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Price Paid: $50 (Canadian) used
Ease of Use: 8
Four knobs, and the only variation from standard stompbox form is the Color knob. Crank it full left for Overdrive, full right for Distortion. The Level control provides one heck of a boost, so if you need something to overload your amp, this will do the job. As for getting a good sound ... let your ears be the judge.
Sound Quality: 7
I used this with an American Standard Strat and a 1965 Fender Princeton. I played around with the settings, and got a few decent sounds (however, I firmly believe that if one starts with a vintage Fender amp, one is already getting a GREAT sound). Using the Level to boost the amp was really nice. However, be warned that this pedal has a very limited tone range. It doesn't give much bass at all, and cranking it past the midway mark essentially adds very little. Now here's something to keep in mind: I hooked this pedal up next to my DS-1. I was able to match the sound of the pedals exactly, when I raised the tone of the DS-1. But the OS-2 could not match the DS-1 for tonal range - the DS-1 can give you a "dark" sound. Also, the OS-2's Drive seems to get overwhelming and muddy if you crank it too far. So I'd say this pedal is somewhat limited - it can give some good sounds, but only in a specific tonal range (around 10:00). Yes, I know it can provide both overdrive and distorted sounds, and the Color knob lets you play around between the two. But when it comes to distortion, I think the DS-1 does a better job, simply because it offers a wider range of tones. As for overdriven tones ... I should have compared the OS-2 to my SD-1. I wonder if I could have matched the pedals at one setting. But I did pull out my BD-2 (Blues Driver), and I felt that it had better overdriven sounds. It also provides one heck of a wallop when it comes to volume boosting. So it boils down to this: definitely try before you buy. I got this pedal because a pal at a music shop gave me a sweet deal on a mint used pedal and I'm a sucker for BOSS pedals. If you're only going to buy ONE pedal, you might want one that gives you a choice between Distortion and Overdrive. But for what this costs new, I'd suggest you look around a bit first.
Reliability: 10
BOSS is as reliable as it gets. As for gigging ... I don't gig, but I trust my BOSS pedals.
Customer Support: 5
I emailed them once and got some stickers and magazines. I've never needed BOSS for anything serious, so I can't really rate them.
Overall Rating: 7
I play classic rock and blues. This is a good pedal for that kind of music. Is it the best pedal? Not in my opinion, but it can provide some useful tones. Personally, I find that it's a pretty decent sounding pedal until I plug in some of my other ones. If I lost it, I don't think I'd replace it. It would be a vastly improved pedal if BOSS gave it a decent Tone control.
Submitted by stratomaster at 09/09/2000 14:44
Update!
Some new views, as of December 15/2000:
Well, it's a guitarist's perogative to change his/her mind, right? While in the midst of a pedal buying frenzy (that would be the months of November and December, 2000), I also got into the habit of giving some of my older pedals a workout. That includes the OS-2. What have I discovered? Well, my opinion of the Distortion hasn't changed much, but let's review that Overdrive, shall we?
It seems that the trick to coaxing some incredible overdriven tones from the pedal is to play around with the Color and Tone controls. The Tone actually changes as one adjusts the amount of Overdrive. Personally, I discovered that the pedal got noticeably better as I moved the Color control from the "full" position (that would be fully cranked to the OD side). Anywhere between 7:00 and 11:00 produced nice overdrive tones. I mean REALLY nice overdrive tones! This was a very nice surprise.
I should add that I got these results while playing my Strat through my good old solid state Traynor amplifier. This only adds to my growing belief that many BOSS pedals seemed designed to help one get the best sounds from solid state amps. The OS-2 certainly made the Traynor sound very good.
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 Boss OS-2 Overdrive/Distortion |
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