FX86 Death Metal

EXTREME! that's all i can say... the bass is freaking awesome since it can boost your signal enough to make a palm muted E5 chord hit you hard on the face - i never had to turn this knob past 9 o'clock. the mids are so hot, you can get the classic Slayer tone with a setting past 3 o'clock. the treble is so piercing, pinch harmonics are insane. this pedal is not for beginners, it can potentially damage ear drums and it takes great skill, on and off stage to wield this. the only reason it got a 7 was because it's not a versatile pedal. There is no gain control and the volume this pedal is capable of killing small animals like hamsters to medium sized ones like cats.

the battery compartment comes loose ovetime as with all 90's DOD pedals. The knobs can get loose although i have been extremely lucky with mine. The led light switch can get damaged easily after your vocalist steps on it repeatedly. The plastic footswitch gets messed up easily, especially if you come down on it pretty hard. what else can i say? i'm only happy this pedal didn't explode into a million pieces when i carried it in a gig bag.

I do not know about the later versions of this pedal, but what i have is the that said "RIP, Guts, Pain, Scream" on the knobs. I got the pedal second hand and without a manual, but it was easy to figure out - just turned everything to zero and slowly tweaked the knobs, depending on what frequencies they boosted, that must be it. One thing i found out later was that there was no gain control over this pedal and one is expected to play fast versions of metal here because if you won't, the thing will feedback over the place ... i later develop a way to deal with it, which i will share later.

here in the Philippines, we are bombarded with products with no customer support... i hate it but it has always been my instinct not to depend on them. i have never dialled a 1-800 number in my life.

Like i said, it takes an expert to wield this pedal. in the hands of someone with good ears, humbucker equipped guitar and a decent amp, this thing is probably the best distortion pedal there is for extreme metal. Most ppl are faced with the problems of its feedback. to deal with this, i develop an instinct of turning down my volume knobs, while simultaneously stepping on the footswitch, as soon as the song ends. if you can do volume swells or know how a wah wah pedal works, you can do this too. Another problem i see with how ppl use this pedal is that they dont mess with the amp at all... instead they turn the knobs past 12 o'clock, and they end up with a sonic mess so thick you can't tell E from F. One should rely on the amp's volume and the pedal's as oppossed to boosting the mids, bass and treble of the DOD Death Metal. This method will also minimize feed back, even when you are not using a noise gate. And finally, i also noticed that ppl who complain about this pedal have poor palm muting techniques. They say it cannot cut thru the mix, but that is because the gain of this pedal is too much (a review said it set the gain to 11 and then ripped off the knob to let it stay that way), and if you do not have very good palm muting techniques this pedal is useless with you ... the more if you play fast: speed + bad palm muting = get a Tubescreamer and stay away from the DOD Death Metal Pedal. weaknesses of this pedal: 1.) great skill is required to wield this pedal. not everyone has time nor patience to develop this skill. 2.) it is not versatile. outside of extreme metal, this pedal is a noise machine. 3.) this pedal is noisy even when turned off - you can still hear the hiss it makes... truly a bad idea for recording especially if you mix clean and distorted sounds in your record. you could get away with it live since the drums and bass are there to mask the hiss. 4.) crappy construction despite the cool die cast metal body. Strengths: 1.) gives you a powerful sound even if you do not own a Mesa Boogie triple rectifier. 2.) probably the cheapest metal pedal. Alternatives: 1.) Boss MT2 2.) GTX Heavy Metal Pedal (the best at its price and mod-ability) 3.) straight up amp distortion!

Horrible. This thing made so much hissing when it was off that I wanted to smash it with a sledge hammer. This pedal is terrible if you ever want to play a gig. I think the audience would rush the stage and turn off you amp. When the pedal is on, the distortion is just what it says: Death Metal, and isn't actually all that bad, but in the passive (off) mode, it just makes way too much noise. Do yourself a favor and buy an MXR or a Boss pedal before you waste your money.

Crap. I have been playing music for 19 years and have seen much in the way of poorly manufactured equipment.This pedal has a plastic foot switch (and cheap plastic at that), and not only would you have to really press down to get the pedal on, but it broke after about five months. The thing is I rarely (if ever) used it, and I am the anal kind of person that babies all of his equipment. Being that I bought it for $25 from a friend of mine I wasn't too upset, but if I had purchased it from a store I would have brought it back in a heartbeat. Not at all dependable, as with most DoD equipment. I would never gig with this pedal. Waste of money.

Simple, straight-forward. It's a pedal, you step on it, the light comes on, as does the effect, you step on it again, it goes off. You will have to read the manual to understand exactly how to tweak it because like most of the DoD pedals from this era, instead of saying: LEVEL-LOW-MID-HIGH, etc...it says:R.I.P-GUTS-PAIN-SCREAM. Mine was a first generation, and DoD actually now includes both labels on this pedal. Also, I did not like the fact that DoD placed the power source on the side instead of the top, which doesn't make a lot of sense. Then again, what DoD product does?

Never dealt with the company.

I have played all styles from punk rock to metal to acoustic and folk. I use a Mesa-Boogie Triple Rectifier with an extensive rack system including a Hush Super-C(nearly impossible to use with this pedal)and a Roland JC-120 for my clean channel. This pedal is utter crap. The distortion was ok, as far as distortion goes, and the ability to tweak the sound was ok. However, you will never be able to get past the way this pedal sounds in passive mode. It will make your amp sound like a wind machine without a noise gate. If that is what you are looking for, by all means. I would never recommend this pedal to anyone. I use a Boss Metal Zone when I play with dostortion, and have not found a better pedal for the price. I would sell it if the plastic foot switch had not fallen off, but would probably rather give it away. I did like the way the pedal looked. It is black and red which are my two favorite colors. Really this pedal is a novelty item for inexperienced players, avoid at all costs.

this thing is a piece of crap. why do people always say that having an ego is bad? what a bunch of morons! i play speed metal.(megadeth)and classic metal (iron maiden!). some shred here and there (such as yngwie malmsteen and jason becker as well.)the only people who seem to like this pedal are those of which also love gobs of gain and no solid tone.tone is in fact mostly in the fingers. but the control are harsh no matter where you set them. too much bass or not enough. not enough mids or too much. its terrible! keeley modded boss is good. i wouldnt dare knock it. metal zone stock is way better than this.but the keeley modded metal zone takes the cake. for all you who took this over the metal zone, shame on you. this pedal is cheap and inexpensive. no wonder kids seem to bag on keeley so much, you cant afford em!

stupid names. what a rediculous idea.

how dare any of you insult mr keeleys work. this pedal is crap and needs alot of improvement.just keep saving and buy something else. if you are using a crappy guitar and crappy amp, of course youll get a crappy sound. and if you are using a good/great amp, why would you settle for this piece of shit? the guy using a marshall...guy, that is a marshall! why are you using a dod death metal distortion? what a poser/loser.