Boss OD-3

3 KNOBS - That's a technological innovation !!!!!

This little unit is a marvelous thing... it retains all your guitars characteristics and frequency, not coloring the tone in any way (no bass loss, no treble 12K clipping hiss from the diodes/transistors/opamps, and no mids coloration) in my opinion.
I've tried it in the FX loop as well as in front of the amp, in a full-range pa system and a set of headphones. I can tell you that in the FX loop it operated the best in my SS amp because the preamp EQ of the clean section didn't color the OD-3's natural sound and was used as Pre-Distortion Equalizer. In-front of the amp it sounded good as well, considered by its not boosting or driving any tube section afterwards, its frequency response very depends on the pre-amps EQ section and your guitar. In the full-range PA system and headphones it sounded huge!!! this is where the real "exam" is. you have to listen to every pedal that you buy through a full-range speakers or headphones AND as many guitar amp you can try to really hear the flaws of the unit. This one has NONE, plain and simple DISTORTION no hiss fuss buzz etc... pretty close to a tube being driven, well... EVEN BETTER. why? ever listened to a tube preamp or a tube DIST box through full-range??? That's right guys it sounds thin nazzely grainy (Tuby) and shitty and coloring your tone. try to listen to your metal zone or DS-1 through a full-range or super clean amp like JC-120 you got the idea. well my personal opinion this is the best distortion generating unit I have ever had for low-mid gain setup.

That section need to be eliminated from BOSS pedals.

Cool stuff guys... Cool Stuff.

Very easy.

Yeah, wow. Did not like this one at all. I've been using an SD-1 a lot lately and read great things about this OD-3. I use my overdrives as boosts to amps that are already overdriving, not as stand alone drive pedals. So this might work in that application for some. As a boost I hated it. Way too flubby in the low end and some sort of squashed sizzle sound in the middle. Compression I guess. It reminded me somewhat of my Tech 21 XXL, which also retains the low frequencies (rather than cutting them like a TS9 or SD1).

I should add I use high output humbuckers in super strat style guitars. Marshall tube, Peavey tube, Randall SS amps. I am going to stick with the SD-1. It's the only Boss drive pedal I've liked out of their whole line. This OD-3 fell flat.

Dead simple, three controls like the SD1

Out of the box, it's a 8 by comparison with the SD1. No compression at all (a trait of the stock SD1). I've bought another and modded one with the Monte Allums kit, improving things still further (he admits it's the best sounding unit out of the box that Boss have produced)

I've never been let down by anothing Boss - superb reliability.

Roland UK are always helpful, most of the manusls are online too. Lots of websites and cheap mods available for this model too.

There is a reason why Boss price this one slightly higher, yes you might spend ?20 on a Behringer/Dano/Line 6 but you will eventually buy something like this if you are not a bedroom player and want the reliability. People knock Boss stuff but they are the only ones to have never let me down. OK, they make some complex stuff too (e.g. the PW10, still this is the cheapest Trower sound with speed control around) but look at the users of even their good old basic (modded) products - Vai and Satriani, for example, both use DS1's.

this pedal sounds great. its easy to get a nice overdriven sound from it. the tone control isnt bad either.

this is my setup:

fender telecaster > korg dt-10 tuner > boss ns-2 > (ns-2 loop: od-3 > bad monkey > tunamelt tremolo > ge-7 > end loop) dan echo > echo park > 1978 fender bassman ten or peavey classic 50 4x10

i play indie/ambint rock, also some spazzier jazz rock, kinda like the fall of troy with lots of jazzy stuff, or maybe like explosions in the sky. i dunno. i also have a blues trio.

this pedal works great with everything. i used to have a voodoo lab overdrive but it was way too bassy and sounded crappy. this pedal was traded for the voodoo lab. im so glad i did it! i use it sometimes as a clean boost, with the drive all the way down and the level all the way up. it works really great for that. but it really shines when you dail in some gain. great smooth overdrive sound.

boss pedals mean reliablility. ive got a boss pedal story:

i used to play in a heavier like hardcore band. my other guitarist and i where arguing in the practice space one night ( we had a very large practice space). i was standing next to my amp and i had a boss acoustic simulator pedal on top. the argument got very heated, i lost it and decided it would be best to throw that pedal accross the room (not in the direction of my friend). i accidentally threw it through the front grill of my bassists 8x10 and straight through the cone. whoops! i broke the led on the pedal, but it continued to work for a year until i sold it. wow. thats pretty tough.

i've never dealt with them, but i heard good things.

ive been playing for about 8 years. i have had a bunch of different gear. up until a month ago my main effects consisted of a boss me50 and the bad monkey. not i have a full board and still adding. the od-3 is a sweet addition to my board.

ill probably be using this as my main dirt box, with a little gain dailed in. im getting a dod 250 so i think ill be using that as a boost. or maybe an sd-1, as im picking one of those up too. bottom line, i really like this pedal and it will probably stay on my board for a long time.

if it died or got lost or stolen, id want to replace it. its a solid pedal. it doenst hurt my tone at all. i think it adds a little something extra to make my tone that much better. boss rules.

Easy like the others boss pedals.

I use a 1957 reissue stratocaster and a Fender Blues Junior amp. With this setup the OD3 is the best overdrive that I have tried, best of BD2 and of the Ibanez TS9.

It's a boss.

I play rock-blues and fusion, my pedals are OD3 - Keeley RAT 3Way - CH1 - DD6 - RV5. With this gear I have find all the soun that I need for my guitar.

its a pretty basic 3 knob setup.. doesnt get much easier to adjust this thing. hard to get a bad sound out of it...

i play a fender strat, a hamer, and a gibson les paul through a fender hot rod deluxe amp. the od-3 sounds great with all of my guitars. the pedal isnt real noisy either, like some are. the only time the sound weakens is at the very end of the battery life, but otherwise it sounds great. i mainly use it in front of my fuzz pedals as a booster and to help shape the sound a little bit- the od-3 gives my fuzz a little more bite. but it sounds great by itself too. turn the level knob to 9 oclock, the tone all the way up and the drive knob all the way down and you can get a good clean sound. the od-3 and the fulltone 69 are my two main pedals when it comes to a lot of the hendrix tones i like.

ive had this thing for about 8 months and it hasnt screwed up yet. but it does eat batteries pretty fast... id only gig it without backup if i had to. its not terribly expensive to just buy another one for backup and also you dont want to risk the battery dying on you. but overall its pretty dependable to me.

ive never needed suport on my od-3

i play blues-influence rock, jazz-influence rock, psychedelia, and classic rock in general. od-3 suits my needs all around the board here. im 15 and ive been playing for about 4 years now. if i lost this pedal id get another right away. some of my other pedals include a fulltone 69, a russian big muff pi, a fulltone octafuzz, a vox v847 wah, and a fulltone deja vibe. i compared it to the digitech bad monkey and the boss sd-1, but those sounded a little too thick and heavy for my tastes. the od-3 has a nicer, clearer sound i think. but overall it definitely helps me get good tones.

It's a snap to get the kind of sound you want. The high EQ knob is almost always below 9 o'clock.

Good crunchy tone. Good if you're looking for something that doesn't completely take over your tone. Wished it was a little heavier, though.

Good so far. Only have owned it a couple months. BOSS has always been good to me.

Three knobs. Idiot's guide to this box not especially necessary... But be aware: every knob has it's "art of setting".

My setup: Fender Blues Junior with Celestion Vintage 30 and JJ tubes, Gibson ES335, Fender Deluxe Strat (customized with Kent Armstrong Vintage pickups), vintage EH Deluxe memory Man and Small Stone.
I have been looking for a good box nearly 10 years (playing guitar more than 30 years). Have a Vintage Rat, TS9, Distortion+ and Seymour Duncan Pick-up Booster. The BOSS were for me until now cheap sounding mass production boxes from Taiwan... (and the rest of these pedals really is a garbage)BUT the OD-3 is a big surprise. Sweet, slightly compressed, transparent, harmonical tone... Excellent both for singlecoils and humbuckers. My Fender Blues Junior simply sings through the Celestion! I have spent a lot of bucks to buy and mod the Ibanez TS9... and believe me: the holy way, where all these modifications tend to push the Tubescreamers is in that yellow OD-3. Suffering from short sustain, over-the-top flat midrange, cold harmonics, non-transparency, dead dynamics???!!! Stop modifying - try the OD3. For this time beeing I am satisfied. I give it a 10 because it is what I needed. (P.S: I cant believe to anybody who lives nearly 25 years from simulating the tubes (BOSS... Roland) - but this is a great exception!

O.K.

Do not need indeed...

Godd for any music except brutal metal and such kind of "artofnoise".

No brainer.

80's Japanese Fender Strat -> Russian Big Muff -> Boss OD-3 -> MXR Blue Box -> DOD 250 -> EH Bass Balls -> Boss CE-3 -> MusicMan 115 65.
This is the biggest and best sounding overdrive I have ever played. I've had a Boss Super Overdrive, one of those cheap Dano od's, and a DOD 250, but the OD-3 surpasses them all. The SD-1 lacked substance, I got what I paid for with the Danelectro pedal, and I still use and love my DOD 250, but none of them sound as BIG as the OD-3. The DOD gets too brittle at higher levels of gain, but sounds beautiful at mild settings. The OD-3 flat out soars at all levels. This pedal keeps the low end and still retains vibrance on the high end. Not enough has been said about the sustain that this unit cranks out. No matter how much you crank the drive, you get a rich, long-sustaining tone that gave my amp's natural overdrive a run for it's money. In some situations I think it sounds better. It's well worth the $80 sticker although I was lucky enough to get it for much less. It's a little noisey when I turn it on, but with my strat almost any od/distortion unit is.

I have no worries about this pedal at all. I plan to keep it and keep using it for a very long time.

N/A.

Aside from being the best sounding od (to my ears atleast) that I've played, it has become my favorite pedal in my collection. I enjoy a lot of down and dirty rock and roll, surf, and some blues and this pedal can more than cover whatever I want to play. If you're like me at all and were on a search for a good OD sound, this pedal is definitely worth checking out.

Couldn't be much easier. Pedal is full of good settings, try getting a bad sound out of this!

The sound quality is great. Its really smooth and creamy. I have a modded Blues Driver also, and its different for sure. The blues driver is more buzz-saw like, more uneven and biting. This is the other side of that, thick, sustained, easy on the ears rather than grating. You can spend a lot of $$ on overdrives, but the OD-3 is a great lower-cost pedal. It sounds as good as many a fancy, modded pedal right out of the box. I'll be using this for a long time.

very solid, no backup necessary

???

Overall its great, boss really designed a nice, no frills overdrive here. I'm going to use it as a main od/distortion, and as a boost with my amp's distortion. Very capable of both of these tasks. Very smooth, even sound, no complaints!