Behringer Ultra Metal UM300 Distortion Pedal

I have an Ibanez JD9 Jet Driver OVERDRIVE distortion pedal. The battery connector broke off making my pedal completely useless, other than being a paper weight. For some unknown reason, I cannot use an AC adapter with it, nor with any of my pedals, so I rely on batteries. Any ideas on why that is??? I bought this as a replacement for the jet driver. Now I was unaware that this is a massive fuzz box, but sounds so awesome, including when down-tuning. My dad kindly enough fixed my Jet Driver pedal shortly after I got this one. Now I must say having the knobs for “drive” or (distortion) on my Jet Driver pedal, a little more than half way with the mid and tone knobs maxed, You get a very nice hard rock/heavy metal sound from the 80s. Combine that with this fuzz box and man you get one hell of an awesome combination. Running both at the same time does little however. But, wanting to do some serious leads stomp the jet driver. If you want to do some chuggin, the Ultra Metal will do you wonders. and the ease of use when switching between there is no “POP” sound, as I have noticed in some pedals. I highly recommend this pedal to anyone who Is looking for an awesome fuzz box. Please do note though that my particular Jet Driver is made completely out of strong metal, you could jump on it if you wanted to, provided you didn’t jump on the knobs themselves.You might mess up your sound while playing -_-
the Ultra Metal however, is made out of plastic, so caution may be advised. May not want to get too terribly crazy on it. Worst comes to worst I suppose you could take the lip off and cast a heavy duty one, but the one that is one there will work for most…Whom don’t preform crazy firework acrobatics on their pedals.

An amazingly good deal for the money – don’t believe the goofs that complain about it! I’ll go through their completely baseless remarks:

– it’s made of plastic:

So what? it’s made of very tough plastic that keeps the weight and the price down! any pro player is gonna mount it on a pedal board anyway – and it’ll be safe there – if you’re bashing your gear that much you probably aren’t playing any actual paid gigs

– doesn’t come with a power supply and connecting cable:

only an idiot would say that – no other 9v effects pedals come with a power supply and extra cable – come ON

poor sound:

I’ve been through this pedal extensively, the noise floor is as low as any BOSS pedal, and the sound quality is excellent – this pedal includes a mid-frequency adjustment knob, giving the user far better control over the sound

doesn’t work:

Judging by the language skills of some reviewers, these are not the kind of people you should trust for an opinion; Behringer’s quality control is excellent, if the one you’ve received is inoperative it *could* be a repackaged item – either way, return it and get a replacement; the one I have is absolutely EXCELLENT! Also: poor sound is often due to having a crappy amp or an amp that hasn’t been set up properly – a myriad of reasons that aren’t the fault of the pedal

hard to install battery:

no, it isn’t difficult – it’s actually superior to most stomp-boxes because YOU CAN’T LOSE THE SCREWS!! That’s right, you simply use a ball-point pen to press in the black plastic pivot point on each side of the foot controller and release the pedal from the body to access the battery compartment – just line up the pivots with the case to put it back in place, using that ball-point pen to push each one back in alignment – just READ THE MANUAL – it’s not hard

it’s garbage:

written by a guy that claims he had pro equipment, but bought this unit for practice – give me a break!! no ‘pro’ is e ever gonna buy a cheap pedal for practice – the guy obviously does NOT play guitar anything close to professionally, and likely not at all – making a statement like that is just plain stupid!! you can’t trust the opinion of anybody that writes that kind of nonsense

not at good as his Fender amp:

again, total nonsense – there is no decent Fender amp that can outdo this pedal – it’ll give you fantastic tone if you play this through a REAL FENDER TUBE AMP!! I can get excellent sounds from mine by adjusting the controls – this pedal out-performs most distortion pedals on the market, no matter how expensive – HOWEVER, if you are a crappy guitar-player, it will merely showcase your total LACK OF TALENT

So, don’t believe the idiots – buy one and you’ll find it’s more than just okay – it TOTALLY ROCKS – like most Behringer pedals, it’s been designed by true professionals in Germany and built off-shore – to save you money and give you SUPERIOR PERFORMANCE!! so what if it’s housed in plastic? if you treat it with the same care as your guitar, you’ll get years of use.. I own several Behringer pedals, and they are TRULY EXCELLENT!! (eg: the Behringer ‘Tube Modeller’ is one of the best of its type ANYWHERE

NOTE: I have played live for many years and never broken an fx pedal, but if you smash a metal-cased effects pedal around enough, the rigid metal case will pass the shock to the circuit board, and that circuit board will crack and stop working – this Behringer line being plastic-cased, will tend to absorb the force and eventually crack, but the chances of cracking the actual circuit board inside are in fact, greatly reduced

If this pedal was a person it would look like the chap on the box. This pedal absolutely roars! It hot rods my 20 watt Harley Benton combo amp and makes my tone sound huge. As per the headline, it replicates the sound of the Metal Zone pedal used to create “The Gothenburg Sound” in the 90’s. The new split mid controls function allow me to take that sound and really dial in my own accent into to it. It’s made of plastic but it’s sturdier than my mobile phone. The price was incredible considering the sound it emulates. With my meagre budget I was able to put together a rig I can use at home as I’m not gigging or recording. It’s great for a beginner or someone like me who is getting back into playing guitar but doesn’t have a huge bank balance to support a great rig. The only complaint I have with it is that the instructions don’t tell you how to change the battery. Youtube the rescue. That was a pretty important detail to omit from the instructions because it’s really not obvious how to access the battery compartment as the design of the pedal is very different. I don’t fully trust the durability of the plastic housing so I will be be using a 9v power supply to be on the safe side. I recommend doing the same if you buy this pedal. Aside from that, enjoy.

For that super low price it’s a real good pedal, gives a powerful sound with a real good character ✌️

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…