Boss OD-3 vs SD-1W

noisepolluter

I have a bit of a hankering for a Boss overdrive. I’d want to be able to use it as a chuck-in-the-gigbag standalone pedal as well as on the board after a buffered tuner, so that rules out the standard SD-1 because of the bypass bleed issue. 

Anyone tried SD-1W and OD-3 side by side and can comment on comparative voicing, character of breakup, gain range, quality of buffer etc?

I’ve tried a modded SD-1 and an OD-3 separately and some time apart, but remember liking both. (Further info -  would be for blues and classic rock sounds into clean fender amp or similar.)

 

joetele

Personally I found the OD-3 a lot more versatile with plenty of gain on tap. 

monquixote

They are quite different. 

The OD3 has loads of gain and sounds great, but it's not great at pushing an amp and it doesn't like to be stacked with other ODs (pushing it with a compressor is great though)
I'd use it into a clean amp as a main drive sound. Even on minimum gain it's quite dirty.
It's quite like a BD2 with more mids. 

The SD1 is more of your conventional OD best used stacked or pushing an amp into breakup.

noisepolluter

Thanks folks - I’m leaning towards the OD-3. It seemed to work really well into a clean fender amp which is what it will be used for most of the time - either on its own or a small pedalboard. 

monquixote

noisepolluter said:

Thanks folks - I’m leaning towards the OD-3. It seemed to work really well into a clean fender amp which is what it will be used for most of the time - either on its own or a small pedalboard. 

That's exactly how I used it and it was great. 

If you boost it with a compressor you will get an awesome lead tone.

noisepolluter

monquixote said:

noisepolluter said:

Thanks folks - I’m leaning towards the OD-3. It seemed to work really well into a clean fender amp which is what it will be used for most of the time - either on its own or a small pedalboard. 

That's exactly how I used it and it was great. 

If you boost it with a compressor you will get an awesome lead tone.

Brilliant. I’ll do that. 

When I was lent one I remember it being refreshingly easy to dial in - spent most of the time just running it straight into the amp actually, barely gave the pedalboard a glance. 

builttospill

Throwing a spanner in the works but I would consider @JezWynd’s Boss SD-2.. Works fantastically well with most amps including my Princeton Reverb.

mattdavis

Big fan of the OD3 here. And definitely agree with the ‘pushing it with something’ principle. Have recently found putting my EP booster before the OD3 gives a fantastic higher gain tone. 

dano

I use an OD3 to generate a nice slightly dirty rhythm sound into my clean Fender amp, and switch between it and a Rat for lighter / heavier stuff. 

agibbo

I've got a Monty Allums modded Boss OD-3. It does sound really good, but there is still a surprising amount of gain even at the minimum setting.

noisepolluter

mattdavis said:

Big fan of the OD3 here. And definitely agree with the ‘pushing it with something’ principle. Have recently found putting my EP booster before the OD3 gives a fantastic higher gain tone. 

I have a spark mini which will answer admirably for this purpose.

ICBM

I haven't tried the SD-1W yet, but since it's just a tweaked SD-1 I strongly suspect you want the OD-3.

I'll be honest - I don't like the OD-3... I don't really *dislike* it either, I just find it completely bland and uninspiring - but then I also feel that about many other apparently desirable overdrives that are mostly favoured for using into a clean Fender-type amp, like the Nobels ODR-1 and most 'transparent' overdrives. So it's probably just me .

Where the SD-1 shines is into an overdriven Marshall-type amp, or stacked into a heavier/more scooped distortion like a DS-1. It's also not bad into a clean Marshall-type amp, but into a clean Fender it just sounds boxy and a bit fuzzy (not like a fuzz!).

noisepolluter

Thanks folks - I’ve got an OD-3 on order. 

Now also contemplating a BD-2W as soon as something else sells... I think Boss pedals plug into the bit of my brain that’s forever 15 years old, when everything in the guitar shop was magic. 

noisepolluter

Sod it, my other pedals in the classifieds just sold so ordered a BD-2W as well. 

fretmeister

OD-1X for the win.

It's quite remarkable. Great for just being a boost for a valve amp, and great on it's own into clean.
Has the best string to string separation I've ever heard on a drive pedal.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TRKvxQVb6xE

thomasw88

I have both the OD3 and the SD1w.  Not actively using the OD3 at the moment but do like it, and haven't sold it as yet.

I like them both.  to me the SD1W is more versatile  in that you can get a very wide range of sounds out of it and it can be used for various purposes.  The OD3 is a great drive pedal but gets very gainy early on, I would say it works better as medium-large gain pedal.
I replaced the OD3 with a barber Gain changer on one board and it got pipped by another Barber -the Small fry on my other board.   They are two of my favorite overdrive pedals ever, and I've had oodles of them.

The SD1w is still on one board, but to be fair I haven't gigged it more than a couple of times due to the 'rona.   I plan on using is a light gain and as a  gain boost to my other pedals, so on that board it goes

Sd1W -> Barber Gain Changer -> old Proco Rat -> TC mini Spark(set for slight increase in volume).

ICBM

fretmeister said:

OD-1X for the win.

It's quite remarkable. Great for just being a boost for a valve amp, and great on it's own into clean.
Has the best string to string separation I've ever heard on a drive pedal.

[Thread resurrection]

I've just picked up one of these - you're right, it is quite remarkable. It's actually the closest standalone pedal I've yet found to the 'Natural Overdrive' model on the ME-50, which is my favourite solid-state overdrive sound ever... it's not quite identical, or at least setting the controls the same doesn't give exactly the same sound, but if you play around with them both a bit you can get it really very close - it may actually be the same basic software model. (It is digital, not analogue.) Part of the problem in being sure if it's the same model is that it's just *so* responsive, even tiny changes in technique produce different sounds.

It also not only has great string separation on chords, like the Natural Overdrive it also lacks the 'overdrive sitting on top of an underlying clean tone' as it decays back to clean, which is something I find annoying about all analogue solid-state overdrives.

So, again contrary to all expectations, I actually prefer digital overdrive to analogue...

Amazing to find these are almost ten years old now. They don't seem to have got a lot of attention really.