Boss Overdrive pedals

The boss od-3 is a simple overdrive pedal with the standard boss single stomp box layout. It has standard 1/4" input and output jacks, 9 volt DC input jack, 9 volt battery snap under the bypass door, and controls for drive, level, and tone. Housed in the tough as a brick boss box. UTILIZATION There are not any confusing controls on this box which is how I think overdrives should be. Just plug in your cables, power it up, and go. The manual is fine but if you have ever used any other pedal then you don't even need to take it out of the box. Another great thing is that this pedal sounds pretty good with the controls all set to 12:00 making it very easy to integrate into your set-up. SOUND QUALITY I used (I sold it once I started building my own overdrives) this pedal in a guitar set up as an overdrive for my clean channel and also as a boost for my lead channel. As an overdrive I was very surprised with how good it sounds. Some of the other boss overdrive/distortion boxes sound plain and boxy but this one held it's own against much more expensive pedals. There is a wide range of useable sounds from light drive to a classic rock crunch. I really enjoyed the sound of the gain about 3/4 of the way into an amp with a bit of breakup. It really kicked the sound up without getting muddy or causing too much noise. Single note lines were fattened and chords retained their clarity even with the added gain. As a boost in the typical set up of gain on 0, volume an 10, and tone around noon it really tightened up my distortion sound. The pedal cuts out a bit of bass similar to a tube screamer but without the massive mid hump in the EQ. Using the pedal like this allowed me to get more modern metal sounds out of mid gain amps. I used it with some orange and budda amps and was surprised how metal I could get them sounding. In front of my Framus cobra's lead channel it provided that popular clear, tight, compressed tone you hear on many current metal albums. The amp can do that sound on it's own but I preferred having it set more moderately and kicking this pedal on top when needed. OVERALL OPINION This is a great pedal and I think anybody looking for an overdrive should check it out before dropping much more money on all the boutique pedals out there. For the price, especially used, you just can't get a better option and it holds it's own against the more expensive stuff. If I ever get tired of my current overdrive I will probably pick another one of these up.

Uso questo pedale Boss con Twin Reverb del '73 e microcube del 2010, eseguo le canzoni che mi piacciono pop / rock / rockblues degli ultimi 60 anni, lo uso solo a batteria per avere il miglior suono possibile, la batteria è facilmente sostituibile senza attrezzi, il pedale è solidissimo (come tutti i Boss), facile da usare, ammesso di sapere che tutti i pedali Boss sono dei pre-pre molto sensibili, e che per NON farli saturare, facendogli produrre voci non previste dal costruttore, occorre stare bassi col volume della chitarra (max 5/6). Amo ed ho tutti (quasi) i pedali voce Boss (fuzz, overdrive e distorsori), provandoli singolarmente a confronto diretto con le voci sporche di chitarra famose, sono riuscito ad identificare quali pedali replichino correttamente quali voci. Ciò premesso posso dire che questi due pedali (OD-2 Turbo ON e OD-2 Turbo OFF) sono eccellenti per replicare le voci di James Burton, ZZ TOP, Roy Buchanan, Danny Gatton, Jeff Beck (Isolation) con Turbo OFF e Santana e Gary Moore con Turbo ON. PRO: Suoni sempre nitidi sia quando taglienti che quando vibranti che quando cremosi, mai fangosi. CONTRO: se non si è attenti a tenere basso il volume della chitarra, saturano facilmente e producono suoni zanzarosi che, spesso sui forum, gli utenti lamentano, ma la colpa non è dei pedali ma degli utilizzatori. Chi pensa di poter riprodurre tutti i suoni saturi con un solo Overdrive (o Distorsore o Fuzz), avrà delle sonore delusioni. Posseggo 27 pedali voce Boss e con ognuno riesco a replicare fedelmente dalle 3 alle 7 voci sporche, non di più, per un totale di un centinaio, ma sicuramente posso dire di poterle replicare tutte, avendo tutta la gamma Boss. P.S. Non proverò mai a replicare voci tipo le chitarre dei Pantera. Paul.

Before I decided on buying Boss’ OS2 I spent a great deal of time researching and trying to find a good overdrive pedal that would suit my needs. I already had the DS1 at the time but that distortion pedal has its own place in my arsenal of tones and I required an overdrive pedal to achieve a pop-punk like tone (think Green Day or Blink 182). Eventually I stumbled on the OS2 which basically combines the DS1 and the OD1, Boss’ simple overdrive pedal and brings the two together amazingly well. You can use either tone from those 2 pedals by using just the OS2 but the major advantage is that you can actually find an amazing sounding sweet spot between the two, kind of like finding the fine line between overdrive and distortion. This is what attracted me most about the pedal and made me purchase it without any kind of regret or second thoughts. Features Like with most if not all Boss pedals the controls are extremely easy to figure out and to fool around with until you find the sound which you desire. The case is rock solid ensuring you long lasting durability no matter how brutally you step on it or you hit it and the controls are highly reliable not to fail on you. The OS2 has 4 control knobs: Level that controls the volume, Tone which naturally makes your tone more or less bright, Drive that handles the amount of gain you want and the 4th knob called Color lets you adjust the sound between overdrive and distortion. This Color knob is the reason I and many others love this pedal. The further you turn it clockwise you will get more distortion, making the pedal sound like the DS1 and the further back you roll the knob the more overdrive you will get like from the OD1. You can fine tune it nicely and even get the best of both worlds and find a tone area which blends the overdrive with the distortion, making it perfect for any kind of classic, hard or punk rock. In my guitar play I need overdrive and distortion most of the time and this pedal supplies both and in a much better way than the OD1 and DS1 separately. I own other pedals capable of delivering a great distorted or overdriven sound, like Digitech’s Distortion Factory, but most of the time I use the OS2 because it’s so simple to use. My Digitech pedal gives me a far better control over tone and amount of gain, but in many cases I find myself overwhelmed with far too many knobs to adjust every time I want to change the tone. For this reason I prefer Boss’ simplicity and the versatility which the OS2 gives me. The OS2 has two basic connectors for input and output as well as a connector designed for an AC adaptor. Like with all pedals I would recommend using high quality cables. I’ve seen a couple of my own friends buying the cheapest cables possible and then losing their will to practice and play because their guitar, amp or pedals don’t sound like they should. That easily happens because of low quality cables not transmitting the signals properly and they can even cause a certain degree of feedback or background humming ruining the tone. For this reason you should look at the highest quality cables because they do indeed matter when it comes to quality of sound. Another thing to keep in mind is the pedal’s power source. When you purchase it, it comes without an AC adaptor and it gives you only the option of using it with a battery. If you are inexperienced with pedals you might think that it doesn’t sound so bad and that batteries aren’t something expensive. Well, in the case of most pedals, if not all of them, the batter will be drained in an hour of use at best, at least in my experience. My battery draining record was 28 minutes of constant use of one of my distortion pedals… that would make a tremendous amount of batteries if you practice several hours daily and for this reason you should look for an AC adaptor as soon as possible. If you are planning to use other pedals together with the OS2 it would be a good idea to look into an AC adaptor capable of feeding them all so that you won’t have to later on buy more adaptors for each pedal. Sound Mainly I use this pedal with my Fender Strat or with my Les Paul and my practice tube amp, Bugera’s V5. This amplifier has no high gain channel and I can’t naturally send the tubes into overdrive in my apartment without raising the volume to the max and forcing the entire block to “enjoy” my practice sessions. For this reason I looked into overdrive and distortion pedals in order to get the sound I need for the kinds of music I enjoy playing. I love that I can go anywhere from a slight use of overdrive making my humbuckers sound like bringing out the subtle nuances of a single coil pickup, to full blown humbucker distortion bringing out pure, raw energy. My music taste ranges greatly and I need to be able to go anywhere from my amps natural clean sound to an engaging overdriven or distorted tone. When it comes to the overdrive I love the fact that it actually sounds natural, it sounds like a tube amp naturally distorted and not like some digital effect. Versatility in sound, quality of tone and control simplicity is what made me purchase this pedal. The OS2 offers the natural sounding overdrive and distortion modes which you can further control with the Drive knob which adjusts the amount of gain you want. After fooling around for a while with all the knobs you will find out that any subtle change you make will bring you closer and closer to the tone you desire. Personally I can get close enough to about any overdriven tone when I play my favourite pop punk songs especially and I simply love this pedal that I can easily switch its sound/tone from song to song in just a minute without shooting in the dark. As mentioned before, I have other distortion/overdrive pedals but with far too many control knobs. That does give me other advantages over the OS2, but it is also incredibly annoying to switch from one song to a different one without finding yourself tweaking the pedal for half an hour. Less is more in many cases and the OS2 is one such case. This pedal can take you anywhere from Pink Floyd to Pantera with just a few seconds of tweaking. Incredibly versatile, I love it because it gives me overdrive and distortion in one package, without separating the two. Using them and shaping them separately is easy and fun, but bringing those two worlds together to create a beautiful sound is another. Finding the sweet spot between overdrive and distortion may take a bit of experimenting at first but once it is accomplished, you are rewarded with a rich sound perfect both for powerful rhythms as well as vibrant soloes with plenty of sustain. Reliability and durability There’s not much to talk about when it comes to Boss and durability. In my personal opinion we should have ‘Boss’ in the dictionary as a synonym for durability. I own several Boss pedals, 1 of them is around 15 years old, and I banged them, dropped them, aggressively stomped them and even dropped one from the second story of a building on concrete… They all still work in perfect condition without even a dent. The worse that happened was chipping away a bit of paint and that is all. The knobs never came off or stopped working for me, all of my Boss pedals are at 100% capability and I would always trust them to work at any gig without being worried that they might break down. The OS2 is no exception and it certainly does justice to Boss’ famous reputation. Overall Impression Out of all my overdrive and/or distortion pedals this one is probably my favourite because of having a wide versatility while also maintaining simplicity. In my experience if you want more versatility, you get more and more controls that you need to tweak and adjust each single time. Tweaking the controls for half an hour in order to play a 3 minute song isn’t quite my idea of fun and for this reason the simplicity given by the OS2 and its richness in tones made me buy it without looking back. Nowadays I use the OS2 for most of my practice and recording sessions while my other tubescreamers are used on occasion when I want to switch between tones. I have found no flaw or disadvantages with the OS2 and I would certainly recommend it to anyone looking for a versatile overdrive/distortion pedal that as an added bonus can even blend in the two together and give you a whole new tone to play with.

I bought it second hand for about 25 euros from a friend. This pedal is very versatile. It gives a nice subtile overdrive sound on the clean channel of my marshall valvestate and a fat sustaining boost on the lead channel. I use it most of the time for solos, to boost up my sound. It gives a very warm overdrive, much better then the OD-3, which I used for a while untill I heard the SD-1. Nothing I think. Oh yes, it sounds better with single coil pickups than with humbuckers, but that's no problem cause I don't play humbuckers. BOSS, so uhm, built like a tank, you can stamp on it, throw with it, smash some bottles of beer on it and it will still work fine Nice pedal, warm sound, very sturdy, ... I love it, it's the best overdrive pedal I ever used. This review was originally published on http://www.musicgearreview.com

Purchased at Kayes Music Scene, Canoga Park, CA for $79.99. After consulting with numerous fellow musicians on the best and worst of overdrives. Weighing out the money factors against quality factors and playing with the 2 finalist I settled on the Boss BD2. The pure quality of tone I get with the equipment I use was the deciding factor. The price being twenty dollars less than my next option wasn't bad either. The contagious tone from the BD2 is round, expressive, smooth, and sultry. The controls make it easy to dial-up that sound you've been hearing in the back of your head. Nothing, it's just what I wanted. Brawn and beauty combined--it's built to last with aesthetics to boot. I would get it again in an instant. Great tone and durability at a great price! This review was originally published on http://www.musicgearreview.com

Bought it off ebay for $30. I needed a nice overdrive pedal that didn't sound like a distortion pedal. It has a turbo on and off knob, it sounds better on off. You can really get a nice overdrive out of the Boss Turbo Overdrive pedal when the turbo knob is on off. When you have the turbo on knob on on, it sounds too much like a distortion pedal, but other than that it is great. Built great, boss made it. Good overdrive pedal. This review was originally published on http://www.musicgearreview.com

I bought this unit at a local music stor for $400 (canadian), the price seems a bit high, but this little box lets you have 5 different types of distortion (4 memories and whatever you have the knobs set to), and to buy 5 different distortion stompboxes (even cheap ones) would cost more, plus i live in a fairly rural area, so if you live a city it would probably cost alot less. I like just about everything about this effect. you can choose between 22 base types of distortion that you can make you 5 settings from, so no matter what style you play, this things got it covered. this box gives you alot more freedom to explore and find the sound you want than a single effect does. i would definatly recommend it to anyone who is looking to buy a distortion effect, especially if, like me you would prefere to have more than one type of distorion available. the fact that you have to cycle through all five settings in a certain order can be anoying, but you can set it on a different memory mode that gets around this, or you can just be quick with your foot, but besides that its an amazing pedal if you've been looking at any reviews of boss products they all say that their built like tanks. its true, boss made this unit to take what ever kind of abuse you give it, tho I dont see why anyone would want to try and break it, I'm betting nothing short of a large sledge hammer/axe and a body builder with anger problems could evn sratch this thing. if your looking for quality construction in guitar efects, ur honestly not gonna find any thing that beats boss, ask anyone. bottom line: the tone quality of the efects is amazing, which is the most important part. the thing won't break under anything close to normal use. the price is kinda high, but its well worth it, and to buy 5 effects of this quality would put yoor wallet quite a bit farther into the gutter. also I would recommend buying the ac adaptor for it, since it takes 6 batteries at a time, and I've heard they dont last too long. all-in-all, this is an amazing product and if you can afford it I would highly recommend it. This review was originally published on http://www.musicgearreview.com

I bought this when i got my new guitar about 1 month ago. It was $300 rrp but i got it for $250. (aussie dollars) The sound i can get out of this pedal is unbelivable. I can make my stratocaster sound like a beefy gibson sg! highly recommed any guitarist getting it! The price is a little high for a single effect unit, but it's worth it. apart from that i can't think of anything! This is a boss pedal! need i say more? :) the build is like a tank - even if you threw it on the floor it would still go! Awesome little pedal for "beefing" up guitars. and producing an awesome sound This review was originally published on http://www.musicgearreview.com

This is probably the most copied version of the SD1 out there. The SD1 has all kinds of mods that you can find online, and most of them seem to stem from this mod in one way or another. This particular pedal is the SD1 808 Silver mod which is a little different from the normal one. On top of that, this has a switch to select between symmetrical and asymmetrical. It's a push/pull switch that is really trick, and I love the way Mike incorporated that in this pedal. Outside, it looks pretty much stock, and you'd never be able to tell. UTILIZATION The pedal is great and can survive pretty much anything you throw at it. The pedal housing itself is super tough, and I've thrown these across the room (but not at people. I don't recommend that), and they survive without any issues at all. I've done all kinds of torture tests to these things, and they keep coming back for more. It's surprising how much abuse these small things can actually take. The manual is no longer of any use thanks to this being modded, but it's so simple to use that you shouldn't have to need a manual for this thing. Just start turning the knobs until it starts to sound good. SOUND QUALITY The sound is a lot like a modified TS808. Mike is a well known modder of 808s, and he tends to make them very neutral sounding. The 808 has a very noticeable midrange hump, as does the SD1. That is needed for some people who want to truly push amps into crazy overdrive, but for those who just need a nice boost, it can be very annoying. He helps flatten out that midrange response and gives this pedal some extra beef to help make it sound great with low to midgain amps. There is a push/pull switch to select between the standard asymmetrical clipping and the 808's symmetrical clipping. This way, it's almost like having those two different pedals in one. OVERALL OPINION This is probably my go-to mod if I'm starting with modding a pedal before I try out new ideas. The things he incorporates in this pedal are what I tend to do to my own pedals when I mod them. It's a great starting point, and they sound awesome out of the box. If you're looking for a solid booster pedal, this could very well be what you're looking for.

Some guitarists out there are pretty handy with a soldering iron. I happen to be one of them, and I really like the mods that Monte Allums does. He basically caters towards those DIY kind of guys who like to mess with electronics and whatever else we can get our hands on. This is his most versatile and, quite frankly, ridiculous mod that he does to the SD-1. It has various switches for selecting between a different presence setting and different diodes. Very well put together kit. UTILIZATION The kit's utilization is pretty amazing if you think about it. You can't really fit more than two switches in these Boss pedals, and he managed to choose mods that should suit this pedal the most. What I mean by that is that he chose to select between things that matter rather than some useless resistor switches that some people do. I should note that you should not attempt to do this mod if you're not handy with a soldering iron. It's extremely tight in there once you start drilling for the switches. The board itself is fairly sturdy, so as long as your iron is decent, you shouldn't have any issues with lifting solder pads, but it's still a good idea to have modded a few pedals before attempting this particular mod. SOUND QUALITY The sound is great, and this happens to be one of my favorite mods out there for SD1 pedals. I personally like very transparent boosts, and this delivers exactly what I'm looking for: clean, powerful and organic tone without a bunch of annoying diodes getting in the way of my boosting tone. The idea of utilizing a 2N3440 transistor is pretty sick, and I commend Monte for putting together a mod like this. It's also nice that you can select between symmetrical and asymmetrical boosting as it makes this pedal way more versatile than before. OVERALL OPINION This is my favorite mod for the SD-1, but you MUST be handy with a soldering iron. I would even recommend a drill press for these as it can be a bit tricky drilling exactly where you need to drill for these switches. It's not for the beginner, but if you have some experience modding pedals, you can do this mod. If you're not confident, Monte does have a modding service where he'll mod your pedal for a fee.

The SD1 has been one of the most utilized pedals in the guitar world. It's been the standard for that asymmetrical clipping type of sound. However, it's known to have a few problems with it. For one, it tends to leak when bypassed. You can still hear it, even when it's off. For two, it tends to be a bit thin sounding at times. Keeley helps try to fix these options, as well as adding some new things to help make this pedal a lot more versatile than before. UTILIZATION The peda is housed in your typical Boss enclosure. These things are tough as nails and can withstand all kinds of punishment. The manual no longer is applicable thanks to this being modded, but it's still very easy to figure out. The switch is the biggest feature that this thing has. It allows you to select between two different diodes, but it's really only useful if you're using some gain on the pedal. Everything else is pretty much the same as your typical Boss pedal. SOUND QUALITY The pedal sounds great. First off, I'm really glad he did a special buffer in this thing to help prevent some leakage that normally occurs with these pedals. Otherwise, it's almost unusable on the clean channel with the gain up high. I tend to use these as boosters rather than gain adders. That means I tend to turn the gain off and crank the level. This is like a strong clean boost rather than a gritty boost which is how most people use it as. The switch on this selects between two different diodes to give you various flavors of this boost. On top of that, it's a lot thicker sounding than the stock version, which is a definite welcome. OVERALL OPINION If you're looking for a solid boost pedal with asymmetrical clipping, I would recommend this pedal. It does a great job, and you can get some aggressive boosting going on without it sounding too thin like certain other pedals do. This version is a bit more versatile and more modern sounding than the Analogman one, but the Monte Allums one has the most features, so feel free to choose which one you personally think is best.

The Boss BD-2 is a great boost alone. It can be used with a clean amp to give it some nice grit, and it can also be used a fairly transparent sounding boost to help give you a little more tightness and compression to your overall tone. However, it has a few drawbacks. For one, it's a bit bright in its stock form. The tone knob really needs to be fixed, and it could be thickened up. Keeley's mod does that and then some. This mod not only gives the pedal a revoicing, but it also adds a special switch so you can select the thickness of the actual pedal. UTILIZATION First of all, the pedal is mostly Boss' creation. That means we're talking about Boss reliability and overall setup. Thankfully, Boss is one of the best pedal companies out there when it comes to both those things. These are crazy reliable and rarely ever break. I've toured with these things for ages without any issues at all. The pedal only has three knobs, and it's laid out like a tubescreamer, so anybody can figure out how to use this. The manual is now kinda useless thanks to Keeley's mod, but it can still help if you want some ballpark tones. The switch is in a nice location to where you can select it easily, but it won't be knocked by accident. SOUND QUALITY The stock pedal sounded pretty good for what it was, but it had some issues. The Keeley mod fixes those issues, and it also gives you some additional tone controls to help further shape the tone. This pedal should really be used as a clean style boost, in my opinion. It works best when you want that transparent sounding overdrive to help push the amp just a touch but don't want that tubescreamer flavor sound. It's awesome on leads to give you a bit more sustain. If you find yourself needing more thickness, just flick the switch, and you'll get a nice bass boost with this thing. Perfect for single coils and those brighter amps out there. OVERALL OPINION This is probably one of my favorite mods for the BD-2. Monty, Analogman and a few other guys out there offer great mods for these as well, so don't discount them. Keeley can be expensive, but he's been in the business for a long time, and his mods are proven. If you're good with a soldering iron, however, you can find out how to do these mods yourself.