Boss OC-3 Super Octave

Fairly straightforward....

In my experience, dreadful! Read what others say - it fails to track accurately, resulting in a mushy mess! Avoid at all cost - I did!

Expect it to be reliable, like all Boss/Roland products, but didn't own it long enough to know.

No comments to add...

My view - a waste of space!

Too easy. Match your output, bring in any amount of Octave you want, stomp on and away you go! Best OC model yet.

Tracking is much better that any OC2 whether it be Japanese made or otherwise. I think the tone is better too.
No noise at all from this baby but it does suck batteries so get yourself a power supply.
Nuno uses one, what more do you need to know.

It's a Boss.
Other than the speed with which it eats up battery power it's great. Get a power supply as i said because i have had mine die halfway through a gig with a new battery.

Roland are always great. (If you ever need them)

Everytime i step on this baby, I am lost for words as the audience are. Jaws hit the ground and on one occasion I think i hit the brown note!

The predecessor OC-2 is much better soundwise. I compared them. Even the bypass sound is better with the OC-2. Boss seems to use cheaper input buffer amplifiers now.
(but of course the signal tracking is not so stable with the OC-2. I don't mind this too much.)
The OC-2 also needs very little power (4mA): A battery lasts 'eternally' - if you don't forget to unplug !-)

Buy the OC-2 from ebay.

The user interface is trivial, but the sounds are terrible. It is therefore not easy to get a good sound out of it.

I have used the unit with many different high-end guitars, and with many different high-end amplifiers, but it is simply not possible to get a decent octave effect out of this pedal. It has severe problems tracking the pitch, and the result is a messed-up, unpleasant noise like random octave sound.

Boss is in general great, but something has gone terribly wrong with the project leading to an intended polyphonic octaver. So, one cannot depend on the OC-3, if octave effects is what you're after.

I never dealt with customer support.

I play hard rock and avantgarde art rock, and other octavers I own perform great (also the Boss OC-2 sounds great compared to the OC-3!).

I've got this and the OC-2 and recently A/b'ed them. Bascically, they both have there shortcomings. I'd say that overall the Oc-3 is not as good as the Oc-2 in any way except that the tracking is somewhat more stable but it's still far from flawless. Maybe by the OC-6 they'll fix that. Babysteps.

Oc-2 is the better pedal in the tone dept. It cuts through a mix better and has a brighter more natural tone. This thing sounds really compressed and dark. It also hase more bass and it can get farty really fast. I don't turn the Oct. 1 knob over 12:00 on the dial. It does track decent though, better than the Oc-2. You can strike a note, let it ring and you generally will not hear it warble. My biggest problem is that it's muddy sounding. I Think of it as having a low mid like a mesa as compared to a high mid like a marshall would. That's the best analogy I can think of. Also, when you go to shut it off there is a weird glitch that happens where it is not a smooth transition at all if you want to swithc out of the Octave sound for some chords. The Oc-2 does not do that and it can be switched on the fly without any problems. I hate this kinda of stuff and I can't believe boss would let it go like that. People who don't do fast tonal transitions may not be bothered by it but I like to switch the effect on real quick for a thick octave line and it's impossible to get out cleanly. Oh and did I say it gets buried in a band setting. Big trouble there. OC-2 kicks this things ass all over the place there too.

Top notch

Don't bother

I love boss and have a bunch of there pedals but they have a bad habit of not improving upon past models in all there lines. If they could of reproduced the tone of the OC-2 but with better stability and none of that glitch crap when you go to shut it off it would be a success. Instead it's to dark and bassy for fast lines and it fights with your bass player too much in this regard. OC-2 is brighter and rides above the bass more. Also this Poly mode crap is a gimmick. You can't paly any notes that aren't in a specified range. So this is basically boss being a bunch of douche bags and teasing you. Make hte whole fucking thing Poly and then you'd have a real product. They have to give you one small improvement at a time so you buy next years model. Pathetic. I'll stick with the OC-2 Boss thanks for nothing.

As soon as i brought it i felt yes another great boss pedal to add to my colection but as the moment i plugged it in, it was only noise some notes you would get the octave others you wouldnt it was terible to try and get a good sound after a couple of hours fighting qwith this thinhg ive given upand its ready to go back to the shop

im using this with a fender stratocaster with a seymore dunkan humbucker on the bridge. The new poly octave is dredfall it wolks on 1/3 of the nech and any high it just crackles and u get no octave sound at all i found that this pedal dosent work well with other effects like a delay or overdrive you can simply use the octaver, this is a great downfall because i could get that sound that i really wanted from it. i wanted to get them heavy riffs and things like that with a really kicky bass. All i got was crumbles and crackles if i played more than 1 note at a time

Boss are Amazing ive never had a problem with them untill now

I say to not go near this pedal its a discrace ive benn playing for quite along time now i do like things to sound good and this certanly dosent. the manual was completly useless it didnt even explain what each nob did very well. it took me hours to make sence of it all....... Ahh Boss you really messed this one up

Good sounds were easy to find before reading the manual, but I wasn't always clear what each knob was actually doing. The manual cleared everything up and I was able to dial in useful sounds quickly.

I use a 4-string Fender Jazz bass (Signature Series - Geddy Lee) and a 4-string Music Man Bongo with two humbucking pick-ups. Amp is SVT Classic through Ampeg SVT 410HLF. The signal hits a BOSS tuner and a BOSS Compression Sustainer before it hits the OC-3.

As others here have pointed out, the effect is worthless below the E string 5th fret, but that's not what I need it for anyways.

I had my Jazz with me at the store. There I discovered that if I played and held a sustained note on the 5th fret C on the G string, the unit had difficulty processing the signal, and after 3/4 second it oscillated between what sounded to me to be the same note at different octaves. It was not a pleasant sound. The same thing happened to a lesser degree a semi-tone higher and a semi-tone lower. I tried the same notes on/around the 10th fret of the D string, but the problem did not occur there. The Guitar Center guy switched out the unit for another one, but we had the same problem. Then we tried another bass (a Fender P-bass, I think), and we had exactly the same results. This happened in all three modes, except poly when the third knob was set so that the effect was not "on" for that tone. I purchased the unit despite the flaw, knowing that I would have to work around it (i.e., not play that note at that spot at all, or if I do, don't sustain it long enough for the oscillations to begin).

At home, I reduced the problem somewhat by preceding the OC-3 with my compression sustainer, and totally eliminated it - with or without the sustainer - by using my Bongo. The manual does acknowledge that the effect is more stable with humbucking pick-ups than with single coil, and also when used in conjunction with a compressor.

Overall though the latency is good and the tone is true. My wife and I did a test where I alternated between (a) effect off and simultaneously holding down an E octave (7th & 9th frets of A and G strings), and (b) effect on and playing the 9th fret E on the G string. She's no audiophile, but she couldn't tell the difference. To me the difference was barely discernible but negligible. Cool.

I have other BOSS effects and know their dependability. This one will get stolen long before it breaks.

Never had to use it.

For what I need, it gets the job done. It's a bummer about how I have to play around the flaw when using my Jazz bass, but other than that, it's a good effect. I'm using it to "fill out" the sound a bit on some songs that the original artists use a 5-string on. True, it's not the same thing as playing a 5 string, but it is a cool tone and fills out the band's bottom end sound nicely on those songs (examples: Audioslave's "Show Me How to Live", and especially nice on Maroon 5's "This Love").

very easy... didn't need the manual; straight out the box, plugged it in, had a great sound in minutes.

set-up: Musicman Stingray 5 - TU2 tuner pedal - OC3 - Warwick Quad 6 thru a 411 Pro cabinet.

For a bassist wanting either a fusion solo-sound or a wonderful warm bottom-end boost for that peak moment playing live this pedal is perfect. This pedal comes into its own through a massive stage rig, I have been doing festivals and outdoor stages recently and kicking in this pedal (on polyphonic setting with a fairly balanced level of natural tone and octave) is earthshaking without drowning out other frequencies. Had nothing but praise from keys and guitar-players and several appreciative comments from the sound-guy.

I have had no problems with noise with this unit. The tracking is good on bass; like most octave pedals you get a useful clean warm octave sound only from a 5th fret A upwards. This pedal is excellent, feeling the strength you are hitting the note, sounds great on fade-in notes (endings etc), 'popped' notes and slapped lines as long as they are played accurately and do not ring harmonics.

Haven't used the distortion sound, I would rather drive the clean octave with a separate unit.

If you are looking for a straightforward mid-range low octave boost this is the one: I A-B'd it with an EBS Octabass, an old OC2, and a couple of obscure octave pedals in the shop with a passive jazz bass and it was clearly the warmest and most 'true' sound, as well as being the only one that tracked consistently throughout the trial.

The poly setting does not register the very high tones right up the top of the neck - worth knowing if you're gonna be soloing - stick to the OC2 setting. Poly setting better tracking for normal pop playing. Only gonna be an issue for fusion and jazzers.

Its a boss, you could kick this box around happily forever and it won't break.

haven't dealt with boss.

For a great low boost for pop gigs this is a great octave unit for a bass player's set-up. Not so good for crazy soloing up the top of the neck but the tone of this thing on the middle fret notes is superb thru a big amp and PA - blows people away.
Would buy another straight away if it was stolen - for those who wanna keep it simple and just stick a straightforward octave under their sound this is the best that I have tried in the shops and it has stood up to big outdoor gigs and being battered about on the road.
Now I have this unit it is going to be part of my set-up for good. Nothing but encouragement and positive feedback from other musicians, audience-members and soundcrew about the pedal.

Very easy to figure out and quickly get great sounds. 4 simple knobs. I never even opened the manual.

Sounds great! The kicker for this unit is the polyphonic setting. It's worth the price paid, and it's 100% of the reason you should buy the OC-3 instead of the OC-2. Anyone who says the polyphonic setting is no good is obviously not using it for the designed purpose. What an awesome way to add low-end to your sound without adding an octave to every note played! Excellent!!!! My only minor gripe is that sometime the lowest notes (low-E string) are a little bit warbley - but it's not bad unless you're mixing the effected notes way up in the mix. Not to mention, all octave units I've ever used have the same problem.

Yes - very rugged all-metal construction. Boss pedals have looked the same for 20+ years for a good reason!

Haven't had to deal with them - ever!

I've been playing for about 25 years. I play in a Christian Praise band in front of about 300 + people every Sunday. I can't afford to have problems as the church services run on a tight schedule! I hve too much gear to list, but this part of my set-up is definitely worth the price paid.

easy to use, and even easier to take it back to where I purchased it from. Nothing complicated here to figure out, except for why I can't get it to affect higher pitched notes. If I'm playing a riff that involves anything on the high E or the B string, I get no 'octave' effect.

Not noisy, but inconsistant. It doesn't seem to track all of the notes - the higher notes in particular. Bye Bye....
I love my boss tuner - it's a tank and has become an indespensible component on my pedalboard. I have used boss delays, chorus and overdrives extensively in the past, and think they are a great 'bang for the buck'. But this pedal has issues. Next...

Built quality is fine - it's more of a design issue to me. Unreliable in the sense that it fucks up every time. Not what I have the time or inclination to bother with at a gig.

I just wrote it off as a bad idea and returned the pedal after three days of tweaking. never gigged with it. why bother the good people at Boss customer support when I could just return it and go on with my life!

I didn't try it in the store, but the idea was to fatten up some licks and riffs. I already have a Boss EQ pedal, which I now use as a low end boost. I punch it in and out as needed. True,it's not an octave, but a low end boost works fine for me.