Boss Bass OverDrive ODB-3

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This pedal has great range in the bass and treble area and can boom or crunch or both.

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User Reviews of the Boss Bass OverDrive ODB-3

Submitted by kk from Annandale On Hudson, NY (104 points) on Sep 5, 2009
this pedal has earned the nickname "instant awesomizer", because you put it at the end of an effect chain, and everything sounds better all the time when you step on it. everything is right with the bass overdrive. sometimes Buzzo uses it just for guitar. sometimes I just it just for contact mics. you wouldn't believe how fucking brutal this thing is with a contact mic. feedback that makes the Death Metal seem like a blues overdrive. fuck.
Good Points: - everything - pretty much a requirement if you own a contact mic
Bad Points: - it's not free
Price Paid: US$45.00
Purchased At: eBay
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Submitted by AULOS from Hereford Uk (488 points) on Aug 8, 2009
I have had 2 bassists that both use this pedal and they have had bad luck with it. They tend to not like active bass' and give some nasty hiss. The overall tone is nice and driven but you are better off saving and getting a Big Muff or Fuzz Face and using that with your bass.
Good Points: CHEAP
Bad Points: HISSY
Price Paid: US$35.00
Purchased At: Nick Fisher
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Submitted by Ferox from Los Altos, CA (432 points) on Jun 27, 2009
Loud, bassy, but with nice highs. Great for use at the end of a floop, or right behind a contact microphone. Gives somd of the best organic feedback that I've heard from a single distortion.
Good Points: The double-stacked knobs are somewhat of a mixed blessing. Good for extra tone control in a boss-sized case, bad for quick tweaking of the knobs. Good strong build. Balance knob, and great gain.
Bad Points: Bright yellow case. Kind of expensive, but I got mine for pretty cheap.
Price Paid: US$35.00
Purchased At: Starving Musician.
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Submitted by Jon from Huntsville, AL (500 points) on Dec 28, 2008
I got this for Xmas. It came with the high EQ section of the stacked knob broken off. I don't know what it cost in this condition. Either way, even with no control over the high EQ, this thing is still really useful! It's actually got me kind of excited about feedback loops again!
Good Points: Breathes new life into a lot of my otherwise trebly, hissy (and nearly useless in loops) fuzz pedals. The fact that this is an overdrive is actually a big plus because it doesn't distort/bury those fuzz/octave pedals, it just give you even more volume/tonal possibilities w/ them. The blend knob is a nice feature. I enjoy gaudy colors! The name makes me think of "Ol Dirty Bastard" (haha)...
Bad Points: I have no control over the high EQ (One of the biggest problems I've encountered w/ Boss pedals is their dual knobs are constantly getting snapped off)!!!
Price Paid: US$0.00
Purchased At: Recieved as a gift.
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Submitted by michael from Upland, CA (98 points) on Jul 23, 2008
i was looking for a distortion with lots of grit, power, and low end, and this does the job. i keep the Balance and Gain knobs maxed and tweak the EQ. some say that this pedal isn't powerful enough, but it seems plenty harsh to me. it's more of a distortion than an overdrive, in my opinion. goes good at the beginning of a chain, directly after an Octave pedal.
Good Points: + Boss durability + Sooooo much bass + nice high-end grit with High knob from 2 o'clock to maxed
Bad Points: - Could be a tiny bit louder (anything can be a little louder if your chain includes a DOD FX69B Death Metal) - since i have no need for an overdrive, this pedal is only useful to me with the Balance and Gain knobs maxed or near-maxed
Price Paid: US$70.00
Purchased At: Guitar Center
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Submitted by Albert from East Greenwich, RI (114 points) on Nov 16, 2007
I owned these pedals off and on for about 4 years before I finally modded one and kept it. If you're looking for a basic overdrive/distortion this thing can do it. For a good overdrive set the blend almost to drive and the gain almost at zero. For a good distortion blend it all the way to effected and crank the gain. The clipping in the pedal is grainy and gritty. It might be cool with a gate coupled into the circuit. I modded this pedal because it doesn't have the balls that a overdrive/distortion should. Some basic cap uprgrades, a better transistor, and a better LED all create pedal that can sound as growlly as an old tube amp or harsher than a Peavey JSX head on 10. By upgrading the caps it makes the bass and treble controls MUCH more responsive, allowing for greater control over how the distortion sounds. If I didn't mod this pedal I probably would have sold it. Again...
Good Points: It's boss, you can't kill it. In its unaltered form it does what it's supposed to but not much more. After mods it creates a much broader spectrum of distortion with much cleaner sounding gain. The clipping becomes very smooth.
Bad Points: Poor quality clipping. Like all boss products it's buffered FET switching so you lose a little signal. It needs to be modded for it to be a REAL noise maker. Oh, and its yellow. ;-)
Price Paid: US$50.00
Purchased At: GuitarCenter
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Submitted by provera from Waterloo, IA (172 points) on Nov 23, 2006
Anytime you're looking for low end this pedal is useful, from harsh feedback loops to fattening up your wimpy synth. A really useful eq and a wide balance knob make this pedal a lot more precise than your average od/dist so it doesn't overpower your sound unless you want it to. Definitely one of my must-have pedals.
Good Points: Heavier than a death in the family, nice sounding od/dist, really useful controls, well built, common enough to stay cheap.
Bad Points: In a perfect world, Balance would take cv in, and dual outputs would be nice, but that's pretty nitpicky.
Price Paid: US$25.00
Purchased At: thrift store
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Submitted by series_ from Portland, OR (184 points) on Jan 4, 2006
Just picked this up. I had been hunting one for awhile. Knobs -- Level Double stacked High/Low Cut/Boost BALANCE Gain Two really nice things about this pedal. #1 being the balance knob. This allows you to run it in a chain and bypass it w/o switching it off. And the ability to mix the true original signal with the distorted. #2 This thing goes easily twice as low as the Heavy Metal, or any other oD or DS pedals I've owned. To be honest it's way more a distortion than an overdrive. You'd have to really lay back on the controls to make this thing sound as balanced/light as just overdrive. Absolutely brilliant pedal for distortion, subtle but very useful feature set. The high acts as a nice filter when running huge walls of sound thru it.
Good Points:
Bad Points:
Price Paid: US$50.00
Purchased At: Old Town Music
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Submitted by kinetic turtle from Oakland, CA (166 points) on Jan 9, 2005
This is one badass distortion/OD, for just about any instrument. It's got a huge range that it will cover, and I've found that it handles multiple tones, chords, etc, much better than the models designed for guitars. The EQ knob is absolutely wonderful, as well.
Good Points: Versatile as all hell. Boss construction. You know what that means. EQ!! YAY!!
Bad Points: Nope. Not really.
Price Paid: US$0.00
Purchased At: Guitar Center
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Submitted by ddn from arles (16 points) on Sep 28, 2004
There's something excellent about this pedal, it's the balance knob that enables you to adjust the amount of distorted signal you send to the output. For instance you can at first send the theremin bass freq undistorted and raise slowly the distortion amount for a wall of bassodrone...
Good Points: great sound solid very easy to use
Bad Points: as usual with boss pedals, battery connection wires tend to cut after a few years due to inappropriate placement of battery...
Price Paid: US$0.00
Purchased At:
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Submitted by Blake from Redmond, WA (18 points) on Jun 7, 2004
a great bass pedal greating for getting that lowend zipper sound and insane amounts of low end you'll never use a big muff again!
Good Points: KICK ASS in a feedback loop you can kick killer farty noises by tweeking the OD knob and the balance knob
Bad Points: yellow?...batteries die
Price Paid: US$40.00
Purchased At: acme pawn in redmond
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Submitted by Marco from Brescia (138 points) on Jun 4, 2004
Great controls. You can create a very loud distortion or a nice fuzzy sound with this box. It has also a good gain. Useful both alone or before a heavier distortion, like a MT-2 or a Big Muff. It's good not only for bass, I've tryed it also on a guitar and the sound is heavy and harsh.
Good Points: -the sound! What can I say more??? -controls works well
Bad Points: None, if you like its color...
Price Paid: US$100.00
Purchased At: Musical box
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Submitted by D/A A/D from Halifax (410 points) on Sep 4, 2003
This thing is HARSH, it adds a real harsh tube harmonic sound your noise. But the key is the blend! you can blend the dry signal with the distortion - which gives way to endless possablilities...
Good Points: Boss, what more can you say... great filters, harsh as hell... very dynamic...
Bad Points: None, other than it sound horable on bass... haha...
Price Paid: US$50.00
Purchased At: from a friend
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Submitted by Yves from Ottawa (172 points) on May 30, 2003
Useful for adding a little edge to vocal grunts, loud sighs and other mouth noise (including screams, coughing, and so on). To weaken the effect--which can be a good thing--, run the pedal in parallel with your source (sampler/mike/synth drone).
Good Points: Not too expensive. Nice ripe-lemon colour. THe BOSS family of overdrives are well documented in the Hal Leonard BOSS pedal book, which helps sculpt OD and distortion type noises.
Bad Points: No Hz values on EQ--I know, I know: use your ears. Still it would be useful to know the range.
Price Paid: US$95.00
Purchased At: Steve's Music in Ottawa, Canada
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Submitted by Beavis from Afghanistan (258 points) on Feb 18, 2003
Fantastic!!!!! This thing is very loud!!! It can do most kinds of distortion and creates some of the sweetest bass noise possible. Great for bass, guitar, synths, vocals, drums. If you need a distortion pedal you can't get much better than this.
Good Points: Well made, reliable. quiet operation. loud bassy
Bad Points: The blend control only seems to work in the first quarter turn, other than that it is not in any way bad
Price Paid: US$0.00
Purchased At: Borrowed from bassist
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Submitted by Torbjörn from Örebro (110 points) on Nov 2, 2002
When I plugged this in and started tweaking I got the same feeling that I got when I tried the Boss MT-2, darn this can really effect the sound. You can do really massive sweeps from dark rumbles to mid frequensies. In a chain of effects this is as essential to me now as the DOD Grunge, MT-2 and DOD Death Metal. I canŽ´t compare it to other bass overdrive pedals as I havenŽ´t tried any. Get this if you are looking for more distortion and you already have the pedals I have mentioned in this review.
Good Points: Sturdy boss quality. Can do massive sweeps. Great control.
Bad Points: I donŽ´t like yellow:)
Price Paid: US$50.00
Purchased At: Ebay
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Submitted by gr-eh? from Detroit, MI (402 points) on Apr 7, 2002
the boss bass overdrive is one of the best pedals for creating nasty rumbly harsh noise. it has a really nice low and high eq stacked-knob setup, as well as a blend and both level and gain knobs.. it really cranks out some fierce sounds depending upon what you run into it. great with just about anything pumping into it, but in a loop i prefer to use it with the balance knob constantly tweaked to give more variation in the sound.. if you want an overdrive, don't both with the super overdrive if you can pick one of these up instead, as it will come in far more useful. i'm curious how DODs bass overdrive stacks up to this...
Good Points: awesome for bassy feedback-pierced rumbles and allows a lot of shaping of the sound.
Bad Points: erm.. none?
Price Paid: US$0.00
Purchased At: borrowed from a friend
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