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!