Boss ODB-3 Bass Overdrive

Pretty easy to get different sounds out of it with only small knob twiddles.

Along with the distortion you get a huge amount of hiss, which made the pedal completely useless to me. This increases as you turn up the distortion!

Build quality seemed fine, as is usual with Boss stuff. I only kept it for a couple of weeks then took it back to the shop!

N/A

I had been looking for a purpose made bass overdrive/distort pedal for some time and was optimistic that the Boss would deliver. Unfortunately the hiss made it completely unusable.
It didn't sound so bad in the shop on headphones, but stick it through a big amp and ...argh! Be warned.
I am trying out a Gallien-Kreuger Deisel Dawg soon and have high hopes it will be what I'm after.
I play in a couple of covers bands, with a Warwick Streamer LX Jazzman into a Gallien-Krueger 1001RB 15" combo. FX currently-Tech21 bass compactor, Boss GEB-7 bass eq and Bass Pod XT.

It's a pedal so not rocket science, but it is fairly sensitive to sound levels so achieving the correct volume can sometimes be tricky

Alot of the reviews on this site seem to diss this box for not having a very messy fuzz noise. For rock music this probably right, but for industrial music and heavy metal, this box produces the messy fuzz that most industrial and metal musicians require.
My musical tastes vary from rock to industial and most things in between. From a rock point of view it is good with limited but still useful use. but from a industial musicians point of view, it is excellent. The distortion is fantastic and extremly useful and more importantly FUN to use.

I've had it for about 8 months and never broken and only changed the battery twice. I use it solidly (1-2 hours) at lease once a day so the battery life is excellent. Never had any issues during shows. Feels very solid with a good weight and knobs that feel extremly secure

Due to the fantastic reliability, Customer Support has never been used

This is one of the best pedals I have used. For me, the tone is wonderful and the ability to change the tone is very good. You can certainly jack the volume up and when you do, it's really powerful. Any industial artist needs one of these. Many rock musicians might be put off by the tone produced, but i find the tone works very well with rock music.

Definately a worth while investment

Not hard to turn the knobs really, eh?

Tanglewood WarriorIII - Marshall 3540 driving 2x Peavey trx210
hmm, well I don't exactly have the best kit in the world (overall), the nicest thing you could say abuot it is that it's loud I suppose. However pressing the pedal on the little yellow box here with any gain turns my slightly average, worn out kit into a raging adolescent 50 watt carlsbro on '11'

Seriously, I reckon I could achieve the same effect by tieing sleigh bells to my peaveys.

OK OK, it gets 3 as, if I'm really careful with the gain and fiddle the EQ a bit, I can get 1 reasonable(ish) understated distortion sound.

Hasn't broken yet, damn ;(

dunno

Not suited to my style of playing at all, this does one sound and one sound only, play with the gain control loads before you buy and decide if this is your sound or not. (P.S. it's not my sound)

Been playing for 15 years, never heard anything like it...

If it was lost or stolen I'd get something else for sure. It's a nice yellow colour but that's not enough for me thankyou (or #60 for that matter) Didn't compare it to anything else, perhaps I would have got something different if I had.

I wish it would go away

This pedal isn?t very difficult to use. Volume, Bass, Treble, Blend, and Gain knobs are the only controls. The bass and treble knobs are pretty interactive, however. Tweaking one may affect the other. The blend knob is nice.

I won?t lie. This pedal sounds pretty bad. The only almost useable sound is a heavy distorted Flea ?Around the World? style tone. The other tones are cold, digital, and pathetic. I?ve tried this pedal in different locations in my chain, in the front end vs. effects loop, everything. It simply sounds bad. The one tone I thought sounded pretty good was similar to the ?natural overdrive? suggested setting. However, the volume, even when all the way up, at this setting is a lot lower than the clean volume without the effect: useless. I really don?t like this pedal. I?ve had it for about 3 years and I?ve tried and tried to not hate it, but I give up. It?s off my pedalboard now, sitting on a shelf somewhere. You want it?

You can always rely on a Boss pedal. That?s one good thing about them (I really don?t like very many Boss pedals. Of the dozens I?ve tried/owned, I can count the one?s I really like on one hand. This isn?t one of them).

Boss = Boo!!

Overall, this pedal makes a pretty good paperweight. I can?t get any useable tones out of it. I?ve been playing bass for about 8 years and my other hobby is electronics building/repair, so I know my stuff when it comes to effects. This pedal blows. Don?t let anyone talk to you into it. Even if you find a useable tone in the store, buy it, take it to band practice, get lost in the mix when you kick on that pedal, take it back to the store, get your money back, and don?t cry to me. I?ve spent 3 years searching for good tones inside that little yellow box and I?m pretty certain there are none. By the way, the pedal sounds the least terrible with passive basses (namely, Fender P and J Basses).

It's a pedal, for christ's sake. not exactly rocket surgery.

alright, here's what I've figured out. this pedal can be a bitch if you don't have it adjusted right. These are the settings that gave me a really good distorted sound without being WAY too loud.

Level - 9 o'clock. EQ - Both high and low at 10-11 o'clock. Balance - all the way distorted. Gain - 12 o'clock.

I had a crunchy, dirty sound without it being really loud, or really muddy. This pedal can get hella loud if you let it.

it's a Boss, and they make pedals out of good old fashioned STEEL. sucks to that plastic Digitech crap. I'd use it without a backup, but then again, I live dangerously. I still think DOD takes the cake on built like a sherman tank-style pedals.

never dealt with em.

I bought this because I found out the hard way that guitar distortion/overdrive pedals suck ass for bass. there is a DISTINCT reason why FX makers make a Bass Overdrive, rather than a generic pedal like all the others (flange, phaser, etc). If you want distortion, and you are a bass player, you need a Bass Overdrive. and out of all the brands I've toyed around with, Boss makes the best one. and I'm actually a DOD man. DOD has better Flanges and Chorus's in my opinion. but DOD can't touch Boss in the Distortion/Overdrive department. if you want Overdrive, BUY THIS PEDAL!

it says I payed $60, I actually payed 60 quid (pounds to the normal american or other non-englishman) but my keyboard is a bit broken.

this thing is pretty simple, much like all of boss' basic effect generators availible. The knobs do what they say, no surprises really, and the input/output sockets are labelled clearly. The manual is great, as it gives you some presets for typical bass overdrive sounds such as fuzz. It also leaves some spaces for you to write settings down that you think are cool, which is nice.

hmm. The most important aspect of the pedal is what it lacks quality in. This thing is a noisy mother, which can get frustrating, especially if you have a noisy bass like mine.

I'm running a fender mexican J-bass through this beast, and although the novelty of having a bass with an overdrive effect will last for a bit, there is not alot of variation in sound availible on this pedal. It's kind of like 'yeah ok, I'm looking for a "flea around the world" sound here so I'll use this setting.......' you use that setting and then you want to change the sound a bit. 'hmmm, this is much the same' I'm thinking.

Really what I'm trying to say is that I don't find that this thing is able to give me a range of overdrive sounds, so much as giving me an overdrive sound that either is too light or too heavy.

It cover's low and high ends well, and it's quite good for playing fast overdrive solo's such as pulling teeth or whatever that thing by metallica's bassist was.

I think maybe this pedal is giving me sounds that aren't really right for the kind of genre's of music that I'm into playing. I'm more into funk and jazz, so that may be why I'm not buying into this thing so much as a metal player would.

However, I am not stupid and I can hear noises coming out of this guy that could be better and perhaps more precise.

man, I left my bedroom window open last night and the rain came in and got the pedal soaked. Bummer. I picked it up and thought i may aswell check to see if it still works, and its perfect. Nice one boss. Also one time I dropped my amp on it. Not a scratch my friend, not a scratch.

i haven't had to deal with boss, I'm sure they'd be very friendly people though!

maybe

I've been playing about 3-4 years and haven't had alot of experince with pedals being owned by myself. It's mostly just been me jamming on someone elses equipment - nice! Anyway, I mostly play funk kind of stuff and this pedal does not benefit me in any way really apart from when I'm in my bedroom and fancy laying down some aggressive solo that I just wouldn't be able to get out of my bass with no overdrive.

I like the way that it's so easy to use, but the noise and lack of tonal variation kills the excitement of it a bit. I would recommend this pedal to any of the following -

-deaf people
-people that like to play metal

If you've got some spare money, I wouldn't get this. Save up and buy a RC-20 loopstation or something, or perhaps a nice weekend away near the coast with your girlfriend or just your mate.

I bought this pedal because I was rish at the time, I had everything going for me. Now my life has gone off the rails slightly and I'm regretting the purchase. The pedal just seems to be a distraction and I find it quite hard to make music that's interesting on it, but I'm not stopping you from buying one, go ahead. If you think overdrive is what you need, and just overdrive, this pedal is probably for you. Don't come crying to me when you find it's a bit boring.

This pedal is really easy to use and set up, but it takes some time to get the right sounds out of it. I dont really know what the overdrive knob actually does though. The EQ is nice, but i would prefer it if it was a pre-overdive EQ, which changes the type of distortion, as opposed to the post-overdrive, which changes the tone of the signal (which most amps have anyway).

This is a VERY noisy pedal. Anything with gain and high EQ over about 12 o'clock generates a buzz, or amplifies what buzz there is going into the unit (although this might change using a noise supressor, which I dont have). This is, naturally, quite annoying.

The presets in the manual aren't that helpful to me - i cant imagine myself ever using drive slapping play, but natural and fuzz are quite good sounds, for the right music. Natural sounds good for a subtle overdrive if you turn the treble band on your bass right off. Because of the noise, I turn the bass guitars treble off all the time when im using this overdrive, and not only does it make it much quieter, it gives a more solid and punchy, as opposed to buzzy, overdrive.

Im only giving this 7 because of the noise.

It's made by Boss, and its made like a solid block of metal. I think if i ran it over it would still work. Ive had it for about 6 months, and had no problems (although the battery doesnt last too long), but I cant imagine this bombing out at all.

Never sorted with them

I use this pedal when playing rock and metal (rage against the machine, muse etc), but naturally its uncalled for in funk or jazz, which i play also. It gives a good punchy overdrive when on the right setting (100% overdrive, about 1/3 gain, and with no high-band input), and a good natural overdrive. It sounds good when going crazy in a climax of a song or during death metal (which i rarely play), but the noise means i dont use it like this often.

This is a good, powerful overdrive pedal, but because it's so noisy, there arent that many setting you can have for most songs. Im giving this 8 because of its noise.

It's a straight forward effects design with standard controls. It's fairly easy to get more or less fuzz or more or less volume using the gain and overdrive controls.

I use a customized Stiletto Elite-4 into an Ampeg B-100R combo. This pedal was made for high volume. More than my combo can put out. A noise gate is a good investment with pedals like this because it amplifies everything including finger noise but that's not the pedals fault. High Gain equals noise. No matter what or when.

The sound is more suited, but not limited to, longer notes. It increases the sustain forever so you can rock an E or even low B with heavy fuzz and gain for the entire show. Just gives your crowd something to fear.

You really feel like you've got some power behind you when using this pedal. That's what it gives you. Grit, grunge, rock-sustain, and power.

Once again, a Boss product equals solo purchase, no backup, worth every penny. Always reliable with an adapter or even daisy chain like I use.

Haven't had to deal with. Heard good things, though.

I usually don't use this pedal because it's not for all types of music. I do love the opportunity, though, because it's just fun to shake the furniture with sound. Very well suited to rock of the hard-rock/Metallic types.

With Boss I don't have to worry about getting the short end. Didn't really consider many other pedals.

I own this pedal for several years now. I use it as an addition to my Boss GT-6B or standalone, when I only need some distortion.

It has 5 knobs:
* Level (adjust this after you tweaked the other knobs)
* Low / high (cut and boost, two functions on a stacked button)
* Balance (between dry and wet signal)
* Gain (to increase drive)

The knobs are not too sensitive, like other Boss pedals. Always write down a setting when you like one. Settings are so easily forgotten.

This pedal is a thing of it's own. you can get very good sounds from it...but also very bad sounds. The bottom line: it depends on your taste and the mix.

When I tried to get a decent studio sound from it, I failed miserably. Through headphones, this unit strips all the bottom from the bass. Even when using good studio monitors, we could not find a sound to match the guitarsound.

On the other side...I _always_ get a great sound from it when playing live. This Boss pedal is a KILLER when kicked in while playing over a P/A. Hell breaks loose! The sounds come to live, no matter what setting you use. This pedal was made for high volume! More than once sound techs come to me after the show asking about my great distortion sounds. They fit awesome in the mix and match the guitars like nothing else does.

When played though a bass amp, you'll notice that the bigger and more powerfull the amp, the better it sounds.

I own a Boss adapter to power the pedal. I'd never depend on batteries.

In case you don't know...Boss pedal can break. They really can. The solid steel case is great, but inside it's a mess. When you unplug a cable too rough, you could screw up the electric circuitry. So be careful!

Their website is nice. Not great, but nice. Duno about personal support though.

In the end, don't buy it if you're not playing live. If you do live shows a lot...get it. Get it now.

Dunno about the competition though. Maybe Ibanez has a similar pedal (the silver one with the reduced knobs). But haven't heard that one. The ODB-3 is better than any distortion on the GT-6B (and not as heavy).

Still reading this? Skip the other reviews and buy it! Freak...

As simple as it gets: Level, EQ [High, Low] Balance and gain, it takes a litle time to get the perfect sound from it.

Amazing! You can get a low, crunchy sound [RHCP, By the way] up to heavy drive [sort of like Muse, time is runing out]. When you get the sound you think is perfect, write ot down on a memo, but then you change it a litle bit and get a much cooler sound.

great! It's a BOSS, it's build to last!

Well this pedal is the best! I'm in a band with 2 guitar players, so i was wandering if this pedal was necessary, but in the end i bought it and i haven't looked back since. "If you want the best, it's gotta be a BOSS!