OVERDRIVE- IBANEZ Super Metal Mini ... underrated little monster

IBANEZ 

SUPER METAL MINI 

Six years ago Ibanez brought out the first of their Mini pedals. The most successful is the Tube Screamer. The Chorus is based on their classic original and having owned the original when it was new I was impressed enough to scoop up the Mini.

$120.00 USD

Unless you are a hobbyist if you played Metal you tended to only play Metal. If you were like me you ignored this pedal as it just could not be a killer Metal pedal and that was a given, so why waste your time. You just had to have the best. In short most of us could have found this pedal at our local bricks and mortar and given it a shot but it would never occur to us. 

In spite of the bullsh@t name tagged onto a lot of Metal pedals knobs the truth is in this case you get volume, gain, treble, mids and lows with funny names.

All the Mini pedals are based on vintage Ibanez pedals from the 80's.

The fist Super Metal was in '85. A time when Californian bands would play a hot rodded old Plexi or one of the new JCM800 amps.

CONCLUSION

So what's the big deal? I think the main thing is this pedal has suffered from the BOSS HM-2 syndrome. The Boss is a pedal that was considered to be caricature of a Metal sound but not a real Metal sound. Like many pedals they are cool for what they are not crap from what they are not.

Or to put it another way if that true sound were a red apple then this is a green apple. They are both apples. They are both good.

HANDS ON 

...mine arrived. It's key feature is a big sound that is totally under control. It can lie in behind a vocal and not fight with it. It is not for the shredder with some rawness and rip your face off thing, sustain easily into jumping an octave off it's overtones. I find I need both even in the same tune. You would need a booster or a second OD great at that. In my book it is a given, have both.