Love for boss pedals

monquixote

Winny_Pooh said:

I really like the idea of Boss stuff and have a CS-2 & DM2 on my board, however their musical frame of reference seems a bit dated to the late 90's and their layout restricts the controls to 4 knobs
What I would like to see:

-Single pedal tape delay emulator like the EP103
-Nicer compressor
-Nicer Tremolo
-Non emulated Fuzzes - Compared to Skreddy's offerings they are in a modelling stone age.
-Analog octaver ala MXR & Foxrox
-A distortion that sounds like a Marshall. The OD-1W is alright (still beaten by a Zendrive) and the OD-3 is ok (little mids,what do you use it for? Rhythym perhaps?) but noting sounds 3D or organic and is frankly shit compared to the Blackstone & Buffalo TD-X I'm using.

More analog basically. 

FWIW the DM-2W, CE-2W, DD500 and ES-8 are great new products

Have you looked at the cs-1x?

JD50

There are other companies apart from Boss and Digitech that use that switch design. Nobel AXL Johnson, I have the 'fifties trem' which I'm fairly certain is a Boss TR2 Rebranded. Any other manufacturers using the same housing desing?

frictionfraction

ICBM said:

Yes. I'm on the verge of getting rid of all my pedals with metal click footswitches. I really hate them.

Why is that s much time and energy goes into designing flash paint jobs, finishes and such like and then just using the ubiquitous click footswitch.. itbamazs me that boss pedal sounds have been ripped off left right and centre accept fir the one thing that sets them miles apart - the foot switch 

ThePrettyDamned

They have some shit pedals, but some are beyond great - my favourite overdrive is a boss, and I've done the boutique thing a bit too. 

I have other brands, but my df-2, dd2 and ph1r will never go. The Ds2 is here for frusciante moments, but I could see myself getting bored. I doubt I'll bother selling though - it does a really good mid gain crunch too. 

Voxman

Hmm - I know this goes against the flow of this thread but I don't necessarily share all this undying love for Boss pedals.  Rugged and built like tanks - yes, look good, yes.  Foot-pedal accuracy - I dunno - the pedal on my CS3 seems twitchy sometimes.  Tone? Sometimes this can be very idiosyncratic - for example some Boss distortions/modulations/delays etc sound great, but some variants can sound lack-lustre.  Sometimes older versions can be better than current versions, other times newer variations are genuine improvements.  

Quality - Well, some Boss pedals are exceptional, some are very good, but some have problems with components.  I have the GE-7 (EQ) and CS3 Compressor Sustainer on my board  They are both pretty decent pedals but both share the same issue in that they are a bit noisy.  I'm aware that there are mods available to quieten them down and improve their tone, but I don't see why I should be inconvenienced and have to pay extra for something that should have been done right in the first place.  

So you've got to be quite careful when choosing a particular effect as to which version best suits you. Sometimes it's a compromise.  For example, from a tonal and control perspective I much prefer the CS3 to the CS2 that I used to have - but the CS2 was quieter.

So, overall, I'd give Boss 7.5-8/10 - good, but not always 'Carling'. 

ICBM

I agree that there are some faults, which I find inexplicable that they haven't fixed - the GE-7's noise and the SD-1's bypass leak in particular are well-known and irritating on two otherwise great pedals.

Teetonetal

ICBM said:

I agree that there are some faults, which I find inexplicable that they haven't fixed - the GE-7's noise and the SD-1's bypass leak in particular are well-known and irritating on two otherwise great pedals.

It is astounding that they haven't fixed those two in particular. But Boss don'rt seem to be a company that "listens" the dd500 being one of the few examples I can think of where they made updates based on overwhelming customer feedback.

RocknRollDave

I had a Boss delay that died on me, but bearing in mind I bought it second hand in the early 90's and it lasted until a couple of years ago, I think it had earned its retirement.

ThePrettyDamned

ICBM said:

I agree that there are some faults, which I find inexplicable that they haven't fixed - the GE-7's noise and the SD-1's bypass leak in particular are well-known and irritating on two otherwise great pedals.

That is irksome. 

Also, some of their best pedals are marketed all wrong. The metal zone should be the parametric death fuzz. The od-3 should be the bd-3. 

And they really should make the ph1r or ph2, fz2 or fz3. The way the ds-2 was marketed was awful, too - basically shown as a metal pedal, when it's a two mode pedal - loose, slightly scooped mid gain crunch and high gain, very middy sustaining fuzzy lead tone. It can't do anything even approaching metal! 

That aside, they do innovate. The new digital dirt boxes are all good - I love the da-2 for a really responsive drive that can even act as a totally transparent clean boost, and the ds-1x is a monster of a high gain pedal for modern rock. 

BintyTwanger77

Which of the Boss RVs is everyone's favourite? RV3, RV5, RV6...?

professorben

BintyTwanger77 said:

Which of the Boss RVs is everyone's favourite? RV3, RV5, RV6...?

https://imgur.com/a/HNSxA

xSkarloey

I freely admit that I have an all Boss pedalboard because a) the pedals do their job well and b) the variety of happy colours make me smile.


I like the BF-2 because it's a sound on a lot of records I like and because its got a great variety of sounds in it.

I love the CE2 style chorus sound, but I have a cheapy Super Chorus because it has more high-end sparkle in the sound and it's quite a subtle effect, which is me all over when it comes to chorus: some but not too much.

What else? SD1 because I love Marshalls and they go really well with them.

And the Space Echo, because it's like a musical instrument in its own right.


edit: oh and the GE7 graphic , which although it's more Milky Bar than Smarties coloured, is a great secret weapon pedal to have. That's saved my skin on quite a few occasions.

Jalapeno

GE7 with a gentle curve is my acoustic jazz solo boost - it fattens and treble boosts perfectly.

Fretwired

Chalky said:

Speaking to my cousin the other day, a chap of 20 years on the road pro gigging, followed by 20 years local gigging and still going, to him only two words  of description matter when it comes to gear - lightweight and reliable.  Even he says its a bit sad that such practical matters completely outweigh his enthusiam for the sound of new gear. 

Two friends of mine do 'fly' gigs in the USA regularly. Both use Boss pedals as if the airline loses the pedal board or a pedal packs up it's a quick trip to a guitar store to replace/borrow. They are also more forgiving with whatever amp the venue supplies.

normula1

impmann said:

I keep buying and then selling Boss compressors because of getting sidetracked by "boutique" bollocks that rarely improve on the sound. That reminds me... (scuttles off to eBay to buy another Boss compressor)

I did that very thing last week. Now need to get the iron warmed up to fit the Monte Alums kit I've have had pinned to the notice board since January as I couldn't be arsed to get my other CS3 out of its current rack home.

Dave_Mc

ICBM said:

I agree that there are some faults, which I find inexplicable that they haven't fixed - the GE-7's noise and the SD-1's bypass leak in particular are well-known and irritating on two otherwise great pedals.

Yeah. And also the not-quite-unity gain buffers on most of their pedals. Yes, it's fixable, but as @Voxman rightly said, you shouldn't have to, it should have been done correctly in the first place. Plus, not everyone might have a clean boost pedal to hand, or space on the pedalboard to accomodate it.

To be fair, they have fixed a few things- I think they fixed the volume drop on the TR-2* (after I bought one, of course ). But there's more stuff that they really should fix too, and if they did, a lot of us would be eating out of their hands.

* Plus a cynic might say that a volume drop in a tremolo pedal is probably noticeable (i.e. not fixing it might cost them sales), whereas most players won't notice iffy buffers, at least at the point of sale... and even the noise thing with the GE7 and CS3, maybe they have half an eye on selling more NS2s.

clarkefan

My GE-7 is an old falling apart one but it's pretty quiet, to a point where I bought the parts to mod it and have never bothered.

The BD-2 though, now that is a noisy little herbert. Well, mine is.

The SD-1 bleed thing, doesn't that only happen if the gain is maxed? So not that big a deal really? I'd say most people use it level up gain down to kick a clipping amp. That's how I do and I've never noticed this bleed problem. I'll experiment and try find it

New to me is the NS-2 which I've only had for a couple months. Never really noticed how much noise my stuff was making till I got this, it's a pretty cool trick

Nearly forgot, another great utility Boss is the LS-2, how useful is that thing for trying out all sorts of stuff? Answer, very very useful, very cool pedal.

ThePrettyDamned

clarkefan said:

My GE-7 is an old falling apart one but it's pretty quiet, to a point where I bought the parts to mod it and have never bothered.

The BD-2 though, now that is a noisy little herbert. Well, mine is.

The SD-1 bleed thing, doesn't that only happen if the gain is maxed? So not that big a deal really? I'd say most people use it level up gain down to kick a clipping amp. That's how I do and I've never noticed this bleed problem. I'll experiment and try find it

New to me is the NS-2 which I've only had for a couple months. Never really noticed how much noise my stuff was making till I got this, it's a pretty cool trick

Nearly forgot, another great utility Boss is the LS-2, how useful is that thing for trying out all sorts of stuff? Answer, very very useful, very cool pedal.

Yeah, you need the gain up. I used to use it pretty much everything at half way and no problems at all. 

The ls2 is awesome! 

ICBM

The GE-7 hiss and the SD-1 bleed seem to vary from one example to another for some reason. My current GE-7 was quieter than most, although I did change the chips eventually. I also had a particularly good SD-1 I shouldn't have sold, although I've had a terrible one too.

You don't need to have the gain maxed, over roughly halfway will show it up. I tend to use them more like that, I never do the gain-down/level-up thing really. The odd thing about them is that even when they're set for unity volume into a clean amp as a pure overdrive pedal, they still boost an overdriven one... not sure how that's possible but it works!

Voxman

ICBM said:

The GE-7 hiss and the SD-1 bleed seem to vary from one example to another for some reason. My current GE-7 was quieter than most, although I did change the chips eventually. I also had a particularly good SD-1 I shouldn't have sold, although I've had a terrible one too.

You don't need to have the gain maxed, over roughly halfway will show it up. I tend to use them more like that, I never do the gain-down/level-up thing really. The odd thing about them is that even when they're set for unity volume into a clean amp as a pure overdrive pedal, they still boost an overdriven one... not sure how that's possible but it works!

Depends what you mean by unity - if you mean where every slider on the GE7 is set to '0' including the 'level', true unity is with the level slider set a bit below level (around -5) as it's actually still boosting even at '0'. It's the same on my Behringer EQ700 and just seems to be how these pedals are set.