ULTRA METAL UM300 Heavy Metal Distortion Instrument Effect Pedal, Pink

This pedal is great. It's cheap and does what it says it'll do. I've tried it on guitar, bass, and keyboard. I've tried it with daisy chain power and isolated power. I've tried it into an amp, through a lengthy pedal chain, straight into a mixer, and everywhere in between. Let me give you the run down: To be 100% clear, it is a LIMITER, not a compressor; the distinction being that it does not bring up quieter notes, only compresses louder notes. Most compressors are also "sustainers" too, meaning they bring up quieter notes (and also the 'noise floor' of the instrument or other electronics). The magic in this pedal is in the ratio and thresh (i.e. threshold) knobs. It determines at what threshold the pedal will start reducing the volume of notes/chords. It does this. Really well. With the ratio turned all the way up and the threshold all the way down, it makes all instrument dynamics a constant level (because the threshold is so low). With both of those knobs at noon, it gives a good soft-knee type compression you might want on say, guitar. And these are easily tweaked to take the pop out of bass slaps, take the attack off of keys a bit, or just even out tone. But it will not, I repeat, will not give you more sustain. The "enhance" knob is basically a tone knob. Adds in treble - won't roll it back though. Turned all the way down your signal is unaffected. Turned up, you're boosting treble - around what frequencies I'm not sure, but it didn't have much effect on guitar, so I'm guessing it's in the bass guitar treble range. It's important to note that anytime you start boosting treble, or really boosting at all for that matter, that you might get some noise. You're raising the signal level, and you're raising everything, including the noise floor of everything going into the pedal. I found that if you start pushing this knob past noon, you do get some hiss. Same goes for the "level" knob. Noon is unity (+0 db, not affecting the signal). You can roll it back to nothing (no sound), or boost it to where you get some noise and hiss, and depending on what you have...alot of it. So... RE: everyone who says this pedal is noisy...well, it can be if you are using it in a noisy way. Otherwise, it works perfect for me. I just wanted to limit some of the louder dynamics and even out my playing. This does that, and does it for cheap. I'm not sure anyone would like that this thing is plastic. And it's not a 'pretty pedal' - no art work and not a big brand name. But I got over it, for the price. You will too. If you're looking at this pedal, you're probably also looking at some of it's more expensive cousins at Boss, EHX, TCE, etc. This pedal is 1/3rd or 1/4th the price. So make your decision, but this pedal is excellent. Does what you need.

My experience with the Behringer brand has been generally a positive one, and this monster is no exception. Behringer would not be a brand I would choose for any type of instrument/power amp and probably not for a mixing console either. But some of their rack processing products are an exceptional value, most have a nice clean signal path and I have had good reliability as well. I think their rep as a junk brand is not a good assessment. Just when it comes to power amps, mixers and instrument amps, they are "heavy duty appliances" and you should pay more for something better and more reliable there. This little starved plate Vintage Tube Monster is an amazing gain stage in a box- for 50 bucks!! Out of the box stock feeding my clean tube amp it was very aggressive/Marshally and over the top fun! Sounds and feels organic, warm and tub-ey. All of the other reviewers are spot on with the info that this is a great unit to roll tubes in, each tube swap really changes the tonal character of this beast. Some of the NOS military tubes of the 12AX family tamed it down to very American-vintage sounding, I ended up with a crusty old RCA 12 AU7A in it that made it sing and snarl in a nice dynamic way. Weirdly enough, the output was way higher with this old used tube I have had laying around for 20 years even though it is a AU7? Hmm? I thought that this unit is good enough to be considered as an amp expander on a great single channel tube amp, which is what I am using it for. Only cons: GIANT!!! but it works so great who cares, make room for it as it's worth it of you love quality gain flavors to choose from. Again we forgive this for $50.00, but the engineered design is a bit lacking with 5 giant knobs that will easily get kicked and turned every other time you stomp. I will probably lock them in place with a small bead of silicone caulk once I feel tonal Nirvana is dialed in. I can't comment on the noise gate functionality, if you need that there are better ways to address those issues at the source. Not a perfect product but 5 full stars for sound + value!

Once upon a time, i was a beginning bass guitarist. I knew nothing about my instrument outside of the fact that it had strings, plugged in to an amp, and made noise when i plucked the strings. Like most beginners, i wanted to start playing so that I could emulate the sounds and styles of the favorite bands i grew up with. But before you run, you learn to walk. Before you walk you learn to crawl. And in the case of guitar, before you do anything cool, you endure lots and lots of boring and tedious practice. Generally speaking, this practice is often done through the single, one dimensional tone that your budget amp will allow. But time goes by, you get better and gradually you want to start experimenting with new sounds. Behringer excels at giving beginner and intermediate players quality equipment. And whether or not the pros will admit it, the sound quality of these clone units is certainly on par with more the more expensive older units of past generations. The UM300 provides a deep, biting rock metal distortion with several different eq functions to create a vast range of sounds and tones. While not as bright or metallic in tone as the HM300, nor a violent or brutal as the HD300, the UM300 excels as a happy medium between classic metal and modern rock metal sounds, with more customization options than the HD or HM combined. Id recommend this pedal to re create the guitar sounds made famous by bands like metallica, killswitch engage and disturbed. A few questions to answer; Yes it works well with bass. As a bassist who owns several Behringer pedals I would know. Yes, the housing is plastic. Its a hard plastic perfectly capable of withstanding normal practice usage. Those who gig professionally or are hard on equipment may want to opt for something with metal housing, though. No, you didnt get a defective unit. Battery life is virtually nonexistent in these pedals. The first time I ever played with one I had a nine volt battery installed it literally stopped working two hours later. I thought I had a defective unit until I tried another 9 volt battery. Yes, these pedals are an incredible deal at less than $30...

BOTTOM LINE UP FRONT: The Behringer VT999 Vintage Tube Monster is indeed a monster of a pedal. Those seeking a hot rodded sound to your amp would be wise to check this product out, as the level of boost and gain derived from the Bugera 12AX7C is enough to push any tube amp's clean channel into saturated overdrive. Featuring 3-band EQ that ranges from barely noticeable to perhaps "too much", I was surprised that I actually found myself backing off some of the knobs because I expected this to be a cheap pedal that needed it's EQ to be pushed to max in order to get any playable tone out of it. I was wrong. The Master and Gain knobs work exactly like a tube amp channel. The Noise Suppressor is a nifty feature that drastically reduces white noise. Roughly taking up the space of 3 standard pedals on your pedalboard, many probably wonder if it's even worth the real estate compared to other overdrives. However, when it comes to tube-based pedals, big is par for the course. The stock tube is decent to the point where you can get some musical tones out of the pedal. I personally don't plan on changing the stock tube any time soon because I want to test its limits, but the gain range is effectively Boss OD-1 to DS-1, so YES - it is possible to get some metal tones out of this pedal, especially those late 80s/early 90s Marshall-driven metal tones. I honestly can't say anything overtly bad or wrong with this pedal. I judge gear with my EARS and by its VALUE, not by PRICE, but honestly... for $50, you literally can't go wrong. There are worse pedals you could buy for more money quite honestly. Even with a $10-$15 mod to change the tube to something more your preference, you're still looking at a relatively inexpensive pedal with an amazing value. But if you're looking for other tube overdrives, check these out: Effectrode Tube Drive ($350), Maxon TBO-9 True Tube Boost/Overdrive ($263), and the Ibanez Tube King ($170). If you're on the fence with this thing, go ahead and jump over and get one. UPDATE: After utilizing this pedal extensively for the past few months, I decided that the Bugera 12AX7 onboard was effectively put through its paces enough for me to make a qualified review. I finally decided to replace the tube socket with a spare Sovtek 12AX7WA that I had on hand... and what a massive difference it made! The EQ curves are smoother, more balanced, and the overdriven gain tones had far less "snap, crackle, and pop" than the Bugera in comparison. I run this pedal through the FX loop of my Marshall JCM2000 DSL50/English, and it gives me a completely different and distinct (VOX-ish) overdrive tone to use compared to the Marshall ECC83 flavored overdrive. I am now recommending this pedal to all my guitarist buddies. It's just that good. A NOTE ON THE VIDEO: I made the video for YouTube, but it's a short full-band song of how the VT999 sounds in the mix for studio recording. All guitars and even the bass were ran through the pedal.

I picked this up as a replacement for a stolen Crybaby, being a guitarist on a budget, the price appealed to me. I did my research, read reviews and watched youtube videos on the Hellbabe, and was convinced to try it. For 40 bucks, how could I go wrong ? It's not a bad pedal, not at all. It does what it says it does, but it's not without flaws. For example, the pedal itself does not have much range. The overall tone of the Hellbabe is fine, but the limited range of motion on the pedal itself severely limits your "sweep". There are mods that can be done which are beyond the scope of my review but if you Google "Behringer Hellbabe mods" you can find a few things you can do to improve the pedals range of motion and overall tone as well. I will probably try them, as really the only thing stopping me from giving this pedal more stars is these issues. The fact that you can dial in the frequency range is a nice touch, and for that alone this pedal is worth the price of admission. I also dig the fact that you can really fine tune the frequency response of the wah with the "Q" and the "Fine Tune" knobs. This gives you more control over the tone than your typical wah. The boost is kind of useless though, I do not notice much increase in volume even with the boost dialed all the way up. BUT, since I get my lead boost from a TS9 Tubescreamer, I can't really say that this is a problem for me. I didn't buy it for the boost feature, so I'm not upset that it doesn't do much for me. I also really like the whole "step on, step off" feature. One thing I didn't care for about my Crybaby is having to rock the pedal all the way forward and then press down to engage the wah, since the wah was activated that way, rocking it back usually caused me to start sweeping in reverse and it sounded funky. With this, I step on it, do my thing and step off and it's out of the signal path. Speaking of that, I haven't noticed any "tone suck", like some users have mentioned. When it's off my tone is my tone, and when it's on, it does what I need it to do then gets out of the way. It is supposed to model the Dunlop "Crybaby from Hell" wah that Dime was famous for using. It does a respectable job BUT if you place this unit next to an actual Crybaby from Hell and A/B the two, the Crybaby from Hell is clearly the better of the two. It has a more pronounced sweep and a more aggressive mid-range "honk" that really helps it cut through a wall of guitars. As I understand it, some of the mods you can find online for the Hellbabe can change that and bring it closer to Dime-time, but as I haven't done these yet, and I am reviewing a out of the box as it is product and not a modified one, what it CAN do with some help is not relevant. What is relevant is what it does "as it is". But the Dime wah is also about 4X the price of the Hellbabe, so the fact that it doesn't exactly hold up next to what its supposed to be emulating can be forgiven. At least in my opinion. Behringer gets knocked around for it's build quality, but I don't see why. Yes, this thing is injection molded plastic, but it feels very sturdy. It couldn't stand up to being jumped on, but since that doesn't seem likely to happen I am not the least worried. I own a few other Behringer pedals, and haven't had any problems with them in the quality department either. The Hellbabe has earned a spot on my modest pedalboard, at least until I can find a better replacement that won't wreck my wallet. Even then, I will keep this around as a backup wah. Too many guitarists buy gear with their eyes not with their ears. Maybe that's why Behringers' company slogan is "just listen" ?

This is a GREAT tube OD pedal...but not out of the box. Surprisingly...just kidding...the stock tube is awful. Like every other review...my stock tube sucked. I didn't hate the tones with the stock tubes...but they're plain, sterile, and a little thin. Some pedals do sound like garbage with the stock tube...watch some YouTube reviews and you'll hear the great possibilities this pedal can offer if you do the following 2 things: This is the first add on you need to get...a good 12AU7 tube. I'm using a 60's NOS RCA 12AU7A...but any decent tube from Tung Sol, JJ...etc will work just as well. Why not replace it will another 12AX7? You can...but pedal does generate a lot of overdrive. So unless you're after a real saturated metal distortion...a very low gain works best. It'll still OD a lot with a 12AU7, but you get a wider scope of clean to dirt with the low gain tube. I tried the following tubes in descending order of gain: A better 12AX7 gain rating 100% 5751, and exact match to a 12AX7 with a gain rating of 70% 12AT7 gain rating 60% 12AY7 gain rating 45% 12AV7 gain rating 41% 12AU7 gain rating 19% All of the tubes sounded MUCH better than the stock....but the 12AU7 gave the wide scope of overdrive and a fuller tone that responded the best to the tone controls. The "A" in the 12AU7A tube I used just means it's lower noise than a regular 12AU7.. if you're new to tubes, any type of tube that ends with an "A" is a lower noise version of a 12AX7, 12AY7....etc. Secondly...a new power adapter. The supplied adapter works just fine...but if you install a lower gain tube it's not going to function as well. A lower gain tube runs hotter...I know that sounds counterintuitive but it's the way the tubes function. The stock adapter is 9v 300 mV...you need an adapter than runs 9v 500 mV. They're a several good adapters on Amazon that run $7-15...so it's not an expensive add on. Do these two things and the pedal kills. I can use this pedal to get REAL tube OD thru my tube amps, 50's Tweed Deluxe clone, 65 Princeton Reverb or even a 50's Champ clone...at low volume. The tone controls are good...it ALWAYS a plus to have the high, low and mids separately controlled. The Noise Gate actually works too. Set it to the threshold you want and the pedal is DEAD QUIET when you're not playing. There are high-end tube driven OD pedals out there...but this one can go toe to toe with them. Will the pedal last long? I have no idea. The chassis is well made and quality...but I can't begin to guess about the longevity of the interior components. For well under $100, if it dies after three years, so be it. If your looking for a OD pedal that is an actual tube driven circuit...this is a good one. But ONLY if you spend a few extra bucks for a good 12AU7 & power adapter to match the tube.

I was quite hopeful about this replacement for my dead Cry Baby pedal. I like the idea of the dual power source and the auto pedal return. There are tons of great reviews. Seemed like a sure thing. Wrong. While the pedal build quality was generally great, the battery compartment and installation was ridiculous - tricky to mount the battery in the housing lid, and it fell out easily. The real deal breaker, however, was how incredibly noisy the pedal was. Pedal movement was good and the auto return spring felt great to use, BUT the circuit switching off and on every time the pedal went all the way to heel down position was extremely noisy, with cracks and pops and cutting off the sound altogether for a split second. It was horrible. The whole point to an optical wah pedal is being quieter. This isn't. I tried positioning my foot to avoid the full heel down position, but that just made it harder to use the pedal to get any usable effect. It might work better if there was a resistive threshold that warned you of getting too close to the off position and made it enough harder to go full heel down. Maybe. In the end, it was just too finicky for me. Also, it would not let you use the pedal as a fixed bandpass filter by leaving the pedal part way throught the range of movement. While the hardware on-off pushbutton seems like extra work, the switching noise from this pedal makes it completely unusable for me. I am going back to a pedal that has a hard on-off switch and retains a mechanical pot on a gear. Yeah, it may wear out and have other issues, but I am not a working mucisian and I don't wear out gear very often. I generally love Behringer gear, but this is a serious fail in my opinion. I returned it.

This was a VERY big surprise, from someone who is very knit picky about tone, this thing actually seems to do what it says more or less. The tone this thing produces is unequivocal tube tone, no doubt about it. The downside, more or less, is that it is kind of hard to tweak right, and sounds a little brittle. That said, I'm optimistic because I've only used a Groove Tube 12ax7, but I have a few other tubes on the way in the see if they can smoothen out the tone a little more, but even now it's totally usable. Another massive plus to this thing, it really sounds BETTER than the freaking solid state pedals marketed today. I have deluxe reverb, and have struggled with overdrive since I purchased it, solid state or analog pedals just don't cut it, they always sound like pedals even the best of them. This is my conclusion after trying some of the top of the line pedals there are. So, even if this doesn't cut it in the long run, I'm very pleased with my initial observations. Now, as addressed by everyone, the stock tube is not an accurate representation of what this pedal is, I can't describe how terrible that stock tube sounded. You can throw a tampon in there and it will sound better than the stock tube, so just get rid of it if you plan on keeping this, it has no business inside a musical device. I'm also giving this 5 stars, not because it's the best sounding overdrive I've ever heard, but because it gives "enough" to where I'm genuinely impressed, and feel that there's potential given the right tube and tweaking, maybe even slight mods in the future. Definitely worth checking out. Edit: (How to get the most out of this pedal) Okay, so I've used this pedal for about a week now, and I just so happened to buy new tubes for my amp, which were all JJ. I popped on one of the JJ 12ax7's in the pedal and THAT made a massive difference versus the groove tube. The differences were a smoother tone, more articulate & clear tone with the JJ 12ax7, and the biggest difference believe it or not was that the pedal was able to clean up. I don't know how this was possible because before it was just impossible fizz that never cleaned up, the volume just lessened, but with the JJ it actually dramatically altered this and I'm able to get that "off-clean" to Marshall annihillation with just the volume knob! This wasn't without a special ingredient though, which is what I found to be... A ts808 before the vt999 and BAM! This thing goes from an awesome sounding metal-esque sounding pedal, to a hybrid overdriven-lead tone that's very tight and adjustable. I'm extremely pleased, I know the BK Butler is supposed to be a better version sounding tube pedal, but honestly, I don't feel the need. The fuzzy-fizzy quality that was initially had with this pedal has transformed into a pleasant, heavy-driven lead tone that's quite adjustable. It stacks well with other pedals, and to my ears doesn't suck tone. I'd say if you have a clean amp and are ripping your hair out, then with a little patience and experimentation you may find just what you're looking for in this pedal. I can sort of pull of a bluesy-off-clean tone, but I'd say this pedal does the Marshall "annihilation" overdrive much better than anything else. I'd highly recommend!