# Boss ML-2 Metal core is sounding too dirty



## thechef779 (Jun 8, 2011)

hey guys i got a new boss ml2 metal core pedal and i am having trouble getting the tone right. i am playing on a 15 watt line 6 spider 3 and im thinking that maybe the pedal just has too much power for that little amp because it sounds like im about to blow my speaker even though the volume is on 1. Anybody know why this might be? o yea and im playing with a 6 stringer damien elite


----------



## JamesM (Jun 8, 2011)

Budget gear is the issue mate... Very little could get that rig sounding good. Gotta live with it until you can save up for better stuff!


----------



## thechef779 (Jun 8, 2011)

do you mean that the amp is the problem? cuz its wattage is too low??


----------



## JamesM (Jun 8, 2011)

No, there are very good sounding low wattage amps. It just isn't a good amp! 

But yes, I'd say the amp is the main problem. That and I personally find the ML-2 to be a giant metal bag of dicks.


----------



## yellowv (Jun 8, 2011)

The amp and pedal both suck. Sorry but you need to save up for better stuff. Line 6 amps don't need a pedal in front they already have more gain than they can handle. And even with a good amp a metalcore sounds like ass. So sorry to say but crap + crap = shit


----------



## Hemi-Powered Drone (Jun 8, 2011)

Yeah...Boss's "Metal" pedals tend to suck, in my opinion, and most other peoples opinion.


----------



## BangandBreach (Jun 8, 2011)

dragonblade629 said:


> Yeah...Boss's "Metal" pedals tend to suck, in my opinion, and most other peoples opinion.



My MT2 is decent at best, but I'm saving up my pennies for something (of course) that will do a superior job.

While we're on the topic of stomp boxes, I've seen people get bonecrushing tone out of the Ibanez tube screamer, but the demo pedals I've played in guitar stores are underwhelming. Am I missing something?


Annnnnnd end thread hijack.(sorry.)


----------



## yellowv (Jun 8, 2011)

Most of us are using tube screamers or tube screamer clones to boost our amps. The secret is you need a crushing amp to begin with. The OD just drives it harder and makes it tighter and even more crushing. The best OD pedal in the world into a crap amp isn't worth a damn. A used TS and 5150 make for a great budget rig that will sound great. Shit I could have gotten a more expensive amp many times over, but I stick with my 5150. To this day many of my favorite tones ever have come from the 5150.


----------



## -42- (Jun 8, 2011)

Please tell me you aren't running the amp's distortion model and the pedal simultaneously. 

When in doubt, just roll off the volume knob on your guitar, that usually cleans up my sound very nicely.


----------



## BangandBreach (Jun 9, 2011)

yellowv said:


> Most of us are using tube screamers or tube screamer clones to boost our amps. The secret is you need a crushing amp to begin with. The OD just drives it harder and makes it tighter and even more crushing. The best OD pedal in the world into a crap amp isn't worth a damn. A used TS and 5150 make for a great budget rig that will sound great. Shit I could have gotten a more expensive amp many times over, but I stick with my 5150. To this day many of my favorite tones ever have come from the 5150.



Gotcha, thanks for the info dude.


----------



## thechef779 (Jun 9, 2011)

lol no im running thru the clean channel. also my thread says moved in front of it. i posted originally in the standard guitar thread and now it says "moved" in front it. anyone know why this is?


----------



## Stealthdjentstic (Jun 9, 2011)

BangandBreach said:


> My MT2 *is decent at best*, but I'm saving up my pennies for something (of course) that will do a superior job.
> 
> While we're on the topic of stomp boxes, I've seen people get bonecrushing tone out of the Ibanez tube screamer, but the demo pedals I've played in guitar stores are underwhelming. Am I missing something?
> 
> ...



Its really not, its just a terrible, terrible pedal.

What exactly is it that you're trying to achieve with a pedal? If you're trying to get a solid distorted rhythm tone going...I would start saving for a 6505/5150. 



yellowv said:


> Most of us are using tube screamers or tube screamer clones to boost our amps. The secret is you need a crushing amp to begin with. The OD just drives it harder and makes it tighter and even more crushing. The best OD pedal in the world into a crap amp isn't worth a damn. A used TS and 5150 make for a great budget rig that will sound great. Shit I could have gotten a more expensive amp many times over, but I stick with my 5150. To this day many of my favorite tones ever have come from the 5150.




Yellow is right! OD's aren't distortion pedals, they're not going to give you a wall of gain. Like Yellow said though, people use OD's in combination with hi-gain amps to give you a bit more saturation with less gain, cut some bass, and tighten things up nicely.


----------



## thechef779 (Jun 9, 2011)

jesus people are really rippin on this pedal..i wish i had started my account on here before i bought my pedal :\


----------



## Stealthdjentstic (Jun 9, 2011)

Its OK we all make mistakes. I really regret buying some of my gear, hopefully we can help you avoid another ML2!


----------



## Taclite (Jun 9, 2011)

Back when I was 14 or so, I bought a Digitech Death Metal. Now THAT'S a terrible pedal.

EDIT: If you're not happy with your pedals, do what I did to the Digitech. Slaughter it for parts.


----------



## Sephael (Jun 9, 2011)

thechef779 said:


> lol no im running thru the clean channel. also my thread says moved in front of it. i posted originally in the standard guitar thread and now it says "moved" in front it. anyone know why this is?


because it has nothing to do with a guitar and is instead about gear would be my guess.


----------



## sevenstringj (Jun 9, 2011)

thechef779 said:


> jesus people are really rippin on this pedal..i wish i had started my account on here before i bought my pedal :\



I would never buy any piece of gear that said mall metal core on it.


----------



## ShadowFactoryX (Jun 9, 2011)

sevenstringj said:


> I would never buy any piece of gear that said mall metal core on it.



mall core?!
i havent heard that wore-out term in some time

bah!

nunzelaiss

i find that most distortion pedals just suck. Especially ones centered around the "metal" theme.
the boss ones are no exception. Metal-Zone is pure ear-bleeding, nails on chalkboard awful. and the "core" version of it, its nearly the same.

i'd say, sell the pedal, get your money back, use your line 6 distortion for now, and save for a decent amp.


----------



## anthoKnee (Jun 9, 2011)

I tried the MetalCore pedal quite a while back at GC---and thought it sounded really bad!
No matter what settings I tried it on, no thing I did could achieve even a passable tone.

No matter what people think of the stock Metal Zone, it did allow me to get fairly good tones when I used it with an EQ and some Chorus thrown in!
And that was with small 10 watt to 20 watt amps of various kinds.

What I find odd, is that before the mods of the MT2 peals hit the scene, most people raved over the stock MT2---!
Then it would seem that you just had to say the MT2 was horrible, or you were no longer cool.
No matter how great a particular mod might be, that would not automatically consign the stock version to tone hell would it?
The stock version is definitely better than the Metal Core, for sure.


The last time I tried 15 to 20 watt amps at GC though, I must say that all of them, and I mean all of them---sounded very "tinny" and weak sounding----even with the volume up!
I've yet to try any of the Ibanez TBX series of small amps--perhaps they are better.

You might find a great sounding small SS amp for metal tone,
but I truly think that only a much larger SS amp wattage and cabs---can get "crushing" and "brutal"---with or without great tone.

I think it would be better to find something old, big, and cheap (that works) at a pawn shop these days, than invest in
any of the new and popular SS practice amps I've seen at GC these past three years or so.
The new stuff all seem to have almost the same weak tone.
And whilst the smallness of those amps are part of the problem, I think there is more to it than that.
Last but not least, I've heard a few not so great sounding SS small amps sound much different,
once they are attached to a 4x12 if the amp has an external speaker jack!
A world of difference in some cases.


----------



## DSilence (Jun 9, 2011)

I tried a Boss ML-2 vicariously through the internet on youtube & it sucked, if that 16 year old cant get a good tone how the hell will I.


----------



## danenachtrieb (Jun 9, 2011)

ShadowFactoryX said:


> mall core?!
> i havent heard that wore-out term in some time
> 
> bah!
> ...



I don't know man, depending on the set up and EQ'n the Metal Zone can be pretty beast. I was shocked when I found out cannibal corpse uses them to this day live.


----------



## ss22 (Jun 10, 2011)

Taclite said:


> Back when I was 14 or so, I bought a Digitech Death Metal. Now THAT'S a terrible pedal.
> 
> EDIT: If you're not happy with your pedals, do what I did to the Digitech. Slaughter it for parts.


 
Urgh, I second that. I was in a band when I was 16 and the guitarist played a cheap Strat copy through a Digitech Death Metal into a solid state Fender 212 combo. It was the most god-awful sound in the world. There was just no way to stop the feedback except to turn the damn thing off as soon as you'd finished sounding a note. The high,mid and low EQ controls should have been renamed mush, buzz and screech.


----------



## Wookieslayer (Jun 10, 2011)

dude i love my digitech dm pedal...  

dont think ill sell it

Drowned intro (entombed) by Wookieslayer on SoundCloud - Create, record and share your sounds for free


----------



## Albionic (Jun 10, 2011)

Wookieslayer said:


> dude i love my digitech dm pedal...
> 
> dont think ill sell it
> 
> Drowned intro (entombed) by Wookieslayer on SoundCloud - Create, record and share your sounds for free



i'm a big fan of the death metal pedal once went shopping for pedals with a mate of mine who plays blues rock.He wanted a lead boost/distortion for searing leads and having tried loads we actually walked away with the death metal.


----------



## groph (Jun 12, 2011)

Try this.

See if you can pawn off your Metalcore for $40 or $50 and see if you can get $100 for the amp. Then save up another $100 or so and look for a used Roland Cube 30. That's actually a really awesome sounding practice amp that has enough power for a small gig as long as you're miked and not competing with 3 other huge amps. There's a Mesa Boogie Rectifier model on the Cube 30 that gives you the insane distortion a pedal would give you, but it's actually toneful and not just a bunch of buzzing. You'd probably like it.

Or you could use the distortion on your amp, if you have an "Insane" model on that thing then you've got all the distortion you'll ever need. Keep the pedal, upgrade your amp down the road, and maybe when you have some more cash together you could get the Metalcore modded into something useful, like what I plan to do with my Metalzone.

For the time being, just run your distortion as low as possible to minimize the excess noise and buzzing. If you're cranking it to over 3/4 or maximum you should probably back it off to less than half.

EDIT: Wookieslayer. That tone is ridiculous, that's a Death Metal into a POD? That sounds exactly like the classic HM-2 setup, awesome.


----------



## Wookieslayer (Jun 13, 2011)

^ some good suggestions here.



groph said:


> EDIT: Wookieslayer. That tone is ridiculous, that's a Death Metal into a POD? That sounds exactly like the classic HM-2 setup, awesome.



Yeah it's the Digitech into my normal Pod recto patch except with the drive lowered and the gate in the Pod set extremely hard haha. It gives a lot of feedback it's actually pretty awesome. But on that clip I ran my ISP decimator after the death metal pedal to cut some of it all out and keep it quieter. It's pretty similar to the HM-2 but still a different flavor. Changing the speaker sims has a big effect on the sound too... actually I think the Greenback model sounds even cooler than the treadplate I was using in that clip.


----------



## snowblind56 (Jun 13, 2011)

thechef779 said:


> hey guys i got a new boss ml2 metal core pedal and i am having trouble getting the tone right. i am playing on a 15 watt line 6 spider 3 and im thinking that maybe the pedal just has too much power for that little amp because it sounds like im about to blow my speaker even though the volume is on 1. Anybody know why this might be? o yea and im playing with a 6 stringer damien elite



I actually had the same problem when I was running a disto pedal through my old Orange Crush 15r. It sucked. It sounded like the speaker was farting. I ended up trading that for a Line 6 Spider 3 because that had a passable distortion sound. The only reason I had these amps was for when I went to my parents cottage and needed something small to plug into.

I still have the Line 6, but I pretty much believe that all 15w SS practice amps blow. Pretty much you're not going to get a crushing sound out of one. Just a sound that's tolerable until you get to jam out on a half-stack.


----------



## anthoKnee (Jun 13, 2011)

True enough!
I've seen many a post in many a forum saying that half stacks and full stacks are not at all necessary unless you are playing a very large do: ....neverthless,
They do indeed--INSPIRE--!!!!!!


----------



## FarBeyondMetal (Jun 13, 2011)

In the beginning...had a 50w Marshall combo with a metal zone 2, sounded decent to my amateur ears at the time, then tried out the ML2...

Fast forward a year or so...bought a Peavey 6505+ and no longer need any pedal to make the fucker scream! When you have the coinage saved up to buy a quality amp, you will see why you dont need a pedal to make your amp sound good! It simply gives me the tone and extreme gain I was looking for...combine that with a mahogany bodied neck through guitar with SD blackouts = BRUTALITY


----------

