Boss HM-2 Heavy Metal

The name pretty much sums it up. When this unit was introduced a lot of famous bands like Iron Maiden, Metallica, Judas Priest, Ratt, Scorpions, Motley Crue, Def Leppard, Van Halen, and Ozzy still didn't get any respect or airplay on the radio. That didn't matter because everyone who was cruising the streets of rural America had these in their tape deck at full volume. The sound Boss was trying to replicate was the coveted Marshall stack and they delivered in spades. The HM-2 had color knobs to dial in the high and low frequencies. What? Mids? Forget the mid-range and just scoop it out. The distortion knob didn't affect the sound from 8 o'clock to 3 o'clock but there was plenty of sludge on tap. No other Boss distortion could asymmetrically clip the sound wave better than this. That is until 1991 rolled around and they came out with the Metal Zone MT-2 which has gone on to outsell almost every Boss pedal. It came as no surprise they laid this one to rest just as hair-metal was starting to snuff out classic-metal.