If you've checked out my personal list of pedals, you know I have a lot of distortion/overdrive pedals. Why would I now suggest the BOSS Metal Zone might be the only distortion pedal a guitarist would need, particularly since I've owned one for nearly four years?

The fact that I have so many other pedals is why the Metal Zone has gone unappreciated for so long. I stumbled upon a mint MT-2 at a pawn shop bearing a $50 price tag and snapped it up. How could I resist? After all, I knew of its reputation as a monster distortion box. And it boasted four EQ knobs - who could ask for more? I plugged in my Stratocaster, tried the sample settings and was a bit underwhelmed.

Don't get me wrong - the MT-2 is a beast! The sustain was amazing, but I couldn't really warm up to the sound. I thought that the distortion, while powerful, just didn't agree with my ears. And I quickly found other distortions to win my heart, including the XXL, XT-2, and more.

In fact, I think the MT-2 didn't come out of its mint box at all for the last two years. A few nights ago, I decided to give it another chance. But this time, I decided to really play around with the settings. For some reason, I set both the LOW and MIDDLE controls to 9:00, and the other two controls were set just above 12:00. Suddenly, some of my Strat's tone came through! So next I pulled back on the DIST control. There is no distortion at all if turned completely off, but raising it a bit gave me a nice clear overdrive with bite.

Once I had my fill of this overdrive, the more I turned up the DIST control, the more power I got. I got a nice range of sounds without touching the tone controls. Once I fiddled with the tone controls, I was able to submerge my Strat's identity under waves of distortion.

This is the true strength of the Metal Zone. The tone controls provide an incredible amount of variety, if the owner is ready to take time and experiment. The Metal Zone can provide a nice overdrive for a Strat, or do a convincing imitation of a Rectifier. Play around with the controls to bring out some of the guitar's own qualities, or let the Metal Zone overwhelm your axe and turn it into a metal beast.

The MT-2 was not the first distortion I bought - far from it. However, had it been my first, and had I taken time to explore every tonal nuance available, perhaps I wouldn't have bought any others.

Okay, I'm too much a gear junkie to believe that, but if I had to recommend only one BOSS distortion pedal to someone on a budget, this would be it.