BOSS Od-3 Overdrive Pedal

Product Information

What is it & what does it do? At it’s heart, the OD3 is what I consider a traditional overdrive, it takes your guitar signal & amplifies to the point of clipping & then clips the signal even further with it’s clipping diodes (depending on the gain setting & your playing dynamics). The selection of clipping diodes allow for a very even transition of the gain control from low, to high. This results in a great pedal to really work your guitar’s volume control, taking it from a dirty boost to a tight overdrive sound. The frequency response is reasonably smooth in the guitar’s natural frequencies & therefore the tone control can be tailored to a good range of guitars & their tonal characteristics. This is the MOST UNDERRATED BOSS PEDAL! And this is coming from a tube amp snob! I have two of these cause I have two pedalboards all loaded with Boss pedals. The OD-3 is my main overdrive/distortion sound both for rhythm and leads sometimes I push the input stage with Boss SD-1 for serious solos. Compared with the symmetrical clipping of the Tubescreamer, the Boss SD-1 Overdrive has greater volume and a more dominant presence. You will also notice that the range and level of focus of the Boss SD-1 Overdrive significantly contribute to the sound quality as it balances it out.

Another term that you may come across is fuzz, a special type of distortion consisting of harmonic tones that dominate the overall sound. Getting the OD3 to make noise is nice & simple, with your amplifier off or in standby mode, we simply connect our guitar to the INPUT connection, connect our OUPUT connection to the input of our amplifier, connect our power supply & with the pedal in bypass, turn our amp on. As a measure of caution for any first-time users I always set my level control to minimum position before turning the the pedal on, I usually set the tone & gain to 12:00 to give the circuit some juice to work the volume control up with however the best thing you can do once it’s making noise is to throw the starting settings out the window & spend time learning how each of the controls work & interact with each other. The main use of a pedal like this is to either get your amp to clip & produce natural overdrive at more sensible volumes, or to be the overdrive sound itself & run in to clean amp with lots of headroom. The Boss OD-3 was released in 1997, approximately three years after the OD-3 B was introduced worldwide.

The frequency response is also just as good since it is smooth and pleasant. The guitar’s tone and natural frequencies can be modified and brought within a good range and tonal characteristics. Therefore, you will notice that most overdrives produce a ‘pushed’ sound that is well in tune, clean, and capable of being stretched to the crunch. This is why it works better with full-voiced cords than purely high frequencies. Most open chords are not played with overdrives since the overtones and higher notes have a considerably low energy concentration. After this mod the pedal becomes a high gain Overdrive / Distortion. The sound is not muffled any more, that is a lot of presence and sparkle could be heard after the mod.

What’s more, as testament to how confident they are in this pedal’s build quality, Boss offer a five-year warranty. ATTENTION*Since the pedals that use THT components could be modified and the new BOSS pedals are being made using SMD components, I buy USED pedals that use THT components. So what you get from me is a USED pedal that has been modified. The Boss OD-3 takes a normal guitar signal and amplifies it to the clipping point, and then clips this signal even further with its diodes (depending on the playing dynamics and gain setting). It works very well for guitar frequencies that the DS-1 may overlook and has two complimenting pedals. ConclusionSo our gain is up at around half, the tone is sitting in the middle of it’s range & we can then dial the level control up to find a balance of volume between the effect & the bypassed signal. This brings us to the controls & their functions. I feel that for this pedal - the use of clear knobs is an inspired choice. I will probably be looking to snag a Twin Drive BD-2 next, then Twin Drive DS-1, and finally a Twin Drive MT-2 - sort of as a treat every few months or so. If you rather use the Boss OD-3 conservatively and use your guitar’s volume controls instead for a brighter, cleaner tone, this overdrive will work well. By turning down the drive knob and cranking up the volume you can use the OD-3 as booster and sustainer too add a creamy component to your amps overdrive. I use it with volume at 10, drive at 2.5 and tone at 4: With a clean amp sound I get a nice blues tone, with my amp distorted the Boss is a booster for my solo sound. AC adaptor (PSA series: sold separately) Current Draw 15 mA Expected battery life under continuous use Carbon: Approx. 34.5 hours

Delivering such a bold overdrive sound, the Boss OD-3 Overdrive pedal adds real presence for all playing styles. Note that the second ’Drive’ channel here is actually an additive ’Boost’ - which cannot be deployed independently - it always adds a Boost on top of whatever the current Drive settings are - so it’s best though of as a Solo / Boost switch. That second Footswitch essentially toggles the Boost On and Off - so you flip visible between Blue and Red LED’s. I would have though it made more sense for the Red LED to light up in addition to the Blue - which would have made its function more obvious - but no the LED’s alternate depending on which mode is engaged.Several guitar overdrives are available in the market. However, all of them do not work for all the models. Different overdrives come with different features and so are compatible with a particular number of guitars. The straightforward, high-quality drive, along with the various level and tone controls, make it an excellent model. The Boss OD-3 also comes with a five-year warranty. If you want to add some color and slight noise to your sound, opt for the Boss SD-1 Overdrive. It will also provide you with grit and a kind of brilliance you only expect from premium-quality overdrives. I've tried dozens of other pedals while the OD-3 was just floating out there. I assumed there was nothing special about it, and figured it was just an SD-1 with a new model number and darker color yellow.

Nigh on endless sustain is also provided by the Boss OD-3 OverDrive pedal so your tone really sings. Great for All StylesThis is what makes a fuzz tone reasonably hard to hear when playing in an intense band mix, but you can notice the saturation. Boss OD-3- The Natural Overdrive Boss OD-3 History While the symmetrical clipping forms odd harmonics, the asymmetrical clipping produces odd and even harmonics.