A history of my guitar effects purchases: Part Three "BOSS (and friends)".

Its probably apparent already that I am not what one would refer to as a tone snob, pedal snob whatever. I dont demand true bypass of my effects. I run with Digital effects. I am not a purist in any sense other than my own rule of " I use what *I* like and think sounds good". Otherwise, there isnt any rules. Cheap, expensive, big, small, plastic case, tank-like-steel case. You get the picture.

Having said that, however, I can almost guarantee even those most devout of purists own at least one boss pedal somewhere along the line, even if it is a hallowed DM delay or CE chorus from the golden 80s era (Made in Japan, with silver battery door knobs, and green labels...no wait, pink...no wait, black...aah I forget...)


I have a fairly broad history of BOSS effects pedals. Already seen in History lesson 1, I have a Boss SYB-3 Bass Synthesiser. This is brilliant for stupid triggered bleeps and filters. It works on bass and guitar equally well, as it has a sensitivity control. It also has nice usuable envelope filters, which sweep both up and down (think Mutron 3 if you dont know what an envelope filter is, or Auto Wah, for those less sophisitcated). Its a wah that gets more bright (or bassy) on how hard you pick. This box also expands on that by having envelope filter with square wave, which sounds awesome.

I recently sold the old stalwart favourite, a Boss DD-3 delay. This is your run of the mill 800ms digital delay. Nothing special. Industry standard if you will. I cant even be bothered to source a google image, cos if you dont know what one of those is, you probably wont be interested in this blog :D

One of the ones that also got away (read, sold or traded) was a Boss Super Shifter. While in principal this is cool, in practice it wasnt. It wanted to be a Whammy PEdal, but it didnt have the wah pedal to control it. It wanted to be a harmoniser but it didnt track well. Basically a fail. I dont know why I bought it. Salesman peer pressure I think. 

Heres an image for those who havent seen this one. 

Speaking of harmonists, for some reason I have semi inherited this. Its my Dads. I dont really use it. Instant Brian May - assuming you can play in the allocated key selection ;) 

Also one that got away was a Boss SD-1. Really, its an overdrive. Like a tubescreeamer. No need to elaborate.
Speaking of overdrives, a pedal I really do like and still use, which was an early purchase, was the OS-2 Overdrive/Distortion. This is a cool pedal. Its kinda like a SD-1 and a DS-1 in one box, with blendable voice control. At one end of the voice you have the overdrive, the other the harder distortion, and all colours in between. The you have the standard Output, Tone and Drive controls. I feel, an underrated beast indeed.

I mentioned the Boss DD line breifly earlier.
I think a better option is the RV line. Nowadays they just do standalone digital reverb which is a shame, as for a while they offered Reverb/Delay pedals. These are pretty cool. Ive got the RV-3. Its got 800ms delay, and numberous reveb patches (room, hall, plate etc) mixable and blendable with the delay over I think 11 presets.
Pretty epic sounding, great for 80s stuff, and great for ambient stuff.
Track one down if you can for cheap.

Then we get to the bog standard stuff again. I have an EQ and Tuner pedal from boss, because they are affordable, bullet proof and small footprint. Nowadays there are loads of cool tuners, peterson strobostomp, the TC polytune, korg pitchblack. At the time I got mine, the Boss was the only affordable, metal cased, widely available option. Its served me many many live shows, and has the scars to prove it. The EQ is great after any distortion or fuzz, or for tailoring a clean sound. Also, it can do a nice flat clean boost.

As this is called Boss (and Friends) I thought I would breifly list some friends. I have two Digitech Digidelays. This series of pedals is really nice. The delay has a broad range of settings, inc reverse, tape, modulated and a looper. They go for very cheap, and are a step up from the basic Boss DD-3. You can also get a great warbled chorus out of them on mod mode with minimum delay time and some feedback. I used to have two on my board, on for digital delay, the other for this cool chorus sound. However Ive recently invested in a standalone small analog chorus pedal which Ill save for another blog.

No effect collection would be complete without an MXR or two.
I used to have a reissue Phase 90, but I sold it. It would distort when used, and for that reason was pretty unusable. It was however a nice keepsake from a wicked guitar store in Vancouver, a beautiful city.
The other MXR pedal I have is a GT-OD. This is pretty much a tube screamer I think, but it has a nice bit of mid and bass. It replaced the aforementioned OS-2 on my board for now. Having said that I plan to build a Red Llama overdrive, so that might take its place in turn...who knows.

Im going to end by going full circle back to Boss again.
A few years hence, Boss introduced something called their "Twin Pedal" line. I dont know in detail, but it started out with a Overdrive/Dist box, a nice delay called DD-20 Gigadelay which my friend has, and a few others. Over time the line has grown to include loopers, a Roland Synth, a recreation of the famous tape echo Roland Space Echo, a few others, and THIS:

This turqoise tank, my fellow FX fans, is an SL-20 "Slicer". Its basically an auto panning tremolo/arpeggiator simulator. It has 5 banks of 10 presets, with some options on shaping the waveforms, and programmable panning. It also has its own built in looper. This is a serious peice of kit, and perfect for dance style music. It really is awesome. As soon as I heard of its existence, and relying solely on the really crap Boss marketing videos, I knew I had to have one. I have written lots of songs based around this effect. Its a great inspirational tool for rhythmic guitar playing. Combined with the Space Station synth pads its amazing. They run for £160 off, and I picked one up £85 second hand off some big music online website. Get in!

In my final installment, Im going to to catalogue the best of the rest, and open a dialog on Clone's, going back to some nice vintage examples from ROSS (sounds a bit like BOSS doesnt it ?!!)

Thanks for reading.