Boss AW-3

It takes some tweaking but you don't need to be very intelligent to figure the thing out. It's got four knobs so moving one affects the others, but good grief, there's not that much to it.

I don't know what the last two reviewers expected from this pedal but have any of us ever really heard a "good" humanizer from a pedal? If you really want one be prepared to spend the bucks. That being said, the AW-3 sound very good, better than the Mutron III that I kept for a week which totally sucked (tone and money). It's clean sounding and provides a versatility that most other auto wahs can't. It's also way more reliable than the Electro Harmonix Q-Tron (although that had a great tone) and it's comparable to the line 6 filter modeler for sound quality. The up & down modes are the best sounding and while I agree that the humanizer doesn't really form the best vowel sounds, it does provide a cool variation to the standard wah. I've played it through a Takamine acoustic/electric and a Parker Nitefly with good results. It sounds really nice with some distortion but does well clean also. I don't understand the crappy reviews: maybe just some disgruntled impulse buyers who were looking for some "miracle" to improve their playing ability.

NEVER had a problem with a Boss pedal. So far. Can't say that about any other company out there, except maybe Lexicon.

Never needed 'em, yet.

I do a lot of different stuff, mostly in the context of extended jams and I like the AW-3 a lot. In 25 years of playing I've had plenty of gear including: Q-Tron, Mu-Tron III, Akai Variwah, AW-2, Line 6 Filter modeler. Now maybe I got a bad Mu-Tron but the one I had sucked. The switch on my Q-Trons kept cutting out my sound which was a bummer (I had two different ones) but when it worked it was probably the best auto wah I've used. The Variwah was pretty good but a little noisy. I still have the Line 6 and the AW-3 so, for what my opinion's worth, I keep them because I'm most satisfied with them. They're both reliable and good sounding and versatile.

4 Knobs and painfull Days turning them shearching one good sound. Its not Possible ! Give Up

I tryed the pedal with a fender strat and a Roland Amp.First I was looking for a good auto-wha wha , and the hours passed with no results , what let me very disapointed,Then I tryed the Humanizer because Boss really make a promotion out of it - But please Listen:
THE HUMANIZER ITS TERRIBLE , it's nothing .

It's Boss.It's sure reliable

Please do not Buy this pedal. It's weak , it's useless.
Dynamic Wha it's the worst pedal I've ever heard from Boss.
If you're lookind for a auto-wha , this is not the pedal you want.
If you are excited with the Humanizer, you have to know that they are lyeing to you ,it's only a really bad overdrive along with a bad envelope. Try one out and you will Know.

It took a while to figure out what kind of tones you can get by fiddling with the knobs, but eventually I got it down. The manual isn't very specific about the functions of each knob, which is why I had to spend time figuring it out. Once you know how to work it, it becomes pretty easy to find the sound you want, which I think doesn't make very many.

I use an Epiphone SG Standard through a Peavey Envoy 110, and I played through all the pickup settings on my guitar (which has two humbucksers, just so you know). I couldn't really get too much out of this pedal, it provided simple wah and threw in a whole bunch of bells and whistles to make you think you can get more than that. The Humanizer sounds really stupid and is a real disappointment. I listened to the sound samples on the Roland website and I thought it sounded really clear and fun to use. Boy, was I wrong. Trust me people, the Humanizer is a huge waste of time, money, and interest. If you're still wondering what it sounds like, I urge you to try it at a local music store for yourself so you can find out first-hand how wrong you are. And so you don't waste your money.

I could build a bomb shelter using my Boss pedals. And I would feel very safe.

I own three other Boss's, and I've never had to deal with them.

I mainly play rock/metal/nu-metal stuff, so I like a really sharp and unique sound when I'm composing riffs. This pedal only dumbed down my tone and blocked me off from much of my creativity. I really don't recommend this pedal to anyone, and suggest that you try it out first before even considering buying it. If you're looking for a good wah, go look at Morley or Dunlop, maybe even Snarling Dogs to get a real great sounding tone. This one, even with the Expression pedal, just falls flat. And trebly. I was really disappointed in it, and should've followed my instincts to try it first. It did give me a wah sound to work with, so I'll give it that much credit, but it's really not worth buying in my opinion.

Takes some thought to figure it out. I've had it for about two weeks and I still don't know what all of the nobs do.

I play a fender strat into a fender super chorus. It doesn't make much nois when it's off but on the tempo setting, it makes "up and down" wah sounds with the feedback. The effects are great and I love 'em. I got it to play voodoo chile with out having to spend time with a foot pedal. It's almost better with the auto-wah. The humanizer sucks.

It's a boss. It can't brake. I would have it at a gig without a back up.

I got it off of ebay.

I play anywhere from blues to heavy metal. I use it on almost every song I play. I've been playing for about two years. If it were stolen I would buy a new one and find the guy who stole it and tell him it's a great effect, and a good choice for stealing something. Then I'de beat the crap out of him. I love this effect so much. It sounds great and just plain looks sweet.

It's fun to start off with, getting amusing noises but it's really quite difficult to find a practical, useable sound out of this unless you read, and re-read the manual, then sit and fiddle for ages. It took me a couple of days to get something really cool out of it.

I'm using this after two distortion pedals and a compressor, but before my DD 3. It's not noisy unless you have it on the humaniser and that tends to add abit of noise to your sound. The effects do just what you want and a heck of a lot more. If you're after a pedal just to make your guitar go quack, then for GOD's sake, buy the AW 2 because this is a lot more difficult and exciting. The humaniser does great things to my guitar sound, both clean and with a bit of crunch. The tempo setting is definetely great, and sounds different and cool. The wah settings are typical auto wah, but that's not what I bought it for. This sounds like one of the craziest pedals I've got.

I would depend on it like it was my best friend. But a friend that went WAH instead of HI.

Well the shop I got this from were a good customer support cause I swapped a broken danelectro for credit on this, thanx shop. Wouldn't know about Roland though.

For my rocky music this is hard to find a use for, but I want to make noises that don't sound like a guitar and this is perfect for that. If I lost this I'd kick myself and save up for another. I like most things about it, I dislike the complicated ON/OFF clicking for the tempo effect though.. it hurts my head. If you're after FREAKY, then get this. If you just want wah, then get something less complicated.

It's pretty easy to get a good sound...lots of controls...'manual' lets you control the frequency range of the effect, the decay knob is quite useful (the DOD pedal does not have this). The different types of auto-wah are useful, although I usually use "up" or "sharp:" I looked over at the manual once, and then never looked back.

Some say it sucks sound...this is true to some extent, but it needs to reduce some frequencies in order to greatly exaggerate others, otherwise you overload the input of your next device (in my case, a POD).

It's pretty quiet...the humanizer does add a little distortion. There are a lot of great possibilities with this pedal, and the controls make it easy to tailor your sound to fit in the mix. It does not have the super-extreme resonance that I might have liked occasionally, but it does have pretty good resonance on the "sharp" mode. Unlike an all-purpose filter (like the Filter Queen), the sounds make sense in particular for electric guitar. It responds VERY well to my playing. I can control the wah position quite precisely just by varying my pick attack.

I just got it...seems as solid as all the boss pedals. I had a boss digital delay years ago, and never had any problem with it.

I am using this to make synth type noises with my electric guitar and POD, both for my own technoish music, and for corporate multimedia along with "real" synthesizers.. I would have got the line6 FM4, but this is much cheaper and more basic, and does exactly the things I need, without the extra stuff...and it's analog. By adding delay and some other effects from my POD, I have a good range of sounds to play with, and I'm able to fine-tune the sounds to a large extent by HOW I PLAY rather than by turning lots of knobs, which is definitely my preference. This is a very musical device.

After a few minutes of tinkering, and a cursory reading of the manual, you'll understand each knobs function and how to manipulate them.

My setup is a Gibson Les Paul Standard with a Mesa/Boogie Nomad 55 (2x12).
The pedal is not particularly noisy or or disruptive on any setting.
The Problem here is that the AW-3 completely drains ANY sense of tone you have. No matter the setting on the pedal, or if it is on a clean channel or distortion or which pickup, you lose all tonality. No bottom end is present, period. And the Wah effects themselves aren't particularly distinct or lofty. Just about any setting leads towards the same type of Wah sound. I sat down with the pedal (It was given to me free) for 4 days, and tinkered and toyed and mixed and mingled to no avail. Even the acclaimed "Humanizer" feature, which supposedly recreates human vowel sounds is pretty thin and dry. I absolutely refuse to use this pedal, I've even taken out the battery for a backup for my other BOSS pedals, which unlike the AW-3, are exceptional. I am not a tone freak, but I bust a gut laughing when all you hear with this pedal is a trebly pseudo-Wah.

Hey, I hate to fall into a cliche, but... It's a Boss.

N/A

I play a wide range of music, but generally play rock and metal.
I've been playing for 4 years now (damn where does the time go...) and I own three guitars; a Fender Strat, an ESP M-200, and a Gibson Les Paul Standard. My main amp is a Mesa/Boogie Nomad 55, and I use an array of pedals, the most notable being Boss BF-2 Flanger, and DD-3 Digital Delay. The AW-3 is the worst Boss product I have ever used, the only bad Boss product yet actually. If the AW-3 was stolen, I would laugh for about 10 minutes until I ran out of breath, for 2 reasons. 1- I got the AW-3 as a gift. 2- Ha Ha, this is the most pitiful pedal... Poor thief...

Easy, just plug it in and play around with the settings until you find what you like. (Lots of different settings to play with)

Although this is my first venture with an auto type wah I think it sounds real good and I am happy with it. I can get a good Hendrix sound with it in the "down wah" position. There is some mild humming when set up close to my amp but not too noticable.

So far so good. Boss builds them well.

None yet.

I play blues and classic rock but don't like to have to think about working the pedal so I tried this AW-3. I really like it because it does not color the sound too much and sounds like a true vitage pedal. Also I like the sensitivity control a lot, I find I can work this thing just like a foot pedal simply by how hard I pick the strings...Get one you wont be disappointed.

a bit confusing at first but pretty easy to use once you know what everything means cuz the two middle knobs (of 4) do different stuff on different modes.

i'm plugging in an EV-5 to play as a wah pedal but it takes some tweaking because the knob on it (0 to 10) will sound different at different levels. I'm testing it with a les paul deluxe to a fender amp and i can really notice the tone getting cut up, the low end sound just disappears and what remains is all twangy. I've experimented with it and i can't get the low end sound in there, if someone does figure out a way, then please tell me.

Boss has its reputation

it's cake once you play with it for 5-10 min.

i'm playing with my p-bass deluxe into a boss AW-3(w/ a roland EV-5...an additional $55) into a dod bass chorus into a Eden WT-400 with a trace 410 cab.

this thing finally can do the things that a bass wah has been striving to do. the foot controler has a nice range of motion with sweet sound. the auto wah's (up, down, sharp, vocal emulator, touch tap) are just more options that most basists want.

additionally, my guitar player was playing with a telecaster (that i built) into a turbo rat into a ibanez fl-9 flanger into the AW-3 direct into the P.A.(4000 Watt, tascam board, QSC amps, yamaha 15 mains, yamaha 12 floor monitors. and it the same high performance when plugged into the guitar jack. www.bitter-blue.com

you have got to get the expression pedal, a wah needs a foot controller!!! i tried it with a yamaha expression pedal that my keyboard player had, it sucked the whole span of the wah was so small i almost missed it as i rocked it up. with the roland, it worked the way it is supposed to.

i had 2 dunlop 105Q bass wah pedals but, they both broke. so, i still wanted a bass so so began looking a little further into options. boss pedals have allways been built like a tank, this one is no exception. however, the roland EV-5 expression is plastic while fairly sturdy, i'm not sure how it wil stand-up at a gig.

i wouldn't bring a back-up AW-3 but i might bring a back-up EV-5.

never had to deal with them, a pedal built this solidly and dependable dosn't need customer support.

sweet pedal. sweet wah sounds. awsome for guitar or bass. BUY THE BOSS/ROLAND EXPRESSION PEDAL WITH IT!!!! you won't be sorry! i'm a very satisfied customer