Cormac Reviews Boss Pedal

Generic Dreadhead

My collection at it's peak:



DISTORTION:
--- In order or best to worst ---
1: OS-2
2: OD-3 & DS-1 & HM-3 (tie)
3: MD-2 & XT-2 & ML-2 (tie)
4: HM-2 & SD-1 (tie)
5: MT-2
6: OD-2r
7: DS-2

Turbo Distortion
DS-2: (http://www.bossarea.com/loadpage.asp?file=boxes/ds2.xml)
This is the WORST. It's awful, terrible, rubbish, useless. Avoid this pedal at all costs. If you own one, bin it. Don't even sell it, that's unfair to other people. You wouldn't sell someone malaria would you? I've no idea how this was/is so popular. It sounds like crap. It's thin, has no gain, compressed sounding, holds no dynamics, is unresponsive, is a horrid colour, comes from a bad part of town, "borrowed" €20 off me and never gave it back, made sexual advances on my loved ones, beat up an entire local orphanage, gets violently drunk and starts sentences with "I'm not racist but….". This pedal is that friend of a friend of a friend who was at a couple of house parties that you were at years ago, and that you, and everyone you know, unanimously agrees was the biggest moron you've ever had the displeasure of meeting. This Pedal is the DEVIL!!! Comes with a remote input jack to allow you to hate double the amount of floorspace

Overdrive/Distortion
OS-2: (http://www.bossarea.com/loadpage.asp?file=boxes/os2.xml)
You genuinely wouldn't think it, but this, out of the current Boss series is probably the best sounding out-of-the-box distortion pedal. It sounds better than the DS-1 to my ears. These are a steal second-hand. If you own an MD-2, MT-2 *shudder*, DS-1, DS-2 *double-shudder* or HM-2/3. Pick one of these up second-hand and give it a whirl, I think you'll be pleasantly surprised. It's clear sounding, no loss of tone/signal, warm, full and natural. Suited to rock and playing in a band but not the "scooped-mids / high gain" sound to be honest. It allows you to blend overdrive and distortion. I cannot fully vouch for the overdrive sound as I primarily used the distortion but it sounded no different to an OD-3 or SD-1 really, neither better nor worse.

Turbo Overdrive (not pictured)
OD-2r: (http://www.bossarea.com/loadpage.asp?file=boxes/od2r.xml)
CRAP. Get an SD-1 or OD-3 instead. These are overall inferior and just sound straight-up bad. It's the DS-2s annoying cousin it brought to play football with you and your friends a few times that was really annoying and full of crap. You don't want to play with him again, you don't want to see him again. And having the DS-2 and the OS-2 around you at the same time makes your skin crawl like theres a leery, creepy old man giving you the eye in your peripheral vision. If you own one, sell it to some gullible sap and then drink lots of whiskey in dark, dirty, dive bar while making idle small talk with the ex-stripper bar-maid about how you'll never be a good guy. The version I have came with a remote input jack…. who know's why. You won't want it touching anything else you own cause it has the "crappily-contagious" look about it.

MODULATION:
Acoustic Simulators
AC-3: (http://www.bossarea.com/loadpage.asp?file=boxes/ac3.xml)
Really, really quiet. To get this pedal to work without a drop in volume you practically have to turn the volume up full. There is a lot of background hiss in this pedal and the higher the volume, the more the hiss. Once you have it up in/around full volume, the hiss makes the pedal unusable. The controls offer you a lot of options for shaping your acoustic tone but I only really ever found myself using the same kind of settings, everything else sounded to gimmicky. The pedal does actually provide a convincing simulator of an acoustic sound though so it succeeds in that regard. But the sound is not as natural as the older model (thats gonna be a recurring theme in this piece)
AC-2: (http://www.bossarea.com/loadpage.asp?file=boxes/ac2.xml)
Does almost everything listed above (barring the Reverb control the AC-3 has which is on little use anyway). The only differences are positives in that it sounds better (more natural and warm), has a little less volume drop and a less audible hissing sound. Essentially it's better than the new model and I don't know why they changed it unless it was for cheaper components (that too will a recurring sentence in this piece)

TIME BASED EFFECTS:
Delay Pedals
DD-3 (Owned): http://www.bossarea.com/loadpage.asp?file=boxes/dd3.xml
DD-7 (Owned): http://www.bossarea.com/loadpage.asp?file=boxes/dd7.xml
DD-6 (Not Owned): http://www.bossarea.com/loadpage.asp?file=boxes/dd6.xml
DM-2 (Not Owned): http://www.bossarea.com/loadpage.asp?file=boxes/dm2.xml
I can only speak about the DD-3 and DD-7, as i haven't owned a DD-6 any older highly-sought-after models such as the DM-2 (or DM-3 for that matter). But the DD-7 is almost exactly the same as the DD-7 except it has a "Reverse" function. Simply put, I don't really use Delay effects much (but I plan to start, Delay and Harmonisers are the 2 effects I want to incorporate more). These seem to do exactly what you want them to and I cannot say which is better. I guess it comes down to the "modes" of delay you want, if you need a lot of weird ambient stuff get the DD-6/DD7. If you want a regular Delay pedal, get the DD-3. I got my DD-3 modified (by these guys http://www.pedalmods.com) so that it now has an "Analogue" mode. This essentially lets it sound like the prized, rare DM-2 but without the high cost. And since it's modded, I'm loath to sell it now as I feel like I must use it. If delay is your thing and you don't want the "Industry" standard, I see no reason why you would feel any of these Delay pedals would be a let down.

Reverb
RV-5: (http://www.bossarea.com/loadpage.asp?file=boxes/rv5.xml)
This the only Reverb stomp box I've owned so I can only say so much. It has a lot of functions ranging from the regular spring/room to the ridiculous ambient stuff. I use only a small bit of room reverb on my clean tone usually so It's hard for me to complain about this. I've seen it written online that the reverb sound out of this is too clean/crystal sharp, but i don't really buy that, everyone on forums wants your guitar to sound like it's on a 1960s album and that's just not for everyone. Apparently the Marshall RF-1 does the same job as this, sounds pretty much the same and costs half the price, so make of that what you will. I can't say it's bad or great, I wanted Reverb and this pedal provides Reverb and it sounds good.

ALL THINGS FREQUENCY RELATED:

Line Selector
LS-2: (http://www.bossarea.com/loadpage.asp?file=boxes/ls2.xml)
A great pedal. If you own more than 5 stomp boxes, there's a probably a reason you could find to own one of these (you know how us guitarists are, we always find a reason we "need" something). It has about, maybe, 7 different jobs it can do. From switching Amps, to switching guitars, to isolating effects loops to blending two sounds into one. I could have done with maybe 3 of these. In the end, looping and switching is a passion of mine so I needed pedals that were more focused on doing one or two functions each (I use http://www.loop-master.com for my switchers/loopers now - I own about five of his products from single loopers to nine-way loopers). I prefer loop-master pedals and they are better in almost all ways, but I don't think anything they have provides as many options as the LS-2 honestly.

Enhancer
EH-2: (http://www.bossarea.com/loadpage.asp?file=boxes/eh2.xml)
This has no made it into my current rig and is more seen as a "studio" pedal. Essentially it revives some of the lost harmonics and higher range brilliance of your guitar which is lost through going through a lot of cabling or pedals. I'd like to write more about this but it's probably something you should look up on youtube. It's one of those pedals where you don't notice what it's doing when it's turned on, until you turn it off.

Feedbacker/Booster
FB-2: (no link? *sad face*)
This pedal does 2 things, can provide unnecessary, sustained (but controlled) feedback, mimics a loud valve amp feeding back but you can kind of "hold" the feedback at a certain frequency. It's fun, for a couple of presses and then you'll decide you'd rather have friends / bandmates / neighbours / than you'd this pedal. This function is a novelty really. The other thing it does is act a booster, it does this quiet well, providing a almost a parametric EQ but with only one band (so chose the Frequency and 'Q'). If you want a straight forward boost, this does the job, but really if you're in anyway serious you'd be using an EQ pedal for this. Good, but not great. Falls into that category of helpful but not necessary. Other pedals (MXR 6 band EQ?) do the job better so look at them instead.

Equalizer
GE-7: (http://www.bossarea.com/loadpage.asp?file=boxes/ge7.xml)
This is a good EQ pedal for a 6 band BUT there is a lot of hiss of it, and inordinate amount of hiss. I had to get mine modded with a 'silent' mod by Pedal-Mods to fix this. I also own 2 MXR KFK 10 Band EQ pedals and frankly, the GE-7 just does not stack up. If you want an EQ pedal, get the 10 Band MXR EQ pedals, they are far superior, they are silent (unlike the GE-7) and provide 2 more frequencies to tweak, and they can be used for guitar and bass, the GE-7 has it's frequencies tailored for guitar only. Plus the MXR ones light up and look super-ultra-cool.