The Electro-Harmonix Metal Muff with Top Boost is EHX's answer to the countless metal distortion pedals out there. There are three variants of the Metal Muff pedal: the pocket Metal Muff, micro Metal Muff, and the one I'm gonna review with top boost feature. Disclaimer for those guys out there, even though this pedal bears the 'Muff' name, it doesn't sound remotely close to their more popular Big Muff fuzz pedal. This one brings total metal annihilation!
Features
The Metal Muff is housed in a 5" x 4" casing with two switches. The true bypass switch on the right turns the pedal on and off, and the left one activates the top boost. There are 6 knobs: level - controls the overall volume, gain - adjusts the amount of distortion, top boost - adjusts the top boost (zero on the knob has no effect on the sound, so it can only boost not cut), and the standard bass, middle and treble controls. One good about the three band EQ is that there's a notch in the potentiometer wherein it locks at 12:00 so that you'll know where the flat setting is. Pure genius!
The basic tone of the Metal Muff is more on the Mesa Rectifier-ish side of the hi-gain territory than the Marshall side. Death, black, thrash, grindcore metal and whatever's the latest metal genre players rejoice! (EMO shit not welcome here though hehehe!) Tweaking the EQ controls helped me discover a lot of hidden tricks on this pedal. The controls are so interactive that one small twist on one knob affects the other two. Fine-tuning my perfect metal tone took all afternoon the first time. So this is not a pedal for those players who want to just leave it there and not tweak. Later, I found that the pedal sounds best if I don't do radical twists on the knob. I only tweak from 10:00 to 2:00. Any more than that it sounds artificial. The middle knob is the most important of the pedal. I can tailor any metal sound I want with the middle knob, and just adjust and interact with the bass and treble to suit the amp that I'm using.
The top boost, EHX said boosts a narrow band of high frequencies to help me stand out in the mix. Playing alone at home, my GOD!!! ear-piercing boost!!! Even at 9:00, the boost sounds too much and thins out my tone too much. But, I discovered that in the context of the band mix, the top boost sounded just right. Once I found the right setting in relation with the treble knob -- yes, the top boost and treble knobs are related, they're interactive too -- I step on the top boost for solos and I can shred myself away.
Performance
Plugged in my amp, with the EQ controls set at noon and drive maxxed, its sounds totally wicked! Instant metal tone. Compared to a stock Boss MT-2, it's not nasal sounding and has comparable presence. The MT-2 has a bit more gain, but I always found the MT-2 to have too much gain for practical use. Well, that's another story. Anyways, the Metal Muff has more string to string clarity, and pinch harmonics are so easy to make. Very Zakk friendly. There is also a lot of output in this pedal. That being said, like all metal pedals, the amp you plug into must have a lot of clean headroom for it to sound good. Plugged into a verge-of-breaking-up-amp, it sounded muffled and lacked punch.
One of the metal muff's advantages is that it lets the guitar's tone shine through. Using my Jap Les Paul copy with Bill Lawrence pickups, the Metal Muff sounded middy, sometimes borderline nasal. However, my other Jap LP copy with EMG pickups sounded scooped with it and I had to back the gain a bit due to the EMG's tremendous output.
Bottom line
The Metal Muff certainly is one of the better metal pedals out there. But I have to keep in mind that this is a metal pedal. Rock or blues players may not find this pedal good enough because the metal tone is still there even at low drive settings. It's also a pedal made for live use, not for the bedroom guitarist. Though the EQ controls are very flexible and can shape a lot of tones, the top boost is only usable live. For the bedroom guitarist, I would suggest getting the micro metal muff - it's cheaper too.
Added notes:
The knob to tweak: middle knob
PROS: great metal sound, amazing presence, maintains transparency even at extreme gain settings
CONS: top boost can be a bit too much, and sometimes it thins out the tone
