Behringer UM300 Ultra Metal Distortion Effects Guitar Pedal, Pink

You're probably here for ONE of two reasons: Either 1.) It's cheap, it's bright pink and it says heavy metal on it. Or 2.) You've heard that this sounds identical to the original Boss HM-2 Heavy Metal, made famous by all those Swedish death metal bands. If you're here for reason 1, skip on this pedal, and go buy the UM300 Ultra Metal (cheap, pink Metal Zone clone), as the HM300 most likely isn't the heavy metal sound you have in mind. The UM300 can dial in a lot more standard metal tones, it's quite versatile and it's actually not that bad. If it's reason 2, then you can definitely believe what you've heard. I have a MIJ Boss HM-2, and I picked this up on a whim as I'd heard what it supposedly does. For £20, I thought "what's the worst that can happen?" especially after hearing the demos. The side-by-side comparisons were spot on. The HM300 is as close as you're going to get to the original HM-2, and if you don't fancy spending £100 in a beaten up, 25 year old HM-2 (or up to £250 on a boutique clone like the Left Hand Wrath which doesn't really sound all that much like the HM-2 anyway), then get this. Obviously the original HM-2 has a certain cool-factor and an everlasting re-sale value, but honestly - and you boutique pedalheads might scoff at this - I now prefer the HM300. The "sweet-spot" is slightly different. The HM-2's sweet spot is all the dials at 10, and the pedal sounds like garbage if you dial in anything BUT that. Whereas the HM300 is similar, though you roll off the "High" EQ (which on some models, they've called "Mid") just a *little* bit, though you can have it full, but it will give you a very cutting tone. which is great for leads, but is far too fizzy for that thick, saturated rhythm sound you're probably looking for. You can also roll off the distortion a little bit (to about 3 o-clock), which still gives you an incredible amount of gain, but it seems to ease off on the throttling compression you get at maximum gain, and the chugged palm mutes start to sound a bit more thrash-like; clear and stabby and less like an atomic bomb going off. That versatility is important for getting it to sit right with your amp. Unlike the HM-2, which if it doesn't sound good with your amp with the pedal's dials maxed out, then you are fighting a losing battle. It sounds like the original, with that added room to maneuver around your amp's natural tone. If your amp is bright, roll off the High. If your amp/cab gets a bit farty with low end, roll off the distortion, to get a much more level chug sound without compromising *that* tone. From my experience, you just can't do that with the HM-2. It's either all or nothing. With this, you have some wiggle room. Not only that, but it sounds GOOD. So close to the original that I feel a bit silly paying £100 for a Boss HM-2 some years ago. The ONLY downside is that it's plastic. For a stomp-box, I am worried as to how many stomps it will be able to take. But the tone is worth preserving, and for such a low price, you could use the money you saved on not buying a HM-2 to get a DIY FX pedal maker/modder to rehouse this for you, into something more resilient, if you really wanted to. Or you could just be careful with it. It's up to you. I am told they are more sturdy than they look and feel by folks who have had theirs a long time. We'll see. I haven't rehoused mine yet, but I am thinking about it. Ignore the reviews saying that it's bad. They just didn't know what they were buying. If you are buying this with either Swedish Death Metal in mind or that crusty grind/hardcore sound like Nails, Trap Them, Black Breath etc (which is pure Swedish Death Metal worship anyway), then you will not be disappointed! If you want a crisp, clear Brown Sound or a modern Metalcore sound, then this won't do it.

What!!!! This pedal is superb, and at this price an absolute no-brainer. I have an original 1970's Watkins IC300 Copycat tape delay unit, and this pedal certainly gives a superb emulation of that! It goes from classic slap back all the way to absolute chaos. The only thing I can say is - BUY ONE NOW!

Case is plastic so may not take a battering, changing the battery is fiddly. Current drain is 160mA so a PP3 battery will only last a few hours if used continuously. Sounds decent enough and plenty of versatility so at the price still good value.

Much better than I expected. I used to have a Boss DS1 and didn't like the sound. This however, used on a low distortion setting and after my Behringer Vintage tube overdrive (which btw is excellent) produces a thick but "pleasantly dirty" sound just right for blues rock. It's dead useful that it has EQ settings too. A good choice.

This product came within stated delivery times. I am fairly new to playing guitar, have only been playing for a year now and wanted to ‘experiment’ with some accessories. Having read the reviews I thought I would buy this considering the price. I actually bought a Behringer SF-300 Super Fuzz too so am writing this review to incorporate that as well.. again I am new to this so wanted to try other methods. I have two guitars both of which entry level Rockburns bought from Amazon- one being an Stratocaster style the other Les Paul2 style. I had already bought new/better strings and purchased a better amp too at around £70, again not top end but better than most ‘entry level’ ones. I read some reviews beforehand about being made of cheap plastic etc and not worth the money and all that, to be honest I done think they could be further from the truth. Packaging was really good the box looked like a good quality product inside and indeed I was not disappointed. The product certainly does not look or feel cheap. At first I thought it was metal but you could tell it was strong plastic. How this could be an issue I don’t know unless you have feet like a rino or intend using it with sledge hammer I cant see why this would pose an issue. To be honest unless you are one of these snobs that think you only get great quality from spending £100’s you will love it. I am no professional guitarist but can tell good quality and this is made very well indeed. Cant see spending stupid money for something a fraction of the price, unless you are a top rock band and producing your recording your own music! There is a battery compartment, I recommend you read the manual first !! I don’t often do this lol.. but it does clearly state how to access this and it is very simple, I think you can find this on youtube anyway but READ THE INSTRUCTIONS !! I also bought an adapter for it which all works well together. The sound is really great There is nothing spectacular here, just a good if generic pedal that does what it says on the box. It works, be better if it was easier to find the battery compartment. A sign saying 'Batteries Here.' would be a good idea. I found it after watching a YouTube video. Simple really. Behringer is a big company and although not great innovators, they do know their stuff when it comes to quality and value. Go ahead and buy one! Basically this pedal represents superb value for money. Good range of tones and sustain. I think the build quality is absolutely fine. Yes, it's not metal but it's still very robust. All in all, this is a steal.

Sadly I got the high pitched whining noise as soon as I plugged it in, tried different amps, guitars and cables just in case but same problem

This pedal is amsolutely fantastic for the price. Pure HM2 grind! Everything dimed but dial the mid knob back ever so slightly to get that original Boss HM2 tone. Shame its plastic.

Ok so I received this yesterday just before band practise with a bunch of friends. So one plus was very fast delivery, received Saturday AM after ordering Thursday AM, and that was on the FREE supersaver delivery. Benefits are as you'd expect. Other people were tuning with apps on phones (which is a good way) except everyone needed to be quiet for this, so being able to tune with a pedal was a huge advantage. It is also very well built. I was quite surprised how chunky it was for the money it cost. Now the downsides and the reason it is not 5 star: I use a HSS Strat and the tuner does NOT like the Humbucker pickup. It gets confused as hell and you cant tune on that pickup. Not an issue for me, just switch to a single coil and it works great. But it is something you need to know when deciding to buy this or not. If you have a guitar with only Humbuckers then this might not work at all for you. Again, this was just my humbucker it couldn't deal with, just be aware. You need to have the volume up quite high on the guitar for it to work properly. If the volume is low on the guitar then the tuner is slow to react if it reacts at all. This means you end up activating the pedal and muting your guitar, you then turn up the volume to tune and then when you unmute again you end up with your volume too high! Very annoying when playing with other people and trying to set your levels. This is something you can compensate for when you set up your levels at the beginning of playing. Final, as said before by others, BATTERY! It eats 9V batteries. Put a new one in straight away. The tuner only seems to switch on when cables are plugged in to it so overnight the tuner was left in circuit but with the amp off and this morning the battery was dead! So this will get very expensive to use it on batteries. So straight away I'm off to buy a power supply! EDIT: It does say on the back to unplug the jacks to preserve batteries, so I'll see how long a battery lasts now that I'll follow the maker's recommendations! So in conclusion, good value for money as it is very very cheap for what it is, so if you can deal with the negatives mentioned, it will do you well. If you need something that you can use on battery for a long time and your guitar has Humbuckers and no single coils, you might need to look elsewhere. Fine for me though!