Boss AC-3 Acoustic Simulator

Its a easy pedal to use, it has five knobs; level, reverb, body, top and mode. Level and reverb and obvious, body is basically the low end and top is the harmonics. Mode lets you select between different types of acoustic guitar; Standard, Jumbo, Enhanced and Piezo. The manual is very detailed and worth a read before you play.

Ok i'm basically writing this review so i can share this information with you. A lot of people are complaining about the distortion you get from this pedal and i've found a way to get rid of it. By using a Boss CS-3 Compression Sustainer you can use it as a limiter to stop to much signal going into the AC-3 and causing distortion.

The CS-3 is a little weird, its a compressor but it doesn't have the usual compressor controls like threshold or ratio. It has level, tone, attack and sustain.

What you do is place the CS-3 BEFORE the AC-3 in your chain. Then turn the sustain all the way down to min. Next is the important bit, set the level on the CS-3. This is what will determin the distortion because if you send to much signal to to the AC-3 it will overload so set the level quite low, mine is between 9 and 10 o'clock but you'll have to try it yourself with your own set up to get the right level.

From there you can set your AC-3 settings, the tone on the CS-3 is an added bonus because it really affects the sound and does it well. As for the attack on the CS-3 its up to personal preferance.

And thats it, the CS-3 is reducing the signal going into the AC-3 so it isn't distorting when you pick harder, The only problem is signal from the AC-3 is quiet so make that louder using the level on the AC-3 or if that still isn't enough you can use an EQ, or if you are using a LS-2 Line Selector, like me, you can use that, or just turn your amp up.

I heard the army asked boss to make them a oversized pedal to use as a bomb shelter. I have 7 pedal, 6 of them boss and they are all tanks. When all the nukes have gone of and all the world blown up all that will of survived are cockroaches and boss pedals.

Never Used

So basically i only wanted to let you know how i got rid of distortion from these things. My exact settings are, at the moment;

CS-3= Level - 9-10 o'clock, Tone - 1 o'clock, Attack - 12 o'clock and sustain min

AC-3= Level - 2 o'clock, Reverb - 10 o'clock, Body - 1 o'clock, Top - 12 o'clock and Mode on Jumbo.

I'm using an Ibanez RG320FM with an EMG 81 in the bridge and an EMG 89 in the neck and a custom built strat style guitar with an ash body and a Seymour Duncan SH-6. my pedals go; Crybaby Wha - LS-2 - NS-2, with MT-2 and GE-7 on loop A and CS-3 and AC-3 on loop B.

I find I get the best sound from the EMG 89 in Single Coil mode but i don't really have to change my sound to much when i want to use my strat.

If you want to get an AC-3 try one out in a music shop before you buy it and if you find you're getting distortion from it ask to use the CS-3 at the same time and see what it sounds like. And if you all ready own an AC-3 and don't like it, again take it to a music shop and ask to have a go on a CS-3 with it. Just remember; CS-3 goes BEFORE the AC-3, Turn the sustain to MIN, and set the level low.

Hope i've helped you guys out

Dan.

It's a pretty basic Boss stompbox. Familiar shape, clearly labeled knobs, LED seems bright enough. If you're at all familiar with stompboxes you know how they work, if you're not, this is just like any other.

I'm gonna give it a 7. I actually like it a lot more than other reviewers here. When originally researching this product, I came here first, but also looked at the reviews on Musician's Friend and GuitarCenter.com, both of which had much more positive reviews than the ones here. I thought something must account for the disparity.

My home setup is a custom built Tele (Alder body, rosewood/maple neck, Duncan Broadcaster Bridge, Vintage neck P/Us, 4-Way switch) through a Vox AD30VT Valvetronix. Luckily, aside from the 4-way switch, this is pretty standard GC gear. So I grabbed their demo AC-3, a tele, and went over to the Valvetronix amps. After some quick fiddling, I found some pretty satisfactory sounds. Granted, this does NOT sound dead on like an acoustic. The bass strings in particular are somewhat "boomy." But, the pedal does add a noticeable acoustic like timbre. Each of the different settings on the pedal require some tweaking to get them to sound good. When I plugged my DeArmond M65-C (Les Paul clone) into it, I had to tweak again. In short, you will have to tweak the knobs according to your pickups and guitar; what sounds good on my tele with this pedal does not sound good with the M65-C. I've further found that this pedal sounds best through the "Boutique CL" channel on my Vox.

There is a bit of a hiss, but it's not unbearable, and you can really only hear it if you're not playing. I didn't find it to be a deal breaker by any means. There seems to be less hiss on the "piezo" setting.

Given my experimentation, I'm inclined to believe that pickups and amp will greatly affect the sound quality of this pedal. My amp happens to have that handy clean channel which doesn't color the sound very much.

It's not as good as carrying around a real acoustic, but for $100, it's more than satisfactory for my purposes.

Believe it or not, this is actually my first Boss pedal. I've used them before, but never owned one. Knowing Boss' reputation for quality, I'm sure it will last. However, I will leave this rating blank because I don't have any personal experience to support either conclusion.

Haven't had to contact them.

I would suggest to prospective buyers of the AC-3 to demo it instore. This is not a purchase I would make sight unseen or online. Like I said, I got some pretty good results with my equipment and am overall very happy with this pedal. It will give me an acoustic tone without an acoustic guitar. Like I said above, it's not a perfect acoustic sound, but it is "close enough." That having been said, it is far and away a superior pedal to the AC-2, which was very underwhelming.

Easy to use - reverb, level, body, top, and a 4-position switch for sim type. The one I used was run off a power supply which illuminated the red LED on the top of the pedal. There was nothing to indicate if the pedal was engaged or disengaged, which I thought was pathetic. Perhaps the power light works in this fashion if you use a battery. Buffered bypass.

Noisy and weak. The tone shaping was very minimally more than I could dial in by just tweaking my amp and guitar controls, and it was quite noisy depending upon the settings you dial in. The acoustic sims from the GT-8 multi-effects unit is much superior. Keep in mind, though, that both are digital units and will destroy your signal if you are an all-analog freak.

Boss stuff has always been reliable for me in the past.

Kind of clueless.

Don't waste your money on this pedal. I really, really, wanted this thing to work, but it's really just a pipe dream...

The controls are easy to use. I found that there wasn't much variety available and only a very narrow range within which it even sounded like an acoustic at all.

Crap, crap, crap. So disappointing. I went into this pedal knowing it wouldn't sound great. I just wanted a convenient, inexpensive way to just give an acoustic guitar feel during a gig. As others have detailed, the noise makes it totally useless.

I did at one point record the pedal directly from its second output and that didn't sound as bad once I'd buried it a bit in the mix. If you were partially deaf and also drunk and also stupid you might mistake it for an acoustic guitar.

N/A

I got it from MF and getting a refund was an easy, painless process. Can't comment on Boss.

I'll cut to the chase - this pedal is useless. Nothing but frustration and disappointment.

Very easy to use and tweak just like most standard stomp boxes.

Well here's the deal...this would be a terrific pedal if not for the distorted hiss it produces in the top end. The only way to get rid of the distorted hiss is to turn down the top end to about 9:00, but then you pretty much lose the acoustic vibe all together.

I didn't hear the hiss when I was trying out the pedal at GC thru a Twin Reverb....but I didn't have it cranked that loud, and at GC on a Saturday it's tough to hear anything...and very tough to critically evaluate a stomp box. When I got the pedal home I plugged it into my Classic 30 amp, and then my Deluxe Reverb. I used the neck pickups of my Tele, and then my Strat. At first I was quite pleased with the sound of the pedal, especially the Jumbo setting. But after a few minutes I turned up my amp a little bit to a normal gigging volume and the top end hiss drove me nuts. What a bummer. Because of that hiss, I find this pedal unusable. I took a break from playing.......got something to eat.......came back an hour later and listened again.......same hiss, same frustration, and back in the box it went. It's going back to GC so I can get my $ back.

You should know that I use a Boss NS-2 noise suppressor with both of my pedal boards, and the noise I'm describing here is not the type of noise that can be eliminated by a noise gate type of device. The distorted hiss in the top end is a fundamental part of the pedal's sound and you really only hear it after you've hit a note or strummed a chord. I say again.......you can't remove the noisy hiss with a noise gate!

I'm giving it a 1 because I'd really like someone at Roland/Boss to take notice that this hiss is going to cost them a lot of money. Seems like a silly design flaw to me... Hope they fix it when they get around to rolling out the AC-4 some day.

I'd also add this. A buddy of mine just bought the Digitech RP-150 and he let me borrow it for a couple weeks a few weeks back. I was floored by the acoustic models in that processor ($99)...sounded much better to my ears than the Boss AC-3, even without the dreaded hissing noise. I'm not really into the multi-effect pedal thing. I'm an individual stomp box player, so the RP-150 isn't on my shopping list.....but there's hope that Digitech or some other manufacturer will make a great sounding acoustic simulator pedal some day (in the "individual stomp box form" like the AC-3). At least there is hope.

Didn't have it long enough to say....but in my experience, Boss pedals are incredibly reliable in general.

As explained above, this pedal is going back. The top end noise is unacceptable to me, and I can't imagine gigging out with this pedal. I like a really clean tone with no noise (I use a Boss NS-2 to eliminate all noise while I'm not playing).

I have no axe to grind against Boss. On the contrary, I usually love Boss gear and I've got about 15 Boss pedals. Bought my first Boss pedal in '82 (SD-1), then in '83 I bought a Boss DD2 and a Boss Flanger...I've got the CS-3, two Super Choruses, a DD5, another SD-1, an old Boss Octaver, and a few more Boss pedals that I've enjoyed very much for many years. Love the quality and reliability of Boss gear and the SD-1 is the absolute perfect booster pedal for leads.

I've been playing for 32 years (mostly classic rock, jazz, blues, country, funk, etc.) I currently play in both a classic rock band, and a guitar & keyboard duo. I really wanted to get this pedal for the duo. We play out regularly at a local restaurant and over 1/2 the songs we do have acoustic guitar in them as opposed to electric (James Taylor, Grateful Dead, America, John Cougar, Clapton, etc.). But to keep things simple I've only been taking an electric guitar with me for Duo gigs......either my Strat or my Tele. I was really hoping this pedal would give me "fairly close" acoustic tones using my electric, and except for the noisy top end hiss.....it would.

Well, that's my honest story. If you're interested in this pedal, I strongly recommend that you test drive it appropriately - like in a quiet setting where you can crank up the amp a bit...not crazy loud, but loud enough so you can hear the hiss that I'm talking about. If you still like the sound you hear after you've rolled back the top end to get rid of the hiss, then maybe you'll enjoy this pedal........not me.

easy, like any pedal

Disappointed- esp on higher notes I can hear no resemblance to an acoustic guitar at all. On lower notes there seems to be some sort of equalizing to make it sound slightly more acoustic, that's about it.

should be no problems here

I regret I spent more than $100 on this effect, which does no more than an amp or mixing console could do too.

4 knobs. Is very simple and easy.

It's good for practis at home, but not for live. While you play or practise at home (quietly) it seems good, but ones again not for loud application. The sound is too compressed, has lot of hisssss, noisegate will be very useful. Tried with Fenders Deluxe, 62Reissue, Strat Plus with Dimarzio HS3, and Wasburn with X2N. My amps Soldano 100 and Carvin nomand (all tube). The best results get on HS3 in neck position and Carvin amp, the worst combination X2N and Soldano.

Never had problem with boss.

????

Tried to get acoustic sound. Good for practise, but not for gigs.

I bought it used, so i don't know about the manual. But the 4 potis are fairly easy to use:
1. level - nothing to say about that
2. body - mainly adds warm basses to the sound.
3. top - mixes up the sound of your guitar and the "acoustic" sound... well not precisely, because if you turn this poti of, you don't get the original sound of your amp... but it sounds more electric.
4. mode - 4 different guitar types: standard, jumbo, enhanced, piezo

i don't know how to rate this category... i mean: is there any guitar effect (not multi-effects)which is not easy to use?

i never used it for "acoustic" sounds. if you mix it up with some chorus f.e. you get a nice alternative to an acoustic guitar. but it never sounds like a real one.

i mainly use it as a special kind of equalizer, for example to create nice funk-sounds with my strat.

but there are two annoying things about this pedal:
it adds bad "white noise" to your signal - especially when the "top"-poti is turned up.
it is always much too quiet in comparison to other clean sounds. so that makes it hard to use it, f.e. in the middle of a song.

i prefer 2 setups (numbers are from 0 to 100):

nr1 - bright "acoustic" sound:
level: 100
body: 25
top: 65
mode: standard

nr2 - clean funk sound
level: 100
body: 25
top: 45
mode: enhance

you can depend on it definitely! boss-like quality.

no experiences.

right now i use it for 2 songs and it really makes them special somehow. but thats it. don't expect any wonders. it is not an effect you will use all the time. after some gigs you will think about replacing the ac3 on your effectboard with one that is in use more frequently. but if you sit in your studio searching for something special... maybe it helps you...

i use a strat and a fender hotrod.

some hints:
- i really like setup nr1 with a good chorus.
- try to combine setup 2 with a wahwah on a constant position to boost it!

It is easy to use and figure out. It has one volume knob would have been better to have two one for amount of effect other for dry signal. Other two knobs one is for low end other is harmonics in the high end. If you turn these all the way down you lose volume. So you cannot mix dry signal it is 100% wet signal.

The sound is very artificial I was disapointed. It pretty much takes all of your real guitar sound and makes it sound artificial. If you were expecting like me to sound like a real acoustic guitar do not buy this pedal. I tried this pedal on three different instruments on every setting possible. I played though a Peavey Triple XXX on clean channel. It made me realize how good the orginal clean sound really was. I just did not like it and returned it to the store next day.

Not sure all Boss pedal seem to last very long

Never dealt with them.

I play alot of styles mostly rock acoustic and electric. I mainly wanted this for those songs with both an acoustic and electric in same song. I thought it would be cool if I could go from a acoustic guitar sound to a distorted electric with a few stomps of the feet. Unfortunately after spending alot of time with this pedal I felt it might be good for a paper weight. Looks like it would work good.....but it sounds like artificial S...! Find a clean sound you like and use an EQ to tune out the frequencies to soften it up. Don't buy this pedal!

The setup is realy easy. The knobs give a good response and I found it easy to create a good and worm sound. In the manual you will find some presets tah will hook you up in seconds.

I did own some other acoustic simulators like the Behringer and the AC-2 by Boss but this one beats them by a distance. Looking for a realistic warm acoustic guitarsound whilst playing electric guitar get this one. You won't regret it. The jumbo sound is awesome when you'll do solo acoustic intro's. (E.G. Pinball wizard) The enhanched breakes easy through the thick band sound and is great when you'll do a lot of strumming. But choose the sound you like and it will be realistic and wide. I use it with an Bandit 112 and straight into the Allen and Heath wizzard. Both sound great. My guitars are a Yamaha hollow body and a Fender tele custom. The cosm modeling makes it sound more realistic the any other acoustic sim pedal

It is a Boss, need I say more.............

Have never used them.

I'll play classic rock and popsongs and was forced to change guitars, (acoustic to electric vv) all the time. A variax wasn't to my likeing, so I struggled on. I did buy different brands of simulators until I stumbled on this one. It is a killer pedal. I love the Jumbo sound of it and use it also on solo gigs playing the tele through an mackie cfx 12 table (with red box). People do not know what they are hearing, and it is there ant your feet. Boss realy did a good job here. I surely hope they will find the time and money to be the innivators the were throughout the years. Let the others copy them they never reach this level of perfection.