Hi
I just picked up both the Metaldrive and the new Phaser.
The Metaldrive starts where the Multidrive ends. It's tonality is somewhat reminiscent of the Boss ODB-3, but without all the hiss and noise. However it tends to add more to the sound and enhance it far more than just colour it like the Boss. Actually I find the Boss, if pushed, just walks all over the original sound, The Metaldrive does not.
Before trying it I sound checked the Way Cool Pickle, which I found to lose far too much of the bottom end when pushed, great sounds mind you, just muddy in the deeps if you know what I mean. I tried a dual Rat as well, same problem, great sounds just not scoped out for bass.
The Phaser is interesting and has a good combination of settings and is a very tasty pedal if used in the right circumstances. The LED is really quite bright, shockingly so in fact and unless I miss my guess waxes and wanes with the sweep selected. At first I thought it was malfunctioning until I noticed it followed the sweeps pattern. At least that's what I hope it's doing.
As for battery life, can't tell you I always run adapters, and the Boss does well here.
As for construction they're extremely tight tolerances when you're trying to get the backing plate off. Makes it beer proof I'm sure. They're oh so slightly smaller than their original stablemates so the use of the Planet Waves straight jacks are out between it and the older generation.
All I can say is try one, and I'll probably be posting a couple of ODB-3s for sale sometime in the near future.
Hope this helps
