My favourite Boss pedal is the HM-2, just because it reminds me of growing up in the 80's, hooking that pedal up to my JCM800 on top of a 4x12, grabbing my Kramer Baretta and turning everything up to 11 after my parents went out is a memory that will stay with me forever.
My entire board is made up of 21 Boss pedals! Most of which are the original 80s/90s ones. They all barely fit in 3 rows of 7 pedals on a Voodoo Lab large Dingbat board. For power Im running 2 Voodoo Lab Pedal Power 2 Plus units and a Cioks DC-5. 21 pedals, 21 outputs. Sweet! Of course I have all the Boss Metal pedals: HM-2, HM-3, MZ-2, MT-2w and ML-2 , surprisingly though the Power Stack pedal is absolutely awesome for many metal tones too. Ive had people offer to trade all sorts of things from a LP Custom to a Seadoo jetski for my Boss collection. No deal, some are way to impossible to get again. Boss rules...ask the cops in my area. LOL!
Love that you mentioned the Dimension C. My favorite chorus pedal solely because it doesn’t act like a traditional chorus. It doesn’t have that seasick-out of tune sound when played in the higher settings. It seems like it’s limited since it doesn’t have any knobs, but every setting is totally useable, as opposed to a normal chorus pedal that might only have one or two settings that are actually useable
The Metalzone is something im not ashamed of even in the slightest. My mates used to go crazy over my tone. Little did they know i was using a metalzone (same thing they would make fun of) like a preamp 😂
Robert, you forgot the spillover function of the DD7..VERY IMPRESSIVE FUNCTION!! I love how you can shut your delay off and have it trail off without killing it completely!! Great video man!!
Robert, good topic! I agree with most of these, and would just add the PH-2 Super Phaser. One, because it’s a great analog phaser, that also has some versatility/variety in available tones. Two, for me, it was the first pedal I ever bought, and was just so much fun. Very enjoyable video.... ... except that I will have, “I Ran,” playing in my head nonstop for the next ten hours. Thanks.
I remember watching a video made by GAK, they took a Boss pedal & ran over it with one of those warehouse fork lifts, they blugged it in & it still worked....! Absolutely amazing.... 🎛🚜
I now have 23 Boss pedals, the only non-Boss pedals I own are wahs and a Whammy, my OCD won't let me mix in other brands of pedals, I like the uniform look and color coding, plus they sound awesome.
The boss RC-1 is a basic yet powerful tool when you know how to use it. And the blues driver is amazing. Boss pedals, built like tanks and always perform.
the Boss TR2 Tremolo pedal is exceptional. and for 80 bucks or so. I love diming out the depth and turning the rate down pretty low for a more phasery/ethereal kind of vibe. it's GREAT
I went on a buying spree looking for used modded pedals and especially Boss. Got enough in about a yr to build a pretty cool pboard. And a bunch of extra shelf material. Now I got about 20 modded pedals including 6 on my board.
Boss TR-2, GE7 and DD-3 or DM-2 are essentials that you can build around to get ANY sound. Add 1 or 2 other pedals and you're finished! My DM-2 (1984) is locked up safely so I replaced it with the Waza version for daily use. The MT-2w definitely looks interesting!
Had a BF-2 Flanger years ago and sold it. I now have a CP-1x compressor. Amazing sounding unit for my clean tone - I used it with a TC Corona Chorus set for the Dimension M TonePrint. Great tone.
Correct. Ibanez/Maxon basically took the OD-1 circuit and added a tone control. So Boss then countered and came out with the SD-1, which is a modified Tube Screamer. WITH a tone control. LOL
My current favourite Boss pedal is the OD-1X. I can get it to go from an overdrive that adds a slight snarl to a full on distortion that sounds amazing. It’s easily the most versatile overdrive pedal I’ve ever owned. If I could only take 3 pedals to a gig it would be the TU-2, the OD-1X and the GE-7.
Totally agree, Robert... I love me Power Stack pedal... I also have the 40th anniversary DS 1, BF 3 Flanger, great pedal this one, DN 2, OS 2, PS 6 Harmonist, this one is an absolute must, MD 2, BD 2 (who hasn't got one of these), NS 2.... Would love to Digital Delay, Phaser & Slow Gear SG 1 (absolute no chance of getting this one), & finally the Tremolo would make a good addition to the ones I own...! Enjoyed this one....
I fell victim to all the boss hate from the early 2000s, that buffers were crap and everything needed to be hand built analogue with true bypass switching. I’m still in recovery but I have a couple of boss pedals that I like. One day I’ll accumulate more since a lot are pretty cheap used. Maybe a good way to begin learning to mod pedals!
Boss pedals are awesome. They’re not for everybody, but people that don’t like them usually can’t dial in a distortion or overdrive to save their lives.
Great video, I have gigged with all sorts of pedals over the years. I have gone back to Boss because.....they are buffered, they are fairly cheap, they seem to be unaffected by flying beer, rum & coke and very drunk ladies who stumble across my pedal board!
Matter of fact I have 3 boss mt-2, 1-mt-2w and one Analogman MT-2. It’s hard to beat, matter fact it can’t be beat! The Metal zone was and is the best distortion pedal ever made. Fact! I can’t help myself when I am at a flea market and I see a boss metal zone for $20 that’s in decent shape I’m buying it. This is a killer video I missed, that just came up right after your current video so I continue watching RGD. I love your channel thank you Robert for all the videos you make.
I bought some kind of tube screamer thing new in box at a yard sale for $5. The box was faded and beat, inside was pristine. Gave it to a young metal player friend, he loves it.
JezBollah 667 Yep that's what I was told. Over the years I have given away lots of pedals from vintage Vox wah to the tube screamer. Have also given away amps and guitars. It's nice to see a smile on a young person's face and some have become very good guitarist. Maybe I helped, I don't know. I prefer to play straight up guitar, 50's & 60's rock and roll and let the amp break up naturally.
Robert, thanks for such a comprehensive list of pedals. I'm only two years into playing and pedals confuse me more than the settings on my Fender amp. Excellent and informative video!
Thats one reason why Boss is such a good choice for many players, rookies and vets alike. Their controls are easy to understand and set to the sound youre looking for. Unfortunately the phenominal ones (80s Japanese) command a premium price and most have been scooped up by collectors. But that also tells you something, think Strymon or Wampler will ever be "collector grade" pedals? I highly doubt it.
Wampler does already have a few pedals from their early days that are becoming collectible. All of their pedals are American-made, whereas Strymon is all made in China.
Dear Robert, thank you for your interesting, educational and honest music channel! It is Super helpful for the people! :-) Be healthy, happy and blessed, and all your audience people too!
i have been playing since the 70s,... i used the original tube screamer, so i never got a sd1 until a few months ago,lol . i have had most boss pedals through the years though. As far as modern delays the collider kicks butt.
The ds-2 turbo dist is amazing it has the distortion sound of the scorpions the boss dc2 dimension-c give the chorus sound of (talking heads)( duran duran) (The fixx) and the best song (flesh for fantacy billy idol )
I use a BOSS SD-1 forever , btw the orginal BOSS OD-1 was relase in 1977, and the tube screamer in 1979 , which makes the TS a clone (different clipping I guess) of the BOSS, and the BOSS as a better design in my opinion.
The Tube Screamer was Ibanez’s version of the OD-1, but they added a tone control. Boss had no choice but to bring out the SD-1, which was THEIR version of the OD-1 with a tone control, if they wanted to remain competitive. I’ve always wondered how Ibanez got away with that back then in this lawsuit-happy industry.
In order of acquisition...CH1 super chorus. CS3 compressor. BD2 blues driver. AC2 acoustic simulator (sold). CEB3 bass chorues(sold). RC2 loop station ..I'm not good enough guitarist to fill 3 hours of a RC3. To get list...delay...tuner...eq...octave...it goes on...
I still have yet to get a Metal Zone. I can honestly say I have never had one. However, I would agree on the rest of these pedals. I have or have had 90% of the others. I had the Delay pedal for year but recently upgraded to the Boss DD-500. It has been able to replace probably 20 pedals, it does delay, chorus, reverb, looper, freeze pedal, and a whole bunch of other things. I both love it and hate it, hate it when I am trying to get a sound dialed in, it can take a while, love it once it is dialed in and saved, it is so easy once saved to call up. Also had the RC-3 for years. Last year, I did upgrade to the big one, oh yeah the RC-300. That's another beast of a pedal. For quick loops and so on, I just use the DD-500. Set aside a couple hours on a Saturday or Sunday to play with the RC-300, honestly I could have just went with the RC-30, but the 300 was on sale for same price as a 30. I have yet to full use it to it's full potential. One pedal I think you missed, was just the plain old boss Chorus pedal. The blue one, I had the older CH-1, but recently went to the CH-2e. Yeah I dunno whats wrong with me, all my pedals have tons of controls and presets and then my Chorus, has 2 knobs and a switch. Its simple and just gives me a great chorus sound. I can dial in different Chorus sounds with the DD-500 but sometimes just just want to pop it on and shut it off, no muss no fuss. I have used a simple boss chorus pedal for all my chorus needs for decades
Which chorus pedal? I did mention the CE-5 Chorus Ensemble. (Didn’t I? 🤔) if you’re referring to the Super Chorus, that’s also a great pedal, but it gets a little too saturated for my taste. I like the Chorus Ensemble better because it’s more transparent.
@@RobertWJackson I seen your CE-5 mention. And yeah great pedal. But yes I was talking super chorus. Have been using those blue beasts for years. However since getting the DD-500 I have been using the chorus built into that. If you do ever get a chance to pick one of those up. I can't recommend it enough. It goes well beyond just delay. There is even pitch shifting in there.
A buddy of mine, who is also probably the best guitar player I know, has had one on his board forever, as well. He’s the one that taught me to use chorus as a VERY interesting solo boost, and I still do that to this day.
the Boss FZ-2. I bought a Boss ME-10 so i thought it reasonable to advertise my small but impressive (for a teenager) early 90's Boss pedal collection. I sold just 2...thankfully. My FZ-2 and my PS-2 sold quickly. Now 25 years later i kick myself in the...... because i need $400-500 aussie dollars to get the fz2 back. Live and learn i guess!
I personally find the boss metal core ml-2 to be the best boss distortion pedal. Easily. But pedals in general are very subjective. I think if you want a heavy modern aggressive yet polished tone I find the boss metal core to absolutely wipe the floor with any other boss pedal including the metal zone. I honestly believe the metal core was always overlooked because its name is "metal core" which is a genre people tend to hate on. Metal zone is much more broad name and attracts metalheads with it's "Metal zone" name. But the Metal Core completely outshines it anyway of the week in my opinion. Both are good pedals tho.
Man, the Metal Core would be a great pedal…IF it actually had some damn midrange to it. It’s so scooped out that it’s useless in a mix. The Waza Craft Metal Zone in the Custom mode is the way to go for modern metal tones.
Oh yes, very much so. On the surface they might seem like two different terms for the same thing. (At least I used to think so, once upon a time.) Distortion (in pedal form, anyway) is meant to take the place of a gain channel on an amp. If you have an amp whose distortion channel you don’t care for, for example, you can run a distortion pedal into the clean channel and get a much different sounding distortion than what the amp will give you. You almost always want to run a distortion pedal into the cleanest signal you have as they’re not really meant to run into another gain stage. (Yes, there are exceptions, but generally speaking, don’t do it.) This is also why the guitar world is now rediscovering the Metal Zone (myself included, if you’ll recall) by bypassing the preamp section altogether and running it straight into the power amp section of their amplifiers, effectively eliminating all gain stages between the pedal and the speaker. Overdrive pedals, on the other hand sound very thin when ran into a clean amp. They’re MEANT to be ran into the front end of a dirty-sounding amplifier, usually a tube amp set for a light distortion/break-up. The idea here is to enhance the tone of the amplifier itself, rather than replace it like a distortion pedal does. Different overdrive pedals affect different amps in different ways. You have your über midrange-y Tube Screamer circuits, your “transparent” Klon circuits, your gained out Marshall-esque overdrives, among many others. Tube Screamers were very popular in the 80’s among the hard rock/metal players because they created a really warm tone through a Marshall JCM800, which was pretty much a requirement back then if you wanted to play guitar. The blues players also latched onto them because Stevie Ray Vaughan discovered that if he set his Super Reverbs just on the edge of break-up and then hit it with a Tube Screamer (he ran his with the gain almost all the way down and the level turned all the way up), he’d sound like, well, Stevie Ray Vaughan. Then you have the smaller category that are designed to be used for either application. The Fulltone OCD comes to mind. It’s definitely MUCH more popular as an overdrive, but I’ve actually gotten great sounds out of it using it as a distortion. Hope this helps!
I actually did a video on this topic earlier last year. This might help you to hear some examples. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-WVfoVGVXkLo.html
A really good pedal would be the Boss Blues Driver BD-2; excellent for your classic rock, hard rock, and blues types of sounds out there. And it’s got a really good price to it for $99.99 new, and as much as $59.99 used.
#1. Boss SD-1 is not a Tube Screamer. It uses asymmetrical clipping, whereas a TS uses symmetrical clipping, and Ibanez made it that way because they couldn’t copy the circuit in the Boss OD-1. The SD-1 is the same as its predecessor but with the added tone control. OD-1 -> TS -> SD-1. #5. The RV-6 has the cheesiest of all Shimmer sounds, but otherwise...👍
Ibanez/Maxon may have changed the clipping along with adding a tone control when they ripped off the OD-1, but it’s still the same circuit design. Now the later versions of the OD-1 were wildly different in the OD-2/OD-2r and especially the current OD-3. The first version of the OD-2 was garbage, by the way. LOL
@@RobertWJackson Yes, same circuit design, different clipping. So, Ibanez actually did copy Boss, and the SD-1 is not a TS clone. I bought my 1984 MIJ SD-1 used... in 1987. Enjoyed your video. Cheers.
I don’t think I called it a Tube Screamer clone. I HAVE called the SD-1 the original Tube Screamer numerous times, though. But it’s also been awhile since I made this video, so I guess you would know what I said more than I would. LOL Glad you enjoyed the video!
Boss NS-2 (noise suppressor) is missing, and I would have included that instead of 2 loop station versions. Otherwise, great video.The vibratos are good too.
I love Boss pedals, but I’ve never felt the NS-2 was the greatest noise gate in the world. Don’t get me wrong, it’s certainly not BAD and it’ll get the job the done, but there are other noise gates out there that I think are better.
@@RobertWJackson I don't own it but I played it and enjoyed it and ran it through the loop etc--thanks for the reply--what do you recommend? I've never owned a noise pedal, but am in the market for one. I borrowed an NS-2 for a few weeks and really liked it.
Like I said, the NS-2 certainly isn’t bad, but I much prefer the TC Electronic Sentry, Rocktron Hush / Mini Hush, or the Electro-Harmonix Silencer. My absolute favorite, however is the ISP Decimator / Decimator II. If you REALLY want to spend some money on a killer noise gate, then get the ISP Decimator G-String. That’s the best one you’re gonna find. But if you don’t want to spend $350 on a noise gate, the Decimator / Decimator II is a close second. Good luck!
It's not really an effect but the Boss NS-2 has to be one of the most useful pedals they make. If you do multiple gain pedals you will need a noise gate sooner or later.
As much as I love Boss pedals, I’ve found the NS-2 will get the job done, but there are other noise gates out there in the same price range that are better like the TC Electronic Sentry and the ISP Decimator.
Probably won’t happen because I’m not a big multi-effects guy, and those things are constantly evolving with newer and better technology, it would be obsolete in a week or two. LOL But lemme see what I can do. 😉
MusicalMemories ME 80 is cool. Had the ME 50,chorus selector knob crapped out. You can plug it straight into some computer speakers and is a great at home jam machine. I would get a ME 80 if I didnt go to pedals.
I like that pedal! I actually used one as my drive tone for years, and I still have it. I’ll have to dig that one back out and do something with it in a video one day.
BOO-TEEK LOL... Have u seen Phil McKnight vid where he pits the metal zone against all kinds of high end pedals. I was amazed and so were many others at how many times i picked the metal zone. Do u got a metal zone vid?
I’ve got a couple of them, actually. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-C7m0DNsvQxI.html ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-hdGVTyKy3iw.html
Right? Who would have thought back when Boss were still making that pedal that something as simple as an auto swell would be selling for THAT kind of money???
I guess I didn’t add it to this list because, for one, it’s not really an effect that I tend to gravitate towards and also, they’re not real easy to find. That’s not a pedal that you can just “go check out”. The Boss collectors are hoarding those things up more and more every day. Hopefully Boss will give us a Waza Craft modern version of it one day.
MEtAl ZoNE buRRiEd iN CloSEt?! Mine stays glued to my bottom right of board, its the stick, if any pedal messes up theyre on notice of what will route in its place! That and just do the waza mod to it (no reason pay 5x $), gives the pissed off bees some much needed anger management.
Boss...hmmm...too '80s 'corpoate Rock'/early MTV era for me. I tired of them even then. They were very coveted, though, back in the day. I now only have the new Boss SY-1 as it has a lot of potential for new sounds. My current set up is, otherwise, made up of Joyo (lots!) and NuX. Cheap and sound amazing. Tried a couple of 'boutiques' a decade ago,but...meh...nothing special. Quick edit: my brother, a bassist, owns all the Boss bass guitar specific pedals and loves the sounds they deliver for him.
I had a boss pedal like the turbo distortion but was in a yellow case like the super distortion. it had the 4 knobs like the turbo distortion. for the life of me I don't remember the name. I was hoping you might know the 1 im thinking of. great content keep t up.
I can delay actually doing my job far longer than any pedal. Give me a clipboard with an inch of plumbing designs and city of Dallas plumbing code's and I will make you crazy with statements such as.." This private C.E.O toilet design has possible primary, secondary and tirshiary design flaws. It is needless to say that the mural of Trump with his mouth open in the bottom of the toilet will take awhile! But we pride ourselves on the realistic look!!
Did you see this video posted about Richard Benson a few days ago here's the link ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-Fqc_ktntWEs.html not sure if it's real or not but I thought it was interesting since you defended him and all of us less fortunate guitarists from StevieT. (I still like his videos) I enjoy your videos keep it up many times I've consulted your reviews before making a purchase. Edit originally I said less fortunate now I'm going to say less commited or less experienced guitarists. Masters of guitar in training if you will lol.
Pedals are ok but should not be used for Overdrive. If it doesn’t have tubes it’s synthetic sounding. BOSS made a very reasonable priced rack called the GX-700 that’s amazing. Saves a lot of static in cable connections and 9 volt battery’s. But it’s distortion/overdrive should not be used.
It seems there aren't many flangers as there aren't too many die hard pro users like Prince was. I have the vintage non stereo pedal purchased in the 80's.
