Boss TR-2 Tremolo

Three knobs, couldn't be easier.

Horrible! Before testing this device in a guitar shop, I've read some fine reviews here and was wondering about the latest ones who complained about it beeing rather noisy. I wanted to hear it myself and have to say that it is sad but true: This sucker is noisy as hell!! The guy in the shop tried to argue at first, but in the end he had to give it up. This thing sucks, it is one of the noisiest pedals I've ever heard.

I guess it is reliable as anything from boss, but what for?

A well respected company like boss shouldn't make a pedal like this. Hey boss, wake up and give us a (noise-free) TR-3!!!

Easy.

Terrible, the worst ever! I have to agree with one of the reviewers below, that this ugly stomper is sooooo noisy that any further discussion on its "sound quality " is ridiculous!

I don't like to say it, but this bastard really deserves a low rating. How come a respected and well known company like Boss make such a pedal? Unbelievable, but true. It is absolutely useless because of the hiss. I have some vintage pedals from EH and MXR and I can take a good amount of noise. But this damn thing is the unmatched king of hiss...

Three adjustments, rate, depth and wave - plug it and tweak. The middle knob (wave) is positioned to close to the other two adjustments - I have on occasion changed a setting by mistake.

I'm using TR-2 with a Fender Blues Junior and Godin LG equipped with P90's. There is a slight increase in noise when using this effect that is more noticable when you have the gain of the amp turned up. Also there is the swishing noise which is typical of all tremolo stomp boxes. The TR-2 produces an adequate tremolo effect, compared to some of the better units on the market (Voodoo Labs, Dunlop, Fulltone and Carl Martin) I would say its on the weak side.

Build quality looks good however I haven't had this effect long enough to comment on long term reliability.

Never dealt with Boss.

I don't use tremolo often however I do play a couple of country songs where tremolo is required. There are better units on the market however I wasn't interested in paying two to three times more for an effect that doesn't get used often. The TR-2 gets the job done and comes in a well built compact package.

Very easy to use.

Hm, I can't belive it, but this is by far the worst pedal I've ever listend to!!! Noisy as hell!! It has a great sound and I would have bought it imediately, but the noise was too much to take. It was noisier than an Ibanez Smash Box! I still don't get it. I checked everything, the cables, the guitar, the amp, but it was this pedal. All the other pedals I compared it to where dead quiet, buth this thing... Absolutely useless!

Usually I think that Boss pedals deserve a 10 for reliability, but I'm not so sure about this puppy, maybe it was broken or so?

I'm a big Boss fan, there is an OD-3, PH-3, DD-3 and TU-2 on my board. I really wanted to have a tremolo, but this was simply a POS! I think I have to look for another brand this time, maybe a Marshall Vibratrem or a VL Tremolo? No matter if it was broken or not, it was a brand new item in the shop, so it's just too sad that Boss puts out such crap.

Like the other reviews have already stated- simple effective pedal with only 3 knobs- Rate, Depth and Wave adjustments.
I got mine used and it didn't have a box and manual, but how hard can it be to work something this simple!
It simply does what it is supposed to do!

Even though I'm a bass guitarist, I like the more adverse sounds that guitar FX pedals create, and the TR-2 is a great, ear catching unit for bass. when my band recorded its first demo a few years ago, I wanted a vibrato or something like that on my bass track for the intro of one song. the only thing the studio had at the time was a Peavey tube tremolo rack that had a NASTY ground hum. As a result, the track didn't come off as well as I'd hoped it would.
As soon as I found the TR-2 for sale in the used bin at my local haunt (shouts to Central Music in Welland, On.!!!!), I had to grab it and incorporate it into my rig.
Being a bass guitarist, I find the level drops a slight bit when I'm using it, but otherwise, it sounds great, isn't noisy and best of all, doesn't draw a ton of power from my FX board supply!
The Pedal board- Roland FV-50 dual volume pedal, DOD FX-35 octave, Tech 21 Sans amp GT-2, TR-2 tremolo, BF-2 Flanger, DC-2 Dimension D, Custom built power supply.

I have gone through a ton of Boss gear, but not in a bad way! I usually trade off stuff every once in a while, trying to stay fresh and with the tide of music, but I think this bad boy will be around in the rig for a long time!
Since the pedal is still relativly new on the market, I wouldn't hesitate to get another if it got stolen (beware thieves- you gonna have to remove some serious strapping on my pedal board to get ANYTHING off of it (except for the volume pedal, which is due for replacement!)

I haven't had a chance to bitch and moan about anything wrong with any of my Boss pedals! Lets hope it stays that way!!!!

3 knobs, very easy!

great sounding pedal! i set it for hard, square gaps in my playing, like a stutter...
i play alot of U2/Radiohead/Pink Floyd stuff and it suits it perfectly

my setup is: Fender Telecaster MIM/Ibanez A120 (335 copy), MXR dynacomp, dunlop wah, proco rat, boss DS-2, EH small clone, TR-2, boss dd-3 to a carvin belair 212

only minor complaint is the depth knob could go a little deeeper, like a complete mute, but its fine the way it is

its a boss

one of my new favorite effects, highly reccomended...
ROCK ON!

Simple...nothing to it!

The best tremolo pedal money can buy. Being a total vintage amp queer,I'm REALLY into tremolo. I've had every tremolo pedal on the market....Demeter,Dunlop,you name it. This one is great,IT DOESN'T KILL YOUR GAIN AND LEVEL WHEN YOU TURN IT ON. It also doesn't boost your level TOO MUCH like the Demeter does. It's quiet,it gets awesome soft or hard wave tremolos,speed control parameters are just right...what else could you want??

It's a Boss....never had a problem with one.

Never tried calling them.

If you're into recording (or playing live) and you need a cool tremolo pedal,buy this one first!!

this is a relatively easy pedal to use, and has its advantages when recording (b/c you can mess about with rates to get it perfectly timed)

i'm a keyboard player (they are'nt just for guitars!!) i use a korg triton, an old korg ds8, with a roland KC500 amp, boss aw-3, ph-3, dd-5, and the tr-2. it helps playing live, b/c you don't have to piss around with the keyboard internal effects (which never helps in a rush) its allways sounded great, and i've never had any trouble with it in that way. I play alot of stuff and i use it mainly on piano, organ and strings sounds, to give the rotary effect (with a bit of phase)

its a boss....... say no more

never, only with the design department, with developing some of the newer pedals out soon.

very very easy
three knobs

sounds great,i like the wave knob, that really gives you a wide range of choices and the rate knob at it max gives a high rotation speed if you are looking for that

it's boss

i like pink floyd,radiohead pearl jam but i'm not trying to copy their sound
if you do that you are a looser
be yourself
this is one of the good boss pedals,not all of them are good pedals

It's a stomp box with three knobs..... however coordinating the rate when playing with a band is VERY hard to do.

I borrowed this from a friend for a week. I use a MIM Fender Tele, with a CE-5, an RV-2 for reverb and a home made amp through a marshall half stack. The TR-2 sounds good, but not great. This pedal needs a sine wave setting! You just can't get that warm throb sound with triangle and square waves.

BOSS. period.

no experience with BOSS customer support

I play in a band with piano, guitar, drums and vocals, with a style similar in a way to ben folds five, and lot of radiohead influence. The reason I'm writing this is that I am hoping that someone from BOSS (or another company) reads this and listens to what I would find useful in a tremolo.

1. More versatile wave settings i.e. the ability to have sine, square and triangle waves and maybe even combinations. (maybe even new ones? sawtooth?)

2. A tap tempo input. This would be the most incredible feature for any pedal that I can think of. A tap tempo input would enable you to get perfect tempo live, very easily.

3. Panning, a la the PN-2. This would top off the 'perfect' tremolo pedal.

If BOSS would put these relatively simple features in their next tremolo pedal, I would pay a lot of money for it. I mean a lot. That's just my two cents.

Very easy to set.

The BOSS pedals haven't no problems in this way

all ok

Surf up !!! I use this pedal with a stratocaster deluxe plus and a fender twin amp ... with a good reverb this is the real vintage sound of the '60 and I really like it. But I use even to play alternative rock, psichedelia and noise (in this case with wave and depth to the maximum level)...very fun in this way !

This pedal is very easy to use , 3 knobs , its a no brainer

Mexican strat through a stage 100 and buch of other effects , Now i cant say that this pedal is bad, its your basic tremolo effect , alot of people complain that the volume drops or it sucks your tone out, WELL DUH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! of course the volume drops its the nature of the effect. When all the knobs are at 0 you dont hear a volume drop and your tone is the same Acutally this effect adds a nice shimmery tremolo effect if you can get the right settings , very ambient, you can get some RADIOHEAD type sounds outta this like creep or planet telex and more . very quiet too , no noise. I hate boss pedals there too digital but i gave this one a chance and its staying on my pedal board . my only gripe is that its not true bypass and the tremolo settings cant get extreme machine gun stutter like a voodoo lab. but the voodoo lab was hard to get my hands on so i got this one

yea its a tank

never delt with them

i play classic rock/rock/jazz/, if stolen or lost ide get a voodoo lab tremolo other than that i wish the effect can be more extreme but o well it sounds nice

Only three knobs to deal with: Rate, Depth, and Wave. I have them all at 100% to get a rotary speaker effect.

The only thing i can criticize about this pedal is that the volume seems to go down when the pedal is on. Maybe it's just because of the rapid volume changes with the effect that makes it seem this way, but i don't think a volume booster or something of that nature could have hurt this pedal at all, because it does seem like the volume goes down noticably with it is on.

It's a BOSS, that should say it all.

They helped me with what i needed, but a lot of people have given them crap, which i can understand. They make reliable pedals and products, so logically, they wouldn't invest too much time and money in talking to the three people who've gotten defective pedals or broke theirs. It only makes sense.

It's a neat pedal to tool around with. The only thing that keeps it from a 10 is the volume decrease that i talked about above. Keep in mind that this pedal is a 9 for what it does, it's not really a spectacular pedal that will make your sound, well, for most of you anyway, i can't speak for everyone... but it is pretty good for what it does.

It's very easy to use...only three knobs, but to get a good sound out of it beats me. The more and more I start collecting Boss pedals, the more and more they disapoint me.

I went through the pedal with a Prs McCarty and a Fender Deville. The tone seems to be sucked out of my guitar amp. Its not a horrible pedal, it just sounds more like a vibrato pedal or something. I can't seem to recreate a really cool surfer tremolo sound like in the movies.

The only 10 boss deserves is in this category.

wouldn't know.

This is an overall 7 pedal....I like having a lot of pedals because it helps me be more creative with music. This pedal should sell less for what its worth, and that's my 2 cents.

Its pretty easy to get a good sound, but i wish that the most extreme setting of the DEPTH knob was a little more... well, extreme. It seems to me that there is virtually no effect to be heard unless the knob is turned more than halfway over. on a different subject, the manual is short and precise, and gives good tips for different settings. no real difficulties operating this green monster.

The thing isnt noisy, although i dont think its true bypass. As mentioned earlier, the depth effect is kinda weak, but its not a critical flaw. i would just like to be able to use a more extreme effect once in a while. The rate knob is very well balanced; it seems to me that i can get whatever rate i want without problems. the wave control is also good, and you have a large span of triangular and squareshaped waveforms. on the negative side, the pedal also seems to turn down the general volume a bit, which can be annoying when changing back to normal mode.

this effect pedal could be used to bash in nails. its very sturdy, and good quality all-round. metal casing, and big, dependable knobs, that seem indestructable.

sorry. i have no idea whatsoever.

i mostly play punk and modern rock music, and since this is a tremolo pedal more suited for surf-style music and vintage effects, i mainly use it to create psychedelic intros, solos and bridges. ive been playing for about 10 years, and ive had this pedal for about 3 months. if it were stolen, i'd probably buy it again. i really like the feel of quality it has about it, and, of course, the wonderful limegreen colour :)

can"t get any easyer

i"ve heard tremolos out of fender twins ,musicman amps and ther is nothing wrong with this one either.i hear guys saying its noisy,it fades it farts ,ilearned years ago ,if i know how to play,if i know how to use my gear your gonna rock.i"ve been in the music buiss for a long time.i own lots of gear i have some really nice guitars but what i use on stage is a epiphone special les paul with prs dragon pickups.the way i see it you can buy all the effects you want and all the nice guitars you want but lets see some talent

it"s a boss....10

ther is nothing wrong with this pedal the way i use it.it"s alot cheaper to add this to my amp than to go out and buy a amp with one
to me it"s a keeper.

its very simple (3 knobs), the instructs cover most of it.

guitars: fender american standard tele, reverend slingshot, fender mustang
amps: vox ac-30, fender roc pro head through marshall 1960av
other effects: vox wah, TS-9, DD-3, maxon flanger.

ive found distortion and reverb decrease the quality when used in front of it.

its exactly what i need in a tremolo, a LOT of people i know dont like it (eg: "weak when compared to dunlop"). its not for everyone, try one before you buy it (some things you love or you hate).

works great with EBow

its boss, you could run it over with your buss and use it that night.
mine's on a board in a road case, i would use it without backup (i would go broke buying 2 of every pedal).

ive heard they impossible to get a hold of/deal with.
5 year warenty, after that your on your own.

i play the following styles: hard rock, punk, surf/ska, emo, blues and REAL hardcore (only a little) it does well for all of these, i have my own sound and its what i wanted. if it were stolen/broken i would replace ASAP, its all about preference...

Using Strat into a Fender blackface w/o internal trem. Signal a little weaker with TR-2 engaged, but no noticable ambient hissing or other noise. Never played the Dunlop trem, which has received rave reviews, nor the Fulltone (WAY out of my price range at the moment), but I can't complain about the sounds from this. Very musically-voiced and shimmery. Does the traditional trem and an electric piano duplication quite well IMHO.

Never had a problem. Use mostly with an adapter, but the thing also doesn't seem to eat up 9Vs as bad as other Boss pedals do...

I have been playing a variety of types of rock music for nearly seven years. Bought this on a lark a few years ago, but never used it much. A synth-playing friend of mine used it for some recording a while back and just raved about it. I started playing around with it more and became quite impressed with it. Not bad at all for the money. There is that slight signal loss, however, that might cause concern among some players.

This pedal is very easy to use. There is only three knobs, what could be easierthan that? (besides 2 knobs)

The TR-2 is usually best for slow chords, or individual string plucking. With faster rhythmatic songs it is a little lower in quality. But overall its not that bad of sound.

This is a product of Boss, so of course its reliable. I've dropped this thing so many times I can't remember how many, and it still works.

Never had to use it.

For most of my slow songs, this pedal works great. Sometimes I will take off from realistic songs and mess around with thing that sound cool. TR-2 makes and awesome performance with that. My reccomendation is for all those chord users out there, get the TR-2, it makes songs sound like almost different ones.

A reasonbly intelligent chimp could use this pedal easily.

It does the standard tremolo thing. The extremes of the rate control aren't too extreme, though. I like the fact that you can blend between triangle and square waveshapes, but I don't like the noise this pedal creates. I was doing some ambient loop layering on my Line 6 DL-4 and I noticed this awful white noise hiss. I disconnected everything and plugged each pedal straight into the amp, and sure enough, it was the TR-2 making the noise.

Seems pretty solid. I would use it on a gig without a backup, but only if I was opening for Merzbow or something.

Haven't dealt with the company.

I've been playing for about 8 years. I play everything from juke blues to avant garde scrapescapes. I own lots of other Boss pedals and overall I give them about a 7. Dependable stuff, but none are true-bypass and a lot of them are pretty noisy. If it were stolen or lost I would probably either not buy anything to replace it or maybe buy a Z. Vex trem pedal.

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..