Boss MZ-2 Digital Metalizer (Blue Label) 1987 - 1992

At Herscheid & the Headbangers: Boss MZ-2 Digital Metalizer - Made in Japan

Arriving at the end of 1987, the MZ-2 Digital Metalizer pedal was aimed squarely at heavy metal and hard rock musicians. Notably, Boss used the word ‘musicians’ as opposed to ‘guitarists’, indicating that they saw it being employed on other instruments too.

Although the MZ-2 was called the Digital Metalizer, it wasn’t all digital. The distortion was produced with analogue circuitry, and only the ‘complementary’ effects were driven by ones and zeros. Of course, in later times, the pedal would, I’m sure, have been named the Analogue Metalizer, but this was 1987 – ‘digital’ was still very much the buzzword.

The MZ-2 took a highly-saturated and heavily-processed distortion sound, of the type which would require multiple gain stages and maybe some custom EQ options to produce in a valve amp, and amalgamated it with additional digital delay/modualtion processing, in stereo, for an archetypal late ‘80s metal sound with spatial characteristics.

The pedal works great, fully-functional but shows good signs of use