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Damage Control Solid Metal
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The Damage Control Solid Metal is a high quality, tube distortion pedal for all your rock and metals needs.
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Searched Damage Control Solid Metal in Reviews
All Tube All The Time 
| Ease Of Use |
Keeping it simply the Damage Control Solid Metal is like most any stomp box as far as easy of use goes: Treble, bass, "scoop" (mid voice), gain, and level knobs, an on/off switch and a "nuclear" switch, which adds 20db of gain. It even comes with LEDs behind the tubes that light up in alternate colors to indicate which 'mode' you have the pedal in (eg. Off, On, nuclear).
So, plug it into your chain as normal as start playing with knobs.
Easy of use: 9/10
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| Sound |
The Damage Control Solid Metal is an analog distortion pedal with the rare but welcome addition that all gear heads love - tubes! Two pre-amp tubes sit within all Damage Control pedals giving them that unique tube dynamic and feel. You can even replace the tubes themselves with various other 12AX7 pre-amp tubes to tweak your tone. I personally switched out the original tubes for a couple of my favorite pre-amp tubes, Tung-Sol 12AX7s, which added quite a bit of clear gain.
The Solid Metal is most definitely a distortion pedal meant for hard rock/metal. The gain knob certainly does cut gain fast enough to be able get some light rock flowing but you really wouldn't be using this pedal for warm blues music. The 3-band EQ works as you'd expect, though for whatever reason the mids knob is called a "scooped" knob. But, as we all know, you get a so called scooped sound by dial back on the mids. The taper on the scooped knob may be different from the other knobs; that's why I referred to it a "mids voice" knob above.
Most importantly the quality of the distortion itself is top notch - no buzz-saw, headache inducing shrills. This isn't some typical kids pedal (I'm looking at you Digitech Metal Master), it's a quality machine that earns it's price tag. I'd say the only missing component is a direct record out but I should note that Damage Control also sells the Demonizer pedal which is much the same as the Solid Metal but with direct record out capabilities and I higher price tag.
Sound: 8.5/10
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| Reliability |
The Solid Metal is almost 100 percent steel. The only parts on the whole unit that aren't steel are the knobs (which is to be expected - though, they are abnormally strong) and the glass covers that allow you to see the tubes and LED lights (which is cool... so that's a good thing!). Anyway, the point is this thing could be kicked and trampled on and not be damaged so there's nothing to worry about.
The one thing I have to point out, and the one down side, is that to open the case, to change the tubes, you have to more or less rip the top side panel-thingy (where the input/output jacks are located). That panel is a thin metal sticky sheet (hard to describe) and the adhesive is sooo strong it's largely impossible to get it off without warping the metal. Functionally this means nothing but it does hurt the aesthetics. I don't know if that counts as a reliability problem, per se, but it's still annoying.
Reliability: 9.5/10
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| Customer Support |
I've never had to deal with Damage Control's customer service or anything even related to it. I don't even know who Damage Control's parent company is (Damage Control is a subsidiary company if I'm not mistaken - which I could be), so I can't really comment here.
Customer support: n/a
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| Liked about it |
Top three things I like about the Solid Metal:
1)Some of the best quality distortion you can get in a pedal.
2)Insanely rugged.
3)Tube powered with switchable tubes
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| Didn't like |
Top three things I don't like about the Solid Metal:
1)Hmm, relatively expensive, kinda'?
2)Err, requires it's own proprietary power adapter (which it comes with)?
3)Ooo, aaahh... I prefer my pedals in black?
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| Overall satisfaction: |
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5.0 |
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