DIGITECH DEATH METAL / MASTER - WORST DISTORTION PEDAL 

To this day my entire rig consist of a Marshall code, a digitech death metal, and a $50 squier strat In drop G

ola killed the metal zone meme so now hes trying to start a new meme lol

Probably close to ten years ago I saw this local band open a show with 3 inches of blood. They were all teenagers and actually a really good thrash act. Big thing was they sounded huge. I couldn’t see their gear stage was small so they set up off stage. I asked them later about their setup. Literally guitar into Marshall mg head 1960 cab with a metal master and noise gate running in the loop then sm-57 mic. I was completely blown.

This brings me back to 2000, I was 14, with my Peavey Bandit and the Metal Master wondering why I didnt sound like James Hetfield yet.

No bees were killed in the making of this pedal.

The Death Metal was my first pedal. I absolutely loved that honking brutal noise it made. No gain control. All the gain as strandard. Amazing :D But mine didn't have the second output, that would have been a game changer in 1997.

The DOD Death Metal was designed to be used infront of a dirty Marshall to get an early Napalm Death tone. I actually tried running it that way and was pleasantly surprised.

I remember having Metal Zone, Death Metal, and Metal Master back in High School. Metal Master was the perfect pedal for playing Metallica and Ozzy. It's all I cared about at the time, was learning every Ozzy and Metallica song, Metal Master is the perfect distortion pedal for me.

12 year old me thought a 10amp practice amplifier and a digitech death metal was as good as tone could get :P

For the MetalMaster, run a line from "to amp" into your FX return, and run a line from "to mixer" into your input. Blend them accordingly. You'll get the sound you want.

Me: Mum, can we listen to Megadeth? Mum: No, we have Megadeth at home! Megadeth at home: 1:35

I don’t even play guitar, I just listen to Ola’s words of wisdom.

That doom shirt

I remember getting my Death Metal pedal when I was 18, thinking that this is the best thing ever! Looking back at the fact that I only had a Peavy Rage 15 solid state amp, I'm guessing I was a little deaf.

Is that a BOWL of coffee?

the Death Metal pedal was my first pedal and it is still my favorite pedal and nobody can dissuade me from messing around with it. I got it for $20 at a Guitar Center with no charger. Best $20 I ever spent

Oh man, the death metal pedal brings back memories. I used to play through one of those in my first band and we jammed a lot of Obituary.

I don’t think you need any distorsion pedal when your amp has the word satan in it

The bullshit they could sell to people back in the day when no online social platforms were available for the folks to compare stuff... The fact that all guitar magazines published only positive reviews of everything...

I got the Metal Master. Love it! You can tune the Metal Master to Death Metal setting and it does everything the Death Metal does. The Metal Master is also a heavier and higher priced pedal. So if you just want to play death metal, save money by getting the Death Metal pedal but if you want a spectrum of metal tones, definitely go for the Metal Master.

All distortion pedals sound awesome when it is sent through the fx loop... That's a life changer u gave me Ola.. o. O

not trve unless you plug the pedals into the front of a Tweed

When I started playing guitar, this was actually my 1st pedal - I had an ESP LTD EC-50, the Digitech death metal pedal, and a Rogue 100W 2x12" amp. God, my neighbors hated me 🤘

I've owned both of them they're meant for different platforms for distortion. They both sound great and they're not bad. It's depending on what type of music you want to do with these pedals

Man, I remember I had the Death Metal 10 years ago when I started playing guitar. Had it in front of a 15W Harley Benton combo amp with no gate and it was hella noisy. But it made me feel like a rockstar. Good times

FINALLY! I have both pedals, and death metal is a bit weak for my taste, but metal master is one of my favorites of all time. It's just a great great pedal.

Yes!! You finally did a video for the digitech death metal! I have the biggest smile right now man. First pedal I ever bought way back when I was 14! Hearing that hunk of junk chunk now, cant help but grin ear to ear! Surprised you're not playing one of those beautiful poplar guitars of yours! Saw the preorder announced yesterday, just might have to snag me one

The right knob (morph) is the types of the distortion modes (copying few metal pedals). And i've been using digitech grunge. The cabsim is amazing. Try on hot head & grunge. They are awesome cheapies. And for overdrive, i am still using my old digitech bad monkey, a nice tubescreamer copy. Phil X been using it too back in the days.

HOLY DIVER! YOU'VE BEEN DOWN TO LONG IN THE HONEY BEE HIVE!

Love my death metal pedal. Great video ola

Great reviews! Brings me back to my high school days in the late 90's. Had the metal zone plus both of these and I still have the metal master. Plus got the Scott Ian Black-13 pedal. Love em all.

DOD Death Metal was my first pedal ever in the 90’s and this video accurately represents the feedback I remember most when you aren’t playing

Hmm.. 90s hi gain pedals probably was designed as preamps and wasn't really tested for inputing into other preamps.

this statement may have never been said before in the history of the world - the Metal Zone sounds much better

I hope Ola makes this into a little series. Mainly just cause I'm curious on what tone he can get out these various metal themed distortion pedals. If he does make this into a little series I hope he does the following metal themed distortion pedals: -Boss Metal Core ML-2 -Digitech Hardwire TL-2 Metal Distortion -MXR Fullbore Metal -Electro Harmonix Metal Muff (the full sized one not the smaller versions that came later) Keep it up with the good videos Ola.

Love your videos. Thank you for making them. Don't ever change my friend

WOW. After owning and loving a couple of Digitech's Hardwire series pedals, I'm surprised to see how poorly these vanilla counterparts fare against them! The Valve Distortion is definitely my favorite distortion pedal produced by them, although it's more like a traditional tubescreamer OD. The Metal Distortion Hardwire pedal DOES have a gain knob, BUT it is extremely limiting because, even with the gain set to 0, the signal is COATED with the distortion signal. Great vid, thanks for the awesome content as always!

tattoo my left arm?? no way!! - ola englund

Love my metal master. First distortion pedal I ever bought.

Love the shirt man!! Also love these videos! Thanks!

Rocked a metal master for over a decade before something inside it finally died. It was definitely versatile.

3:42 Holy Diver riff 🤙🏻

This has to be the funniest Ola vid (and one of the, if not the best guitar vid) that I've watched hahaha thank you so much @Ola Englund, you made me feel great during my bad day, man!

Great video is always thank you for taking the time to post

I just want one of those SPL meters for my wall. You've linked everything else in the header!

I like the Metal Master!!! You can change from 80s Marshall crunch to Mesa tone to Metal Zone when you turn the X knob

Love your videos bro keep up the good work, greetings from Australia

LLoved this video. Thank you for demonstrating them.

i found a new love for my metal zone now im lookin for a death metal pedal

you should demo the Metal Muff, I just found my old metal muff pedal from when I was 14! I'm 28 now.

Your awesome man, very informative! That shirt sealed the deal on my subscription to ya!🤘

Thanks for the demo on the metal master. Been wanting to see it happen, I have one, haven't used it a ton. I might start again

Anyone who cleans a metalzone deserves my respect. You've done the impossible

The metal master brings me back to high school were I dialed it in to play along to Fear Factory songs ...

8:23 That riffs sounds very Machine Head-esque. I like it.

I used to own a Digitech Death Metal pedal and I really liked it. Unfortunately, It didn't last very long. In hind sight, I did a few of things with it that one should never do to a distortion pedal. First I took the pedal with me to a friends house (who didn't have air conditioning) And played with it indoors, however, it was raining very very heavily outside and the humidity was just ridiculous. We had to keep the doors open during a hurricane just to stay cool (it was really hot that day). Second, because I didn't have a lot of money, I used a A/C adapter to power the pedal. But sadly, this was before I knew to only use A/C adapters that output the correct amperage. I think The A/C adapter wasn't the correct amperage and that might have fried the circuits. One day the pedal died and stopped working all together. Not even the bypass worked. The pedal muted all sound when plugged in. To this day I'm not sure exactly how or why it died. But all I know is, It did die. But it sounded cool while it lasted.

Hi Ola, I persoanlly love the digitech death metal, great for the money when you can actually dial a good tone. Ola keep up the great work!

Please do the Digitech Grunge pedal. I feel it was completely named wrong and actually sounds quite good with the drive turned down and run into a tube amp. Also, I beg you to do a public service video to urge the members of Morgana Lefay to reunite. I believe they live somewhere in the same country as you but have gone silent for many years.

Oh, another plus/bonus to the DF-7... the Metal Master emulated pedal in it has more adjustability than the stock standalone Metal Master pedal. 😘 Pretty much as do all 7 Classic emulated pedals. A vast array of knobs. It has 2-tier knobs/dials: 1st is both Level (top/centre knob) & Low EQ (bottom/outer knob). 2nd pair are Mid Freq (top/inner) & Mid level (bottom/outer). 3rd pair are Gain (top/inner) & High EQ (bottom/outer). The remaining Dial is the Pedal Model selector switch. Itsa brilliant pedal as it is sooo versatile. 👍 That MORPH Dial you just turned is the Mid Freq like my DF-7's top/inner centre knob. But the DF-7 has MORE! Seriously, try to find one. Please review it. Thanks man.

I had that old metal master pedal back in the day. I went through many distortion pedals before I landed on this one and didn't turn back. The only reason I don't use it now is because I lost it. There's so many possibilities as far as shaping a fairly unique, and awesome metal tone with that thing. The boss metal zone is a decent replacement, but that's only cuz it was basically a copy of the metal master. That morph knob really opens up the path to emulate all kinds of famous guitar tones.

3:20 "that's and justice for all" Lmao

"well it's my video, I do what I want" - great comeback

Congrats, man. Really great videos. You make a video review for the Boss GT 100

I've been using the metal master pedal over the last 4 years, and it has this raw sound that I need for black metal

The metal master is personally one of my favorite pedals, I use it on bass though. Which actually sounds quite good.

"I'm ghetto like the Digitech Death Metal pedal" - Necro

Ola is definitely one of the best guitar bloggers on youtube :) Enjoying every video.

I absolutely love my Digitech Death Metal pedal. For at least the past 15-20 years I've been using for both recording and live. Now I'm digging my Distortion Factory DF-7 which has a wealth of sounds. I like the fact the DM pedal has no gain knob. Makes you use your volume more. Which more people should learn how to do.

Man I’m listening on good headphones. Is it just RU-vid’s compression that makes all the high gain pedals sound really similar? That said, \m/

"You know?? It's my video, I do whatever I want.". XD Epic!!

That death metal pedal sounds way better on lower tunings. Back when I used it, it kinda needed to be paired up with the right solid state amp, similar with the situations I encountered when using the metal zone 2 pedal.

For those who say that the Death Metal is a digital pedal, you're wrong; the Metal Master is their digital high gain pedal, while the Death Metal is analog and one of the three pedals represented on the Metal Master's morph knob.

Ola, try Biyang Metal End. It's an amazing cheap pedal that sounds fantastic and the world deserves to be exposed to a quality demo of it. I'm sure you will love it.

Do a video on the boss metal core ml-2

"It's my video, I do whatever I want!" Great quote, if I wasnt already subscribed that line would have made me right there!

Bro, the things you can do with the Boss Katana Mini, is unreal!!! If you guys are on a budget, i recommend getting the Squire Stratocaster and the Boss Katana Mini!!! Trust me, just dial the settings in to your own advantage! Yeah i know it's cheap, but if you are a person who appreciates life, then you'll get where i'm coming from!

Ola is a Pewdiepie of the guitar world. He kills the memes...

As a Death metal owner I can honestly recommend it. It can give you a full-bodied sound, has, as Ola showed, very sensitive knobs that give a very wide range, surprisingly good string definition and clarity, is surprisingly organic and will respond to the character of your guitar and amp. The downside is it has little dynamics, which is to be expected with all that gain. You can turn down your volume knob, but it'll still sound basically the same. Thing is though it's got some quirks. Firstly, I think Death Metal was the wrong name. If you lower the bass a lot and max out the treble you can get a black metal kind-vibe, whereas if you up the lows and find the right spot with the mids you can get a Groove metal-ish sound. Second, that Level knob really should have been called a Contour or Shape knob, because as you turn it up it can drastically change your sound. From my experience it only really served as a true level knob up until 9 o'clock, which is where equity level seems to be (i.e the where the pedal's volume matches clean volume), after that it seemed to be a tone shifter. It's hard to explain but I can genuinely recommend it, not for death metal though. Also it's so cheap but well built you can't lose.

when i was young i head a peavy valveking 112 combo and a digitech hot head, a cry baby wah and analog delay by artec, cheap but unique and absolutley beautiful guitar i still have today... man what times that was. Loved that stuff back then

Hey Ola, greetings from Ireland. New enough subscriber but have been catching up on a lot of your vids. I wondered if you ever tried or heard of the Digitech trio band creator? I use as a simple but highly effective practice tool to get an idea of a riff in a mix. The drum sounds are unfortunately old skool but bass and the actual loop system is amazing. Just saves time programming drums for individual tracks until you hear something you like and need to venture further with. Loving the vids , keep up the fuckin awesome work duuude!!!

Hey Ola, do a vid on the Ibanez Tube King!

I remember being super excited to try the Death Metal pedal when it came out...total trash. The local guitar shop I was at had a discount bin with an unbranded Pepto Bismol pink pedal that was probably homemade. Cost me $5. It was an absolute beast. Made Entombed sound like Ed Sheeran.

My first pedal was a Death Metal and my second pedal was a Artec Blues Overdrive. I learned to tame the Death Metal by running it into the overdrive it works wonders!

Hey Ola, really liking your riffage bud, and incredible Dimebag riffs too!!. I have the DOD death metal pedal which I love personally, i play an Ibanez rg series through an orange crush amp, it's not so bad, but i'd love to see how Pat O'Brien from Cannibal Corpse gets his sound!.

They seem to just remove all the attack. Every time you chug, some settings just cut it out.

This is some new level shit... Ola didn't play his usual clean sound arpeggiated riff when he used the clean/di sound lol

I actually started out with the Heavy Metal, but traded it off many, many years back, and for Idk what now. Then I got a Boss DS-1, and now I have a DS-14A, a Big Muff Pi Triangle, a Metal Master and a Boneshaker. I love them all as though they're like my children (they're all different, but I love them all equally). Each sounds differently enough that I can use them for different purposes and be satisfied. The Boneshaker and Triangle are my go-to faves, though, hands-down. Keep it real, Ola, love your stuff. Hopefully soon I can afford 1 of your sweet axes!

The Metal Master was one of the 1st pedals i had bought. I loved it. Pretty versatile for what it is and a decent sound. I actually still have mine but the morph knob is broken and doesnt work anymore 😫

2:04 for a second i thought you were about to play some "scotty doesnt know" from Eurotrip lmao

Let's see if Ola can use an EQD Rainbow Machine for metal

Hey, man! Big thumbs up and do a review of the Ibanez SM7 Smash Box. Keep rocking!

I have the Death Metal, got it years ago back in high school. Owner's manual said it is just the Metal Master with gain knob permanently set to "11".

Think death metal sounded better?

Yea, I don't think they were originally designed to go into the effects loop....more like the front end of a Gorilla amp or some other little crappy practice amp. We have come a long way since then. I bet if you plugged it all into some 80's equipment, it would sound different....not necessarily better, but different. Good video and good use of your effects loop! 🤘💀🤘

3:00 This is what Dave Mustaine heard from David Ellefson's flat back in 1983

I've only recently found this channel, but it's a new favourite, after a shitty day at work you always bring a smile to my face. Thank you... And fuck everyone that didn't tell me about this channel before lol

"- Ok, let's try some death..." Plays some black metal style tremolo picking :)

how do you not have more followers? i've known about you since the forum days when you'd write out sensible explanations on how to get great tones out of mostly anything. Good to see you're going strong and rockin on.

Hey Ola! If you can, try out the Joyo vintage overdrive. It's like a maxon od 808 or Ibanez Tube screamer but it's for the price of 4 pack of cigarettes, haha.

He should just do a series where he tries out “bad” gear and see if he can make them sound good.