Boss ODB-3 Bass Overdrive

This pedal is one of the most harder to use I have in my pedalboard. Don't give it too much gain, or it will be a fuzz, don't give too much high, or it will be a fuzz... Remember that if you're searching for an overdrive thi isn't a real overdrive, maybe a fuzz-distortion. I'll give a 6 to it, only because I finally reached my sound

It's so hard searching a good settings. I finally set my pedal with high on flat, a lot of bass and with low gain. It's (like every distortion pedal) a little noisy, but when you raise the high it become really noisy. I use a Laney Hardcore with it and it sounds good, the balance knob is really a beautiful settings. When in bypass the tone is good enough for me. You can get Flea sound very easily, but if you're searching for Lemmy distortion or Tim Commerford distortion you can get only a lot of noise from this.

I use this live without backup cause is very hard to damage

Never have a deal with they.

I play funk and rock music. This is very good on funk, but on rock he can't sound good, so I probably buy another REAL overdrive and put this before the wah, because i love that quacky tone that I can get with this and Dunlop Crybaby 105Q. I wish it had lot of mid frequency in his sound, but is also good in this way.
A final 7 is its rating.

well if you have used distortion/ overdrive pedals before like me, it shouldn't be hard to get the hang of it.

but if you haven't used any OD/ dist pedals before, it can be pretty confusing to start.

for me, it's quite easy to use. I can get the sound i like from it. The controls are kind of straight forward, and it give a lot of ranges that you can dial.

I have used some bass-distortion/ fuzz pedals like Attack Goat and MXR. I like this one the best. A bit noisy though. But i can still get a rich and smooth overdrive to hard punchy distortion sound from it.

I give it a 7 because it's sound kinda depends on the bass i use.

I use vitage P-bass ibanez Blazer and Squier classic vibe j bass. for me i think it sounds better when using with the Jazz bass. It souns clearer. but it can get a bit muddy, but not bad though, when i use my blazer bass. i have to crank the level up a bit to make it clearer.

It's a preety damn good clean booster/ eq too.

PS. you should try it with a guitar too, sounds great.

sure, i've been using it for quite a while. I use it from small club gigs to big stage concert.

dunno, haven't deal with them before.

i play mostly rocks and it suits me quite well.

as i said, i've been using a lot of dist pedals before. Most of them give you too much low end and sounds muddy. i like this one because you can balance the amount between high freq and low freq.

I used to be a guitarist as well, so ihave my experiences in dist pedals, and ODB-3 ranks up on my top 10 dist pedals ever.

This overdrive is very easy to use. You have a Level knob to adjust the volume of the pedal. There are two knobs stacked one on top of the other for the 2-band EQ (highs and lows). A balance knob for adjusting how much overdrive you want to add to your clean signal. And finally a gain knob to adjust the overdrive/distortion. It did come with a nice detailed manual.

This pedal has pretty good overdrive/distortion. My only gripe with it is that it does have a little bit fuzz to it which I dont really care for. But the overall overdrive can get some decent grit to it. One thing I dont understand is that some of the reviews here say that they loose low end with it. I dont have this problem at all just boost the lows on the eq (mine is set at 3 o'clock)and I play with a ton of lows in my sound. The level is the same as the clean level with my setup. Just spend a little time with it and you'll get it.

I have a 4 different basses and several 6 string guitars, but the bass I have been using lately is an Ibanez SR400. Yeah I know its a cheap bass but I like the way it plays. I did change the pickups and all electronics. I put in EMG P-J active pickups and EMG BQC System (active volume/EQ system) with an 18 volt setup. So I kind of ugraded the hell out of my SR400. I play through an SWR SM-500 head into a 6x10 SWR Goliath Senior cab. So I have good equipment to test this pedal out.

The pedal is a little noisy when on but for a pedal that is about a 100 bucks I cant really complain. I currently am only using to give me a little bit of overdrive in my sound. I have the level set to about 10 o'clock, highs at around 2 o'clock, lows at 3 o'clock, and both balance and gain around 8-9 o'clock(sorry dont have the pedal with me to give you my exact settings). I directly run my bass to the pedal and from the pedal to the SWR head. Its currently the only effect I use.

Artist using this pedal, Traa Daniels from P.O.D., Nate Mendel from Foo Fighters, and also Flea from RHCP.

Very reliable. "Its a Boss" like every says. I purchased this pedal an 2000. There not even a scratch on it still looks new and I have dropped a few times. Again deffinetly built like a tank.

Never dealt with them.

I play hardcore/metal type of music for the most part thats why I bought the pedal. I didnt really compare it to any other pedals at the time because I didnt really know of any good overdrive/distortion that came in stomp box. I have a DOD Bass Grunge which I purchased a couple of years before this and the Boss beats it hands down in all categories. The DOD deffinetly looses low end when turned on. It doesnt matter what setting you try to setup. But if the Boss ODB-3 were lost or stolen I would probably look around and check out Electro-Harmonix Big Muff, Tech 21 sansamp driver, Fulltone bass-drive, and MXR Blow Torch etc before I purchase this pedal again. I would also check rack mounted distortion effects.

I love that its compact and that it is very basic and reliable. My favorite feature is that it is specifically an overdrive pedal. Again I wish the overdrive had less fuzz to it but its not bad. It still fits in my style of music. You can easily get the Flea overdrive sound with this pedal.

I have been playing for 13 years now and I feel like I have the sound I want from my setup. This pedal helps when I want to add some grit to my sound. So I say deffinetly check this pedal out if you are looking for a stomp box distortion, but try others also cause there are many out there. I gave it generous 9 because of the fuzz.

It's easy there's a low a high a clean drive and a dirty. don't take allot to figure out. you can either make it crunch or make it be a loud boosting mf

for years I used this out my svt head and 8 10 combo(I???ve sense retired now I use a GK 800 with two 15). I used it as my distortion for a time and then I???d used it as a volume boost. Then finally used it as both. i have to tell you, it's was time for it go. I???ve replace it with a petal that based on a rams head fuzz that has a blend option. the thing is this petal is a boss and that???s what it sounds like. It???s hard to explain, just kind of a replicated generic tone.

it???s a boss petal. They???ll be around longer then cockroaches

there a big company, they act like one, just ask (the death to original gear)guitar center

It depends how much your sound matters to you

The ease of use is great! Like many pedals, it takes a bit of time to find its sweet spot for your preferred sound, but there IS a wide range of distorions in this box.

I was running this chain - Ernie ball MM4 stingray>sonic max>alesis compressor>EH octave multiplexer>Boss ODB3>Russian Big Muff>Boss CH3>Tuner>hartke 2500. last weekend at a show, the soundguy and I spent some downtime before the show tweaking knobs and putting both the muff and the odb3 to the test. The muff didnt bring anything useable to the table, so I'm selling it and that review is for another day. The boss had a tasty variety of distortions that could be dialed it with little unwanted buzz. the MAJOR drawback, which is prompting me to sell this one too, is that it cuts the overall level. We tested many different settings, but everytime the unit was switched on, the overall dB dropped slightly, but enough to discourage me from using it live. I may keep it for the studio, but it just didnt have that extra 10% of volume for those timed I needed distortion. Great sound, too quiet (hence the 5)

rock solid. if it didnt have the volume problem, it would be my go-to pedal. its a boss

Bottom line, its great for beginners, for fooling around, perhaps even for the studio, but not for live shows.

You need pacience... this pedal is a b*tch, but believe me its worth the time

Schecter stiletto extreme 5 diamond series, to odb 3, to ce-5 to laney RB 3

If you experiment enough with it u can go from a little boost to crazy distortion but DO bother to tweak it you will get the sound u want also doesnt effs up the lows play with the EQ.

It can do a slight growl, the flea thing, cliff burton thing, the muse thing... really REALLY versatile but the gain knob is noisy

BTW in all honesty it seems they get like retarded monkeys to do the settings in the booklet, what u should do is put it to a setting and then tweak it from that

Totally dependable, im afraid the cliche is true

Never dealt with em...

I play all kinds of music... ive been playing for 7 months or so the i would buy it again if it got stolen, i love the really subtle grrr u can get with the gain at 0 the balance at 9 o clock maximum low boost, highs like at ten o clock and the level at maximum i use that with my chorus just sound really sweet

Its very easy to use. only plug it in and rock out!

im using it with my bass and SWR amp and it sounds fantastic. Effect sounds awesome if you put the right settings. you can get same kind of sound what flea does and thatis the thing why i bought it.

Its very solid. you could try to break it but i think it wouldnt. I could use it on a gig without backup

It sounds very good and its easy to use and i just love everything of it.

EQ a bit fiddly. Otherwise O.K.

Different pitches of buzz, but no growl or roar.

Nobs and peddle lock seem a bit flimsy, but no breakages yet.

Not needed up to now.

I play very heavy lazy lines - Rock, Metal, Jazz... even some Reggae or Dance inspired stuff... Tangerine Dream EXPERMENTAL. Just about anything - but not Funk.

I've been playing for 30 years.

If buzz is all you're after then this unit is an affordable option. But if - like me - you're looking for roar or growl... FORGET IT.

I considered taking the thing back to the shop, but I was afraid to look the assistant in the eye and admit I'd been stupid enought to buy the thing in the first place... Even at it's reduced price...

Come to think of it... The price was probably reduced because it is crap...

This is a review of my positive experiences with the ODB-3.

I'm using the ODB-3 for blues and rock. I'm using it for volume boost, distortion to help cut through the mix and to fatten up some parts. Playing through a PBass with flatwounds, Trace Elliot RAH250SMX 2X10 1X15 cabs. I set it, Level 12 o'clock, High 10 o'clock, Low 1 o'clock, Balance 12 o'clock and Gain zero. I found a nice light OD from this pedal with these settings. I've owned a sansamp Bass Di driver and though it's a great pedal it coloured my tone somewhat.

I can depend on this pedal!

Alot of people dislike this pedal. I like it. For the price you pay you can't go wrong. The ODB-3 sounds really fat with my setup, sounds great in live playing situations, playing the ODB-3 solo in the shop or bedroom may sound harsh but that all goes away when the band kicks in!

Okay, as you will read in this section, many folks have probs getting the sound they want from this pedal. Here's why:

1) This is 10% of an overdrive pedal & 90% a distortion/noise overload pedal. So folks wanting overdrive and clean bass low-end push can essentially forget it. Folks wanting huge angry distortion & not needing tonal purity will find this pedal ok.

2) This pedal design is poor in the pot range of sensitivity for wet/dry, level & gain, etc as it is TOO limited due to ultra-sensitivity. You get BLAM!! when you turn knobs a wee bit from "zero" and/or "dry". This won't bother folks who play everything at 10 and could care less about tonal palette and less in-your-face sonic oblivion.

3) This pedal is most important VERY sensitive in how it performs depending on volume and/or any EQ-ing done on your instrument before signal path hits pedal. If you have a very simple low-end bass, you can forget trying to easily tweaking this pedal. It needs external EQ and volume tweaking to expand its possibilities!

As stated above if you want distortion or huge noise that sorta sounds like the bass section gone metal mayhem, then this pedal is fine. If however you want that 70s funked up overdriven fuzz bass like many fusion bassists achieved, you will be hard-pressed to find THAT groove any maintain a PHAT bass low-end too. I was able to get such after 15 minutes of diddling and twiddling not only the pedal but I also have onboard EQing on my basses and nice active pups to mix. Low-end bass users w/o EQ before this pedal be forewarned.

It's a BOSS mother of metal case.

NA

If you any sense of adjusting volume on bass pups and turning gain / levels / wet/dry knobs from 0.5 to 3.7 you will be okay. EQ before pedal is highly recommended. THEN also remember you can further tweak it all at your bass amp as well. I'd set EQ on bass to "0" or normal first, then tweak axe and pedal before you fine-tune your amp, then you will get some decent overdriven bass phat punch and even though that warm bass will be lost, you will have some balls on your bass. Though I am a guitarist, this pedal will help bassists not get ignored in the mix when the rest of the band is fuzzed out & you are too clean. Need some muscle? Then this pedal (IF used right) will have folks take notice of that badass bass growl.

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

My ODB-3 was bought brand new two years ago. Though it has been a staple on my pedalboard, I have realized that there are easier-to-handle overdrive/distortions out there. The EQing of the pedal is fairly simple, in theory. To dial-in a usable, moderate tone, it takes quite a bit of experimentation. However, if you want metal and hardcore, this setup will do it with no effort.

It is impossible to get a natural tone out of this unit. My experitmenting involved using it with various Fenders, Music Mans, Warwicks, Gibsons, and ESPs--14 basses in all. For amps, various Ampegs, Peaveys, Fenders, Aguilars, and GKs were used--9 amps in all. The verdict?: The ODB-3 is great for heavy distortion, but terrible for getting any kind of a light overdrive or "tube"-ish effect. The gain, even when set at its lowest setting, is too hot for a traditional overdrive. This effect would be better created with a Tech 21 Bass Driver or actual tube overdrive effects. This pedal should've been called the Bass Metal Zone.

Boss is the hands-down leader of effects. All and all, this pedal and my other Boss pedals have never let me down. They take a beating and still work great! Unlike the Digitech X Series pedals, Boss pedals actually have a dependable footswitch.

For metal, hardcore, hard-prog, and punk, this would be a great pedal. For any kind of music that demands natural to moderate overdrive, seek-out another effect. I am about to replace this pedal with the Tech 21, but I am not sorry that I tried this thing out; I'll still hold onto it for those heavy, noisey songs. If I could change one thing about the ODB-3, it would be a more versatile gain stage. If I could change one more thing, I would make it true-bypass.

Well the knobs are simple to use but to try getting your own sound you need to practise a bit

Well I have a junk guitar a junk cables and a custom-made amp (the amp is a modified good old polish Unitra music amplifier remade into a bass amp :) ) at first I thought it was a bad idea to buy this pedal but when I`ve spended some time with it I found it`s true power! it generates some noise as all distortion pedals (or maybe its just my guitar) but the sound is great!

hmm... Boss mades eternal pedals :P

never needed

Bosses are great but horibly expensive. However if you have one you are proud to be it`s owner ;]

Not the easiest, but still easy enough. A Big Muff may be simpler, but that doesn't really matter, the manual gave me all the sounds I needed.

I use this with a Fender Mex Precision and a Hartke A100 along with a EHX mini Qtron, and it has always sounded great. There will be the odd bit of hum, but you can twiddle the settings to get rid of it. Like lots of people, I wanted Flea 'Around the World' style distortion, and the pedal gave me that sound the first time I used it. He plays one, so the sound must be there on some setting if you can't get it.

Built like a brick in body armour. I stamp on it pretty hard, and no scratches of cracks.

No Need. Don't think I ever will with BOSS pedals.

It is great for rock playing, for little licks, and solos. Combined with my mini Qtron it sounds immense. If it did get stolen I might try a Big Muff, but I would still get another one of these. DON'T BUY CHEAP IMITATIONS. This pedal beats any other bass-specific distortion or overdrive around. Fair and square.

took me to read the manual to get good sounds out of it, i remeber trying in the store nearly 10 years ago and being amazed to find an affordable overdrive that had some bottom end, but that was when I was 18 years old, my ears have matured since then

interestingly this box can produce a range of tones so as the snobby older man I have grown into i will rate it well for that

the manual is good in that it gives you some examples of the pedals range and all the examples sound useful for the purposes described ... but ....

when I used it for a long while without looking at the manual and those instructions I was unaware of this

I used this with a $%^&*@ bass converted into a reasonable bass via new pick ups

it is very noisyt and hissy if high freqs and lots of distortion are applied

I personally used it only in two ways,either all out distortion but please add a gate after it cos the hiss is bad hiss

or as a lightly overdriven booster

all others in between I was not proud of

I always wanted to get the sounds of my favourite artists with this but that aim took me into more expensive territory I dont imagine any of my favourite artists using this, I would be rather surprised to find out if they did

I give it a 7 for value for money and it playing a good interuim solution for what I could afford at that time when I bought it

still works as it ever did nearly 10 years old and lots of action and moves

I bought it for playing hard psyche rock - or for hoping to achieve the tones of the jesus lizard sound

as a teenager / early twenties it satisfied my ears coming back at me through $%^&*@ amps and home hi - fis

but I did notice when I got onto more expensive systems, such as studio monitors that the sound was a little I dont know .. I want to say cheap but think that sounds too snobby

No I've got it it sounded a bit thin, sure there was bass and high freqa but they werent juicey or thick, some how a bit passable but not really really present but now I am talking about comparing it too units that cost at least twice too four times as much

I think for the range of sounds it offeres its good value especially for me as I was developing, and it surely kept me happy back then, but today it runs through a SANS AMP BASS DRIVER and the 2 just can not co exist, the difference in sound quality when I remove the ODB 3 from my pedal chain is noticable like a kind of a cheaper weaker circuit was placed inbetween. It no longer fully satisfies me, and I have removed it all together

I think if you are low on cash this pedal will sort you out and get you buy, but naturally there exists bigger and badder pedals out there, but that inevitably costs more ofcourse

although the DOD 250 V does interest me ;-) for 40 euros ???!!!! I think we've all got to try that

BTW anyone looking for cool overdirve but cant really afford an amp on top of it should CHECK SANS AMP BASS DRIVERS - sitck your investment there and you've got a box that will see you through for most of your career as a bass player

so I was saying the ODB 3 pedal does not work for me in a higher end set up

I would use it for some mad dirty $%^& but not as the main coloring of my sound, again, I am looking for things to replace it these days

but I am spending reguarly over double its price - no disrespect to anyone using it serious professionally - each to his own and some people can cnjur wonders out of basic gear

but I think this is pedal is great if you are starting out and on the quest for an affordable heavy bass pedal

IT CAN BE HEAVY - I am just a critical listener these days and my tastes and budget have gone up

this pedal can rock you out which is most important - I dont use it but I am not ashamed of it eaither

ITS NOT BAD. Its just not the HOLY GRAIL

but I dont know if the Holy grail exists in one pedal, for me it exists in a bunch of them

good luck - and keep searching and researching and trying and testing - and make sure any pedal you buy rocks you out - forget the spec

lucky number 7

Very easy to operate: volume, gain, blend, hi and lo eq.

I think it sounds very natural. I've tried a lot of gain pedals and it sounds nice from mild overdrive to severe distortion sounds. I'm using it with low-moderate gain settings. I think that sounds better if you keep the hi eq in the lower positions. It has a little noise if you use high gain settings but all the gain pedals in the world are noise makers. The hiss noise appears if you use tweeters or high frequencies boosted in your bass,your amp or your pedal. I'm using a very noisy Big Muff too and It's ok.

It's a Boss

Not needed

Flea of RHCP uses one of this. A fantastic value for the price and sounds very natural.

Really ez to use but not always ez to find exactly what you want

I use it for ultra-deep and very nasty distortion sounds, and does the job. It can be used as a compressor but it has its limtis (it's a mainly distortion pedal not really an overdrive). If you want a small and subtle effect, this is really not for you, get a tech 21 driver. But for metal, hard rock, it's really good.

It has a great sound when used with a ehx bassballs

Pretty noisy pedal but once you start playing it stops

It's boss. No need to comment

ODB-3 is easy to use,just tweaking knobs.The EQ is just a little bit more complicated,thats all.

Well,there's some major problem with the sound quality.It absolutely kills your original tone.I have a Musicman Stingray and i have run the pedal through anything you can imagine (Marshall,Ampeg,PA etc).It just has its own muddy tone and all you can hear is your poor bass lines overrun by this huge muddy one,completely different in most cases,even in low Gain and low Blend settings.
The Eq is so strong somehow,you just cant escape it!I tried so hard to avoid tonal shapings this pedal gives,but i gave up in the end (and gave the pedal up too!).

Its fine.The battery light isnt very reliable though,better use an adaptor.

I play modern-rock and grunge where a good bass distortion is very needed.If you are looking for a bass distortion which distorts your very own sound,and doesnt kill it,ODB-3 isnt the one!

Easy enough to use...
How nice of them to give you a treble and bass boost, too...

O.K... are you looking for a full on fuzz for bass? If so, give this pedal a "10"

...If you're looking for a nice gritty sound(think "Tool"), there are better padals out there, as this one sounds like a fuzz pedal...and I don't care how little you dial in the gain and balance...that will just make it sound like a clean sound, with a fuzz added to it...no blending of tones...

I've been playing bass for quite a while, and had this pedal for four years, and it just can't pull off gritty grind...

Reliable...everyone knows this..

no.

I used to play an old Aria Pro into a Hartke Kickback 15, but now I play a '03 Rickenbacker 4003 into a Mesa Boogie Bass 400, and I get all the grit I need.....

...But I still have the Hartke in my band's practice space, as I won't keep my Mesa there, and still want to find a pedal that can give it some grit...I'm looking at the DOD Preamp 250, also called the 250 Vintage Distortion on here..read the Vintage distortion 250 review left on 10/20/2004..that's what I'm talkin' about!

As for the Boss ODB, if you need a bass fuzz, it has it in spades

I tend to have problems getting the same volume with the pedal on and off. The low end of the "Level" knob gets really touchy. Other than that, its pretty simple.

I run a Schecter California Custom (w/ active pickups) through this pedal and into an older Crate bx-100. I get a lot of fuzz when i use this pedal, the more treble and the more distortion i use, the more fuzz. I play a lot of older metal (very Iron Maiden influenced) and when i get going really fast, it tends to crap out, which i've never heard of a pedal doing that before, but its happening, possibly my active pickups are putting too much into it. Besides those two things, the sound i get is okay, its not great, not horrible, but workable.

I've never had a problem with it. Just make sure if you use batteries and not the power supply you have extras

As I said earlier, I play old- styled metal, and i've been playing *very* habitually for the last two years. If i lost this pedal, i'd probably go for the Tech 21 Bass DI box, or if I feel like dropping the big bucks, A Boss GT6B. I only use this when distortion is absolutley necesary, and it passes, but barely.

Nice, simple controls. No problems here.

Okay, sorry, but I absolutely HATE it. I submitted this review to warn other musos about this product. I'm using a 5 string LTD bass with Gallien Krueger 1001 RB2 head and Gallien Krueger full range boxes (quad and sub). This rig gives me a huge, thick and rich sound, and every time i hit this pedal it's all lost.

It sounds like a bit of tinny fuzz over the top of the clean sound (esp. if u turn the effect level down), but as soon as you try to counter this with the EQ u will lose all clarity. No crunch whatsoever. I have found this to be a common problem with bass disortion, however, and I'm still looking for a distortion pedal with the low fequency grunt I'm after.

The ODB 3 is the absolute bottom of the pile so far.

Never had a problem with it, but s***, I never use it.

as above

I play pretty heavy arse rock n roll. If I wanted slight growl in my sound I would use the boost feature on my amp, I'm after a thumping, low pitched crunch, which is just not possible with this pedal.

More 'ahh' (my ears) than 'ooh' (that's fat). I've fiddled with this thing for hours and it just sounds terrible. Most of the time u can't even hear it over my guitarist's marshall half stack, because it distorts at the same fequency as the guitar!!

DON'T BUY IT!


I'm looking at some other options now. at the moment i'm testing an MXR Bass DI, which is ten times better, but still sounds kinda crappy. Next on my list is Sans Amp Bass Drive; T-Rex Bass Juice; and Big Muff (USA model) using a line selector with blend to control the level of distortion.

If u have any suggestions, comments or questions, please email me.

extremely easy to use. manual is included, but not really needed. nice if yyou're just beginning to use bass effacts because the manual gives some settings suggestions for different types of sounds.

effects are very powerful and deliver excellent sound quality. i am a big audioslave fan and this helps to generate a sound close to that of Tim C.

this thing is built rock solid! you can kick it around the entire room on and off and it wouldnt break.

i cant say because ive never had any problems or other reasons to contact boss.

just buy it, its the best bass pedal for distortion. very reliable.

As long as you know what gain, level, balance, and an EQ do in a general music context, you can use this straight out of the box, otherwise reading the manual takes a couple of minutes and it includes some very nice pre-sets, after that step on it and wail away, tis that simple.

Im using it mainly with my very budget rebel 4k, through a variety of amps, from Trace to Ashdown to Ampeg, and it sound great even on such a low output instrument. I occasionally run i through some other effects, compression chorus and an octaver, and it sounds solid. There are a variety of sounds you can achieve with this, completely OTT thrash distortion, mild crunch, or a nice simple overdrive.

Once you boost both eq channels past about 1 o'clock you start to get some interesting harmonic overtones been produced which can add a really eerie element to your playing.

Unfortunately it does suffer some minor noise issues when the gain is pushed past about 3 o'clock as some other people have said, but to be honest, if you've got the gain that high, you're generally after a distorted scuzzed out untamed sound, so some extra noise is not a great hinderance, and barely noticebale when you play a line, but still not good for rests........

I use this mainly for writing songs and it provides a weatlth of sounds for intros, solos, or i use it quite a lot to add a interesting counter melody to my guitarists clean interludes, but I have recreated quite well anesthesia and a variety of muse songs, including TIRO and hysteria, although the latter two not as well as Chris plays them (The man uses 4 seperate od and disto pedals for crying out loud)

Overall it produces some excellent sounds

The thing is built like a tank, like all Boss pedals, it has survived minor drops and some serious stage abuse, but despite Boss's reputation, I dont think it'd survive a sledgehammer or a 60ft freefall

Also the pedal gave out about 4 months after buying it, see below for more about this.....

This is where the whole thing went to hell, as I said about 4 months in it gave out, slightly put out.....but reaussred by a 3 year warranty i rang up the shop i bought it from, and they proceeded to send it back to Boss for repair. 3 days later I get a phone call from Boss. When i had purchased it, I notice the screws on the bottom plate were quite tight, casuing it to bow a bit, naturally I loosened the screws and never thought anything of it. Now, the nice man from Boss telles me that they've found evidence the screws were loosened. This apparently instantly voided the warranty. Extremely annoyed at this i protested and said i had not removed the bottom plate; apparently irrelevant.

Boss then charged me ?25 to repair the pedal, ?10 for an estimate, and charged me ?5 for postage. Extremely annoyed and out of pocket I took it to a local shop to find out just what they'd done to it. The shop said they replaced the Chip that actually overdrives the sound.

Total estimated cost to Boss: ?8.50

Very Very VERY annoyed with this, as they have charged me ?31.50 too much. Put me off ever dealing with their customer service again again

Scamming aside, this is a top quality pedal, simple interface and a wealth of interesting sounds, plus seemingly endless stage life, only thing is if you want to run it off the mains you have tp buy a seperate 9v, and I have been unable to find an official Boss one so far, however I have made do with another. Also on that subject, the battery life is mighty impressive, so long as you dont leave a jack in the input jack (this acts as a master power switch)

Unfortuantely, that sordid incident has tainted their repuation in my eyes and i'd need to seriously consider buying another boss pedal or accessorry.

It is pretty straight forward, though it took me a while to get a sound that was more in the vein of what i wanted to use it for.

I use this with a Fender American Jazz bass rewired to be in parallel through a GK800RB and an Ampeg 4x10 cab.

It is not noisy insomuch as having a lot of hissing, but it does tend towards a distortion that sounds a lot like static on top of an unaltered bass sound.

I found the sound unwieldy and unuseable for a long time - too over the top for indie-rock, but then followed the settings on the website for the natural overdrive sound (turning down the treble, turning up the bass towards a little past half way, leaving the balance in the middle, and turning down the distortion almost all the way)and it seems to be working for me now. It adds just enough grit to make the tone more edgy and to fill up the sonic spectrum like we need to as a 3 piece.

I would prefer something that sounded more like a natural distortion of my signal as opposed to the clean signal with raspy crap sitting on top of it, but it'll do.

It looks real strong. I would not have any qualms about building a hut out of these and living in it for twelve years, if a situation were to arise that would make that a necessary course of action.

The website was very helpful when I was trying to make the pedal more useful, and the manual is available online.

Given that it's tough, not much different from an MXR M-80 in terms of tone, and much cheaper than that or a Sansamp, I'd say it's a good pedal to get if you're considering using distortion. If you want to record with distortion or try and get a more unique sound, I would go with something more expensive - an Electro-Harmonix tube-based pedal, or the Ampeg tube preamp pedal thinger, perhaps.

Its pretty simple.

I had to fool around for a while but i found the good sound.


The owners manual had suggested settings in it to try.

I mainly use this as like a overdriven booster and that is basically what it is.

If used as a distortion it gets very staticy.

Try using an EQ with it.

So far i havnt used mine much but when i do it hasnt let me down.

I use this for all rock music.

Easy to use, takes some time and knobfiddling to find the best sound. Once found it's kinda hard to duplicate the sound a next time, unless you write it down properly.
The manual gives some usable setting-suggestions.

My setup is a passive fender jazz bass (usa), ampeg SVT350H and 2 ampeg cabs: 4*10"and 1"*15". I play live a lot on bigger and smaller stages and sit setup, without effects, never lets me down. The sound punches through the other guitars just perfectly. But the overall sound of my setup is a bit clean, so here comes the need of an pedal to roughen it up a bit.

When playing alone, on volume not too high, it sounds okay. As soon as you mix it with a complete band it totally fails. I've tried for hours to get a decent sound. NO way. It takes out the lows and (this is a bass dammit!) and gives a very flat and dull sound. If you want to lighten up the sound it adds a lot of cruncy and crispy mids and highs that interfere with the guitarsound; this means that you lose the basspunch in the overall sound. If you try to compensate the loss of lows by turning up the low gain the bottom-end turns muddy and looses its definition.

It is reliable, had it for a few years, not used it much tough.

no experience here

I've played in mainly loud bands for over 10 years (mathcore, hardcore and garagerock). I need a rough edge around the clean basssound that doesn't take out the definition. Well, this little yellow box does. take away the definition i mean. And it adds a whole lot of crispy stuff i dont want. Kind remind me of the old metal-zone, remember that one?

Anyway, i would not recommend it unless you want an over the top industrial kinda sound.
Or maybe if you play alone, or in a band without any guitars. In that case you have the whole frequency range for yourself, and than this little box can sound massive.

Really easy to use, basic features and setup. Manual isn't needed.

For bass it sounds pretty good. I used it mainly to boost the signal and do some EQ-ing and never really used it for distortion. Worked excellent for that application.

However, I switched over from bass to guitar and now use this pedal to get some nice overdrive sounds. Going through the clean channel of my Randall amp I can get some vintage Bassman tones that sound awesome! It does have a different break-up sound than a real tube amp but unless you are a hardcore tube-amp freak, you and the general public won't really know the difference. It has a darker sound than most overdrives since it's made specifically for the lower frequencies of bass guitars which is really nice.

VERY reliable. Not a huge battery-sucker and it's construction is very solid.

A limited 5 year warranty is always a plus...but I've never had to deal with them.

I mostly use this for guitar now and it does an excellent job of getting everything between an Adam Jones style overdrive to vintage Bassman tones. It's been the only pedal I've kept longer than 2 years. For bass it worked excellent to boost the signal from my passive J-bass and was MUCH cheaper than buying new pickups and a preamp circuit. Plus the distortion was always a bit too harsh for the music I played but for a death metal band or someone needing a soloing tone for bass, this pedal is still great!

Pretty Easy, 5 knobs including 2 EQ's.

I was pretty happy with the sounds in the shop when I bought it. Then at home, I wasn't too pleased. Just couldn't find a sound I wanted. I was getting ready to Sell this thing until while doing a show, I fooled around with it when I was a little drunk before I was about to play, and found a really BIG cutting sound that I now love. It was perfect for the RATM covers we were about to do. Takes a bit of experimentation, but some great sounds come from this little box.

Built like a tank. It's a Boss for christ's sake!

Never dealt with them.

One of my bands is really influenced by RATM, so we have BIG in your face choruses, and this box completely fills out anything left open by the guitar, and cuts through that as well!

Never mind about it being stolen or lost, I want to buy another one anyway, because the very light distortion sounds you get out of it sound great too, and I want the option of being slightly distorted and fully distorted at different parts of the same song.

It takes a bit of fiddling, but i'm very happy with the sound i'm getting out of this thing.

Can be hissy on high treble settings, but sounds rubbish tweaked like that, so doesnt really apply. Probably gives out too much distortion, you lose definition at high settings. At the moment I'm using the pedal with a peavy xr600c powered mixer, thru a 4x10 cabinet. Gives a good growl, plenty of power.

Knobs look breakable, otherwise tank like. Likes the batteries.

I play guitar mainly, tho record my own bass. I like this pedal, as it's got me back into playing bass every night, instead of weekly. I've used my guitar pedals with the bass, all with some success, but tired of changing settings from guitar to bass. So, it's my 1st dedicated bass pedal, suited to the purpose of overdriving the bass sound. No problemo.

It took me about three days of playing with it to get the sound i was looking for. I still play with it but i picked it up fast.

The soumd is alright, it good about 3/4 of the time. some times it just doesn't fit in the song. I get a kind of light fuzz by setting the high Qu at 12:00, Qu's low at 3:00 or 2:00, the balance at 7:00 or 8:00, and the gain at 12:00 or 1:00. the level changes on how loud i play. i like this setting cuz it lets me change the one on my bass for a different kind of sound

IT'S A BOSS!

I don't know about customer support, I have never had to call them.

It might take some getting used to but stick with it, it's worth it.

Real easy, nothing pretentious about this pedal, just volume, two band EQ, balance and gain, simple. Didnt use the manual, didnt need to, but the suggested settings could be useful.

I use it with a Musicman Sterling and an EBS rig, the sound is already quite aggressive, and this pedal really makes it break up nicely. Bearing in mind I only use the pedal on mild (very mild) settings, i'm gonna say it is not at all noisy, but when you turn up the treble filter, or the gain, or god forbid both, it does make a hell of a racket. But for just a little crunch, you wont have any problems.
Like i said, i like it mild, but i found that it wont go quite as mild as i would like. It would be really useful if the gain switch could go ALL the way down, so it wont overdrive at all, but it doesnt, and i sometimes find it too severe even on the mildest setting. The balance knob can make up for this, but it is still not perfect.
It is also true to say that it takes out a little bit of your bottom end, which is a shame, but it aint too bad, it can still sound nice n beefy, and if you aint happy you could get an EQ pedal to bring some back, and still pay less than you would for that Fulltone heap of s**t.
Slap some new strings on yer bass and you can get a lovely rumble going on, and you can nail the 'By The Way' sound if thats what you're after. Personally i was after the sounds that Cordell Crockett (worlds most underrated bass player) gets on Americas Least Wanted by Ugly Kid Joe, and this pedal gives them to me. Superb.

Course you can depend on it, i hate to be boring but it is a Boss. Backup? I'm thinking of getting a second one anyway so i can have two overdrive sounds (or 3 if you have them on together), but i would, and do gig with no backup.

No idea.

I play in a five piece rock band, and we take our influence from the whole Aerosmith/ Ugly Kid Joe/ Guns n Roses thing. I have played 6 years now.
The style of the overdrive on this thing is sweet. Crisp and crunchy. But my biggest problem is that it doesnt go mild enough, i'm also not a fan of yellow, but you will not do any better than this pedal.
I tried the digitech and DOD bass drivers briefly in the shop, and Didnt think much of them, and thay dont come close to this one. I bought the EBS Multidrive, but that robs all of your TOP end. ALL OF IT. I then bought the Fulltone Bass driver cos everybody on this site raves about it, and couldnt find one decent setting. It has the kind of "who spilt beer on my amp?" sound, absolute shite. I have yet to try the Ibanez PD7 though.
What boss want to do now is make an ODB-20, like the OD-20 only for bass, that would be suh-weet.
Listen carefully to 'Goddamn Devil' on Americas Least Wanted, thats what this pedal can do. Lovely. Get one.

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!

For the guy that has an issue with the thing making noise in front of a computer.
Computer Monitor = Very large magnetic field
When positioning a magnetic pickup in very large magnetic field you get major noise.
Here's a trick. Just before recording to your PC Multitrack, turn the monitor off.

Very easy to use, the controls are pretty obvious.

Level (volume), EQ (low + high), balance "dry/od" (blending original bass signal with the overdrive), gain. Cool!

The manual's good, and the sample settings they give you are really helpful. Also the diagrams of blank knobs on the pedal are great to have in case you want to write down your settings.

I use this with either my Warwick Corvette '98 Standard (passive MEC singlecoils) or Stienberger XT-2 Spirit (passive EMG humbuckers) into a Yorkville B100 solid-state combo amp.

I totally agree with the reviewers that have stated how noisy this thing can be...including that one guy that had this thing on while in front of a computer...noise city! lol so true!

Tone wise, this pedal's like night and day.

When I first opened the box, plugged this in and stomped on it for the first time (all the settings set at 12:00), and hit the low E, immediately the first tone I thought of was Flea's distorted bass solo in the beginning of "Around the World". And thats probably the best setting.

You can get a 'tubey overdrive' sound by setting the gain at about 9:00, and set the balance between 2:00 and 3:00. Obviously the warmth isn't there, after all the pedal is solid state, but you can approximate it pretty well if your using a decent Ampeg or SWR.

Don't expect bypassing...once you stomp on the pedal and that red LED goes on, even if the gain is set to minimum and you turn the blend knob to dry, your tone gets affected quite a bit. It's hard to tell exactly what you lose...the upper mids get dirtied up a bit and you lose some top end I think.

At the absolute maximum (balance on OD, gain maxed out) the tones here are very much reminiscent of Cliff Burton's "Pulling Teeth" bass solo (use the bridge pickup on your bass) or, to a lesser extent, Lemmy Kilmisters' bass sound (use the neck pickup on your bass, and use a pick).

The problems with that setting are, first of all, in the lows. The low-end is definately still there, but it gets very muddy in that range and definition is pretty much lost. It's not as bad as plugging your bass into a guitar-specific overdrive/dist. pedal, but when the gain is maxed something is lost.

The highs are also tinny and scratchy, a mid knob would have been a great feature but you can only deal with the muddy lows and ear-piercing highs.

To cover up that problem you could turn up the mid control on your amp, or on the other extreme you could cut it to get that true 'fuzz' tone.

This pedal isn't really subtle...if you try and blend a nice crunch sound with the dry sound, overall it sounds a bit too compressed to be subtle.

When I first owned this pedal I didn't want subtlety; I wanted insane, in your face distortion. And for that it's good for. Kind of. Use the blend knob at least sparingly...it's there, and it maintains clarity in my opinion. However I wouldnt really have the gain set to anything less than halfway, cause there's too much compression and loss of upper mid clarity to worry about subtlety.

One thing I must add; don't bother using both of your bass' pickups while playing through distortion...it sounds lousy. The one-pickup sound is better, so use just the neck or treble pickup.

it's been tossed around and overseallously stomped on, still good as new...Boss pedals are always good for that!

I've been playing bass for five years, and I primarily play rock, some punk, and a bit recently I've been trying to play slap stuff.

Anyway, one thing I like about this pedal is the fact that it's the only one for bass with this much gain. Despite the effect on tone when at a clean setting, and the scratchy highs, If Motorhead/Metallica's your style you'll like this pedal.

Just don't expect too much out of it, especially if your amp isn't too great (it works best on an amp with tube preamp, particularily SWR's stuff).

A dedicated mid knob on the pedal would have been great. I suppose if you have a mid control on your amp already, then you don't really need one on the pedal all that much. But for me anyway, I find that the perfect mid setting (on the amp) with the pedal on just doesn't work for when the pedal's off.

This pedal should have been a bit cheaper! $110 CDN is a bit much...

This pedal has helped me make some music, bass overdrive is an important part of my tone, but I dont think this pedal would work in a mix/live setting.

I can't really say what I would have done if it were stolen or not, only cause I didn't own this pedal for terribly long, I traded it in after about six months for a used Boss Metal Zone lol. At that time I was taking up guitar and didn't want to dish out another $100+ for another pedal.

I've compared this pedal to a few other BOSS pedals...previously I owned a GEB-7 EQ, and I used to get a bit of overdrive out of that thing to, by maxing out all the individual EQ faders and the volume fader.

The result here is speaker distortion, similar to the opening bass riffs of Isreal's Son by Silverchair, or "Blew" by Nirvana.

But when I heard of the ODB-3 pedal I couldn't resist, and got rid of the Bass EQ.

And after that, I've actually plugged in my bass into the Metal Zone just for fun, and it's remarkably similar to the ODB-3. Except of course on the MT-2 there's no true bottom end. On the other hand though, at least the MT-2 has mid-shaping!

Recently I've missed overdrive on bass...I don't think I'm gonna buy this one again if I decide on a bass OD pedal.

I've been hearing good hings about the EHX Black Finger Tube Compressor, the Gallien-Krueger Diesel Dawg, and the Tech 21 Bass Driver DI, but those are all at least $200 more.

Anybody got any suggestions as to what other good Bass OD pedals are out there?

This is extremely easy to use. There are no hidden sounds that come out if you turn a knob to far. If I'm on stage playing one of my band's harder songs, and then the next song isnt as hard, but still needs to be loud, I just leand down, turn the OD knob the the left, and thats that.

I use this with a Fender Precision Deluxe Series Bass and a Gallien-Kreuger Backline Series 112 100 watt amp. I also have a digitech Bass Synth Wah pedal. If I send it straight to the amp, or put it through the synth wah pedal, it sounds great either way. The big reason for me using this is pumping up my sound when the song gets louder. When it's set on "clean" it does exactly nothing to distort the sound. When I turn it over to overdrive, I get a nice distorted sound that is just what I like. The bass and treble knobs are wonderful. The EQ on my amp isn't the greatest, so it works out just fine.

I've had it for about a year now, and I haven't had any problems with it. It's still holding up. I don't use a battery with it because I can never trust batteries. The power supply that came with it works well. I don't see myself getting a new overdrive pedal for a long time. I take pride in this stompbox.

I have not dealt with the company, but the registration process was easy enough. Just send in the card. Enough said.

I've been playing electric bass for about 4 or 5 years now (I'm almost 16) and I don't think I've tried out a piece of equiptment like this pedal. Before I bought this, I thought about getting the digitech overdrive pedal, but then a couple months after I got the boss, i tried the digitech out, and it was clear i had made the right choice. For my rock band, there are places where a lot of bass is needed, especially in my riffs and my solos, and if i want to be heard, all i have to do is stomp once. I don't see myself playing any gig without it. Good job Boss!

Quiet easy to use.

I use the effect on an Ampeg amplifier and an unknown 2x15 Box. When I turn down the balance know, gain about a quarter and the high frequencies up the sound is not bad. But I have to turn off all the high frequencies at my bass. Otherwise, my bass sounds a bit like a guitar. And you cant get a good boost out of that effect. But its not bad.

Its massive. The effect needs alot of enery so you have to change the battery quite often.

I don't know.

I think it's a good effect to have as a bassist. You can really bring your sound to the next level by activating it. Check it out but dont forget to check out other Bass overdrive pedals too.

This pedal is pretty easy to use but ya cant get on it strait away and expect it 2 be perfect it takes time 2 get use 2 tha controls and tha manual that come with it gives ya same samples and they help out heaps when ya first get it and then ya start to realise how it works

I use a Fender jazz bass std and it makes tha nicest sound through my ampeg BA115 combo but with tha wrong settings ats noisy as hell i use a cry baby bass wah with it and a korg high performance bass pedal and i have seemed to balance them out well.
I can find most settings from my favorite artist but tim commerfords from Audioslave is hard 2 match he makes his own stuff so cant go that far

I would put my life on it
its allways goin never stops
ITS A BOSS!!!

no need 2 yet
hopefully wont have 2
i have got a 2 year warranty tho

My band plays lots or styles of music and it seems to e suited to all of it i have been playin for 5 yrs i have a Ampeg BA115 combo and a std Fender Jazz bass and a nathan east signature bass 5 string yamaha it doesnt realy like tha overdrive but it still sounds good
Overall Very nice pedal but it realy depends on what kind of bass player ya like i don use many FX but its good 2 have them when feel like touching up a song a bit it does tha job nicely

This is a tweaker's pedal for sure. If you want something that you get up and start rippin', this isn't for you. The controls are interactive, and it takes a good deal of fiddling around to get clear distinctive sounds. This pedal has been erroneously named "Overdrive", as it really is a fuzz pedal....read through the other reviews of anyone that's played more than a few years and owns real equipment.

PBC (Bunker) 4 string/Demeter tube pre VTBP-201/Ampeg SVT-410HLN. I read the Boss blurb, as well as some other reviews, and bought into thinking it was an overdrive/distortion pedal. Industrial/HM/HR kind of thing. That ain't the case, Bub. Fuzz is all you get...sure you can cut the balance back and have mostly direct bass tone with a little pedal mixed in...but the mix in is still fuzz. My bass/setup gives me great bottom end, but the only way I can get any thump while using this box is to crank the bass all the way, and I do mean all the way, up. Highs are scratchy and usuable, as other knowledgable folks have written...I use is to cut not boost! I bought over the Internet....I know I should know better, but I didn't want to shell the big bucks out, and figured I'd get some usable distortion.

It's a rock.

N/A

I've played Rock/Jazz-influenced Rock/Hard Pop/Punkish Rock/Blues for 10+ years, the better part of the last 7 on bass. I own top gear (Historic Model SG, Soldano amp, Bag End cab, Tama Starclassic drums, Lakwood acoustic) because it makes a difference....doesn't make me a better player, it makes a better sound. Period. Don't believe it, come back when you've been around the block a few times. If I was looking for an 80's, solid state (I know, I know...I asked for it!), harsh sounding fuzz tone, then I'd be very happy with this pedal. It does have a lot of variable controls (though they don't vary the fuzz content much), it's built solidly, and there are plenty of real world applications for this pedal. Unfortunately I won't be playing in any of those situations. And if you really want fuzz, real musical fuzz, check out the Z.Vex Woolly Mammoth. Gotta pay to play nice! I'll be saving my pennies for something that crosses more spectrums...that can be fuzzed out, but can also provide nice simple distortion. Of course, this time out I'll try in person or take home. I hear the Fulltone BassDrive's a nice box and I'd like to play around with the Z.Vex to see if it can be reeled in. I'm looking to get rid of this pedal, so I'd never think of replacing it. Oh, and the "if it's good enough for Flea" comment...well recorded or live, that fuzz goes through a lot more equipment than I'll ever own. Maybe it'd be good enough for me if I had $50K worth of rack stuff, but as it is I need a standalone that does what I need. This is a fuzz box.

It's a pedal. Just dial what you need and voila!!

It's the noisiest mofo I've ever tried in my life. Have you ever plugged your bass in and put it 2in from your computer screen???

It's a BOSS. 'Nough said.

Never had to deal with them.

Like every other BOSS pedals, it's built like a tank and it's easy to use. But talking about this particular effect, all I can say is that they missed something when they built that thing. Once you step on it to turn it on, even the slightest amount of overdrive will hiss and buzz in your amp like there's no tomorrow. And it's more like a distortion pedal with a bass knob. No growl, no nothing. I tried my friend's SansAmp GT2 (for guitar but has sample settings for bass) and I couldn't beleive that BOSS could make such a noisy effect and put it in stores. I'm even shy to sell it back to someone else. Sorry but I just hate it.

Very Easy just varies between bass and bass amps ect but i got used to it fast

i remember when i bought this i compared it to a dod bass overdrive (piece of shit) there was no heavy distortion, then plugged this and....WOW!!!, first thing i heard was a heavy rumbling distrotion, then i got that crappy slight overdrive that DOD gave me, it sounded great, just with my crappy bass and amp it gets feedback but i know thats not the pedals fault, ive tried it with other basses and amps

BOSS PEDAL!! what else can i say

none

Probably the bass overdrive you can get but now the have the digitech X-series which i havn't tried yet, i'm sure it's up there ith the boss or better though

Very easy. Level Controls volume. EQ controls a two band equalizer. Balance determines the distortion mix with the clean sound. Gain controls level of overdrive distortion.

I am using it on a Rickenbacker 4001 direct to a mixer. The noise level is about the same as a tube pre-amp. Gain will definitely affect the noise level. I have been doing a lots of compare and contrast with a tube pre-amp using a 5751 RCA Command (black plate)tube. I am amazed at how similar the sound is. This pedal can really simulate a tube overdrive. The only difference I found was that this pedal has a built in compressor. This compression is very nice however does affect playing dynamics but it's really not a problem. Tweaking this pedal takes some time and you really have to know the type of sound you are going for. The first thing to do is set the EQ. This is important because of the built in compression.
To simulate a tube overdrive sound Balance should be all the way up (5 o'clock) and the Gain should be set all the way to minimum (7 o'clock).
This sounds really cool. If you are going for a variable distortion turn the Balance and Gain all the way down and start bringing up the Balance up until the hardest note you hit triggers distortion. This will take some tweaking because of the compression. This is why I got this pedal. Then of course if you are going to and extreme you can crank the Gain up until you are happy or you get arrested. Cranking the gain does affect the noise level but then again we talking about massive distortion with some wild harmonics.

This will work until time stops.

They have a great web site.

Progressive Rock / Fusion
I bought this pedal and my first impression was that it was way too extreme and I had no idea how to control it.
It sat for about a year while I searched for my sound. After figuring out what real tube distortion was all about I got curious about it again and started tweaking. It seems like the engineers designed it really well and the sound ranges from very realistic overdriven tube sound to distortion that will melt the sky.

This pedal is very simple to operate. It features four very basic controls that do just what they say: Level, EQ, Balance, Gain.

However, getting a good sound is a different story. Although this pedal features an EQ for tone control this pedal is pretty limited when it comes to the Overdrive. The gain on this pedal is actually more of a fuzzy buzz than it is Overdrive and the only real control you have is the fuzz buzz thickness.

The sound quality itself was very good, just not flexible enough for my taste.

It's a Boss. 'Nuff said.

I play Industrial/Techno/Metal and this pedal is great for it however I prefer something with a little more Overdrive/Distortion versatility which this pedal just does not have. I have since sold mine and replaced it with an Ibanez PD7 Phat-Hed that I am very happy with.

There aren't a whole lot of sounds on to this, just variations on the one general tone. Just plug it in & stomp when needed.

It does exactly what I wanted it to. I've got a 1988 Yamaha BB350-F run through a Turbo Rat, then ODB-3 to a 1968 Ampeg B-25 head w/an Ampeg full range cabinet. The rat is my main distortion, as it allows for more articulation, while the Boss is there for massive bass wallop. The B-25 has a little hair on it, too. Many people have given this unit poor marks but they were trying to make it do something it's not good at. This is not a pedal for solo tone, this is for getting a massive sound that works fantastic in the mix, esp. if you are trying for a Kyuss-type stoner-metal sound. 2 guitars + 1 bass w/this pedal=1 HUGE guitar sound.

It's a tank.

Don't need it, it won't break.

I'll always have one, it works perfectly.

A little too nuts in the usage area. The high control goes way high and the low end really makes a HUGE boom!! It was difficult to get something good out of it at all.

Noisy as can be, not an OVERDRIVE, this is pure filthy FUZZ.
At the supposedly cleanest setting, it still distorts if you are a finger style player and play hard. This thing sounds horrible and the FUZZ is just aweful sounding. You can't even use this at a low setting. If you want Cliff Burton's sound buy a Big Muff and go from there, if you want horrible fuzz this is it. I would not use it for anything else

As I kept using it, it seemed to loose its sound over the months even though I used it very little. Built strong though, so I can't shoot it down that much

I wanted a distoted tone to work with and something to keep the lows. This thing kept the lows but the Fuzz sound is horrible sounding and has very few uses in the music world. I sold it and I am happy that I did.

It's a Boss. Come on. It's a no-brainer.

For now I just run an Ibanez SR885 > ODB-3 > Carvin Redline stack with a 4x10 and a 1x18.

If you're looking for quiet, forget this. If you're looking for subtle, go buy a tube amp. This pedal is a MONSTER. I mean, when I just want a kind of tube growl, I've got a blend control on my Carvin for that. This thing is just too powerful for a mere growl. This thing makes guitarists wet their pants! I mean, whether you do the Lemmy Kilminster thing, the Cliff Burton thing, or the Robbie Merrill thing, this is a GREAT tool. It's SICK! It's also great as a boost to make your girly-man Ibanez sound like a real bass! Thanks again, Boss.

Again, one word: BOSS. This thing is a !#%*(&@$ tank!

Umm, the only time I've EVER talked to anyone from Roland was at Winter NAMM '02. You won't NEED customer support unless you manage to run this thing over with a steamroller, and even then it'll still work :D :D :D

I play heavy metal, funk metal, punk, and occasionally other styles. This thing is POWERFUL. I mean, I've played through other pedals before; I've owned a DOD Grunge, a Boss Metal Zone, and a Morley distortion/wah, and this makes me sorry I ever wasted the money! BOSS IS ALL YOU NEED if you're into monster, ball-grinding drive.

It takes a lot of playing around with to get everything to sound how you want it. All of the levels and eq are very interactive with the eq and levels on the amp you're playing through. Personally, I don't really like the death metal fuzz pedal sound although I use it occasionally for power chords...talk about HEAVY! Call me a copy-cat or w/e but I like Ryknow's sound (of Mudvayne) and I can get that easily with this pedal.

My rig is all solid-state but it has all the bottom end rumble that a tube amp alone has. I use a lot of compression and some chorus, too. I have one setting that I use the most and then everything else is just messing around. I adjust the level to be slightly higher in volume than the clean coming from my amp. The low eq is set at about 4-5 o'clock, the high I adjust depending on the song but it's usually between 9 and 12 o'clock. The balance is set at 0 so it's completely clean and then I turn it up to where there's only a hint of coloration, and the gain is left at noon. I can only use these settings through my Mesa stack with my SWR Workingman's head because all of my other amps can't handle the lows but it's the best sound I've come across without sacrificing a months paycheck for an Ampeg SVTII. Also...the settings only sound good between 1/4 and 5/8 volume: any less and you don't get the lows and any more and you're speakers distort horribly.

It's a Boss.

I play all metal and rock, nothing else. I'm not really into the new metal crap with the exception of Mudvayne, Tool, and maybe one or two others...everything else is just puss-rock. But, I get the Mudvayne sound with ease and even though I don't have the same playing style as Ryknow with all the slapping and popping, the sound is pretty even throughout the spectrum. The highs are crisp with a little overdrive (not fuzz), the mids growl like a pissed off rottweiler, and you can feel every note on my dropped strings (C & D). Also...if you're into the band Opeth, the setting I listed works great for that too, just back off a bit on the low eq. If you're going to spend the money on the pedal then you need to spend the time to screw around with the settings of your amp, guitar, and fx and make them work for you.

No problem, knobs description are clear enough. Experiment 5 minutes and you'll understand how< it works.

Tougher than a fuzz that i was using before combinated with a peavey dirty dog. The interest of this uni is that you can separate the overdrive of both bass and high frequencies. Personnaly i'm fed-up with the "tiny" sound of a fuzz on a bass. If you put gain and balance knobs to zero you'll obtain a fat distorted signal. i now use it with an ultra matel (weird to read but good to use, try and youll see) with distortion know at the minimum. For a JSBX sound like.

No Porblemo

Bought it two weeks ago. Hope never to have to ! Hopefully it's a boss

I play rock in beetween Sonic Youth and Joy Division for 4 years but i play music for a long time now. If stolen ? I'll get it again but before i'll find the bastard! Helpfull to get the sound i need, enlarge but "dirts" the signal. i wish it coul have a less "fuzzy" distortion sound.

It's easy to get started but if you don't want a super fuzzed out tone (I don't) you have to be really careful juggling the Balance and Gain knobs. I bought it second hand so I don't have a manual but if you're mentally challenged enough to need one, maybe you should take up Guitar or something.

I use it with either a Fender Precision Lyte or a custom made Formentin Jazz Bass style with EMG's. And occasionally a Peavey Foundation. Ideally, I wanted to be able to get just a bit of dirt while still being punchy (think Cream-era Jack Bruce) but there's way to much fuzz unless I have the Balance and Gain just barely cracked off zero. The distortion itself is pretty awful on it's own (IMHO) but when mixed in small amounts I can get "sorta" the sound I want. And beware - the higher up the neck you go, the more filthy fizzy fuzz you get.

I know it's getting to be a cliche, but it is a Boss.

No idea.

I've been playing for nearly 25 years and do it professionally. I play all styles; Rock, Jazz, Blues, Country, Reggae. I wanted this pedal for situations where I'm playing Blues/Rock riffs and lines almost like another guitarist in a three piece situation; sorta Tim Bogert/Jack Bruce/etc.

I'm glad I didn't pay the full going rate for this pedal. It's an interesting toy but I really would like something a lot more subtle.

If this pedal were stolen, I'd buy another if I could find one for about what I paid for this one (which is about a quarter of full retail)because in spite of everything, I can get some usable sounds out of it (with some fiddling) even though it's far from an essential component in my rig.

The positives are in some (mainly Rock and Blues) situations where you're only playing with another Guitarist, you can add some punchy bottom end rumble with this pedal with judicious use of the EQ (but be careful 'cause you can easily overdo it). The EQ is handy and allows me to remove some fizz and retain some bottom in the sound - all the other distortion pedals I tried (guitar ones) totally destroyed the punch in the sound, even if the distortion itself was a bit better in some of 'em.

I did find that the ODB-3 drives an envelope filter (mine is a Boss FT-2) really well and makes some filthy sounds. I get different results depending on if I put it before or after the FT-2, but in either place it makes some great noises.

I wish the balance control went all the way to fully dry; as it is with Balance and Gain turned all the way down, there's still dirt in the signal. I would like the Gain to be a bit less "sudden death". I guess I really want a Bass Tube Screamer.

FWIW my usual settings are: Level at 12 o'clock, Treble at 12 o'clock or slightly below, Bass at 2 o'clock, Balance and Gain not quite full anti-clockwise.

I think I'm going to end up getting a Sansamp Bass DI for my Bass distortion needs, but I do have some affection for this little puppy.

Easy as taking a crap in rewind. Something goes in feeling empty and relieved and comes out all nasty.

Fender Std. Jazz 4 string->ODB-3->CEB-3->Ibanez CF-7->SWR and LabSeries heads with custom-made cabinets. It can boost your signal so you can utilize your amp's distortion, produce mildly overdriven tones, vintage overdrives, and whatever you can dial in all the way to the nastiest fuzziest distortion ever made. Pretty cool in my opinion and my unit is not as noisy as some others that I have tested out.

What everyone else says.

I dunno...

Excellent overall as long as you know how to use the different knobs together. I mostly use the vintage overdrive that the manual suggests except I turn up the high-eq to about 9 or 10 o'clock, and the gain to about 11 o'clock. I think it sounds warmer and is better for an overall good tone. Sounds excellent with the chorus on but if I kick in some flanger I have to turn this pedal off because of all of the noise.

This thing is SOOOO easy to use, just find a good combo, knobs are self-explanatory, there are some OK combos in the manual.

Well this thing is DAMMMM noisy, but in a good way: the distortion on this baby kicks ass! So much distortion... my sound can come out so muddy, it isnt even funny. But I've tried many combinations to get that really heavy overdrive without the distortion (Filter - Welcome To the Fold) but i just cant get it, so Im kinda pissed... maybe its just my 25W practise amp (I've only been playing 3 months...)

Oh, Jesus Christ... don't make me start... these things are tougher than Arnold Schwarzenegger - I bet one of his bazookas couldn't stop this thing!

N/A... I'll be damned if I ever give em a call.

I love Tool, Incubus, Blink 182, Filter, System of a Down, etc... heavy stuff. And (unless I had, like, $1000 for a rackmounted unit) I wouldn't buy anything else. Only gripe with this cheapie is that tone can be a little too f***ed up at times.

nothing complicated, just EQ, balance and gain. Like all boss's it annoying if you want to use a batery.

I use it though a peavey forum and Dean edge 5. The Peavey is acitive and the Dean is active, but it doesn't seem to impact the sound quanlity much. Sometimes I play through my Peavey Microbass, which is a small practice amp. Through that it just sounds very bad, when I play through my 4 track it's horrible fuzz. The problem with the overdrive is, if you put it on only the smallest amount possible, it's still to much and is incoherent garbage. Sounds like fuzz noise. I like playing metal and hardcore, and this is not good for any type of heavey music, unless you think inteference sounds good. I have used it as an eq with the overdrive off, but otherwise it's worthless. I don't see why this is meant for Bass, as my guitar distorition peddles work beter on bass than this. I had to buy a real bass pedal, an Ibanez PD7 to get what I want.

no probles

Metal and HxC. not a good match as you can't any notes to stand out above the fuzz noise, so the bass line can't be followed, and is therefore weak. It doesn't not create any kind of high treble rumble. Giving it such a high rating because it's good to use without the overdrive.

As with most BOSS pedals this is easy to use. The settings very quickly get out of control but if you like a mild overdrive sound then don't turn the balance and goin up too hight. The manual was not much use, unles you want over-the-top fuzz.

I'm using this with a Fender Precision and a Trace Elliot 100w Commando combo. By setting the volume to max, both EQ's to 12:00 and the balance and gain to 9:00 I get a well balanced overdrive that is a good volume match for when the pedal is off. I then just tweak the EQ's depending on the room I'm playing in. I find this give me a nice smooth overdrive (or mild fuzz) without spoiling the bottom end. This pedal is certainly capible of wild fuzz if that's what you want as well.

Never had any problems.

I needed some cables to connect 3 pedals together in a BOSS BCB-3 case. I called Roland UK and they sent them free of charge. How about that :-)

I know it's not the best bass OD on the market but it does what I want and for a good price.

easier than walking into traffic! just follow the knobs. The level is volume (basically) the EQ helps a whole lot. You can cut and bost high and low frquencies. I think boss knows very well how difficult it is for a bass player to dial in a good mid in both his bass and his amp so they left it alone and broadened the reach of the low and high. The balance is self-explanatory. Do you want a distorted bass or do you want a very low crunchy sound emitted from your amp that resembles a bass slightly but is definitly evil, whatever it is, or something in between? The gain moves between warm and hard to cold, hard slam and crunch, stomp, hurt.

pretty much see above. I don't know about all these people reviewing that theirs sounded so bad because it really does vary from point a to point evil with all things in between. Warm and fuzzy, nice slightly overdriven(or clean eq even with the gain all the way down) or some kind of monster thing that may or may not know the location of the neighborhoods children but will certainly eat them when he finds them and all points in between. Maybe I'm just used to my Zoom BFX-708's distortion that sucks so bad that this one sounds like someone sold their soul to get it made. Maybe it's my rig. I'm playing with an ESP Ltd. B-205 FIVE STRING (it sounds great even on the fifth string) going into an SKB pedal board of some kind(forgot model # but it's basic). The effects are as follows on that; Boss LMB-2 Limiter(slightly less than newer model)> Electro-Harmonix Bass Micro Synthesizer> Boss ODB-3 Overdrive> Boss CEB-3 Chorus Pedal>Zoom BFX-708 (which I use mainly for wahs and delays)> DOD Bass Stereo Flanger>SKB out into my amp which is a Fender BXR-100 which I am replacing ASAP because it sucks real bad at mid-high volume and the equalizer doesn't seem to work almost at all hence the limiter and BFX-708. I'm not a boss freak or anything I have just noticed that DOD is dispicably bad and they're the only other mass-produced stomp boxes around really.

It's a Boss which means you can most likely run it over and it will still work fine, if for no other reason than to spite you.

no problems, no relations

My band plays experimental rock/metal. I've been playing for 3 or 4 years and I, personally as a player, play funk, rock, metal, jazz, blues and most things in between. I am self-taught though i do have some books on theory. I have no beef with this baby whatsoever as I had a rehearsal with it over the weekend and it sounded beautiful and it took no time at all to find a distortion that was right for our sound. We laid down an outline for a song that is held up by the ODB-3 mixed with one of the wahs I programmed into my zoom. Overall tis a fine product and I was thinking about getting another to put on the other side of the Zoom for a nice mix and match of treacherousness in distortion.

You have to mess the thing for quite a while to get the sound you want. But the controls are fairly simple, it's just a matter of putting them in the right spot.

Yes, it'll distort your amp alright, but it buries your tone. It sounds too "raspy" through the tweeters of your speakers, even with the tone on my fender jazz turned down. But for being "tube-less" it overdrives pretty heavily, sort off

Same old Boss reliability and durability. You can drop it all you want.

I got rid of the darn thing long ago. I've run enough overdrives and chorus pedals into a bass amp to know that I'm gonna have to spend big bulks to get the sound I want: TUBE OVERDRIVE. The SWR Stella is way out my price range ($600+!!). So I'm looking at getting the Budda Phatbass: 2 pre-amp tubes, about $250. Seigmund makes one for about 3 and a quarter. That's a little steep for a tube overdrive pedal but it's suppose to have some kind of "military-grade" tubes inside of the darn thing. I'm looking for that nice vintage, classic-rock sound (without buying a tube amp) so these highly priced tube pedals just might be worth it.
To heck with solid-state overdrive.

Pretty easy, five knobs.

Ugh. this pedal is pretty limited. The problem is that once you add any OD, a screen of buzz and nastiness covers the bass. It isn't very versatile, and sounds too harsh. Perhaps better with passive electronics?

Insert boss praise here.

None needed yet.

This pedal...is not worth the money. I would have rather bought a good guitar distortion pedal and fooled with that. I would not replace this pedal. It is just ok.

It's like, got knobs and you dial in a sound and then step on the thingy and the sound is changed. Easy enough.

It can do everything from add a little dirt to metallic g****r-like distortion. It's a noisy bugger and there are some VERY obnoxious sounds, but some people are like, obnoxious. I use a Gallien-Krueger 4x10 w/400 watt head. It came with a manual, but I never even so much as glaced at it, cuz I'm eeliterut!

It's a Boss!!!

Once again: It's a Boss!!! Why, I would bet they don't even have a customer support department. In fact, I read once that the only survivors of a nuclear holocaust will be cockroaches and Boss pedals!

I play FUNKY, bluesy, heavy, rock. I don't use this pedal on EVERYTHING I play, but there ALWAYS comes a time that I hit on something crazy and put the hammer down on this thing and I say "That's the ticket!" It's a DIRTY little pedal and if you are squeaky clean, LEAVE IT ALONE! You won't dig it! I own other Boss pedals and based on that, this pedal is a...

This is a very simple pedal with a wide range of tonal possibilities. I've never seen a Boss pedal that was hard to figure out.

Awhile back this was the only distortion pedal I had, so I had it set to put out some really grinding sounds. Since then I've added a Boss DS-1, FZ-3 and Big Muff so I dialed the settings back a bit to give just a little overdrive. I really like the 2 band eq on it. I also have a Digitech BP-8 and the overdrive voice on it sounds pretty different than the ODB-3 no matter how you adjust everything. It must be the tube in the BP-8. As far as other bass peadls go, I tried the DOD Bass Grunge and found it lacking compared to this. I have also tried the Boss Blues Driver on the bass and I wouldn't do it again as it dosen't do anything for the lows except to make mud out of them.

Is this even a valid question for a Boss product?

I don't even know if they have customer support because nothing ever breaks.

The best stand alone, most versitile bass overdrive on the market. No matter what you play, uness you don't use overdrive, this pedal will do it all. Just remember that a bad sound may not be the pedal's fault so play around with the levels on the guitar and amp and other effects.

The manual that comes with this is pretty good, some of the suggested sets in it actually sound half-decent. The problem is getting a actual good sound out of it! You have to sit and mess with it for a while to get a nice sound, but its possible.

I play this on an Ibanez GSR200 and a crate amp and it can get very fuzzy and nasty (some ppl may want this sound?), but fool with the settings and its ok. I personally mix this effect with the boss guitar EQ (GE-7) which allows me to dial in a much cleaner sound, making this pedal a whole lot more useful!

Boss is always very reliable, but bring extra batteries(or an adapter)

Never needed it

Overall this is a pretty good pedal. To bring out its best points be sure to pick up a nice EQ and you can pull all the crap out and make it sound awesome for any stle that you wanna play.

This mad little box delivers a bone cruching sound of distortion/fuzz/overdrive. it is so easy to use if u know ur equalization deal like me :-) if u dont there is a booklet that comes with it which tells u how to get clean distortion, overdrive, slap overdrive, solo and much more. it even has a memo page that u can write down some of the ones u have found with ur own rad name i might add.

The sound quality of this thing is alright and very easy to piss ur parents off :-) i'm currently using a gaillean kruegar 400w amp head with a mesa boogie cabnet which i have got for a while but i normally use this small amp which has no name. they gaillean kruegar is mind blowing and i'mnot surprised but if u use the small amps u may find that the box can be very fed-baky and static and humm full. but thats wat u get wiuth cheapo stuff my bass is a spector and i spose its alright but ya know the sound works for me

i could depend on this for sure coz its from boss and all my other pedals: harmonic filter, chorus, tuner and limiter enhance all work fine all the time

neva bothereed to spend so much money on a damn phone call

i play funk/rock/alternative and this thing says it all for all
i have been playing for 1 year (rare ability i might add) i own 5 other pedal and some other crap i neva use
if it was stolen i would go for something by electroharmonix probably but this little gun is still good
i cmpared it to electroharmonix bass balls (which i like more but didn't have the cash), mxr distortion and a....i forgot
my band cant beleive the difference it makes to have a little grunch into our songs and they love how i can tune it to the song just by listening to that good opld hi-hat and ick drum
i wish it had a envelope filter like the electroharmonix bass balls hehhe
i'd just say that some bogans give distortion pedals back coz they thnk its crap how the buzz but it really depends on ur other gear
ALL DISTORTION PEDALS r the same if ur not satified with the boss then u expect too much
hey flea uses it and he luvs it why dont you?

First things first: It is not an overdrive, much more a distortion pedal. The balance helps, but there's always a very crunched distortion in the tone. The volume on your bass may help this slightly (turn the bass volume down, and turn the level and amp gain up). That said, it doesn't take much fiddling to get the dirt you want out of this pedal. The manual helps slightly, but hands-on experimentation is a better way to find your sound. Five controls: Level (overall volume), High and Low EQ (in a dual pot with inside/outside knobs), Balance (allows you to mix the distortion with clean sound to lessen the dirt), and Gain (boosts the clean sound, adjusts the amount of clip for the OD sound).

I was expecting to get a warmer tone from it, it being labeled as an "overdrive" effect. What you get is a very distorted, digital dirt sound. This is not a warm, saturated tube-sounding effect. Great for metal, industrial, and other genres where the extreme sound is desired. For a warmer tone, you'll probably have to get a rack effect like the SWR Interstellar OD preamp, or just get an all-tube amp and overdrive it. The pedal is great as far as noise and hum (my Boss Limiter/Enhancer is noisier), just keep the high EQ down under 12 o'clock. For the extra hiss, turn up the high EQ and turn down your bass tone. For lead-style lines and riffs, turn the bass' tone back up with the high EQ up. I'm currently using it as a poor-man's preamp in a direct connection to my computer until I get an amp. Since the maximum input gain on the computer's mike in jack is very low, the level and gain controls on the pedal are great. You can overdrive the pedal without overdriving the sound card.

It's Boss. The only damage you can do physically to this pedal through normal abuse is cosmetic: chipped paint, scratches, and the like. Harder than your lead guitarist's head, and probably heavier (I know most of the guitarists I play with have absolutely nothing between the ears save a "Space For Rent" sign), so it makes a good projectile, and will stand up well to any rig destroying your guitarist may do at a gig (more than can be said for any other compact pedal). The pot shafts are better than my Boss limiter's: smooth with a notch instead of the sharp knurls, which eat away the inside of the knobs with use. Eats batteries like candy: always put a fresh one in before a gig, or get an AC adaptor (I have a Radio Shack Universal wall wart running at 9V, 200mA; make sure you always set the tip up to be the negative pole; reverse polarity will kill this pedal dead before you switch it on). The only backup I'd take to a gig would be batteries.

Never dealt with their customer service department. Any retail store that sells Boss pedals should be qualified to repair them, so it depends on your local music store.

If you're looking for saturated tube-style overdrive, look elsewhere. If you're looking for an inexpensive tool to add dirt, shape your bass' clean tone, or act like a lead metal guitarist on your bass axe, this is the pedal for you. Look for a used one: reliability with Boss pedals is never an issue, but the price of a new one can be. These things retail for $100 or more.

There is level knob that just sets up how much overdrive is used. The tone knob has two settings, low and hi. They are really easy to figure out, but it is hard to get a good sound out of it. The other knobs are just there to adjust the level and the gain. It is really easy to figure out, it just doesn't sound too good.

I play a Cort fretless or a Ibanez 190 into an Ibanez practice amp or a Roland 65 watt amp. I go through the Overdrive sometimes, although i don't use it much. Be careful about setting the hi too high up, it will blow your speaker and make really hi pitched screams, it sucks. It takes away from the tone when you are playing, but it doesn't change much else. When i use it, i keep the level pretty low so that the sound doesn't suck too bad.

It's a boss, a freakin tank!

I play mostly blues funk and rock, so it doesn't do much for me, but if you play metal or punk, it would be great, me i hate the thing. It would sound a lot better with passive electronics. I wish i never bought it and saved the money for a boss AW-3.

it's a boss single effect pedal...duh it's easy to use

it'd be nicer if it had a 4-band EQ, like the boss metal zone....but i can get a good sound...

u can't go wrong with boss

never dealt with it

it's not what i expected it to be....i'd rather have it set up like a metal zone but for bass...just for the EQ....to get a good sound i have to turn the middle all the way up...which is a pain when i'm playin' out live....especially cuz i lost all my knobs

This is a simple 4 nob pedal with a double stacked EQ. Anyone can figure it out. Mine didn't come with a manual and I tried to get one but I couldn't. Infact, mine didn't even come with the proper box.

The sound quality is great! I can get a scratchy sound or a deep, rich distortion sound. I can almost get a of rotovibe sound out of it by putting the bottom EQ nob all the way down and the top one all the way up. Then I put the balance over as far as it will go and put the gain as low as it will go. It sounds a bit scratchy for a rotovibe, but its good enough for me. Also I love the way it sounds when I leave the EQ like in the first example, but the balance to midway or so and the gain all the way up. This makes for a deep rich distortion. This pedal rules!!

Its a boss, what do you expect.

Never had to deal with them

I can get a number of sounds out of this little pedal and I think it is well worth $100$. It works real well on a scratchy style for funk with string popping techniques and it goes with rock and metal great too. If it where stolen I would definately buy a new one.

This is quite an addition to anyones pedal collection. It can be a bitch to pull the sound you want out of it..depends on if you want a natural distorted sound or a heavy distortion...i can tell you it is kinda hard to adjust it so it doesn't rock your setup..it is a noisy pedal...but only if you are not aquainted w/ it properly..if it's noisy then you have to adjust it w/ the volume against the master on your amp..this i believe to be crucial..otherwise you may be investing in a new amp...fucker shook a screw out of one of the places where my speaker is held down!!WARNING: THIS THING MAY BE MORE EAGER TO PLAY THEN YOU!!!

I a Cort Pb-1L > crybaby 105q > ODB-3 > Kustom 100watt. It's fuckin noisy!!!! make sure that you work the volume from 10 to 2 o' clock and same w/your master...otherwise hell will rear it's head and scream at you...not that that is bad...just damaging to your speaker. Affects are very intense...not easy to go soft on the effect..Very sensitive..could be called female very heavy/industrial/techno??perhaps...but definitely NOT an overdrive..definitely a distortion.

it is a FUCKING tank..as we all know you can chuck the fucker at a wall and it'll be good for another 30 years. no backup...who needs one???

what's that for???

hard rock/heavy..whatever...excellent addition to any bassists arsenal..bout a year i been playing...as much as the cost to replace it would be a dent in my ass i would..DISTORTION MAKES EVERYTHING NICE...helps me make music not abuse it.

It's pretty easy to use, five controls. There is level(volume), a two band equalizer(High and Low), balance, and gain. The manual explains it pretty well and also give examples of setups you can try out.

I started off using a Rendano bass but switched. I have a Squire II precision bass but it's kinda crappy and I don't really use it anymore. Currently I'm using it with an Ibanez RG270DX through a Musicman 65 tube amp and it sounds great! I love this pedal because it give a deep powerful overdrive, especially since I use it with a guitar. The only time it's noisy at all really is when you have the eq set on high but who would do that anyway? It's good for playing rock and stuff. I use for a lot of nirvana, metallica, silverchair, pretty much anything you want to use it for. It's a real vesatile pedal it will adapt to your music style, wahtever that may be, with a couple turns on the knobs.

It's from Boss. All metal casing good solid constuction. I"ve had for about three years and its doing fine. It even survived a fire about a year back so I would definitely use it without a backup.

I play all type of music. I haven't needed another distortion pedal yet. I've been playing for a while and have a few other guitars. I also have a silvertone an Art&Lutherie and a Fender bass.If it was lost or stolen I would definitely get another one. Even though I'm not rolling in money I'd still save up to buy one. I love the fact that you can get all types of distortion from it. Anything from your mild fuzz to gut wrenching deep throated overdrive. This pedal is PERFECT! Get one!!!

5 controls: Level (it's the volume, easy enough!) Hi and Lo EQ (anyone who can't figure out how to use a simple, 2 band EQ prolly shouldn't be playing bass), Balance (Dry to OD) and Gain. This is quite a few controls for a Boss pedal, but that's what makes this OD versatile

not a bas pedal. what I like to do is turn the balance to 9 o'clock, gain past 2 o'clock, treble halfway, and bass around 2 o'clock. This get's a nice slapping overdrive. You could do alot with this thing. If you want some real hard overdrive, turn both the EQs past 12 o'clock and the Gain and Balance to max.

BOSS=Indestructable and reliable

I dunno

I'd say this is a pretty decent pedal. This pedal isnt quite for everyone, so if you're gonna buy this, TEST IT OUT IN A MUSIC STORE FIRST! You're most likely gonna either love it to death or utterly hate it. I'm prolly gonna see if I could replace this with a Sansamp Bass Driver. I dunno. well, hope this helped in some subtle way.

How hard can it be to use a simple stomp box? It has more buttons than on the average boss pedal, including an eq which helps. The one huge atvantage is that this pedal will not fart at the low end like other pedals will, cause its made to deal with those low fequencies.

Sound is killer, yet versitile. It is more of a warm distortion than an overdrive. It has a wet/dry mix, a gain control, and a 2 band eq. This gives you lots of flexabilty. I've gotten sounds from that low end Type-O-Negative, to a synth-like Orgy thing, to NIN, to Chilli Peppers. It can do it all. The best part is that the "pedal will not kill the low end", however if your gonna use bass overdrive with low frequencies such as found on the low B of a 5 string, you got to work with your sound. The pedal, along with a good eq, and a cab with a large speaker (15" or 18") will yield amazing results, but you got to have the rest of the gear to compliment this if you want to get a good sound. I use a number of Ibanez basses with a para eq, and a sonic max. through a hartke 4x10 and 1x15. It works for me! One last hint, if you want a warm sound with this pedal, use passove pickups.....use active pickups for a harser sound.

It's a boss....they never break.

Never needed to contact them.

Overall, this pedal is the best bass dist/overdrive out there. It works equally well on tape and at gigs. I also sounds nice combineds with chorus. Go with this, and don't waste your time with any others. Oh yeah, so you want to get a bass processor instead so you have all your fx together? Nope...if nothing else get this pedal and use it along with any processors you might have.

There's no problem getting a sound out of it, the problem is getting a GOOD sound out of it

Practically everything that can be said for this pedal has been said, except...I think Boss should take a look at the frequency they're using for the Hi eq knob. It seems to be much more in the guitar area than bass. It gets too glassy, and adds noise. The overdrive/distortion itself, IMHO, needs to be tailored for more low-mid "grunt" rather than fuzz. I think it would be a much more powerful pedal if it had that mid-punch. The high-end fuzz just gets lost. However, I will say I used the pedal for a fair amount of rock, palm-muting kinda stuff, and it was okay. Muting seems to take the glass off the top end.

It's Boss, no problems.

No idea.

I don't think I would buy again. For a bass overdrive, it's far too g****r like.

Straightforward Boss design with typical Boss clutter. Everything is clearly labeled, but you almost need tweezers to get in there. The benefit is of course that if, like me you have a knob fetish and all the time in the world and you're 4 tracking.. it's loads of fun to quest the total tweak. The manual is quite useful, though it doesn't beat the POD manual - my all time fave.

My typical setup is Alembic 4 string -> BOSS OD -> SWR bass 750. The unit doesn't offer a wide range of OD so much as it offers colours of distortion. It produces some very tasty distortions, which can only match one guitar, not two. AT two guitars the Boss OD is still there in the bottom but all the OD is unnoticeable. I would say that a MID/MID HIGH boost would give the unit more presence in the mix, but you'd simply have to sacrifice bottom. Still wish it offered some of the "tubiness" that the SANS AMP bass driver did, though.
ONE MORE THING - when active this dog is NOISY!!! and prone to ridiculous feedback.

This unit is not gig proven. But my experience with Boss is that of most other folks - they're the sturdiest mass produced stomp boxes.

N/A

I purchased the unit for work in an industrial project, with a specific song in mind. The original sound on the CD I was trying to emulate was made with a ~$200 USD SANS amp bass driver. It was an economic question more than any other. I would say that pound-per-pound this is the best BASS Distortion solution I've ever come across. If I had to do it again and I was under the same budgetary constraints I would buy it again. There is hand made OD box on the market that doesn't compress, and is the wickedest I've ever heard, but it's $325.

Real Easy. Just about any setting sounds good in the right situation. You will have to mess with it for a while to get "just the right sound", and you'll probably find yourself making minor adjustments form song to song, especially if you play many different kinds of music. You have level, two band eq, mix (allows you to put some clean in with your distortion), and of course gain. My only gripe is that the eq knob is the stacked style, bass on outside treble on inside. I would really have preferred seperate knobs. Its a picky gripe though, so they still get an 8.

I really like the sound of this box. Despite the 'overdrive' name (which implies a more natural tube like saturation sound), this pedal is definately a 'distortion' (more of a blatant, in your face, 'this sound came from a stompbox' sound) , and there's nothing at all subtle about it. Since that was exactly what I was looking for, this didn't bother me at all. I've spent some time looking for the 'ultimate bass distortion', and this isn't quite it, but its the best I've found so far. I play an Ibanez EDB 600 -> Dunlop 105Q wah -> Boss ODB-3 -> Hartke 3500 amp. The combination of wah and distortion sounds awesome, you can do a good job of imitating RATM type noises. The best feature of this pedal is the fact that you can get big nasty distortion while leaving your bottom end intact. I've tried numerous guitar distortion pedals, and although they're great for some situations, you feel like the bottom dropped out on you and your suddenly just playing a big guitar. Such is not the case with this pedal, you get plenty of ballsy low end even with the eq flat, and if you crank the bass eq up, you'll have no trouble making the walls shake. I do have one gripe, though, and it's a biggy. This thing is DAMN noisy. I realize distortions are noisy by definition, but this one seems to be going above and beyond the call of duty for loud nasty hiss. It gets less noticable at lower gain settings of course, but who wants to use low gain? It's not the end of the world though, cause it's really not very noticable while your actually playing. You'll deninately want to turn it off it you stop playing for very long though. It's really not that big a deal for live or practice, but when recording I would definately use a gate.

It's in a heavy metal box, seems tough. Haven't had it for long enought to really judge, but i've had boss pedals before (back in the dark days when i was a guitarist) and I've never had any trouble with one, so it gets the benefit of the doubt.

N/A, never talked to them

I play in a heavy rock band, and this pedal has already seen a lot of use. Unlike my previous attempts at distortion, the guys in the band really dig this one, and have actually suggested I use it more often. Unless I find another pedal that sounds as good but is less noisy, this is going to become a permenent part of my rig. If lost/stolen I might try out some other things first, but I would probably end up replacing it. The noise is the only thing that keeps this from getting a ten.

easy to dial in a sound you like right away

good fx unit but seems to seperate the high and low band quite a bit. If you dial in too much gain it sounds cheap like a bass trying to be a guitar.

I use this as a boost to an already overdriven. The additional crunch sounds great for extreme music.

Boss units are among the best although I have had some go out

never called them

I play slo-mo hardcore like eyehategod etc.. The additional crunch I get out of this helps fill out our 3 piece bands sound. If I had a 2nd guitarist I probably would just stick to the overdriven amp sound. If I lost this or it broke I would get another right away. Over the years I've tried alot of distortions for bass like the rat and the bigmuff and this unit has a tighter sound (not as boomy)which is good for me. Again just dont overuse the distortion or it sounds crappy.

Very easy to get a good sound out of it, sounds best to go dirty. The manual is good to start with but don't use.

I am using a Carvin 120 with 15" cab and a RIC 4001 and Washburn fretless. I use a dunlop bass wah, Tech 21 compressor, DOD bass chorus and envelope filter. The ODB3 by itself is not enough, I first go into the WAH then the tech 21 then to the ODB3 along with the other FX's. The tech 21 compressor punches the ODB3 into a synth distortion that has endless sustain and presence.

So far so good, if I needed a distortion sound I would buy another in case of downtime.

Don't know, havent dealt with them. Though I know ROLAND is a well run company.

I play in church and in other christian projects and the sounds go from blues to alice in chains style and all I hear are praises on how the bass comes through the mix better. I always liked the MXR distortion pedals of the 70's, and the ODB3 does a good job of resembling that pedal. Recommended expecially with the Tech 21 compressor for you passive users.

Not much to it, gave it a 9 becuase you have to have it for a while to get the sounds you want.

I use a Jackson JS40 with a Bassman 25 and a Epiphone POS studio 10 (well I did until it was accidently smashed 4 or 5 times...). You can get a limited kinds of sounds, but those sounds are alright.

It's a BOSS, I'm pretty sure they make bomb shelters too

I play with a metal band and it blends alright. The whole thing is pretty good

Its really easy to use just 5 knobs. THe manual is easy to read

I have a Yamaha rbx260 and a Crate Bx100. bass-crybaby wah-boss overdrive-boss flanger. Its a good fuzz sound you can play ratm to rhcp to p.o.d. its loud but still sounds excellent

its boss

Its great to play rock. Iam 15 and only been playing a year and a half
If you mix it with a wah it sounds just like rage

This pedal took me a while to get used to. The manual didn't help that much. Just remember when you are setting the knobs the balance knob blends in your signal and the pedal signal, all the way to the right BOSS, and all the way to the left the bass.

I love the sounds I can make outa this unit. Everything from rage against the machine to flea. It is good times! However, it is pretty noisy. You can even make the cool turntable noises like on "Bulls on Parade." I use an electro-harmonix bass balls pedal, a rocktek bass eq pedal, a boss stage tuner, dunlop bass wha 105q, a boss bass flanger, a boss bass chorus, a boss digital delay, and a sansamp bass driver.

It's a BOSS pedal, what do you think?

wouldn't know.

If this pedal were stolen, I would immediatly go and order it again. I wouldn't be able to make 90 percent of my cool rage against the machine influenced noises if it were not for this unit.

This pedal has a very well-written manual and you can get some nice overdrive sounds out of it. Very easy to use. 3 standard knobs and 1 cocentric knob that controls HI EQ and LOW EQ. The other reviews go into depth so I'll spare the obvious...

I am currenty running this through my Fender American standard Jazz Bass and my Rickenbacker 4003 through a Mesa/Boogie Basis M-2000 head, the Mesa 4x10 DEEP cab, and a Mesa Powerhouse Jr cab. The treble is quite noisy and the bass works well. The only problem is that the bass seems to make only certain frequencies boomier and this causes a tonal imbalance. I wanted the crunchy sound FAILURE got on the song "Small Crimes" (check it out!) but this is not the pedal. Luckily, I happen to know how to get this sound. Instead of BOSS, try getting a USA Electro-Harmonix Big Muff set to maximum gain/sustain, then beef it up with a Boss GEB-7 Bass EQ, then use a Boss LS-2 to select both at once and you will have the most ripping awesome distortion attainable!!! Use the ODB-3 for mild overdrive...

These pedals are usually very reliable. Just don't break the crappy mini-pots they use!

SUCKS! My friend broke the shaft off his Super Phaser and they had his pedal a month and a half and never fixed it. They sent it back broken...

Overall I would say a good overdrive, though the Fulltone BassDrive kicks it's butt and is much more expensive. For distortion though, try the EH Big Muff setup, it's killer!

Boss' manuals are generally so informative, that its virtually impossible not to get a desent sound out of the effects. This goes for the ODB-3 as well.

I use a Yamaha RBX 260 bass with an old Carlsbro Cobra 80 bass amp, this setup doesn't exactly bring my tone to another dimension but it's okay!!! In every aspect of my playing I try to get a nice fat and chunky sound with just enough edge to create that cool, funky groove. This was the decisive element that made me get the ODB-3 Overdrive effect. Not only can you produce a phatt tight distortion but also a crazy hizz that sounds like the end of the world.
You can also use this effect to support your basslines and give them some colour. Obviously the ODB-3 is extremely versitile mainly because of the many possiblities that the balance and eq knobs offers.

BOSS=ROCK=UNBREAKABLE=RELIABLE.
Furthermore it does'nt use a lot of batteries.

BOSS=RELIABILITY+EFFICIANCY=HAPPY CUSTOMERS.

Normally i play groove metal and funk mostly RATM, Slipknot, Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Incubus and Korn. I have been playing for three years and usually bass effects does'nt blow me away, but when i switch this crazy monkey on with full distortion my bass goes on fire.

It wasn't exactly EASY to use, but wasn't hard. I mena, you don't have to be a fucking rocket scientist. It was fair enough, it was actually terrific adding so much control over the distortion. There are basically 4 knobs. A Level, a Balance, a gain, and the best-- an EQ.

Level: Basically controls the level(sound) of everything. It should be set so its not louder then what you're playing or lower. basically equal to the input. I don't do that though, I got myself a shit amp so I boost the Level a good amount to get a little more punch.

EQ: KICK ASS!!! This is an awesome little feature. Theres an outer knob which controls the Low so you cna make this distortion nice and thick and bassy. The Inner knob is the LOW knob. You can get treble out of it if you want.

BALANCE: Basically a mixer. You can mix the dry(the bass without distortion) with the Over Drive(the distortion itself) and get a great sound. If you want a little more clean with the dirty turn it a little left and for a dirtier tone, turn it a little right. turning it up all the way however gets you a heavy, heavy overdrive which is okay.

GAIN: basically controls the level of the balance.


I have the manual for it and its pretty good. It gives you a buncha settings for beginning till you can tweak it more.

I'm using....oh god...I hate saying this...I use a friggin....DOn't LAUGH.....a CRATE PRACTICE SHIT AMP. I'm sorry. It's a bad amp. It packs a whollop for its small shit size, but it's sound is shit. PURE SHIT. I thought my bass or playing was wrong or something until I played my same god damned bass at GUITAR CENTER on a huge nice ass Crate amp and it sounded awesome. Alomost American Standard. Well, not quite, but my amp sucks. Its a BX-15 or something. Anyway, I got myself a kick ass bass however. I have a Fender Std. P-Bass. It's the best P-Bass there is from that jump to the costly American basses. But I don't have the cash or time to make it.


The effects are awesome on my amp and works well with it. There isn't much hiss but there is some as you can expect from any pedal but not much feedback. I can get some sound from maybe some Primus when I can actually play some of their stuff, Flea from chili Peppers from songs like Around the World. The noise is more on my amp cause it sucks so if you've got a good one, don't expect much noise.

OH YES. THIS THINGS A FUCKING TANK. GOD. You will not break this fucker with an A BOMB!!!
I'm overdoing it a bit. It's just built tough like all Boss Pedals and with fantastic quality. Boss, you rule!!!

Well, I haven't yet had to deal with the company. My Boss pedal has been sticking with me for a while now. It's my buddy. I haven't had a problem with it yet and going for my third month. I put no Opinion for this one cuz I havent needed to deal with customer support and I dont wanna mislead you guys but if Boss makes their Customer support as good as their pedals you'll be in fucking pleasantville with one o' those customer service fuckers.

I basically play a little funk but I suck at it. Haha. It's good to lightly throw in some overdrive with the funk to give some of that dirty feel to the tone and I also mainly play ROCK. So, I toss in some light distortion for solos and shit and it sounds great. A great match for rock. I've been playing for about a year now and I've just been buying effects, and fucking with em getting the sound I want. I love it, I would definately buy the same if lost.

i love the Overdrive Pedal cause you have so much control over the sound. I don't hate anything about it. I love the EQ feature. It kicks ass. I haven't come to compare with otehr Overdrive but I'm sure its one of the best. It definately helps me write stuff and play covers too. I can spice up anything with this effect and it kicks ass.

This pedal is really easy to use. The manual is helpful and offers some good sounding suggested settings.

Overall, this is a good sounding pedal. There is sounf backgroung hiss and hum noise but none more than any other overdrive pedal. I think this is a very versital pedal because of it nt only offers varieable gain but also a blend control and a two band eq. The blend lets you mix your dry clean signal with the distorted signal, make it sound fuller and less fuzzy. The two band eq also you to cut some of those nasty unnatural highs that come up when distortion is put on bass. I recommend not going full distortion on the mix control, it actually make it sound "heavier". You can get all kind of sound out of it if you mess with it long enough. You can go Billy Sheenan to Flea to Lemmy to Cliff Burton's solos (try running a wah-wah into this pedal set to full fuzziness and do your best to play Pulling Teeth, fun).

Boss build their pedal tough. Way better construction than they're competition. Has a 5 year warantee too.

Haven't had a problem with any Boss product.

Overall, this is a great stomp box. I have the DOD bass overdrive pedal as well and this is a way better pedal. Its less noisey and way more versital. You can get a wide range of sounds from just a touch of grit when you hit the string hard or you can go full out fuzz too. The blend control is really cool too cause you can put a way distorted sound way in the background of your clean tone for any interesting effect. The people who will hate this pedal are those of you who are fans of the warm tube od cause its obviously a solid-state distortion sound. But for those of use who can't afford $2000 for a tube amp and then deal with tube maintanance or like really nasty distortion this pedal is great.

5 knobs, gain, level, hi & low EQ, and blend. how hard can it be? just turn the knobs til you find a good sound

Squier Precision Bass Special------> ODB-3-----> Kustom 20watt amp.
It can be noise, if i have the bi-pole pick up turned up, but with the humbucker turned up there isn't hardly any noise. there is also a little buzz. but is hardly noticable when you are playing. the effects are great. can be used as an over drive or as a volume booster. great distortion, but can sound a bit muddy when the distortion is cranked. i can get the sounds i want from what Flea from the chilli peppers play.

B~~~~~~~~~~~>
O~~~~~~~~~~~~> RELIABILITY
S~~~~~~~~~~~>
S~~~~~~~~~~>

haven't gigged yet. probably wouldn't use a back up.

haven't dealt with that yet.

i play alternative, rock, punk, and some hardcore. this is a good match. i've been playing for almost a year. i don't own any other gear yet. i compared it to the DS-1 distortion, and found it alot better. hte distortion is the best, but i like the EQ. i can tweak it to get great tone on hte distortion. i chose it because it was made for bass, and i play bass.helps my music alot, doesn't get in the way at all. one last thing. BUY THE PEDAL!!!!! YOU NEED THE PEDAL!!!!!!!

This pedal takes a long time to get the sound you want out of it. The manual helped me a lot, as I had not used except for two other pedals in my life. Some of the models/settings that the manual have are weak, but things like Heavy Drive and Solo Play are good, if you have the right amp. So I give this a 9.

It's a very good distortion pedal for bass that won't cut your low end out. If you like distortion, buy this pedal. If you don't, don't waste your time and whine and complain on here, and brag about how great your amp is because if you don't like distortion, then don't buy this pedal.

I dunno- Boss's seem to always break. Seems like everyone her seems to agree with me too. So I give this a 10. (btw, in case you didn't know, I was kidding back there)

Never dealt with them. I remember seeing someone say once that being a Boss C.S. person would be the easiest job on the world. I agree. I'll give it a 10 just because I think Boss C.S. should be as good as the reliablity.

I play Heavy Metal, Blues, Rock (classics), Punk, Dixieland (in other words, COUNTRY/"In da stix", as I've heard others say). I have been playing for almost two years now. If it were stolen or lost, I'd probly buy another. I can use this pedal for each kind of music I play, and you can too- if your skilled enough. And for all those people who didn't like it, why the heck didn't you try it in the store? j/w.
P.S. If you have any patches/setting or trix you know with this pedal, e-mail me and tell me. Thanks.

The pedal, like all Boss pedals, is easy enough to use. I found everything self-explanatory.

I used this pedal with my 5-string Fender American Standard bass and ran it through my Carvin RL6815 Cyclops (the best amp money can buy, if you want my opinion). No matter what settings I tried, I couldn't get anything but a horrible fuzz tone. I tried fooling around with the settings on all of my equipment in a desperate attempt to get a useable sound, but THIS PEDAL IS CRAP!...and I thought I could trust Boss- most of their effects sound great.

Knowing Boss, and judging by my other Boss pedals, this pedal could take a beating and still work like new.

Never needed Customer Support from this company.

As stated before, this pedal produces nothing but a horrible fuzz tone. I've been playing for five years and I've always been searching for just the right bass distortion- this pedal is definitely NOT it. I will return it tomorrow.