Text prepared by our partner Music Jungle
In the world of music, it's not just the musicians who make history. The equipment used by these stars plays an active part in the entire musical canon. Guitars and amplifiers are, most of the time, the most remembered when the subject is equipment. However, there are small boxes that are usually kept near the feet of instrumentalists that are extremely important to this art that we love so much.
Guitar pedals are small boxes that, when activated, provide an extra effect to the musical instrument . There are several styles of pedals; perhaps the most famous are Loop, Delay, Fuzz, Wah Wah, Sustain, and Distortion. The latter is the main reason this post exists.
Within the pantheon of guitar pedals, there are several models that are excellent. Pedals like the venerable Tubescreamer, OCD, and Rat have been considered among the best in the genre for decades, champions of tone throughout the pedal world.
But every Mount Olympus has its Hades, the dark and agonizing antagonist confined
to his subterranean realm.
In this realm of distortion pedals, there is no better contender for the throne than the Boss HM-2 Heavy Metal. Its intensity and atmosphere go in the opposite direction from anything that was considered a conventional guitar effect.
Although its sound is very similar to the Ratt pedal, or the Big Muff, the HM-2 had an undeniable impact on the world of effects for heavy guitar.
The history of HM-2
Unlike many other iconic pedals, the HM-2 is a relatively new pedal to the music market. It was first produced in Japan from 1983 to 1988 and then in Taiwan before being discontinued in 1991.
During its eight years of production, the HM-2 didn't achieve much prominence in the music world. It was developed to be a Marshall amplifier emulator, but guitarists of the time had other ways to accomplish that function.
One of the few moments of recognition that the HM-2 received in these early years came from an unlikely guitarist: David Gilmour of Pink Floyd. He detailed how he used the HM-2 in an interview with Guitar Player in 1984.
“Right now, the sound I’m making most of the time is going through a Boss HM-2 Heavy Metal amp to a Boogie amp to an [MXR] DDL and then into a regular Fender amp. I use a DDL on it because I think it makes the fuzz box stop sounding like a fuzz box. It smooths out the nasty, raw frequencies you get from the fuzz box, giving you a nice kind of tone.”
Gilmour may have even given the HM-2 some fame; it's known that many fans of the time wanted to emulate the guitarist's sound and, in seeking this, ended up discovering the pedal. However, this exposure was still far from being something impactful and lasting.
Defining what it means to be heavy
The HM-2 might never have reached the pantheon of metal pedals if it weren't for the Swiss band Entombed and their CD, Left Hand Path . During the 1980s, the band's young guitarist (who was called Nihilist) was searching for various tones for the album's demo. That's how he stumbled upon the iconic sound of an HM-2.
Armed with nothing more than cheap amplifiers and pedals, guitarists Leif Cuzner, Alex Hellid, and Uffe Cederlund also contributed to HM-2's fame. Rhyming with their aggressive songs, the band created a sound distinct from what was established in Death Metal at the time.
Entombed's producer on the album Left Hand Path , Tomas Skogsberg, took the HM-2 and introduced it to the community of bands that recorded at his Sunlight Studios in Stockholm, among these bands were some of the pioneers of Swedish Death Metal such as Dismember, Carange and Grotesque.
The sound produced by these bands spread very quickly, taking them to places beyond their country; this is how the sound of HM-2 was reproduced throughout the world, always carrying the banner of metal with it.
As the pedal spread beyond Stockholm, the way it was used in metal also evolved. An increasingly common use for the HM-2 was as a boost for the Marshall JCM 800 amplifier, or even for another distortion pedal.
The influence of the HM-2 is still felt in the metal world today; its tone became so well-known that it ended up expanding to other genres like hardcore and sludge metal, transforming a pedal that was once forgotten into a true metal icon. Without a doubt, the metal world wouldn't be the same without the influence of the HM-2.