The Exar MM-04 Moon Metal is a distortion pedal from the later series made by the Latvian brand Exar. It belongs to the same family of metal-oriented circuits as the Exar MT-1 Metal, and it is a distortion design rather than an overdrive or fuzz1.
The pedal is no longer in production, and most players encounter it today through the DIY community. In December 2022, the Guitar FX Layouts blog posted a vero (stripboard) layout of the Moon Metal, traced by Vitalii, who has traced several circuits from the later Exar series1.
What it does
The Moon Metal is a high-gain distortion. Writing about the traced circuit, the Guitar FX Layouts blog noted that "there's very nice EQ section and gain range seems quite good as well"1. For a player, that means the circuit gives control over the tone shaping as well as the amount of distortion, with a gain range wide enough to cover more than one style of heavy sound.
The DIY layout
The layout published in December 2022 is a vero, or stripboard, layout: a pattern for cutting and jumpering a standard piece of stripboard so the circuit can be built with hand-wired components. It is part of the blog's collection of vero and tagboard layouts for guitar and bass effects1.
The layout was traced by Vitalii, whose traces cover the Moon Metal from the later Exar series1. It is a vero (stripboard) layout, from a collection of vero and tagboard guitar and bass effect layouts1.
Related Exar pedals
Exar's metal and distortion line includes several circuits a player comparing options may want to look at:
- Exar MT-1 Metal, a metal distortion from the same maker
- Exar DS-02 Distortion, a general-purpose distortion from the same maker
- Exar HR-03 Hammer, another heavy-gain design from the series
Sources (1)
- Guitar FX Layouts: Exar MM-04 Moon Metal, Guitar FX Layouts (tagboardeffects.blogspot.com), 2022-12-18
