Boss TR-2 Tremolo

As you may have previously read, super easy to use. 3 massive knobs, speed depth and waveform. Waveform is useful to shape your sound.

Right, gripe time. The actual tremolo effect in the pedal is great, you can get loads of different sounds from it with minimal, if any, noise interference. I thought this pedal was a stroke of genius until I played a Vox with built in tremelo. The main problem with the boss is a massive volume loss when you engage the effect, which is super annoying when recording or playing live. As I said, lovely effect, but a horrific volume loss when used.

Its a boss! They simply do not break! I've gigged it loads, watch the battery consumption though, this green meenie is quite thirsty...

Never needed to contact them,boss must have the least used customer support service of anyone!

Its a lovely pedal and I adore tremelo as an effect but compare it to a Vox or old fender amp with built in 'trem and you see that it falls behind. For the money though, I would highly reccomend anyone wanting a tremelo pedal to buy one of these, they look quite funky as well!

Three big knobs that are self explanitory, they ever have a little picture under the wave knob. :)

Best tremolo i have ever played, the only tremolo i have ever played... I have heard the Dunlop is better, but i love this pedal.

Its a boss, explains itself...

Its Boss....

I love tremolo, this pedal is very cool. You can get vintage tremolo sounds and trippy on off on off type sounds... Worth the money.

about as easy as they come.. yet I found the middle knob a little hard to get my fingers around..

I used this with my 84 customized jap strat through a fender early 70's twin...

the first thing I noticed was the noise it created, the second was how weak the effect sounded. At first I thought maybe all it needed was a little tweaking to get it sounding good but no, it sounded like a weak little tremelo the whole time..

I bought the dunlop tremolo instead

its boss... nough said

I wouldn;t buy it.. wait I didn;t..

try the dunlop tremolo MUCH more punchy and tremoloy sounding.. not wimpy and flimsy like the boss one...

If you can't figure this out, you shouldnt be playing guitar. basically, you push a button to select guitar, bass, b, bb, or chromatic, select the way you want the lights to move and then step on the thing to tune... pretty well the only thing you don't need a college degree for.

one problem i found is that when you step on it to tune, the sound cuts off! wait that's a good thing.. haha
doesn't alter the sound.. period.

it's a boss, they've never let me down.. i gig alot, and well, if you have a good setup (ie pedal board) you shouldn't have anything to worry about, if not, treat it well.. i mean if you were a tuner would you want to be jumped on or dropped?

don't know. probably just go to a local music store so i don't have to wait on hold for 2 months,

I just got this thing a week ago, and i dont' know how i lived without it... playin on stages and alot of bar gigs, this is the ultimate tuner.. picks up the note really fast, i say you can tune your whole guitar in under 8 seconds..

I'd like to post a follow-up. I've had this pedal for two years now, and this gives me ample time to make a better judgement of it. This pedal is a very functional unit. In terms of operating it, it's rather simple- three knobs.

The problem with this pedal is the volume drop when it's on. You don't know how much this annoys me. When it's time for the effect, my parts seem to completely drop out of the mix. I'm dying to sell this thing for that one reason. Someone has posted that the volume problem will go away if you don't max the depth setting, and this is very true. However, sometimes I want dramatic tremolo effects, and this pedal lets me down everytime. Ignoring the volume consideration, the actual effect is not that bad. It's nothing very special, but it won't take away from your music. I will maintain this pedel does not approach anything close to a tube-driven effect, but for the money I don't know how many people are expecting it to. The effect is decent enough to merit it- albeit begrudgingly- to be a member of my pedalboard. Another plus is it's flexibility, the settings can be quite varied. This pedal is best used as a tremolo "effect", rather than a substitute for amp-driven tremolo.

It's worked without breaking down. Nothing new here.

When I first bought this unit the tremolo pedal market was not as large as it is now. I'd recommend people to shop around before they settle with this effect. It's rather bland and nothing special. There are enough similar units by different companies to try out now, even at different prices points, to merit people to look outside the typical boss pedal paradigm. Conclusion: Boring, Effective, Dependable, Adequate, Annoying.

Come on its a stompbox you hardly need to be stephen hawking now do you?

dano U2>tr-2>daddy 0>boss sfd>drive chorus>arion flanger>phaser>boss DD-3>peavey 150w combo
Got it in a trade for a boss octave pedal. Well worth it.
My only gripe is that with the knobs turned up near max the sound is not to my liking, however keep them at around 0 to 3/4 and the sound is fantastic.

Never had a boss break on me yet thank god wouldnt want to deal with roland.
I'm a student how can i afford backup.

you're kidding trying to get anything out of roland is impossible

I play mbv, flaming lips, sonic youthy stuff. If you want interesting kinda wreird chords in the background try this, set the rate to 11 o clock, the depth to 1 o clock, the wave between 12 and 4 play a distorted slightly flangered guitar through it, just trust me.
I read the review of it on this site and when i went to sell my octave pedal instead of trading for cash i went for this instead.
used sparing this effect is fantasitic i use it for rhythmn playing not lead but i guess for lead it would be good to.

Its very easy to get a good sound, but Its hard to get the exact rate to fit the song. So I think they should make them so the LED blinks at how fast the rate is at...

This is a really good sounding tremolo. It makes zero noise, and its very easy to use. I use it with a strat into a dunlop wah, ts-9, bigmuff, Boss DM-2, Boss CH-1, and many other effects like flangers more OD and Dists and delays... blah blah blah. I play a Fender 50s Strat, and I really like this pedal. However I don't use tremolo too much so i have decided to keep it and when I get my twin reverb just put the footswitch of the amp on my board in its place. I can get wicked Blind Melon tones with it. However Tremolos should be cheaper IMHO. BUT... that would not discourage me from buying it again, but then again i'm not planning on selling it.

If you like tremolo and your amp does not have it and/or its not footswitchable, you should check this one out. Not only is it easy to use (tremolos really can't be that hard to use IMHO) but it is very good sounding. It helps me write music, but I just don't seem to use it alot. But I like so much that I won't part with it. So give it a try and maybe you'll like it.

There's three knobs: depth, rate, and wave type. If you know anything about modulation effects, this thing is a breeze to use. Within about five minutes you can find whatever setting you're looking for.

I'm using an Epiphone Les Paul or a Charvel Model 3 into a rig that includes a Boss line selector, Danelectro Cool Cat, ProCo Vintage RAT, MXR Dist +, Danelectro Fab Tone, Boss Flanger, and Boss Volume pedal into a Fender Hot Rod Deluxe. Like others in this forum, I've noticed a volume drop with this effect, but it's important to note this only happens when the depth is above 12 o'clock or so because it'll never shut completely off or on. Like all other Boss pedals, this pedal will color you sound, so chain accordingly. When it's on, it'll warm up your playing a little bit, but not all that much. Long story short, this is why I got this effect: I've been looking for over a year now for a pedal that can do a MIDI sequencer impression (think the intro to "How Soon is Now"). I dicked around with noise gates for a while, but in most cases they're not sophisticated enough to shutter the signal in the right pattern. Finally, I found this pedal laying around in a pawn shop and lo and behold it does the trick!
I know there are other pedals out there that can do similar sounds, but it was the knob to control wave-form that sold me on this pedal. If you can find just the right setting (and set it before the distortion in you chain), you can get a nearly constant signal out of the distortion with a background chatter from the trem--it sounds like multiple guitars! (think the intro to "Guerilla Radio") The thing I'm loving the most right now is having this, my flanger, and my distortion on all at once. Let me tell you, THAT's an interesting sound! And, yes, it can do the shimmery trem effect, too, though I don't use that one very often.

Well, I bought it used and the sticker inside the housing says it's a couple years old. Based upon Boss's reputation, I'm guessing I'll be using this for quite a few years to come. The reputation of the Japanese Boss pedals preceed themselves. Anybody out there know how the Japanese version of this pedal compares with the Taiwanese one?

Never had to deal with them.

All discussion of the quality of the pedal aside, the true value of any musical commodity is: does it make you want to make music? The answer for this pedal for me is a definitive yes. My rig has a habit of mutating by the day, but I can tell you this pedal will be in most future versions. Buy pedals because you love them, not because they have that elusive "sound" or someone else uses them. What you get out of a pedal is what you put in. As for more concrete review type stuff: I've only compared this to the Dano mini pedal and they sound pretty similar, but the wave-form knob smokes the Dano's simple hard/soft switch. I currently have this pedal set such that all the knobs are pointing one o'clock and I use this both for the "double-guitar" effect I mentioned above and for shimmery cleans. If it were stolen, I'd buy another without thinking twice. It's a nice pedal that you can get very original sounds out of. The only thing I wish it had is true-bypass, but that's a rarity among pedals anyway. Bottom line:
this pedal sounds like me and that's just how I like it.

3 knobs......speed, depth, wave....easy to manipulate....i found the setting i keep it on in about 20 seonds.....

i use this with a boss bf-2 flange, boss dd-5 delay, boss ns-2 noise surpressor, dod eq, dod envelope filter, dod gonkulator modulator, digitech whammy reissue, and crybaby wah......i play on a charvel jackson guitar thru a marshall valvestate head and cab....sounds great.......i don't really use it too much...maybe three or 4 songs out of the 20+ my band has written.....good for spacey shit with delay and flange.....good for standard tremelo shit.....nothing really special about it......good pedal though....the cheapest tremelo there is.....i don't see a reason to spend more than 60 bucks on a tremelo anyway.....the main reason i bought this was because i heard tom morello (rage against the machine) played one on guerrilla radio (only that song)and i am obsessed with his shit......so i got it......sounds good with any effect....

no probs with it so far......i doubt i will, i don't mistreat it or anything.......i would gig without backup....cuz.....yeah.....i just would......and i have......so......there........

dunno.....i've heard good and bad.......

i play a blend of pearl-jammy shit and deftones/limp bizkit hard shit.........works great..no one in the band complains of over use as they do my beloved whammy!!!!! if it was stolen or lost i'd probably wouldn't get it or any other tremelo....cuz i just don't use it enough.......it sounds like any other tremelo (to me) so get whatever brand has the color you want......