Boss OD-3

ThePrettyDamned

My mate just got one of these.

Okay, so it's tone control is really, really wide - super dull to stupid bright! But max the gain and leave it there - it's really quite responsive, and quite fat sounding once you've got the tone control in the right place. 

Actually, I might buy one.  Any love for them?  Any niggles?

Dave_Mc

Tried one a few times ages back, remember thinking it was fairly decent, but maybe better as a standalone than a boost. Don't remember much else about it.

paisleysoul

I ended up plumping for a Blues Driver over an OD-3. Its just got a bit more about it, I find.

spacecadet

A very very very good pedal. Doesn't get the love it deserves.

ThePrettyDamned

Have to admit, I wasn't aware of it until today but he's really stoked with it - he was expecting an SD-1 boosty type thing, not something that has a nice gain sound of its own. 

monquixote

I think the problem is it looks very much like the other Boss OD pedals, but it's quite a bit more expensive. 

I've heard nothing, but good things about them so my plan has been to buy one as soon as it comes up on the classifieds, but they never do which means either people must tend to keep them or they are very unpopular.

Johnnyseven

You can pick them up really cheap on ebay. I had one once, I got it modded but wished I hadn't - it's good straight out the box, but I prefered the Blues Driver too.

thermionic

Is it this one or the SD-1 that's descended from the venerable OD-1? I think it's this one, isn't it?

I fancy getting hold of one at some point because an OD-1 has been part of my sound since I bought my first pedal.

monquixote

My understanding was that the OD-3 is closest to the BD-2

ThePrettyDamned

thermionic;284039" said:

Is it this one or the SD-1 that's descended from the venerable OD-1? I think it's this one, isn't it?

I fancy getting hold of one at some point because an OD-1 has been part of my sound since I bought my first pedal.

I think that's the sd-1. Never seen an od-1, plenty of folk want boss to reissue it but they don't seem to be a reissue type of brand

I'll see if I can source a cheap used one and maybe a cheap used bd-2 and compare. I always liked the Digitech screaming blues pedal, so if that's similar to the bd-2 it's a possible winner.

ICBM

The OD-3 is completely different to the SD-1 and closer to the BD-2, although not the same.

Personally I find it OK-sounding, but completely boring and characterless. I wanted to like it because it doesn't have the boxiness of the SD-1 or the harshness of the BD-2, but I just didn't find anything interesting about it either.

The SD-1 is an OD-1 with an extra tone control stage, although there is no setting on the SD-1 that's quite the same as the OD-1.

gubble

I've always wanted a Boss OD-2 - stupidly sold mine back in the late 90's.

They're probably not as good as i remember, but the nostalgia makes me want one again.

ThePrettyDamned

Well, I've saved a search for the od-3. The demo @spacecadet posted sounds pretty good, and it's got enough brightness to possibly replace my route 66 as a tightener for heavy crunch.

hugbot

I just got one, its really nice, I used to have a BD2 which was more full range but I think this one lends itself more to lead playing , while the BD2 could feel a little flat.

shuikit

I had one years ago, liked the tone and used it for ages.  Until one day I decided to plug my guitar directly into my amp and found that there was a LOT of brightness lost when going through my pedal board, eventually narrowed it down to the OD-3 and then ended up taking it off the board and selling it.  I know some people aren't too bothered about tone suck when the pedal is bypassed so if you're one of them then go for one.

ThePrettyDamned

shuikit said:

I had one years ago, liked the tone and used it for ages.  Until one day I decided to plug my guitar directly into my amp and found that there was a LOT of brightness lost when going through my pedal board, eventually narrowed it down to the OD-3 and then ended up taking it off the board and selling it.  I know some people aren't too bothered about tone suck when the pedal is bypassed so if you're one of them then go for one.

Bah, that potentially sucks.   literally.  

It might be okay - maybe I'll borrow one

smudge_lad

Stick another good buffer after the OD-3, or a clean boost. Both should bring back enough sparkle to your signal

ICBM

smudge_lad said:

Stick another good buffer after the OD-3, or a clean boost. Both should bring back enough sparkle to your signal

If a pedal is sucking tone, putting a buffer after it will just lock in the loss of treble - it can't boost what isn't there. Putting a buffer before it won't work either if it's an actual treble loss in the bypass buffer, rather than a passive load.

Some of the 'tone suck' from Boss pedals is actually a very slight level cut though - your ear interprets that as a loss of tone rather than volume for some odd (but well-known) reason. So a slight clean boost after it could help.

I proved this with a friends' tone-sucking mostly-Boss pedalboard - which had really quite severe suck. I simply modified his GE-7 to give a fixed boost (by disabling the 'de-' part of the pre/de-emphasis circuit, which gives about a 3dB boost whether the pedal is on or not) and the tone suck disappeared completely.

thermionic

I looked at the circuit of the BD-2 when I modded one - interesting, as they basically built an opamp out of discrete components. I think there might have been more than one clipping stage as well (including to ground as opposed in a feedback loop, I dunno).

 

It would make more sense then that the SD-1 has the OD-1 DNA i.e. an opamp chip with clipping diodes in the feedback loop. It would also explain why it's cheaper to make than the OD-3

 

dano

I dug out my OD-3 last night, having not played it for a couple of years, and forgotten how good it is ! Spent a good hour playing it last night.

It does a great transparent overdriven sound, I couldn't crank the amp as the kids were asleep so it's not really pushing the amp, its' gain is up higher to generate it's own dirt. Tone control is very wide ranging, I set it typically to about 1 o'clock which is quite good for a decent rock sound. maximum gain is much less than my BD-2, but thats' been modded by myself many years ago and I can't recall if I changed the gain on it ! It's also notably different from the BD-2, that pedal is definately voiced differently, like a Fender type mid cut I think.

With the gain low is it has a good clean / slightly overdriven when you dig in feel to it. responds very well when you play light or really dig into the strings, very responsive and uncomprssed. . Bass is a little cut for my liking I coudl probably do with modding a capaitor to get a little more low end through.

Gain up at max (or close to it) and I was getting some decent rock riffs going, tone control didn't need adjusting from where I had it set at low gain.

I think it will certainly be coming back onto the board and kicking the BD-2 off for a while.

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/blackscience/PB170714_zps3b6b549a.jpg

ThePrettyDamned

Nice. How did you find the buffer? Did you notice any treble loss with it off?