Review: Zoom Tri metal

Hello and welcome to this week's article!
Today we're reviewing a stompbox that is not anymore in production but that I consider a nice memory, a piece of my musical history.

There has been a time in which Zoom has been producing also stompboxes, and they did it actually in style, even if probably they did not achieve the expected success (except for the Power Drive overdrive, endorsed by Kiko Loureiro), and they were also aesthetically nice: sturdy pieces of metal with a matte finish, in various colours and with a stylish layout.

The Tri Metal was obviously the one dedicated to metal players, and it went in direct competition with the Boss Metal Zone, which in the 90s was very successful, and it did by playing the same game: by offering besides a 3 bands eq, also a control to choose the range of the mid frequences knob, increasing the tone capabilities of the pedal.

The Tri Metal had more to offer than the Metal Zone though: it had 3 stages of gain (one more than the Metal Zone!), it was true bypass and had what Zoom called "Low Noise Design", which means they designed it in order to minimize the noise, which really worked; I have used this pedal live for around 3 years, playing metal, and even cranking my Marshall Valvestate 65 combo (I was going straight from the Tri Metal to the clean channel), when I was stopping the guitar there was literally zero hum and feedbacks, which was very, very unusual for a metal distortion pedal pushed to the limit.

The tone was razorblade sharp, with a lot of attack and ultra compressed, as it's expectable from any metal distortion, but it was super clean and defined, and it gave me a lot of good time, so I regret a bit of having sold it, but after some year I have changed my tastes, I was looking for the full roaring tone of a tube amp, and this little metal box had to go to help me buying my first Peavey 5150.

If you have the chance try it out!


Specs taken from the website:


- 3 stages of gain circuit

- 3 bands eq with separate mid-range knob

- True bypass

- Low noise design

- Metal chassis


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