NPD. The 90s called…

[greatmutah]

Got this guy in the mail today. You know, growing up and learning to play guitar in the 90s you’d have thought I’d have had a DOD pedal. Never did. My first pedal was a Morley Wah and then eventually some Boss things. Pretty sure I got my Crybaby then too. But a friend and I were talking about these after having watched some YouTube vids so I got this one:



I’m sure these things sounded awful through every kids shitty crate or peavey practice amp. But through a good amp and speakers? Not bad at all to me. It’s definitely got a unique sound and it’s easy to get bad sounds out of it but on the whole it’s fun. There’s folks who swear Kurt Cobain used one, others who said he only had it on his board and never touched it, etc. I played some Nirvana riffs on it and it did well. It fit that kind of vibe. Add in my Small Clone and I could cover most of their catalog. Drop the treble and turn up the bass and it gets nice and doomy. I like that the pedal doesn’t really clean up either. Even at the lowest setting on the Grunge knob, it’s still distorting pretty good. You can just increase the saturation. Considering I paid $80 for this second version, I’m happy. Would have loved to have one with “Butt” and “Face” controls but this was much less and still came with everything. Box, manual, etc. DOD made cool stuff. Wasn’t for everyone but it was definitely different.

[RaceU4her]

I gotta get one of them

[Guitarbilly]

I don't think I've ever heard this pedal. At least not intentionally

I didn't want anything to do with Grunge back in the day. Now I like some of the bands but back then I was like. "These fucks can't play!!"
It took me 10+ years to give those bands a chance

[RaceU4her]

I do have one of these which I think is the same thing, might have to bust it out

[greatmutah]

I gotta get one of them

I could see you having some fun with this thing.

I don't think I've ever heard this pedal. At least not intentionally

I didn't want anything to do with Grunge back in the day. Now I like some of the bands but back then I was like. "These fucks can't play!!"
It took me 10+ years to give those bands a chance

My buddies and I saw these in guitar mags at the time and at music stores. Places that had decent selections of pedals were interesting then, as I’m sure you remember. You had the top of the line, pro grade Boss stuff. And Boss still makes excellent pedals. But then you had the “other” pedals and DOD definitely fell in there. We just thought they looked cool. One friend had a DOD Death Metal distortion. It had volume and a 3 band EQ. No gain control as it was preset maxed out. Another friend of mine has a bunch of the 90s pedals plus some of their 80s pedals too. He’s even got the Buzz Box - the pedal they designed for Buzz Osborne. It’s basically a noise machine but hey he’s got one. Not many of them in the wild.

[greatmutah]

I do have one of these which I think is the same thing, might have to bust it out

That thing looks sweet! Not sure how related they are but it’s still cool.

EDIT: if this is the same as the Metal X, then it might be very similar. Same circuit board they used. Just some different components.

[RaceU4her]

Oh yah maybe it was the metal x, either way like you said they are cheap fun that can sound plenty decent and unique through a good rig, I have a bunch of old distortion pedals laying around, gonna be snowed in here tomorrow, think I’ll bust them out

[greatmutah]

Oh yah maybe it was the metal x, either way like you said they are cheap fun that can sound plenty decent and unique through a good rig, I have a bunch of old distortion pedals laying around, gonna be snowed in here tomorrow, think I’ll bust them out

Well what I meant was the Metal X and Grunge and probably another pedal all used the same board. The differences weren’t huge but enough to change sweeps and sounds available in each pedal. But absolutely. A snowed in day is the perfect time to bust out some old dirt boxes and mess around.

[JSutter]

Kurt used a Grunge on MTV's Live and Loud, mainly on the older songs. He had a Sansamp as well, and he'd stack them at some points of the set. There is no guessing, watch the concert for yourself.

Back in the mid 90s-Y2k plenty of friends had these pedals. I have to wonder if it was the marketing, silly names and graphics, or did/does anyone find these to sound good in stock form.

We all know how many Tubescreamer clones are out there. Well the Metalzone is no different. The FX69, 70, 86 are based on a Metalzone with a few tweaks and simplified controls. It's amazing what you can repackage and sell over and over. For instance, the Danelectro Fab Tone is based on the Grunge. EHX Metal Muff, Rocktron Metal Planet, and Biyang Metal End are based on the MT2. I have a hard time dialing in these types of pedals because some of the gyrators that boost specific frequencies are not adjustable. They don't have a traditional passive tone stack making it really easy to go overboard. I have a Metal End and I had to mod it to use it.

[greatmutah]

That is awesome information. I didn’t realize these were Metal Zone derivatives but, as you said, given how many TS variations there already are it’s not surprising that another circuit got used and reworked and rebadged.