BOSS Overdrive/Distortion Guitar Pedal (Os-2),Gold

Like most players I wasted money on all sorts of pedals when I first started playing in bands and was figuring out my sonic 'place' in the world. Eventually realising all I needed was a good overdrive tone and an amp that cleaned up with my guitar volume control. Which has served me well for 25 years. I even did away with a channel footswitch, and I confess to being a bit 'snobby' about the thought of pedals ever since. Until recently I rarely played at anything less than rehearsal room volumes so would always get the amp working hard enough to let me play like this. However, despite my amp being able to attenuate down to 5w, I have gotten more frustrated working at lower volumes lately at the loss of dynamic and muddying up when using my guitar volume control. I was at the point of thinking I had to change my amp just to get back some life and tonal response like I am used to.A shop assistant listened to me and rather than shamelessly get a sale on expensive amps he convinced me, by appealing to my wallet, to try the OD3 'just as a benchmark' loaning me a beat up demo model for a nominal deposit. I set a clean tone at 5w on my amp - totally stock setting I start at with all my guitars. I set the pedal drive and level dials at '10 o' clock', the tone in the middle and stepped on it expecting nothing before I'd tweaked things substantially - boom! Instantly, there was my 'full volume' dirty tone with great picking dynamics, harmonics and volume response. 40 minutes later I'd not touched a thing and just played and played. An amazing pedal. Almost neutral but full of dynamic that brings out the best of your guitars and amp. All my guitars sounded superb and having used it in a band situation recently I cannot speak highly enough of the tone it helped extract from my amp. Which sounded better driving the clean channel to be dirty than the gain channel itself like I would normally use. Maybe there was some novelty factor in there for me but who cares? I was surprised by just HOW much dirt was available - pretty much Angus Young if you need to go that far. I was expecting Keith Richards to be it's limits but it is WAY more versatile than that and if you don't own one, you should buy one. Now.With a newly open mind I also tried the OD-1X before making an actual purchase. The OD3 is a little noisier at higher levels (if you want an A/B comparison) but both have quite unique tones and the OD3 is not by any means redundant now. The 1X has just a bit more gain, is more modern and crisp sounding overall and responds to even further roll off of guitar volume. Again, not that the OD3 doesn't, the OD1X simply has enough overall space to better handle extra roll off. If you need more versatility the 1X is probably what you need, especially with open chord picking having extra clarity. For me though the OD3 played better to the natural warmth of my amp and has 'that' sort of warmer, swelling overdrive tone. That atypical tone everyone would call 'classic'. And it most certainly is.

Absolute beast of a pedal. Will be on my pedalboard for a long, long time.

Nothing to not like about this pedal. I only use the drive side, not into distortion/fuzz but it does the job well. A boss pedal at this price... built to last, easy to use.... get bad reviews. Why? I think if you're looking for high gain distortion ( heavy metal) you would be disappointed. It overdrives exceptionally well and that's what I want.. not waspy fuzz.

I'm revising my review of last year having been tempted to try this pedal again - I don't know if my playing has evolved but now I find it easy to dial in the tone I need. The "color" knob is excellent for tweaking to suit different guitars and amps, with the overdrive end of things producing a good "brown sound" and the distortion end of things producing a more biting and squishy sound. With humbuckers this sounds amazing driving a valve amp - especially with the gain backed off and the volume up. This is where it really shines. With the knob anywhere around the middle you get a firm, thumpy palm-muted overdrive with varying degrees of sizzling overtones from the distortion. It reminds me of Clapton's early Marshall sound more than anything, and that's no bad thing. I've also been using a CS-3 compressor ahead of it and this takes it to a whole new level,especially with single coils or lower-output pickups. This isn't your typical death metal mid-scooped box of fizz with insane gain - it's an altogether more sophisticated drive box which works best as part of a really good guitar/amp setup.

Great overdrive! I used the sd1 for ever and gave this a shot on a whim, for me it’s the best OD out there! I dime the gain and drive it from the volume pot which goes from mild overdrive to almost distortion! Love it

Perfect condition. Came with 9v battery ready installed. Works great, no complaint at all. Great tone with all my guitars and fits into my rig perfectly. Awesome tubelike tones through my solid state Marshall. Soaring leads and crunchy rhythm when coupled especially with the Boss GE-7 EQ pedal. Great buy, love it!

Can't go wrong with the Boss OS-2 Overdrive/Distortion pedal. I've positioned it just before my Spark Booster pedal and gives me the great sound I was expecting. Highly recommended.

Love it , great tone’s .