Boss HM-2 info needed.

[leftykingv2]

beats me. I had one ages ago and thought it was horrible sounding...

+1 Bro! One of the worst sounding distortion pedals in my opinion.

[Larz]

When they first came out, there was nothing to compare it to really unless your store had a Rat or something else side by side, but I thought it was very good and was wildly popular in the mid-80s.

No dirt pedal showdowns on youtube back then for the younguns here.

[leftykingv2]

When they first came out, there was nothing to compare it to really unless your store had a Rat or something else side by side, but I thought it was very good and was wildly popular in the mid-80s.

No dirt pedal showdowns on youtube back then for the younguns here.

Yeah back when I was coming up you went to the store and you could choose from one of three overdrive pedals at the most. The Boss SD-1 The DOD FX-55B and if you were really lucky occasionally you might find an old Ibanez TS-808 or a pro-co Rat. I happened to luck out and get a tube screamer off of an older friend for $25 bucks in 1984

[Brandenburg]

Yeah back when I was coming up you went to the store and you could choose from one of three overdrive pedals at the most. The Boss SD-1 The DOD FX-55B and if you were really lucky occasionally you might find an old Ibanez TS-808 or a pro-co Rat. I happened to luck out and get a tube screamer off of an older friend for $25 bucks in 1984

I still have my 1st distortion pedal.. A Pro Co Rat, bought back in 1988.. In the past ive owned the Boss OS-2 and the HM -2 too

[jgcable]

Again.. its a decent pedal and extremely easy to find used.

[Newc]

Yeah, you can find them easily used. The issue raised was the prices. A used stompbox is still a used stompbox. The ones made in Japan probably do sound better than the ones made in Taiwan, but if they won't turn on, won't stay on, or have other functionality issues, it's a moot point. $115 for a used pedal is a huge gamble. The seller always assures you it's not been abused, but once you get it and plug it up, that intermittent cut-out must be something you're doing wrong, or maybe it bounced off the tarmac at JFK and was kicked around by David Bekham between here and there. Either way, thanks for the purchase, no refunds.

As for how it sounds, I tried one years ago through my 20watt Gorilla amp. Sounded like shit. So did a RAT, a BOSS DS-1, SD-1, OD-2, and MXR Dist+.
I had to run the SD-1 into the Dist+ to make it sound good.

Fast-forward nearly 30 years and I once again have an SD-1, RAT, and HM-2, but now I have a JCM800. Huge difference.

Ergo, your 30w Crate POS you remember playing those pedals through is not the amp those pedals were designed for.

[quadperson]

I have one with the box, receipt and sticker from back in the day...something's wrong with it though. Somebody on here said they could fix it for $15 but I don't remember who it was (it's been a few years ago). I always thought it sounded ok.

[Newc]

Could have been jgcable - he does pedal work, I believe. Or maybe it was one of the many "ex parrots" who are surely missed.

[quadperson]

I think it was jgcable.

[xenophobe]

The entire Swedish Death Metal movement was more or less built on a foundation of HM-2s through Marshalls and for the past few years they have become a lot more desirable. I have an HM-3 which is easier to get and sounds almost identical.

Back in the late 80's it was the only way to get a Marshall to sound half decent for high-gain, thrash/early death metal stuff unless you could afford uber rack setups....

[toejam]

The entire Swedish Death Metal movement was more or less built on a foundation of HM-2s through Marshalls and for the past few years they have become a lot more desirable. I have an HM-3 which is easier to get and sounds almost identical.

The whole Swedish Death Metal sound was ripped off from Carcass who are a British band... and they never used that pedal.

[leftykingv2]

Back in the late 80's it was the only way to get a Marshall to sound half decent for high-gain, thrash/early death metal stuff unless you could afford uber rack setups....

I can dial in thrash sounds and tones on a JCM 800 just as easy with a Tubescreamer. In fact I was doing it in 1986. The Tubescreamer is light years better than most distortion pedals IMO especially the HM2. Like I said before I never liked the tone of those.

[Larz]

I can dial in thrash sounds and tones on a JCM 800 just as easy with a Tubescreamer. In fact I was doing it in 1986. The Tubescreamer is light years better than most distortion pedals IMO especially the HM2. Like I said before I never liked the tone of those.

Most of our parents wouldn't buy us JCM 800s when we were teens in the 80s LOL, I needed the HM-2 to play through the clean channel of my crappy Peavey solid state amp.

But an HM-2 and Tubescreamer have different applications.

[leftykingv2]

Most of our parents wouldn't buy us JCM 800s when we were teens in the 80s LOL, I needed the HM-2 to play through the clean channel of my crappy Peavey solid state amp.

But an HM-2 and Tubescreamer have different applications.

I was 10 years old in 86 and I was lucky enough to have an older brother in his early twenties that played. I had a P.O.S. "Gorilla G10" amp but my brother had a couple nice old tube Marshall's. I would play his amps all the time when he wasn't around. EDIT; I actually ended up buying one of his 800's when I was 14 and I still have it. He gave me the head and a 1960B cab for $500 bucks. I threw a lot of newspapers to buy all of my stuff back then until I was old enough to get a job at pizza hut when I was 16.

[Larz]

I was 10 years old in 86 and I was lucky enough to have an older brother in his early twenties that played. I had a P.O.S. "Gorilla G10" amp but my brother had a couple nice old tube Marshall's. I would play his amps all the time when he wasn't around. EDIT; I actually ended up buying one of his 800's when I was 14 and I still have it. He gave me the head and a 1960B cab for $500 bucks. I threw a lot of newspapers to buy all of my stuff back then until I was old enough to get a job at pizza hut when I was 16.

Very nice, i didn't get to play nice amps til much later in life so I didnt know all of what I was missing when I was a kid