Boss OC-3 Super Octave

Pedal is used in Poly mode to add bass to electric and acoustic guitar, the range control allows you to filter out higher notes and just trigger the octave effect from the lower strings. Very easy to set up although the manual is not too clear on the capabilities of the Poly setting.

Sound is good - very good if you route the direct and effect outputs to different mixer channels. The octave signal does have a few high frequency noises but these can be tuned out to a great extent by e.q. The effect out sound can be further improved by compression and by routing it to a dedicated bass amp. Noise level is low.

Usual Boss compact build quality, no probs so far.

n/a

Not perfect but very effective for filling out the sound of one guitar and a lot cheaper/simpler than a GR synth set up. Used for classic rock, blues etc. when playing with a drummer. I play fingerstyle on electric so can usually pick out a simple bass line on 5th and 6th string whilst playing chords or lead lines on the other 4 strings. My set up is Taylor 210E/JJ Jewel solid with EMG's into the Boss OC-3, Digitech Vocalist2, Digitech Eric Clapton, Digitech Jimi Hendrix, Digitech RP-150 into a mackie desk. Aux out to Marshall Lead/Bass 20 2x10 combo and homemade 12" cab with 150 watt power amp for keyboard and OC-3 derived bass.

This unit, as with most boss single stomp boxes, is very easy to become familiar with. There are 4 pots that control the amount of wet/dry signal and the type of octave effect to use. The great thing about the unit is that you can use it with a nice clean octave effect or you can select the drive mode and add a fuzzy distortion to the signal. You also have the option to switch between mono and polyphonic so single notes sound great but whole chords can be played without the effect going insane. The manual is simple but helpful with more than enough info to get you started. You have an input for guitar and one for bass with outputs for your amp and direct out to a PA or mixer etc.

The sound quality is very good. It has quite a convincing analogue sound with very low noise. It wont destroy your beloved guitar tone unless you want it to. I noticed that the Monophonic mode sounds better even though you are limited to single notes it has a fuller more powerful sound. If you are trying to simply fatten your guitar sound the Polyphonic option is great on middle settings as it give a harmonic chord sound.

Its made of metal and its made by Boss so it seems to stand up to some real abuse. I have dropped it, kicked it, stamped on it and almost crushed it with my Cab, it still works and the pots are all still attached. The on/off switch is firm and feels springy under your foot so you know you've stomped on it. Battery life is quite short as this pedal is a little on the hungry side, you'll be swapping batteries every few gigs. If you have a power supply, plug it in!

Never had to use them. So no opinion on that.

I play mostly Sludge and Ambient rock/metal, a rather unusual mix of spacey delayed guitars and stoner echoes with a massive slice of down tempo overdriven insanity! I use a Les Paul and an SG with a Peavey Valve King 100 all tube amp and a formidable chain of effects (Octave, Delay, Overdrive, EQ, Noise gate, Tuner and volume pedal) And my guitars always stay in a rather low Open B tuning. If this pedal were lost or stolen I would buy another the next day! I love its sound and construction and it is one of the better pedals of this type out there. It helps in the creative process as you can get some rather weird sounds out of it as well as subtle over(under) tones. If you, like me, are the only guitarist in the band then a weapon such as the Octave should be strongly considered as it instantly widens the sound and adds depth.

it's pretty straight forwards when you tweak for a few minutes

i just traded the oc-2 for the oc-3,
it tracks a tiny bit better (okay stuff on the low E string isn't great)
but it works for 5th chords which other octavers never/rarely do

i don't think you can say anything is different in the 'audible' field from the oc-2

it does as much as any octaver could,maybe a bit more

-to compare it to a whammy pedal...
a whammy pedal does give you a more unbroken tone/sound
(the oc-3 has a 'digital warble' on long notes)
BUT a whammy pedal can't do chords and they track slower than your playing.the oc-3 tracks faster than a whammy pedal.
you either go with an oc-3's faster tracking and warbling or a whammy pedal's slower tracking that is smoother.

i don't care that i can get overdrive from this effect,it's a function i will hardly use.

all my Boss pedals have always been very good

i use several guiatrs with several combo's of amps and pedals and i've always been pleased with Boss stuff

never dealt w/ Boss,only retailers

alt. rock almost like indie without the shite singing (w/ experimental overtones guitar wise)

i use pedals for color and something like this can give you new ideas every now and again.

A little fiddly but reasonably straightforward. Have not gone too much into all its possibilities however; see below.

Please note I don't really like octavers and would not in the normal course of events, purchase one. However this came on semi permanant loan from a friend of mine who had come out of another of his brief musical periods (half my equipment has come from this source)along with a few other bits 'n'pieces. So I plugged it in out of curiosity and was pleasantly surprised. Now I can see why other people are not fans of it and basically if you want bass get one of those four string plonkers. However it does, in the drive setting, make FILTHY NOISE or should that be NOISY FILTH? Sounds like Satan moving his bowels. This is not yer nice creamy overdrive but hideous messy distortion, almost a little digital(?) sounding. As a purveyor of noise I like this but many will probably not. I have a valve amp which sweetens it a bit plus other more traditional and more pleasant effects so this makes an interesting contrast for me. The other settings can make some flatulent rumblings which can be useful as well. I have been using an old cheap keyboard from my teens recently and these help beef it up a bit.

Only gigged a couple of times with it but the usual cliches about BOSS gear would appear to apply here. That said my DD3 has developed a horrible ticking noise in its longest (and best) setting.

Normally never had to call them which is a good sign. My enquiry about the DD3 was unanswered though it was second hand and out of warranty but courtesy costs nothing does it?

This review is from a pure noise creation point of view. If you want to use it "properly" then I advise you to read all the other comments on this pedal first as many seem to have problems with it. As I said octavers are not really to my taste so to me it sounds much like any other octaver. There are times though when good taste gets in the way of art and that's when this little piggie gets to wallow. A handy little dirty weapon for those moments when as Samuel Jackson would have it "you positively have to kill every single mutha f**ker in the room".

It's pretty simple to use. The knobs do what they are labelled with. 3 modes, each one varied, nice and simple manual, just your average pedal, really.

Some of the sounds you can get are a bit weird. My favourite mode by miles is the 'Drive' mode. It's too cool for school. You can get some awesome Muse-esque sounds out of it, such as the Hysteria intro- which is what I mainly use it for. Unfortunately, you'd be better off with a Whammy for bass lines. The tracking, whilst better than my old OC-2, is not a patch on a good Whammy. The poly setting is also a bit crap, to be honest. Not what BOSS make you expect it to be, I'll say that now.

Buy it purely for the 'Drive' sound.

It's definitely reliable. I like it.

Not dealt with them, don't plan to.

If you want something that will emulate a bass guitar, then buy a bass guitar. You're never going to get an accurate representation from a ??90 pedal. If you want a cool little toy to mess about with, get this pedal. The Drive setting is hours of fun, and is worth it if you pick it up for a song secondhand. Otherwise, leave it. I bought mine new in 2003, and I still enjoy using it- never considered selling. Just think carefully before you buy.

When you press the pedal to turn it off, the "check" light does not turn off as in my Boss OS-2. It stays on. There is no visual indication of the pedals state.

The pedal has 3 modes, and the knobs that does not control the mode have very different meanings depending on the mode. Further more they are not labled so it is easy to see the meaning in a given mode. You have to know it.

My setup is a Stagg electric violin => this pedal => a 15W Marchall combo with distortion circuit.

In two of the pedals tree modes, it can only octavize one tone at the same time. So if I by accident hits another string, it will wobble between the two notes in a very wired way, like it cannot decide which tone to use. For this reason these two modes are unuseable to me.

The final mode, poly, can play many tones at the same time, but unfortunally it cannot octavize the heigher tones, even with the proper knob all way up. My rule of thunb is to stay on the two lower strings, and everything is fine.

Even in the poly mode, the sound seems to be missing a lot of detail. When I just pick the strings, it sounds like an electric bass. And when I use the bow it sounds like an electric bass with a sustain pedal. When playing without distortion I definitely have to use other effects to give the sound some detail - with distortion I get an "evil machine" like sound (on the two lower strings).

2 out of 3 modes are unuseable for anybody that does not want to think of the pedal all the time. The sound is there, and with no or low noice, but is not convincing. I might be OK for certain special uses, but not for this price.

Using it for Bass, it took a little bit of messing around with it before i could get a sound that i liked. if you're looking for plug and play, this is not the peal for you.

i'm suing it with a Fender precision lite jazz bass (both J and P pick-ups), and running it thru a Hartke amp and 15". The sound quality is good at most of the register, however it does lack something on the bottom end, it can be a little too muddy if not adjusted properly. I was a little upset that it didn't do the job of the OC-2, but i found that this has it's own perks. The poly seems to work good for me, but it's dependent on the drive, tewak it and you'll get a good sound. If you're expecting a miracle, look elsewhere, but that is not to say that this is not a good pedal, you just have to take your time with it.

Roland has never let me down yet!!!

never had to deal with them

Overall, i'm not depending on it for "my sound," it's a great tool that is used when needed and it does the job well. I do a lot of production work and this allowed me to get that chunky dark sound that i wanted. I got mine super cheap because my cousin worked at the store. I would definately recomend this for Bass players, especially if you're looking for a unique sound, but you must be patient and have a good ear to get the most out of this.

Easy to setup and use. Settings are straightforward, manual is basic - you must play with settings too understand what they do.

I started with setting recommended by Jeff www.jfrocks.com. Knob 1 - Level 1/4 - 1/3, Oct 1 10% up Oct 2 0 -2% up, Mode Poly.

Since I use it for thickening, I changed my settings to Level Knob 1 - Level 3/4 - 1/3, Oct 1 3/4 up Oct 2 1/4, Mode Poly.

New...but these pedals are reliable.

Didnt have to call them.

I play hard rock, alternative 80s metal.
Playing on and off for 15 years.
Does what I want it to do...thickens riffs.

This unit is self explanatory, otherwise there comes a nice manual with it. It is NOT easy to get a good sound out of it, but can be done. It's a tricky pony, you should tweak around a little.

I use this device in a band sometimes for replacing our bass player. I menaged to get a good sound out of it; on the "poly" setting. It tracks pretty good, much better than the OC-2 imho.
I use it on the neck humbucker of my Gibson Les Paul; don't know how it would behave on singlecoils.
It is not noisy at all.
It's a nice toy for giving your sound deeper tone. And great on clean, not so good distorted...but it has a drive option, which also isn't bad.
It's a good try, but will never replace a good bass player :)

Like any other Boos pedal. Good quality.

Never dealt with them.

I play Rock, punk and ska for over 15 years now. It's a nice device.
Better than the OC-2. I haven't had the chance to compare it to the EBS Octabass, which should also be good.
Give it a try, a decide for yourself.

Easy to use.
Just turn the knobs to put in the desired amount of each level.
Could be easier i guess cos you have to turn guitar level down while turning octave up if you dont want all overall level to increase.

At first i thought yeh this is amazing, i used it to do low metal stuff by putting in some more bass end to the chords.

Then i tried to play bass lines on it in the same octave as a bass. Sounded a bit rubish. Had to fiddle with amp a fair bit. It will never sound write on a low wattage amp with small diameter cones.
I did get a nice sound with my 12" cones. Sounds pretty good for higher bass lines, however it makes a weird noise on open string, 1st, 2nd and 3rd frets on the low E when holding a note for a long time. It kind of bouces up for a moment before bouncing down. the sound dosent even slide up to it then down again, it just changes it really weird.

This makes it a bit rubbish for some stuff. Although works fine for fast bass lines or slightly higher ones.

This can be avoided by playing an octave higher on guitar and going to the OC2 mode, but this doesnt sound as true.

Im giving it a seven cos i know alot of people will want it for bass, which it works fantsatically for with a bit of fiddling, except for the low notes on the e string. If you are using it like i do for sick chords it gets a nine. If bass lines without low notes on e string a 7. If with low notes it gets a 5.
That averages 7.

Its a boss.

never dealt with them.

Good for what i need it for.
I only can compare it next to digital versions on multi effects pedals, which ALL have the same problem.
I am unsure of any other alternatives which work without the weird bounce in octaves.