My new Overdrive

[JohnH]

I called into Allans today to have a play on one of those 'Wall of Boss' displays where every Boss pedal ever made is daisy-chained end to end. It's quite a feat of electronics that anything comes out at all. I picked a Strat from the wall and put on some 'phones.

Such a set up is rather unforgiving of any box with a harsh top end, and many of the pedals sounded nasty indeed, particularly in the fuzz/distortion classes.

But, I was after my next overdrive and wanted to reference an SD1 and also a BD2 Bluesdriver. But when I heard it, the SD1 sounded rather thin and mean, and not very loud. The BD2 had a good clear sound, quite nice in the low gain range but lost control when turned up higher, becoming fizzy.

I ended up playing between two pedals. One was a recent design called a BC2 combo drive. Its a digital offering aimed at emulating a Vox AC30. Its a good simple pedal with two tone knobs and level, and a a 4th to sweep from clean to crunch to drive. Nice consistent tones, but not quite what Im after, a bit too digitally perfect. I was after a real pedal to plug into my real amp.

So, my favorite was a Boss OD3. Its a simple yellow three-knob box and it seemed to take the best of the Bluesdriver and SD1, improve them and fix the problems. If memory serves, I was hearing anything from a clear clean boost, up to that juicy squelchy kind of drive, free from xs fizz. And built with the classic Boss brick-like durability.

So I asked the shop price. I dont mind paying a bit more than online, in order to take it home, and bring if back if theres a problem. But the price was $$$$, about 50% more than my budget. And BTW, its not in stock but they could sell me one that I didnt want for the same price.

Thankyou for letting me try them.....

So I went away and won an ebay auction for a new one for half the price, delivered.

When I get it I'll let you know if Im still happy!

J

[Deleted]

It seems you find a toy to keep you busy for at least one week!
I had the BOSS Metal Distortion, that my daughter managed to drop down and break, so i got me-25 as a compensation.

Just a question about that chain you were talking about. Isn't actual signal really struggling to make it through each and every unit? Isn't there any sort of actual signal drain lost in the (analog) electronics? Or i am being insane and this problem is not existent in the first place.

[JohnH]

Jul 9, 2013 5:54:24 GMT -5 @pyrros said:

Just a question about that chain you were talking about. Isn't actual signal really struggling to make it through each and every unit? Isn't there any sort of actual signal drain lost in the (analog) electronics? Or i am being insane and this problem is not existent in the first place.

Indeed. Boss pedals are not true-bypass, so all the 'off' ones in this chain of about 30 are adding whatever hiss and tone change that they can do. So the fact that the resulting signal is still not noticaably degraded shows that Boss pedals must have quite good buffers. Its a very common way of diplaying them in all the music shops.

[Deleted]

What about delay? Anything noticeable by ear?

[ashcatlt]

I'm a little disappointed that this is not a build report. Boss OD3 schematic. Oh well, hope you enjoy it!

[JohnH]

Jul 9, 2013 10:19:09 GMT -5 ashcatlt said:

I'm a little disappointed that this is not a build report. Boss OD3 schematic. Oh well, hope you enjoy it!

yes, as the signal passed along about 3m of patch cords and through all the pedals there was a very noticeable delay of about 0.00000001 seconds. It really annoyed me.

Ash - sorry no build!, but sometimes its good to compare with a bought one. Thats an interesting circuit, which was another reason I liked it. Cant guarantee that a toggle or two wont sprout from it once Ive explored it for a while

[newey]

Cant guarantee that a toggle or two wont sprout from it once Ive explored it for a while

Toggle farming?

They seem to sprout regardless of the season or climate, so they are apparently easy to grow.

[JohnH]

I’ve got the pedal now. Yes its very good, in fact its perfect for what it is. It has a neutral tone, at low gain and set to nominal volume, played with a single coil, its purely clean and virtually no tone change, no mid hump nor bass loss. Digging in with a humbucker will just break up a little. In that setting, there’s plenty of pole to turn up the volume to make an almost clean boost.

From there gain can be turned up into perfect classic or blues crunch or a singing lead if turned up high. There’s plenty of highs available but never a crackly or sputtery sound. The tone control is usable over most of its range.

It is a great unit for extending the gain range of a clean amp, which is how Ill use it.

I believe it was released in ’97, which is 20 years after Boss started doing overdrives. They seem to have got it figured out by then, and I don’t think they have added much to their line of analogue OD’s since. I’ll stick with this. Its also a good tonal reference for building such pedals.

The only other bought drive pedal one that I have is Bad Monkey, which got very good reviews a few years ago. But that one seems to lose a lot of natural sparkle and definitely colours the tone in a way that cant be EQ’ed out. This Boss unit is much nicer

[ashcatlt]

Well, the Bad Monkey is a slightly modified TubeScreamer. Not exactly known for transparency. The OD-3 looks like an interesting circuit. Sorta looks like one of those tube amp emulation things. Glad you're enjoying it.