Behringer Ultra Metal UM300 Heavy Distortion Effects Pedal

This pedal is great. It's cheap and does what it says it'll do. I've tried it on guitar, bass, and keyboard. I've tried it with daisy chain power and isolated power. I've tried it into an amp, through a lengthy pedal chain, straight into a mixer, and everywhere in between. Let me give you the run down:To be 100% clear, it is a LIMITER, not a compressor; the distinction being that it does not bring up quieter notes, only compresses louder notes. Most compressors are also "sustainers" too, meaning they bring up quieter notes (and also the 'noise floor' of the instrument or other electronics). The magic in this pedal is in the ratio and thresh (i.e. threshold) knobs. It determines at what threshold the pedal will start reducing the volume of notes/chords. It does this. Really well. With the ratio turned all the way up and the threshold all the way down, it makes all instrument dynamics a constant level (because the threshold is so low). With both of those knobs at noon, it gives a good soft-knee type compression you might want on say, guitar. And these are easily tweaked to take the pop out of bass slaps, take the attack off of keys a bit, or just even out tone. But it will not, I repeat, will not give you more sustain.The "enhance" knob is basically a tone knob. Adds in treble - won't roll it back though. Turned all the way down your signal is unaffected. Turned up, you're boosting treble - around what frequencies I'm not sure, but it didn't have much effect on guitar, so I'm guessing it's in the bass guitar treble range. It's important to note that anytime you start boosting treble, or really boosting at all for that matter, that you might get some noise. You're raising the signal level, and you're raising everything, including the noise floor of everything going into the pedal. I found that if you start pushing this knob past noon, you do get some hiss.Same goes for the "level" knob. Noon is unity (+0 db, not affecting the signal). You can roll it back to nothing (no sound), or boost it to where you get some noise and hiss, and depending on what you have...alot of it.So... RE: everyone who says this pedal is noisy...well, it can be if you are using it in a noisy way. Otherwise, it works perfect for me. I just wanted to limit some of the louder dynamics and even out my playing. This does that, and does it for cheap.I'm not sure anyone would like that this thing is plastic. And it's not a 'pretty pedal' - no art work and not a big brand name. But I got over it, for the price. You will too.If you're looking at this pedal, you're probably also looking at some of it's more expensive cousins at Boss, EHX, TCE, etc. This pedal is 1/3rd or 1/4th the price. So make your decision, but this pedal is excellent. Does what you need.

I know there are purists out there who want old school solid steel pedals. I have a friend who refuses to buy a Behringer pedal purely based on the fact that it is plastic. I bought this pedal and had a surprise blind test with him. He had no idea who manufactured the pedal which made the results oh so satisfying.The second I turned it on he immediately was interested. I played with the settings and ran some scales for a few minutes before asking him what he thought it was and how much it may have cost. His guess was a Boss pedal in the 100 dollar range; this guess was champion of my cause, as he used to own the Boss OC-3. After he guessed I couldn't hold it in anymore, I told him to open his eyes and bask in the glory that is the Behringer U0300 Ultra Octaver. He laughed because he knew what just occurred, inadvertent admittance that plastic pedals are just as good as metal ones.Now I will review the pedal for serious. The pedal has a 3 mode range selector, low, mid, and high. These settings adjust the frequency for use with different instruments. Yes, you can use this pedal with a keyboard, bass guitar, traditional guitar, electric-acoustic, whatever you want! You use the range to adjust to the instruments frequencies, so for example on Bass guitar you would want to use the low range output.Next is the Direct control. This control adjusts the original input signals level. So basically it is a volume knob for your guitars input.The Octave 1 control adjusts the level of the signal ONE octave below your original signal. It is pretty self explanatory, but basically if you play an open A note, the pedal will generate another A note, one octave below. This control is another volume control but for the generated octave.The Octave 2 control works the same exact way as Octave 1, except this control adjusts the level of the generated note that is TWO octaves below the original.This pedal has an LED that is not as bright as the other Behringer pedals. The battery is located underneath the foot switch which you can pretty easily get to using a ball point pen on the two spring latches. Note that this pedal has no on / off switch so you will need to remove your input jack while not in use to prolong the batteries life.All in all I give this pedal 5 stars because it's price is incomparable, the sound is exactly what I wanted, and the controls feel good and solid.

Really nice sounding pedal. It has a simple but wide spectrum of sounds. It’s a bargain at its price. The effects qualities and overdriven punch are tasty.

Was in a pinch and needed an octive pedal because the boss one was sold out. This was very worth it! I cannot believe it's only $25. It's super durable and it functions how you'd want it too!! Love this thing