more pedals or
drive from the amp. Having said that if you like how it sounds in the loop thats absolutely fine!
@@InspiringTracks oh really?I saw an Ola Englund video and thats what he told :P
Everybody saw that video haha. It's a sort of workaround, the pedal isnt designed to be used that way, check the manual. I have a Marshall DSL and bypassing an all tube preamp and using a cheap transistor pedal to replace it sounds like a really bad deal to me but, as I said before, if it works for you there's nothing wrong with it!
It may not have been intentional that it was "designed" to be used in an FX Return or clean power amp. A lot of cheap '90s distortion pedals were like that, they made a preamp in a box with no thought put into the fact that you are piling up two tone stacks together which usually results in fizzy can of bees unless the pedal is designed to compensate for that. You can try this, for example, with AMT preamp pedals. Put one into the front and it sounds horrible, just like metalzone.
I like the original because the band Nails is really keen on using it to get their buzzsaw guitar tone, as well as said tone being the hallmark of Swedish Death Metal. However, this mod I think has brought the Metal Zone into the modern era.
I agree it has a more modern sound after the mod. And I'm by no means an expert in the genre but I've heard that the famous swedish chainsaw sound came from the boss hyper metal and not the metal zone but I can be totally wrong
I think the Metal Zone gets trashed because people don't know how to dial in tone period. Have you ever gone and seen a cover band? Anyway all these things are just tools. The Metal zone I can make sound great in stock form right in front of a Fender Clean amp. I 'll admit dialing in tone is a art form and is not easy. It takes years of experience and even then it's still difficult. Patience is what comes to mind. Tone is also personal so we don't all have to agree.I don't own one anymore but after watching this video I kinda want to pick up a used one and try this mod out. It's a different approach on its sound. The Waza version I have not tried but now I also would like to . I own several Waza pedals and they are all incredible organic sounding pedals. The Blues Driver is crazy good as well as the best in the business to me Analog Chorus. Then there is the Analog Delay that is a step above the rest. I love that pedal.
Thanks for the video this looks fun.
Thanks Daniel, I'm glad you liked the video! I also like the stock pedal but it has an almost coked wah mid boost present all the time that I find pretty annoying and this mod gets rid of that. IDK how close it is to a real Waza, circuit wise there's a lot more going on on the real deal and I thinks it must sound better but it also costs significantly more too. Oh and I agree, the waza blues driver and chorus are killer!
Awesome!!! I might have to get a metal zone just to try this out, thanks!!!
I'm glad you liked it!
I usually mod PCs, any suggestion how i can make the LED RGB to improve tone?
Add a diffuser for the RGB tape to shine through and put the IR receiver for the remote on the side, I think that should do it. I mod PCs too.
Awesome! I just ordered one. I'm gonna cut a leg on the cap and solder a couple wires to each cut end, attach them to a mini toggle, drill a hole somewhere and install toggle...bam on/off Waza Craft.
First, nice T-shirt, the best one... Second, excellent tutorial.
The best way to use a metal zone is to put it in the overdrive/dirty channel of your amp. Believe me it sounds better
Now I can put it back on my pedalboard. Thanks
Great video dude! I love the Metal Zone!
Thanks Robert! I love it too, its really easy to make jokes about it but there's a reason because Boss have produced millions. And with a few tweaks it can be totally awesome. Cheers!
i like how the powermetal section is from megaman :p
Great Video. Great mod. Not only did it improve control over my metal zone, when I roll the guitar volume back a tad and you have a DS 1 with a better EQ. Thanks
Put the mt2 normal in the loop of the amplifier and see the magic bro.
Not through the loop, just into the fx return.
@@monstercadaver sorry i was wrong it was on the power amp part
Wow! Man you got some all around talent I wish I had.
Thanks! Everyone has talent, it's just a matter of investing time and effort to let it out!
It is possible to have this mod on a switch? I like the before and after and don't want to buy 2 mt2s😂 a little on/off switch should work
Absolutely! And you'll get the 2 modes just like the real waza. There's room for a mini switch at the sides of the led. Maybe I'll make a short tutorial about it, it should be a pretty easy mod
I was thinking the same thing. I actually like the Metal zone sound but if I could put a switch to have the mod when I like this would be great,
or you can just buy a waza craft
@@paulandrews331 why buy a pedal when you have one that just needs to be modified. While I believe in capitolism, I also believe in saving money and not wasting it for shire wastefulness.
ChaosCityForever it was kind of a joke, the average person like myself isn't gonna be able to do this so instead of trying and fkng it up I would just buy the waza and be done with it
Having removed the C35, my metal zone started to sound dirty like Marshall Jackhamer. So I lowered the C35's nominal value by 4.7nf. Now the MT2 sound has become less nasal but with the same density of sound
I'm kind of confused. You said "remove C35". But on the video you're actually marking on "C34" and removed "C34". I've checked my mt-2 board. It is "C34" you removed. Which one is correct? C34 or C35?
Remove C35, the one marked with the yellow circle. Removing C34 has a way more dramatic effect turning the pedal into almost an overdrive (a horrible overdrive) but is also super easy to revert so you can try you like it
Inspiring tracks Oh, I see. Thank you~
You're welcome!
Awesome video! Thanks for the easy to follow instructions. I can't wait to pick up my MT2 from my brothers house so I can do this mod to it. 😀
Hi man))))) I'm tried and it's really works!!! Now I'm happy, thanks a lot!!!
Hi! Thanks to you! I'm glad you tried and liked it!
Still the best metal pedal on the market today!!! Just got my 3rd one!!!
Genial video. Gracias por la traducción!
De nada, soy de Argentina así que era mi deber jaja. Saludos!
Ahh me pasé toda la cuarentena con tus backing tracks y me enteré que eras de acá hace poco por los reels del Rotary miniatura. Groso! @@InspiringTracks
Wow really cool. I bought an mt-2 as a joke. Now it's a usable things haha. Thanks. I just walked downstairs and yep. 5 min later it's like a high gain overdrive. So in new great on the clean channel of my triple rectifier too.
Thanks, it's great to hear that! And what an awesome amp you have, I'm a little jealous haha. Cheers!
I suspect that changing C35 to a different value will of course change the tone. Have you tried swapping for a lower value cap?
I didn't try but it sounds like a great thing to experiment!
@@InspiringTracks I think that's a good idea for the next content!
Absolutely! Some other comment asked about the factibility of adding a switch to turn the mod off/on like in the real Waza, wich I think is totally doable. Right now I'm more into setting up properly my guitars and doing some tutorials about it, when I'm done I'll look into the switch/different caps thing. Cheers!!
@@InspiringTracks I'm looking into getting a Metal Zone Waza OR a Fender Pugilist. Any experience with either, or advice for a beginner in this field? Great video! Thanks!
Great video, I think it's time to give a second chance to my old Metal zone and try this mod. Thanks!
Thanks! It's so easy that its really worth trying and the results are great. Cheers!
I hope next video will be Boss sd 1 🙏🏻
I've done this mod before. I've also replaced the clipping diodes with LEDs with great results.
Changing the clipping diodes is also a great mod to do! For this video I wanted to keep the mod as simple as possible for people with basic tools and knowledge but is also worth trying a diode swap. Cheers!
Excuse me pal, wich way You did it? Is that also true that different led colours give different results?
Thanks in advance!
Ok everyone who used this pedal and enjoyed it probably cranked the gain. It would be nice if you gave us a sample of it cranked after the mod.
I been using one since the mid 90s and rule #1 was never have the gain past noon. We used to get great tones out of it. #2 eq carefuly or else its crap.
@@Albee213 excellent advice. I found less is more with this pedal. Sweeet sweet overdrives with rich tone... Miss it :( Gotta buy one now damnit.
@@Makulax less is better*, less is more is a oxymoron.
Thankyou VERY VERY much for the tutoria! I do the mod, and now my zone is like a complete different beast, sounding SO much better so thanx again & greetings from finland!!!
:D :D :D
That's awesome! I'm really glad to have helped you! Greetings from Argentina, the other side of the globe haha
Man that's great. I love it.
Thanks! I'm glad you liked it!!!
I was excited to try this mod out on mine, but upon opening it up I realized that I have a newer version that has a completely different board
It sounds worse. One of the assets of the Metal Zone is the 800Hz pre dist boost and the smooth harmonic clipping.
To me it sounds waaay better, no more annoying cocked wah like sounds
Maybe you got lucky and you amp plays nice with the MT2. In my all tube Marshall DSL that nasal wah like sound was present all the time and I find it pretty annoying. I really like the overall sound of the pedal but that little thing was driving me crazy. Indeed removing this mid boost is the only mod performed in this video, I didn't find the need to perform more involved mods like the Diezel, etc. Check the electricdruid link in the description if you want, there is an awesome analysis of the MT2 circuit and the insane pre distortion mid boost gyrator filter with something like 20db or more of gain. Cheers!!
Thanks for the tips, I really like the removal of the c35 capacitor mod 👍🏽
I'm glad you liked it!
Thanks for this. Just a question, you just removed the capacitor and didn't put a jumper?
Exactly, just remove the cap and leave the space empty, this disables the part of the circuit behind it. If you later want to undo the mod, just solder the cap back in it's place
Subscribed! The work you put in to planning and editing this video is ridiculous. Right up my alley, but it would be cool to hear the before as well as the after. Maybe it'll be in the sister video about the switch? And maybe toggling those other cap mods you mentioned?
Thanks a lot for subbing, and in fact it took a lot of planning/filming/editing work to make this video. Thanks for appreciating it! By popular request a follow up about adding a switch is definitely coming soon. Tap the bell icon to get notified! Cheers!
Can’t help but smile.
Just did this mod last night. I used to use one back in the 90's, and liked the sweet spot, but it lacked some on good bottom tones. After the mod, the bottom got a good deal fatter, and the whole pedal was overall better in tone. Not so shrill anymore. To give it a good testing, I ran it side by side with a Friedman OD-BE through a Boogie. You could pretty much get the Metal Zone to sound like a slightly lesser cousin. Great mod. Makes the Metal Zone a realistic choice. Thanks.
That's great! Is nice to see it tested in a great amp and put against some some other nice pedals. I agree with your thoughts, the mod doesn't take away the character of the pedal but it makes it more useable and a valid alternative to other pedals. Cheers!!!
I used a Metal Zone for nearly 10 years, ages ago. It sounded decent through my JCM800, but was always not quite as thick as I wanted to get. The one I just modded sounds much better through a good tube amp. I still haven't tried it out through a solid state amp yet, but I'm sure it will sound better through one of those also.
@@InspiringTracks 3
"how to cripple a legendary pedal"
Metalhead Why if it did sound better than before?
@@brunoalves3958 personally, I like the scooped sound. my ears are weird. too much mids, and it all sounds like mush, to me
Metalhead tried playing live?
@@koffieverslaafde627 yep, was complimented on my tone several times over using a behringer um300 ultra metal, basically a knock off of this pedal.
Metalhead i know the clone yeah, scooped never worked for me personally. I can barely hear myself without them
I noticed that you’re showing the removal one or possible 2-3 caps depending on what one desired tone-wise. I’m supposing that these caps are in parallel with a resistor as part of an RC network? Otherwise would not removing the cap break the circuit if no shunt is installed to bridge where the cap(s) was previously in the circuit?
Each one is part of his own gyrator circuit wich boost highs, mids and lows at different stages of the distortion chain. You can find an awesome and detailed analysis of the whole circuit in the link I posted in the description and see exactly wich function performs each cap
Inspiring tracks -Very good sir. I don’t think I’ve heard of the term “Gyrator Circuit” before. I’ll definitely check out the info you’ve so kindly linked. Thank you.
still sound thin, but better now that you tamed the high end a bit
the main problem with that pedal has allways been its poor frequensyrange (even in fx return) i've tried
they actually did a lot better job with the metalcore pedal BOSS ML-2
and for you Ola E fans out there.. check the video where he puts the ML-2 in guitarinput on hes mesa and you will probably forget that metalzone and all its mods pretty fast ;p
Just gonna be few and far between getting a mesa bro lol I wish hay. but yeah no objections to the metalcore man . all hail Ola.. Damien Australia \m/
I’m able to get a good sound out of mine. I don’t run it into the fx loop or anything. Just regular MT-2 into the input
It's a great pedal on it's own and I also like how it sounds, that's why later I added a switch to toggle between modded and standard
I prefer it in the front too. The effects loop thing is really dependent. Basically the pedal has an insanely sensitive EQ and can do a tonne of different tones if people spend tine with it.
I like that pedal just get some Seymour Duncan Pickups and Rock
Good choice!....I prefer either Seymour's or Alumitones....don't like active pickups...
@@kyleperkins2596 Why Seymour Duncans? There are pickups a quarter of the price that sound as good or better (Use your ears and listen... and NOT go by hype and bullshit!) I replaced a pair of JB and Jazz with Irongear pickups. A 'Blues Driver' neck position and a 'Dirty Torque' bridge position. Transformed my Schecter C1 Classic. £30 or $40 each. Try them, there good!
Wire them in with a push pull switch with wiring for parallel/series for each pickup ditch the tone control, go to a 3 way not 5 way switch and have 2 volume pots instead. your tone variations will expand and have infinite blending variations, finally fit the dimarzio treble bleed components to each pot to stop the tone getting muffled when you lower the volume...
Seymour's are great pickup's there Pearly Gate's sound amazing,But my choice are Di Marizo super distortion's are my go to's...MY gig'in rig JCM 800 n 1960a cab and my stock 1972 Les Paul standard,for my bluesy stuff...But then when i get nasty i grab my 1985 SG loaded with Di Marizo's super dist. The equipment that was the go to standard of the day,I use and play with a lot of stuff,My Father was shop foreman and designer for Micro-Frets guitars,Bill Lawrence also worked there, my dad and him came up with many creative pickup designes, n held many pations, Shhhhh, but i still have many prototypes they were trying to create,and a pickup winder to explore with the art of custom designer creations. Iv'e tore many pickup's apart counted the winds and gage of wire and experimented in changes,some good some not so....I cruze RUclips all the time check'in out stuff like i found here.
@@kyleperkins2596 EMG'S.... Im not going to go there,but the noisey need'in a Noise Gate J--k Iv'e ever had the pleasure to posses.To each his or her own,but not for me....let the bashing begin......I'm out.....
NO YOU ASSHOLE STOP RECOMMENDING PEOPLE TO WASTE MONEY... PICKUPS ARE NOT EQUALISERS YOU TWAT..
Hello, very good video. I would like to know if I can apply this mod in my metal area, which already has the Robert Keeley mod ? thank you so much