You may or may not know this, but David Gilmour actually used the HM2 in the 80s for his live sound as he "moved on" from using the big muff for his high gain stuff.

I think you can do a lot of different sounds with the HM2. One of my favourites: vol on full, low at 10 o'clock, high on 2 o'clock, gain almost off, into a slightly overdriven amp. But the most fun setting is the classic swedish chainsaw! 😂

All you need to know about how versatile beyond "metal" the HM-2 is that David Gilmour used one for a good chunk of his lead tone on his second solo album About Face and with Pink Floyd on Delicate Sound of Thunder onward!

I have a 1983 HM-2, it sounds great. I was really surprised with how versatile it is.

Still buzzy but yeah the blues was actually pretty good

So comforting to know that it isn't only Bilinder Butcher of My Bloody Valentine who understands that the HM-2 is more than just a Swedish chainsaw pedal with all of the controls set to 10.

Those opening tones (the dirty and the clean) are glorious!

I've looked the other way with this pedal until recently. Stefan from The Pedal Zone said he has one as his main dirt. In my brief experiments with the HM-2, I think it can sound a lot like boosting a Big Muff with an SD-1, the main dirt tone from Coheed and Cambria's debut album. I can't wait to play around with that new EHX Hell Melter; it looks like it's got some great features.

This very young man has convinced me that he knows what he is talking about. I am now subscribed.

I love this. I never thought it sounded all that great dimed out. Great job!

Maybe I´m 6 months late.. but never too late to tell you that you are right! Hence my experiments with finding 5 different (chainsaw) sounds without diming the knobs, putting it onto everything including the sound a black hole in space makes and so on. There is so much more about the HM2 and I´m glad that there is someone like you discovering the fields I wouldn´t touch 😁

Like how you had the hell melter in the background. Enjoying the videos but would love more of you jamming!

I love this pedal for blues tones!

Aw man, that "chainwaw blues" riffs was so smooth.

Don't forget the HM3! Gain around 9 o'clock gives a great fuzz tone!

i use it on bass with the low at 2oclock and the hi at 8oclock with distortion around 10-11oclock and level at 4oclock . Best distortion i've ever heard at this setting

I installed p-rails in my Jazzmaster too! I love these pickups and all the tone options. Your the first person I've seen do it too!

Man I never thought that it should be called a mids knob but that’s exactly what I have been hearing - a mids / ‘voice’ control

I bought one when they first came out. I thought it was a little thin and harsh sounding, but I then ran it into my Rat, and it thickened it up nicely...🤘

Bought it as a meme. I ended using it as my lead tone for rock

100% agreement. Great pedal, great analysis, great playing, great vid!

The HM-2 is a weird beast. Advertised as "Heavy Metal" it kind of sucks for anything you'd see as "80s Heavy Metal" with its loose bass and fuzzy edge. If anything it's really bordering all-out fuzz territory. "High" is not really JUST mids, it's technically mids and highs BTW, the 2 EQ bands are tied together on that knob. The Distortion knob also doesn't do a whole lot between it's extreme settings. The "meme" to run it at all max for chainsaw is a meme for sure, as ideally you will want to tweak the EQ ever so slightly, put the distortion to the point where it just gives you a bit of nastiness and the volume to get the amount of push required (and ideally you want it to run into something dirty already). And no, it won't do THAT Swedish deathmetal chainsaw sound into a clean amp. That being said cool tones, not really the tones I would go for in those genres, but it can add a lot of uniqueness to the overall sound, maybe even if just mixed/blended/layered with more "traditional" options.

As for the blues thing I think I remember reading David Gilmour had on his board in the 80s/90s for leads. And while I do play guitar in a Doom metal band, I actually use mine more like and e.q. Distortion up less than 1/4 of the way into an pair of overdriven amps or blended with other dirt pedals. Cheers!

YT’s Algo brought me here, great videos, just subscribed

"Gorilla Whale" ...... I think i heard a similar tune once. It was called "Radioactive Laser Lizard"

there are a lot of clones of this pedal for good reason, and the DOD American metal is exactly the same circuit. Internally the HM-2 is very similar to a Big Muff or a Rat, but the Rat has better tone, it has both hard and soft clipping diodes and a set of germanium diodes like a fuzz but it also has gyrators which the other two pedals don't have. I'm proud to say this was the second guitar effect pedal i ever bought, and as soon as plugged it in i loved it.

4.44 great settings. I had no idea. I wonder what those settings are like with drone boxes?

It's clipping characteristics suit it more for a fuzz role in my opinion :'D

I am of the mind that boss was going for one specific type of sound with this pedal. Look at the color of the letters...orange. So simple. Staring everyone in the for decades. Orange...

Pity that blues part was so short. Dope tones.

Fun fact: Jerry Garcia had a HM-2 in his signal chain.

Man, this makes me wanna dig up my old HM-3 that I picked up for like 50 bucks from the used pedal bin, I have no fucking clue where it is but I miss it everyday.

I was pleasantly suprised by the range you got. My only knowledge of the pedal is what ive heard on the internet (mainly bad). BTW I'm fully intrigued by your guitar the PUP configuration

excellent video! subscribed!

Reminds me of the band Polvo

I'm looking for a pedal that resembles the Black Sabbath-Tony Iommi sound, not entirely sure about this one. What would you recommend?Thanks

Cool video brother!!!🤘🏼🤘🏼🤘🏼

Nice!

Hey! Wait!!!....that "Chainsaw Blues" has the sound of Gary Moore.....😮

Line 6 put this in the Helix, called "Swedish Chainsaw" 🤣

All knobs to the max...

amazing eq section on this pedal. just with 2 knobs you can have all the way from a clean boost to totally old-shit radio cock speaker like effect like the infamous josh homme qotsa sound

I wanna see a video on that guitar! Looks very Charles Moothart Inspired?

In my opinion the same could be said about the metal zone

Your videos are the shit. ❤

Reeeee! You’re using the pedal wrong!!! 😂 JK. It actually sounds like a decent fuzz imo

Could I ask, how does the Valhalla Delay fair? I don't have a delay pedal and have a few pedals on the list which are all pretty bloody expensive, nice as they are. I haven't come across a guitarist who uses it. I have Supermassive which is free and really useful

Please what is the name of the song in the intro

I just **cannot** get past the gravelly texture of this pedal... it's not a fuzz, but it's not a distortion (like a DS-1 or MT-2, to stick with the BOSS environment for reference), but just the "bad" elements from both categories. Even as a death metal pedal, it's just bad. The Metal Zone & even the DOD/Digitech Death Metal pedals far outshine the HM-2. I wouldn't use it for stoner/doom stuff either, except MAYBE on a bass, might do alright in that context. Just my 2 cents... (been playing occult-doom for 12+ years, just search KZfaq for "Goetic Circle"! Had to stop due to health reasons.)

Is it possible with mt2?

Sounds a lot like a rat

I had one in it's day 83, worst pedal I have ever had

Still sounds like arse, mate. I've heard better drive sounds from cheap 90s multi-effects. What can't it do? Sound good.

It's still a steaming pile...

For me its not agressive enough, MT-2 is just right

It has a very unnatural sound to my ears. It's like it's being heavily clipped separately and then mixed back in with the main signal.. meh