Boss AW-3

Getting used to the different settings and the appropriate use of the various settings can be a little bit of a hassle, but it's nothing that you can't figure out in a few minutes fiddling with the knobs. The manual was mildly helpful, but this is one product where messing around and trusting your ears is the quickest path to a good result.

I love the sounds that I get out of this thing. Having a wah with multiple parameters is nothing new, but the versatility and quality of the tones from this little box are astounding. I use it in both live and studio settings and I've always found the right sound on either guitar or bass. From creating unusual synth-bass effects with the humanizer (which sounds great, IMHO) to the nice variety of more traditional wah tones, this thing can deliver. I use it both as an auto-wah and as a manual-wah with the expression pedal and in either mode, this pedal is a treat. I can't say enough good things about the sound here. You may be able to find better sound with a half dozen pedals, but for the price, you can't beat it.

Boss pedals, Toyotas and SM58s have a lot in common. The Energizer bunny wishes he could keep going like these things.

I have no idea what Boss customer support is like. This is my fourth Boss pedal, the first was back in about 1994, and I've never called customer support. That says something about how dependable these things are.

When I play a RHCP tune, I can get a Flea style wah, when I play Black Sabbath, I can get Geezer's wah. When I play funk, I can get a snappy auto-wah effect with my Strat-style guitar.

As a player who doubles on guitar and bass and gigs on both in many styles of music (from metal to country to jazz) I can always find a sound that works from this pedal. If you're looking for a specific wah sound, don't bother with this thing, but if you're looking for a jack of all trades wah with a quirky humanizer setting, there's nothing better on the market.

Takes a little dialing in to find the sweet spots. 2-3 jams to really understand what it can and can't do.

I dig the pedal for 2 sounds. It has a good auto wah to it and the humanizer is very synthy in nature.

For an Auto Wah/Synth humanizer+, it pretty damn convenient.
I was itching to get a wah tone back into my rig but dread sticking to many things in line. However, I wanted a lazy man's wah solution. Rocking my foot around on a pedal is archaic and lame to me and I always felt it detracted from my chops, since one is busy rocking their foot, the wah sound is cool though. Its much better to have a wah effect pedal that is able to detect my pick attack on the strings and react, in turn, with wah effect. It tracks pretty well for not needing your foot.
Second thing about the traditional method is that rocking a real wah never looks good from an audience perspective. Looks retarded and distracting actually.
You MUST use TOP quality cables in line with pedals, unless you like your tone and sustain to gradually water down as it makes its way to your amp. I run my guitar to this pedal like any wah, in front of my rack gear, with Monster cables. My sustain remains! However, the wah effect, by its nature, pulls from my sustain when its activated....quite a bit of sustain loss 30%. Fortunately, legato licks and wah do not mix anyway...bluesy chops and funk are sticcato driven in nature and therefore no need to panic because you must constantly pick for those styles, whcih keeps your strings ringing.
When its off, I lose very little tone...maybe 2% at most?
As stated above, I dig the pedal for 2 sounds. It has a good auto wah...its set to the widest spread on the middle 2 knobs with the sharp setting and the humanizer is very synthy strange interesting in nature. Yes there is a touch of fuzzbox in the humanizer mode which people are describing, but its Hendrixy usable and musical in nature. He most likely would have loved tinkering with this BOSS technology.

If your looking for a funk toy, this will keep you funky.

BOSS=TANK

Had a drum machine screen go blank on me once....They took care of my issue and it was repaired! This is a pedal, so I most likely will never need them.

This pedal is fun.

much twiddling involved. not all modes will be good to peoples ears, so finding the correct tone shouldn't take long, especially if you LIKE twiddling knobs.. never needed a manual, just like playing with it.

gotta say while sometimes i really love the tone this thing gives me [it is very good for vocals as well] there is a lot of unwanted distortion on some settings, especially the 'humanizer' [though i love the sound of the wah knocking from one humanizer to another you can make it sound like a random step filter]. the thing that really bugs me though is the digital noise that is really hard to suppress when plugged in certain areas on a daisy chain. when played by itself or through a seperate fx loop it works all right. shame because the tone is very full and warm when you can get it right.

no contest. boss makes the most durable tanks, metal casing all that.

never needed it! own a lot of boss!

the options for the tone on this pedal outweighs the distorted aspect of some modes on this pedal..i love twiddling the knobs. ive owned this for a long time and i dont want to get rid of it but i have to use it with caution, this isnt a typical wah, or auto wah. it is one of the stranger pedals i own in that i can use it for a variety of instruments, and vocals.

Generally fiddly, but I have the PW-10 so I know how to get the sounds I need.

One problem is something I have encountered with several Boss pedals: The power socket is too high up to work with the plugs in the Boss BCB-6 pedal case, and often with multi-socket pedals, one socked is too low down and it prevents the pedal being inserted in the receptacle for it. The external control input on this pedal is a case in point. (The new BCB-60 pedal case is fine, but it's so BIG, and not as well built - made in China.

The Humanizer settings distort if your guitar has slightly hotter pickups. This is especially noticable on settings like "i". On the normal Waa settings it does not distort, so it cannot be a faulty input stage; it must be happening after the A to D converter, inside the processor itself, and since another user had the same experience, I would say this is a design fault. Note: My Boss PW-10 pedal (same humanizer concept) does NOT distort on these settings.

I've had it 1 day and it's going back anyway, so...

I order from Thomann in Germany, so far they have treated me well. But of course, they are not Boss.

Experimental Irish folk rock, 50-60's style beat and rock. Pretty irrelevant to the problem in hand. Overall rating pulled down by distortion.

This is probably one of the hardest boss pedals to get good sounds out of initially, but once you spend about 10 minutes fooling about, you'll find just the sound you want and find it pretty easy to use after that.

I love filters, so i decided to try this one out in the music store. I tried it with several guitars and basses, and it seemed to be pretty consistent with all of them. After a little while, i was producing some insane sounds, and a bunch of guys were curiously looking over to see just what i was doing. if you put it in front of some distortion, the frequencies really stand out nicely and you can get quite a range of different kinds of sweeps. It tracks your dynamics VERY well, much better than i expected. Also, it works as a good filter if you turn the sensitivity all the way down, so you can get really bright or dark sounding tones, depending on what you want. I found the humanizer effects to be somewhat strange, especially with the disortion that seems to come with it. nevertheless, you can still get some useable sounds with it (although, my philosophy is that you can get useable sounds out of anything; you just need to know how to use them). overall, after several months of having it, i'm still very impressed.

very reliable, of course.

n/a

Most people don't like this pedal because they expect it to sound like a traditional foot control wah pedal. they want those kinds of sounds. the thing they should realize is that it goes way beyond that. I play dance, house, and middle-eastern fusion, so getting new sounds is part of my obligation as a musician. For some, it might not be traditional enough. Just try to have an open mind when you use this pedal.

This is a bit complicated, but the range of sounds is large. Manual is good, if a bit sparse.

I use a PRS and a Tele. Sounds is very good. I bought it specifically for the quasi-Talkbox ( vowel ) setting. My band is doing Frampton's "Do You Feel Like We Do", and I didn't want to get involved in the true Talkbox set-up. I had to fool around with the controls a bit, but got there fairly quick. Am using it with a Hot Rod Deluxe, and it works. I am not using it for the wah sound, which is a little canned for my taste.

Except for going through batteries like crazy ( iI bought an adaptor), seems well designed -very solid.

No idea. website was good, though

I play classic rock and blues. Very good match for the limited purpose I bought it for. I would buy it again. It gives me about 75% of the Talkbox sound, which is fine.

Not too difficult to learn if you put some time into it. You have to experiment with each control separately to learn their effect on your tone. No more difficult than other effects with multiple controls but not plug and play either.

The sound quality for most settings is quite good. However, when using the Humanizer the tone was distorted. Why has Boss done this? I reduced the volume on the guitar but it didn't help. If I want distortion I'll get it from my amp.

Setup is LP Studio - Wah - TSL 100 with 1960AV.

Overall, It nicely tracks playing dynamics. But the distortion is un-wanted for me.

I returned it for a Dimebag Crybaby.

Seems built very solid, no problems but did not have it long enough to have problems. I treat my gear carefully though.

Did not call them.

Nice effects but again, distortion when using the humanizer was very dissapointing.

It's pretty easy to use. Just keep in mind that depending on the guitar/pickups you're using, you may need to make very different settings. Manual was a nice touch, because I don't think I'd have easily figured out some of the stuff that it can do without it.

Strat and some weird pawnshop-type guitar played through various amps or direct into a recording console. I use a 5-string bass into it.
Sounds good with all of the above, given the right settings.
I like to use a fuzz box with it when playing a guitar with it. You can get some really trippy sounds out of this. I especially like playing around with the "filter" settings. One can get all kinds of synthesizer tones that way.
I like to get alot of unusual guitar tones; often I try my best to make my guitar sound like something completely unlike a guitar. Now, I sure as hell am no Tom Morello, but I can still get some really wild sounds from time to time, and this thing definitely helps.
I was jamming with a drummer and another guitarist at one point, and using this thing during one of my solos, and the drummer just stopped and stared at me for awhile. after awhile I asked him why and he said "how the hell did you do that?!" When I get this sort of response from someone as moronic as a drummer, I consider this a good thing.
It also works very well in the "up" mode when used as a dynamic wah.

It's a Boss. obviously it's gonna be a brick. The only thing bad is that it crunches through batteries pretty damn quickly.

I jam with various local metal and acid rock bands, and this thing helps to add some really crazy parts to the music. I also play bass in a different band, and when I feel like a line needs that uber-funk sound, this thing delivers.

Fairly simple, however, adustments are made based on the playing style. For instance, a wah for a funk rhythm will require a different setting than that for a vowel-based picking wah. I hope that makes sense.
Settings can be made fairly qickly once you get the hang of it.
The wah speen can be set by holding the pedal down and then tapping for tempo. I do plan to get a EV-5 expression pedal for more dynamic variation on the stage.

I have used this unit with a strat, tele and more recently a Line 6 variax (at Church, where single coil hum is unholy!).

I have a Vox wah and it is way too noisy, particularly with distortion.

This unit is way quiet. I played through a POD set at medium distortion and yoy couldn't tell it was on until played.

The rhythm wah (continuous setting) is great.

The wha effects are on par with anything that I have used in the past, and the quietness is something you can't get with any conventional wah. Your new Vox or Crybaby may be quiet at first, but eventually it will buzz like a beehive.

I have also used the effect with a strat or tele though a vintage Vibrolux. The wah is still impressive.

Do you honestly think that I would be the first person in world to diss a Boss. I have never had one crap out.....ever!

N/A...see above

I play everything from vintage rock to black gospel. This pedal is absolutely perfect for those applications.
I have been playing professionally for over 20 yrs.
This pedal would be replaced if stolen or lost.
The noise issue is a key component of my love for this pedal, but the footprint is a plus as well. I mean that You don't have that bulky wah taking up valuable floor space in a small club environment.

I will buy an EV-5 expression pedal so that I can maximize the uses for the pedal, however, it works fine for most applications just as it is.

Any player would find this a useful addition to his gig bag.

there isn't anything here that needs too much explaining. I figured it out my toying with the knobs, though it did take a while to discover everything it had to offer.

Awesome! The first three setting I found fairly useless, but they're great sounds none-the-less. The humanizer works real well and I love the fact that I choose the the vowels that the wah pedal will make. I usually set the pedal with the decay at 10:00 and the first vowel at A and the second vowel at I. When you pick a fast solo, you get a crazy cool sound. Definitley made heads turn. The last option tries to imitate the sound of a crybaby moving at a regular tempo. I use it more than I should because I can keep a steady tempo and play around with other pedals. I say i use it more than I should because it doesn't get anywhere near the great sounds that you can get with a good crybaby.

indestructable...almost.

don't use it

AMAZING, THERE IS NO BETTER AUTO-WAH PEDAL OUT THERE.