Boss ODB-3 Bass Overdrive

Pretty easy to use, 5 knobs, they all do their own thing. Depending on how you turn them you can get a really nice grit or you can get unbearable noise. The unbearable noise is kinda hard to achieve but if it's what you want it is there.

This pedal does the same thing to your bass signal as most OD/Dist pedals do, they suck all you low end and volume. Even though it has a 2 band EQ (low/high) the lows just are not there. Same thing with the volume, with the volume maxed and the pedal engaged you are instantly washed out in the mix. But to all this bad there are a couple things that will help this pedal scream. 1. Send it to indy guitars and have them mod it for you to your specs. 2. This one requires a rack compressor, pedal compressors dont have enough oomph to get the job done. With a rack mount compressor use the effects loop on your head(if you have one) run the send(head) and input(compressor) like normal, on the return side run the return(compressor) to the input of the pedal, from the pedal output complete the chain by inserting the cable into the return of the effects loop. It's easier to overdrive a compressed signal than it is to compress an overdriven signal. Once it's set up like this you will have the output gain of the compressor before the pedal which will add gain, then the volume gain from the pedal will work a lot better than before as will the effect itself.

I'm a pretty big guy @ 300+lbs and i stomp the hell out of the pedal with no problems. Would I gig with out a back up? I have before and I will do it again.

never dealt with them

This is a good pedal for home use and recording where low volume is key. try to get loud and it will fall on it's face in a mix.

Just plug it in and play.
The controls are straight-forward, although a lot of people have trouble getting a good sound of it (not me). I never had any problems with that, in fact, it was the only pedal at my test-session which made a good sound in short time.
There is a manual which explains the knobs and gives some inspiration for sounds (predrawn diagrams). There a some spare pages too, so you can write down your own settings.

I was looking for a pedal which preserves the pressure on the low B string, and this definately was the best. I didn't want Muse-like oversaturated synth or guitarist-countermeasure-chainsaw leads, I just wanted a pedal that does not overcolour your bass and keeps the audience informed that you are playing BASS, not guitar.
My settings which work out really well (all settings in o'clock) :
Dist-level ~11, dry/wet ~10, bass eq 12, treble eq 11, level 12.
Sometimes I crank up the gain to ~2 [o'clock], this gives me oldschool Cliff Burton-style leads.
There is, naturally, a little bit of hiss when the pedal is turned on, but it's not so much the audience would notice it.
What I like most is that the dry/wet balancer really works, allowing you to play slap lines with all the punch you have, just adding distortion in the background, as if there was another guitarist backing you.
The sustain is increased *incredible*, even on the low B string.
My setup: Ibanez BTB205, mostly played direct through the PA, in the rehearsal room I use a Gallien Krueger Backline 115.
I worked out the sound on a clean PA to have as much treble and mid-response as possible.

I love this pedal for it's sturdy construction.
I use it with batteries only because of the noise level (battery power is much cleaner than direct plugging into the circuits of the stage, which are usually f**ked up).
I use this pedal for quite a time now, it doesn't suck up your batteries and is reliable.

Never had to deal with it. There is a 5-year warranty, which means this pedal will work without problems at least 5,01 years :)

In my band I use the pedal to backup the guitarist when he's doing the solos, I do a lot of spontaneous slapping, and the pedal covers it all.
I am playing bass for about 5 years now, guitar for 9 years.. I use a Ibanez BTB205, a Peavey Millenium AC-BXP 5, and a Spector NS4-Europe. They all perform well, especially the Ibanez because it has so much clarity.

Overall: Lots of bang for the buck. I tested the MXR Blowtorch, which disappointed me because it sounds muddy and undefined when using low gain settings, and the Ashdown pedal, which also sounded muddy and threw away the highs (not reasonable imho for the price).

I would definately buy this one again because it has grown part of my signature sound - and because it's cheap! :)

Plug and play essentially, just finding the right sound is hard.

I play with and Ashdown Mag600R and it has a subharmonic generator which starts sounding really muddy.

Not anymore. I heard all of these myths about how indestructible they are, but the actual button that gets pressed and activates the pedal when you stomp on it is made out of some cheap POS plastic. Needless to say, the button on my broke and I had to take it apart and rig the button so it would stay together. Now I think I need to get a new pedal all together. It was pretty embarassing having to unplug the pedal after playing almost a whole song distorted during low smooth build-up sections of a song.

I bought it used at a music store and figured the warranty doesn't transfer so I fixed it myself....

Good piece of equipment when it works..... I think I am going to get a bass tube screamer or some other overdrive that can handle the subharmonic generator my amp has.

A straight foreward stompbox. Pretty much a case of plugging in and playing.

It took me a while to find my sound with this box. It sounds crap if you put it between the bass and amp. It sounds like the distortion is on top of a clean sound. What you will have to do is to hook it up in the FX-loop and take it from there. I guess you??ll have to feed more signal into it, then it starts to work properly. The overdrive gets alot more creamy and liquid.

It has NEVER failed me. Pretty much all my stuff has broken down at some time or another, but not this. They??re built like brick-houses

never had to use it

As long as you put it in a FX-loop you??ll be okey, but anywhere else and you will leave it switched off unless you want a crappy sound.

Five knobs on this pedal make it one of Boss' more complex true effects, but it's still very straightforward. You have level, high/low EQ, blend and gain. My standard method of dialing in the sound I want is to first play with the gain and blend knobs. Turning up the gain of course gives you crunchier distortion, while the blend allows you to determine how much of that crunch is present in the output. Then, adjust the EQ, then finally adjust the level until the volume level is about the same between the effect being on and off. Of course these aren't hard and fast rules, just a method I use that reduces the time I spend knob-twiddling. It's really no harder to adjust than any other overdrive/distortion effect.

For me, the quintessential overdriven bass sound is from Cream's "Sunshine Of Your Love". Very extreme overdrive for a bass, almost distorted, but it was still a bass, very deep and fat. The overdrive was very tubey, where the peak of the tube is not a hard limit like with solid-state.

I'll tell you now that this pedal may not have that sound in it. Like another reviewer stated, it would not be a stretch to repaint this pedal in gloss gunmetal and call it the Bass Metal Zone. What you get with this pedal when you set it to what you'd think would sound good is a very fuzzy, very crunchy, VERY compact distortion. This is not a tube overdrive.

That said, the pedal can give you some great distorted bass effects without the drawbacks other reviewers have mentioned if you play around a little.

First and foremost, use that blend knob. Throwing it all the way to OD gives an extreme crunch that loses a lot of the low end. Roll the blend back to about 10 o'clock and you keep a lot of the dirt, but you find your low end's returned. You may find yourself drawn to turning the knobs in opposite ways; when you blend away from OD, you tend to turn up the gain, and vice versa. But, there are a host of great sounds to be made with both gain and blend to the left of 12 o'clock.

Second, be real careful with the treble EQ. Distortion as a rule increases treble, since higher frequencies take less extra signal for the same perceived volume gain than lower ones. For a bass, that can be a very bad thing, because not only are you chopping off the peaks of your fundamental wave, but you're also amplifying the overtones (and string noise). The big secret? Use your bass' knobs as well as the pedal's, particularly your tone knobs. Most bassists have discovered that their bass' best clean sound is usually with the volume and tone knobs at full, because it gives you all the sparkly natural overtones of the string. But, if you roll the tone back (or cut the treble on your active's EQ), that gives you a little more room to play with the treble level on the pedal without it very quickly giving you too much fuzz and grit.

Overall, I should have expected that a solid-state pedal wouldn't give you tube overdrive, but it was disappointing nonetheless. However, the pedal has a lot going for it anyway, especially if you're into more modern music. VERY versatile sound with some very good ones if you take the time to understand what the pedal can do. You can get very good distortion for metal, where you're doubling the guitarist anyway, or you can crunch it even more into an industrial-ish tone.

Boss should make bulletproof vests for our troops. This pedal is constructed to withstand almost anything you'd do to it in a gig. There have been some complaints of the screw holding the pedal on bending if you're really enthusiastic. I've yet to see it happen to this pedal and I've literally jumped on it. I've heard anecdotes of Boss pedals surviving set-destroying gigs with only a few paint chips, where the DOD, DanElectro and Electro-Harmonix pedals on the board were gone.

One thing that will kill it dead: reverse polarity. If you use an AC adapter for it (highly recommended), make sure you're plugging in a 9V, 200mA, negative-tip adapter just like the manual says. It doesn't have to be a Boss as long as it's the same specs. If you plug in an adapter with a positive tip, or a 200mA adapter, you will fry the thing from the inside out.

Never dealt with Boss customer support. I've heard of the occasional defect where a pedal will short out or have itermittent power trouble, but it hasn't happened to me, and most guys that work with amps can fix that kind of thing for a few bucks and far less time than it would take to ship the thing to Boss.

Overall, its name doesn't describe its sound, but if you know that, you can get some good sounds out of this pedal with a little twiddling. You MUST understand what the pedal does in order to get the most out of it, and you'll probably find yourself using only just a little of the distortion it's capable of unless you're compiling a techno or industrial track, or you're just jamming out in your garage trying to sound like a guitarist.

First of all, I play a guitar through this, not a bass. I love the thick loud sound I can get out of it. Its not easy to use, as you might have read in some of the other reviews. I generally max out the gain, cut the mix to about 3 o clock, and leave the level at about 11 o clock (more if I cut the mix for a cleaner sound) to get a good on/off volume match. I leave the eq in the middle, and it sounds great. Any more bass it sounds like muddy poop. Any more treble it makes my ears bleed, though a treble boost makes for a nice sound. I have been playing with this thing alot, and still havent discovered its many sounds, so I'd say it sucks in the ease of use department

i get a very nice Deftones type distortion from this. its pretty sweet. the depth of this is just very different from a normal distortion pedal. the gain is exceedingly high when maxed, and it gets harmonics left and right. I love it personally, it fits our metal sound. The only problem I have with how it sounds, is that I wish I could make it a little louder during my lead passages. To get around this I generally just have my volume pedal at about 80%, then go toe down to break free when needed.

i depend on it day in and day out. i use it without a backup, though having thought about it, a buddy of mine used one and completely wore his out. i never saw this on another Boss pedal, so I assume he must use him for busting concrete or something. mines rock solid

great match for metal, can get some fuzzy blues sounds i know of for sure (manual describes some different presets, available online through Boss/Roland site)

Very easy - 4 knobs: level, eq (high and low), balance (between the original and the overdrive sound) and gain.

Well, this is where the trouble starts... it's NOT an overdrive pedal, it's a distortion pedal. Big difference. Even at the lowest gain setting (all the way counterclockwise) the sound is quite fuzzy and not very natural. I also find it to be a bit noisy, especially if you turn the high eq up past 5, but that may also be my bass. I play an Epiphone EBM-5 into a Hartke HA3500 with a Harmonic Design 4x10". The worst thing is that the volume is really low when the ODB-3 is on, I have to crank level up all the way to be as loud as the bypass. The balance is useful to keep things stable and not be drowned out by other instruments. I use the following settings: level 10, high eq 2, low eq 6, balance 7, gain 0 and - surprise! - I get a really fat sound with a bit overdrive, a bit distortion, but the fundamentals are clear and strong. So why only a 6? Because my tone is on the verge of what this thing can deliver and people who look for something different (a boosted overdrive, less distortion, massive gain with low noise etc.) may well find it's just not in it.

Looks solid, haven't gigged with it yet.

No experience.

We play hard rock with a touch of punk and metal and for the latter, it's great. I also expect people who play heavier music to be happier with this pedal. I have been playing for 5 years and until lately used a Korg AX1G, but now I'm switching to single effect pedals for versatility and a better sound. I found mine and it's brilliant, but I can get exactly one (and no more) magic sound out of it and to be honest, I expect a bit more from BOSS. Definitely needs a wider gain range. Go and see if you can borrow or test it with your entire rig before you buy!!!

Standard knobs really, easy to use, can get lots of different tones out of it just by fiddling.

I've been using this pedal for several years with a Yamaha rbx270 and a Epiphone Thunderbird along with a dunlop volume pedal, boss CEB-3 chorus, MXR Phase 90 and TU-2 tuner run through a Laney HCM160. Playing just on my own you can get a wide variety of sounds out of it and the fuzz sounds really nice when mixed with a phaser.

The problem i've found is when you try to put this with a band, what you thought sounded great before is now lost in the mix. I've tried fiddling with the settings on the pedal, the amp, and bass eq and nothing helps the problem is it just cuts all the bass out of the signal as soon as you turn it on so it doesn't cut through the rest of the mix and you lose the impact of the bass on distorted sections.

Which for me is the whole point you want the distortion to lift that section of the song, give it some balls and this just doesn't do it.

It's a boss, never had a problem with it, solid as a rock.

Never had to deal with them.

I play prog rock / metal with some lead bass pasaages and this pedal just doesn't have enough bass or organic sound to cut it for me. If it was stolen or damaged beyond repair I wouldn't buy another one. The fuzz sound is quite nice really, pretty heavy its just a shame it cuts all the bass.

I had a digital bass multi fx pedal before this and the ODB-3 is alot better than that. I would say its a good starter pedal for bass distortion it gives a nice "real" sound compared to digital although if like my band bass is really really key to the whole sound buy a pedal around the ??150, ??200 because its makes ALL the difference.

3 knobs and 2 to control highs and lows.
5 total

I use a Music Man Sterling - boss BassOverdrive - boss BassChorus - boss BassEQ - GK 300w head - GK 15" speaker box



Compared it to the Digi-tech Bass overdrive and the Metal-Big muff (guitar pedal).....
DON'T get the digitech over the ODB-3. The digitech is like the Boss with your hands over your ears,... TRRIBLE!....!!!
The Big Muff Metal was the contender. More expensive and not as much tone variety as the Boss....
So...boss is the winner

I don't care what people say. You can get any distortion tone out of this thing. allot of people forget that its all in your touch.
Distortion on minimum bass at 6/10 treb at 9/10. I can get come 'funky-chunky' distortion sounds....
as well as, grinding Metal/industrial sounds with the gain at max.

One of my fave settings is gain at max- mixed in low with original sound. Punchy and crunchy, preserves the original low frequencies fairly well....

great

Wish it has more eq options. but thats what my Boss Bass EQ is for ;)

Otherwise, can't go wrong for this very high quality and versatile pedal.

really esay to use-everything is clear-level, eq. i dont really understand the relationship between the balance and gain, think they could be replaced by only one pot

sounds great while playing, but when you dont play it makes a lot of noise [especially when u have a lot of treble like i do] and when you play louder in even produces feedback [sometimes its usefull ;)]

solid metal box-its the biggest plus of this pedal. the knobs are placed quite nice, so its hard to step on them etc, becouse your foot stops on the footswitch. i didnt like the screw to the battery slot-on a gig i was so excited while playing, that i steped on the pedal a little to much and the screw curved a little, so i couldnt unscrew it, but i already replaced it

didn't need to use

the pedal sounds really great, i dont really care about the noise and feedback-the sound is really great. if you set the pedal nice it can even give you a little tube overdrive. and it should be called "bass distortion"... its kinda hard to set some light overdrive sound on it, bu I LOVE IT :D