I played this pedal with a modified Fender Strat with a Seymour Duncan Hot Rails in the bridge, into a Sunn Model T reissue, into a Marshall 4x12 w/ Celestion V30 speakers. Holy crap, this sounds not good. First off, even with the output level cranked, it was still quiet. And, it doesn't cut AT ALL. It sat below the cymbals in the mix. The tone knob was worthless. If you cut the mids, it was just a mess. If you upped the tone and added mids, it was audible but now sounded like a transistor radio, tinny and lifeless. Basically, take the worst sounds of a Metal Zone, put them into a distortion pedal, and you have this. The Metal Zone is louder, I'll give it that. Boss makes great modulation pedals, but their distortion pedals are horrendously bad.
I bought this pedal for the feedback effect. Yeah, you push down the pedal, the LED lights up, and it will feedback to a certain pitch. You can play over the pitch. Whoopie doo. I've read that you could use the Overtone knob to control this pitch, but that wasn't the case with my pedal. I even had the supposedly nicer Taiwanese version. Ugh. The feedbacker thing doesn't work on chords. It just doesn't get there. For some reason, this effect also seemed to work better on small amps. Perhaps that's how the circuit of this pedal was set up, to drive small amps to feedback level. I dunno.
This pedal did sound OK through a 1x12 Fender combo. It could produce somewhat convincing metal tones. But in a band setting, forget it. It also hates other effects. What a worthless pedal.
Reliability/Durability:
It's a BOSS. It's also like 10+ years old. The tap feedback still works, and it was beat to hell when I got it, but still worked great. BOSS pedals will always get high marks for their durability. Their sound, however, is questionable.
Ease of Use:
It's only got 4 knobs. You won't need to touch the volume after you set it- this pedal is so quiet that you need to crank the pedal volume, at least this was the case on my setup. The overtone knob is also basically stupid. How loud do you want the overtone? Just set it. Tone and distortion level are the only concerns.
Customer Support:
Never dealt with BOSS. I've heard that they are nice people, but hard to get a hold of. Roland is a huge corporation, so if you've dealt with corporations before, I'm sure you know the deal.
Overall Rating:
I suppose if I averaged the scores, it would be like a 7. But screw that, a reliable pedal isn't necessarily a good sounding or useful pedal. If you want an awesome distortion pedal for metal, buy a Pro Co RAT, or a Line 6 Uber Metal if you're that kind. Or buy a XVex Fuzz Factory and be happy forever. I vote NO on proposition BOSS Super Feedbacker pedal!
