Boss Pedals. The good, bad, and mediocre.

[Gr8Scott]

Re: Boss Pedals. The good, bad, and mediocre.

Can someone PM me where to find a link for some DIY mods for the CS-3? I bought one this Friday for $30 that had a sloppy solder issue from the factory. I heated up the iron and it's now fully functional again but it just doesn't give me the sweet compressed tones that I want for bluesy stuff. It seems to add more grit sort of, but I can get that by simply turning up the treble on the Edana. Cranking the Sustain knob does indeed add sustain, but it also seems to add a very low-fi type sound to the instrument and the amp. I'm not getting good sounds out of it. I can make it sound bad, but I can't make it sound great. I can just make it sound "acceptable". All input would be greatly appreciated.

I have a Boss TU-2, which I love. Great pedal IMHO.

I also have a defunct Boss DS-1 that needs some love from the soldering iron. It has a short that I caused when modding it and hasn't been corrected yet. I was fitting a larger film cap on the board and one of the legs has made contact with the leg of a resistor or something. I'll need to unsolder it and reverse it's orientation to correct the problem. It was a dumb mistake.

 

[Rainmaker]

Re: Boss Pedals. The good, bad, and mediocre.

V-Wah = tunnel hearing tone

Metal Zone = mashed potatoes tone

Two thumbs down!

 

[Tor]

Re: Boss Pedals. The good, bad, and mediocre.

The only bad part about the DD-20 for live improv looping is that you have to pre-set the delay time. I have one preset on 15 seconds, with about 90% feedback. Everything I play, gets looped, but gradually fades. If I turn the preset off, I can play over top of the loop and not add to it- if I want to add something, I just turn it on. The loop constantly evolves. If I switch to another preset, the loop keeps going too! Very cool.

For more basic looping, I use the Sound on Sound mode, which functions like all other Boss loopers.

Ah, thanks a lot for the description! I need to try that out.

 

[OlinMusic]

Re: Boss Pedals. The good, bad, and mediocre.

PH-2 Phaser rocks when it comes to Reggae and Funk. It's thin quality, and phasey, rhythmic vibe means it does scratch patterns perfect and works right in the mix.

CE-5 Chorus Ens - Never made me unhappy when set right.

Super Chorus - Never made me unhappy either

DS1 / SD1 - I seem to enjoy them MUCH more with mods. Otherwise the FD2 and TS9 are preferred.

CS3 Compressor works but its definitely too obtrusive in my tone.

Dynamic Wah - very funky, and it fits my BCB6 - but I think I like the Digitech Envelope Filter (new one) the best.

Turbo OD is nice and thick, but not my fave.

TU2 Tuner is PERFECT as it takes a licking and always works. I have had tuners go bad or make noise so I love this pedal!

A lot of their new COSM pedals sound like PODs to me.

 

[heymcz]

Re: Boss Pedals. The good, bad, and mediocre.

THE GOOD:
* SD-1 Stock, does a nice crunch for rhythm, good solo boost.
* BF-2. I would still have it if I needed a Flanger.

THE MEDIOCRE:
* CE-2. Great sound, but poor headroom. Had it Keeley modded, lost its character.
* XT-2 Xtortion. Fun pedal to play with, can get a good Boston tone, surprisingly, but a little too shrill. I may pick up another just to have it to mess with.
* DD-3. Not bad, but thin and sterile compared to an Ibanez DDL.
* CE-3. Had it for almost a decade, kind of lifeless, but passable.
* CE-5. Sounded okay, a little thin.
* PH-2. Interesting sounds, great noisemaker. Not a go-to phaser, though.
* MT-2. Too thin sounding in the mids, otherwise not bad.
* OS-2. Some people hate this, but I was able to dial in a good sound. Not a great sound. A nice "Swiss Army Knife" pedal.
* CS-3. Meh.
* EH-2. Didn't really need it since I have no shortage of high frequencies in my rig.

THE BAD:
* HM-2. Had it for a decade, never got a decent sound out of it.
* PH-1r. A lot of people love this pedal, but it was too shrill in my rig.
* PH-3. Horrid, horrid, fake sounding phaser, eats your tone!
* GE-7. Noisy as anything.

I've owned a lot of Boss pedals, but in the end, I largely prefer Maxon and MXR. I still want to try a SD-2, PW-2, and yeah, a DC-2.

 

[GuitarStv]

Re: Boss Pedals. The good, bad, and mediocre.

My personal favourites:
BD-2: For some reason I keep coming back to this distortion pedal . . . it just sounds right to me. Very wide range of distortion and has tons of gain if you want to use it as a clean boost. (I modded this pedal with Keeley's mods about five years ago.)
PS-2: A beautiful noise box . . . I use this mostly as a dirty delay with self-oscillating, although it can nail that ring modulated sound from the start of "My iron lung" too.
PS-3: This pedal does everything . . . weird noises, crystal clean delays, Chorus, Flanging, and OK pitch shifting.
PH-3: I know that this one always seems to get a bad rep. from people, but I've found that it sounds fantastic when playing clean. You have to be careful with the knobs though, because there are a lot of crappy sounds as well as good in this box. It can cut volume a bit when you kick it on, but not enough to bother me. Definitely doesn't work after distortion.

Meh Pedals:
DS-2: There are one or two cool lead tones I got from this, but it never seemed to hold a candle to my BD-2. I found that mode II was unusable.
CE-5: I guess I'm not much of a chorus guy, but this pedal never really blew me away.
TR-2: Basic tremolo pedal . . . but there just wasn't anything that my ears liked about this one.
MT-2: This pedal is too sensitive for me. I could find the occasional sound here and there that I liked, but if I looked at the knobs funny they would change on me . . . and the slightest change would make the pedal sound crappy. I can get a better saturated metal sound by using a compressor and my BD-2.

 

[lex666]

Re: Boss Pedals. The good, bad, and mediocre.

Well, whenever I need an effect I always seem to get a Boss first. Needless to say I've got a pretty good collection of Boss pedals, some stay on the board, some are excellent paper weights. Here is a short review:

Boss TU2 tuner - a must have. Love this pedal, I'd buy another if necessary. Easy to read, easy to use, and can power other Boss effects.

NS2 Noise Suppressor - another must have. works great on my board to reduce hum and noise. Doesn't squash my tone at all.

AW3 Auto Wah - recently added, so I'm still having trouble getting the timing right. Otherwise, the tone is great. I'm using it to cover some 311 songs...

CS3 Compression/Sustainer - I'm in between on this one. It does help keep my fast rthym playing sounding tighter. But on other songs or settings its a tone robber. I try to use it as little as possible. But for heavy music it helps.

GE7 Equalizer - great pedal, does what its supposed to do, but has given me some problems with excess noise.

DD3 Digital Delay - Could never dial in the sound I wanted.

TR3 Tremelo - great pedal, easy to use. sounds great.

BF3 Flanger - great pedal, especially if you're looking for a thick flange sound.

CE3 Chorus Emsemble - eh. I like the chorus effect i get from my EVH phase 90 better.

DS1 distortion - Don't use it. I prefer amp distortion much more.

 

[TheArchitect]

Re: Boss Pedals. The good, bad, and mediocre.

SD-1 - Great
DS-1 - Blows
DD-3 - Nice

 

[Tor]

Re: Boss Pedals. The good, bad, and mediocre.

PH-3: I know that this one always seems to get a bad rep. from people, but I've found that it sounds fantastic when playing clean. You have to be careful with the knobs though, because there are a lot of crappy sounds as well as good in this box. It can cut volume a bit when you kick it on, but not enough to bother me. Definitely doesn't work after distortion.

Could you share the settings you like for this one..?

 

[GuitarStv]

Re: Boss Pedals. The good, bad, and mediocre.

Could you share the settings you like for this one..?

If I'm looking for a weird phasing sound then I'll usually play with the step or rise/fall modes of the pedal and keep twisting the knobs until I find something that I like . . . the three settings that I use the most often on the PH-3 are:

(Settings are based on where a clocks hour hand would be)
General Purpose Phase:
Rate: 12
Depth: A little past 2
Res: a little past 1
Mode: 4 Stage

Single Note Funk/Thick Phase:
Rate: 12
Depth: 3
Res: 1
Mode: 12 Stage

Thin Phase (For busy strumming / use with chords):
Rate: A little past 10
Depth: A little past 10
Res: A little past 7
Mode: 4 Stage

*The first two that I listed sound pretty cool when you add in a little delay after them.

 

[Tor]

Re: Boss Pedals. The good, bad, and mediocre.

Thanks a lot! I will try these..

 

[dressed2kill]

Re: Boss Pedals. The good, bad, and mediocre.

My faves have always been the
BD-2 - always thought the name was deceiving "blues" seemed to lead people in a different direction, it can be subtle or full out gain.
SD-1 - for some reason always the go to pedal, love it for leads
TU-2 - always works for me

DS-1 - I teater on the fence with this one, more so I think like others have mentioned you have to use you guitars volume to play this pedal at its best.

 

[pinto79]

Re: Boss Pedals. The good, bad, and mediocre.

I've had a bunch of DS-1s. My favourite was my first one. it was a MIJ one that was absolutely amazing.

The CE-3 is my favourite Chorus,and I just got my hands on another one. The CH-1 is good too. I've owned a few. The last one I had I gave to my sister's boyfriend for Christmas.

I don't have much time for any of the other drive pedals... none have really gelled with me. Same with the BF-2. The Super Phaser is great tho and I should get my hands on another. I really liked the DD-6 when run in a loop in Stereo. It really worked well like that. It lacked when run mono. I had a Noise gate once that I didn't use much because I didn't like the way it gated... it was too hard to keep notes hanging on... The gate in my AX2 is much more usable.

I'm probably going to have to get a TU-2 for rehearsal and live work once my Attax arrives. The Ax2 has a built in tuner that works well and I use it a lot so I can see the value of a stage tuner.

I have a PS-5 that I haven't had a lot of success with. Probably because I haven't had much time with it.

I'm going to need to get my hands on a DD-6 again and a good reverb...

 

[heymcz]

Re: Boss Pedals. The good, bad, and mediocre.

I just pulled the trigger on a Boss OD-2, which is supposedly very much like the SD-1 but with an additional Turbo mode....$35 shipped. We'll see if it dethrones my Maxon....