Boss Obsession

Boss Obsession

I lurk quite a bit here,every now and then I put fingers to keys and 
whip out a few lines of nonsense ,here`s the latest....what is the 
obsession with Boss pedals,dont get me wrong they are affordable and 
durable ,come in pretty colours and do look good when you have a row of 
them but they are not the best sounding by ay means.They tend to cloud 
and colour the signal like crazy and eat your signal even when not 
engaged.I understand price has a lot to do with it but if you fish 
around you can get some good bargains in the boutique dept I payed ¤80
for a Carl Martin chorus and ¤75 for a Teese fk-1 compressor that is  
¤6 more than the Boss but 100% better quality. I have a DD-20 delay its=
 
clean and does its job and cost relatively little so I`m not saying that 
Boss sucks just that there are orther pedals on the market that do it 
better and you dont need to take out a second mortgage

Re: Boss Obsession

On Mar 22, 11:47 am, BP01 <ma.flod...@flodder . net > wrote:
> I lurk quite a bit here,every now and then I put fingers to keys and
> whip out a few lines of nonsense

Your nonsense is welcome here among the rest, including and especially
my own!

> here`s the latest....what is the
> obsession with Boss pedals,dont get me wrong they are affordable and
> durable ,come in pretty colours and do look good when you have a row of
> them but they are not the best sounding by ay means.

Agreed. But some of them do some cool stuff. And they are reliable-
maybe the best in that regard.

> They tend to cloud
> and colour the signal like crazy and eat your signal even when not
> engaged.

I agree about the "colour" part. Any pedals can "cloud" the signal;
some are worse than others, and some Boss pedals are worse than
others. The ones with early-design digital processing going-on inside
of them are probably the worst offenders.

>I understand price has a lot to do with it but if you fish
> around you can get some good bargains in the boutique dept I payed ¤80
> for a Carl Martin chorus and ¤75 for a Teese fk-1 compressor that is  
> ¤6 more than the Boss but 100% better quality.

I think Boss compressors are some of the worst. Chorus is subjective.
There is definitely a Boss chorus sound.

>I have a DD-20 delay its
> clean and does its job and cost relatively little so I`m not saying that
> Boss sucks just that there are orther pedals on the market that do it
> better and you dont need to take out a second mortgage

Yep. The new digital Boss stuff uses much better components and
processors.

I use 3 Boss delays live, not because they sound so great, but because
they function better than anything else. As soon as I can find 3
better-sounding delays that I can set to different beat-values, and
connect to a common tap-tempo WITHOUT MIDI, I'll buy them. Oh yeah,
they have to be about $100 each, or less. Aside from my tuner, I don't
use any other Boss gear live.

-dave-----:::
w w w .myspace . com /geetardave

Re: Boss Obsession

nice sounds on your site I like your music

Re: Boss Obsession

On Mar 22, 11:47 am, BP01 <ma.flod...@flodder . net > wrote:

> dont get me wrong they are affordable and durable

I agree with the "durable" part. But for the most part, Boss pedals
are too expensive for what they are. The DS-1 goes for about $40 US,
and that's fair. But the majority are well over $100. Digitech and
Rocktron make pedals of equal or better quality and durability for
less.

> Boss sucks just that there are orther pedals on the market that do it
> better and you dont need to take out a second mortgage

A lot of people buy Boss pedals just because they are easy to replace.
You can go into just about any music store in any city and find them.
This is comforting to touring musicians. Boss has great marketing and
distribution. They're like the McDonalds of effect pedals. But I
agree, they're not nearly the best in sound quality.

- Rich

Re: Boss Obsession

"Dr. Zontar" <drzontar@yahoo . com > wrote in news:1174588836.682969.158490
@p15g2000hsd.googlegroups . com :

> On Mar 22, 11:47 am, BP01 <ma.flod...@flodder . net > wrote:
>
>> dont get me wrong they are affordable and durable
>
> I agree with the "durable" part. But for the most part, Boss pedals
> are too expensive for what they are. The DS-1 goes for about $40 US,
> and that's fair. But the majority are well over $100. Digitech and
> Rocktron make pedals of equal or better quality and durability for
> less.
>
>> Boss sucks just that there are orther pedals on the market that do it
>> better and you dont need to take out a second mortgage
>
> A lot of people buy Boss pedals just because they are easy to replace.
> You can go into just about any music store in any city and find them.
> This is comforting to touring musicians. Boss has great marketing and
> distribution. They're like the McDonalds of effect pedals. But I
> agree, they're not nearly the best in sound quality.
>
> - Rich
>
>

I think they sound great. All of the great players I've seen live, many
have Boss pedals on stage.

Re: Boss Obsession

The Chris <cabell@nospam.hotmail . com > schrieb:

>
>I think they sound great. All of the great players I've seen live, many
>have Boss pedals on stage.

But mostly they are custom made or moded or used with loopers and not
the one that you buy in a store.

I don't like pedals without truebypass so I don't like boss or ibanez
or other stuff like that.

greets
Jürgen
--
Mailadress: klein AT technik-klein DOT de
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Re: Boss Obsession

Juergen Klein <see_text@technik-klein.de> wrote in
news:18m703pc49ukeue1ghqsrujsdgjq5hbkn3@4ax . com :

> The Chris <cabell@nospam.hotmail . com > schrieb:
>
>>
>>I think they sound great. All of the great players I've seen live, many
>>have Boss pedals on stage.
>
> But mostly they are custom made or moded or used with loopers and not
> the one that you buy in a store.
>
> I don't like pedals without truebypass so I don't like boss or ibanez
> or other stuff like that.
>
> greets
> Jürgen

Watch any Prince show - he's got everything right in front - same with
Nugent. Sound is subjective - I think they sound great. True Bypass is
great for certain situations, but, if I have 5 Boss pedals, I'm not going
to worry about that.

Think of any great pedal-using player from the 70's or 80's - not a true-
bypass pedal to be found... I'd give my eye-teeth to use the crappy tone-
sucking MXR Flanger and Phase 90's that Eddie Van Halen used back in the
day :)

Re: Boss Obsession

On 23 Mar 2007 14:15:08 GMT, The Chris <cabell@nospam.hotmail . com > wrote:

>Juergen Klein <see text@technik-klein.de> wrote in
>news:18m703pc49ukeue1ghqsrujsdgjq5hbkn3@4ax . com :
>
>> The Chris <cabell@nospam.hotmail . com > schrieb:
>>
>>>
>>>I think they sound great. All of the great players I've seen live, many
>>>have Boss pedals on stage.
>>
>> But mostly they are custom made or moded or used with loopers and not
>> the one that you buy in a store.
>>
>> I don't like pedals without truebypass so I don't like boss or ibanez
>> or other stuff like that.
>>
>> greets
>> Jürgen
>
>Watch any Prince show - he's got everything right in front - same with
>Nugent. Sound is subjective - I think they sound great. True Bypass is
>great for certain situations, but, if I have 5 Boss pedals, I'm not going
>to worry about that.
>
>Think of any great pedal-using player from the 70's or 80's - not a true-
>bypass pedal to be found... I'd give my eye-teeth to use the crappy tone-
>sucking MXR Flanger and Phase 90's that Eddie Van Halen used back in the
>day :)

There are two very different types of non-bypass pedals. There's the old-school
version that leaves the input of the circuit connected to the guitar when the
effect is off. These present relatively low resistances to the guitar's output
and will load it down - "tonesuck."

The other type is buffered, in these there's a simple transistor or FET or opamp
based circuit that is left in the circuit path at all times. It does two main
things; prepares the signal to drive the rest of the circuitry in the pedal when
it's on, and drive the capacitive and resistive load of all the other pedals and
cable that come after it in the signal chain. This eliminates tone suck, but
does change the sound by negating the load of the other pedals and cable.

Having a buffer in the signal path is a good thing, especially with a lot of
pedals and/or long cable runs, but it will change things a little. Some pedals
don't work all that well without being directly connected to a standard guitar.
A lot of fuzz pedals suffer from that and should be put in front of any buffered
pedals. My own rig is set up like that. Guitar goes to a fuzz face clone, then a
modern wah with a buffer built in; from there to the other pedals and amp.

One factor that almost everybody forgets is that the old non-bypass pedals were
designed by guys who expected they player would turn up the treble on the amp to
make up for the tonesuck. Because of this they designed the pedals a little
darker sounding than works best with a true bypass arrangement. This is not
necessarily a bad thing if the whole player / guitar / cables / pedal / amp
system is coordinated. Jimi did fine with what looks like 80 feet of coilly
cable and a pile of unbypassed effect pedals. He also played a very bright
guitar into the high power professional amps of his day which were also very
bright by modern standards. Anyway, modern adaptations of vintage pedals often
need to take this into account.

The bottom line is that the great players seemed to always be searching for the
new, better, exotic thing, but also had a great sense for knowing when to grab
what was there and learn how to wring the best out of it.



Ron

Effect pedal demo's up at * w w w .soundclick . com /ronsonicpedalry

Re: Boss Obsession

RonSonic <ronsonic@tampabay.rr . com > wrote in
news:c2s80312aivaarha1vjekn04csa4cuj7i2@4ax . com :

> On 23 Mar 2007 14:15:08 GMT, The Chris <cabell@nospam.hotmail . com >
> wrote:
>
>>Juergen Klein <see_text@technik-klein.de> wrote in
>>news:18m703pc49ukeue1ghqsrujsdgjq5hbkn3@4ax . com :
>>
>>> The Chris <cabell@nospam.hotmail . com > schrieb:
>>>
>>>>
>>>>I think they sound great. All of the great players I've seen live,
>>>>many have Boss pedals on stage.
>>>
>>> But mostly they are custom made or moded or used with loopers and
>>> not the one that you buy in a store.
>>>
>>> I don't like pedals without truebypass so I don't like boss or
>>> ibanez or other stuff like that.
>>>
>>> greets
>>> Jürgen
>>
>>Watch any Prince show - he's got everything right in front - same with
>>Nugent. Sound is subjective - I think they sound great. True Bypass
>>is great for certain situations, but, if I have 5 Boss pedals, I'm not
>>going to worry about that.
>>
>>Think of any great pedal-using player from the 70's or 80's - not a
>>true- bypass pedal to be found... I'd give my eye-teeth to use the
>>crappy tone- sucking MXR Flanger and Phase 90's that Eddie Van Halen
>>used back in the day :)
>
> There are two very different types of non-bypass pedals. There's the
> old-school version that leaves the input of the circuit connected to
> the guitar when the effect is off. These present relatively low
> resistances to the guitar's output and will load it down - "tonesuck."
>
> The other type is buffered, in these there's a simple transistor or
> FET or opamp based circuit that is left in the circuit path at all
> times. It does two main things; prepares the signal to drive the rest
> of the circuitry in the pedal when it's on, and drive the capacitive
> and resistive load of all the other pedals and cable that come after
> it in the signal chain. This eliminates tone suck, but does change the
> sound by negating the load of the other pedals and cable.
>
> Having a buffer in the signal path is a good thing, especially with a
> lot of pedals and/or long cable runs, but it will change things a
> little. Some pedals don't work all that well without being directly
> connected to a standard guitar. A lot of fuzz pedals suffer from that
> and should be put in front of any buffered pedals. My own rig is set
> up like that. Guitar goes to a fuzz face clone, then a modern wah with
> a buffer built in; from there to the other pedals and amp.
>
> One factor that almost everybody forgets is that the old non-bypass
> pedals were designed by guys who expected they player would turn up
> the treble on the amp to make up for the tonesuck. Because of this
> they designed the pedals a little darker sounding than works best with
> a true bypass arrangement. This is not necessarily a bad thing if the
> whole player / guitar / cables / pedal / amp system is coordinated.
> Jimi did fine with what looks like 80 feet of coilly cable and a pile
> of unbypassed effect pedals. He also played a very bright guitar into
> the high power professional amps of his day which were also very
> bright by modern standards. Anyway, modern adaptations of vintage
> pedals often need to take this into account.
>
> The bottom line is that the great players seemed to always be
> searching for the new, better, exotic thing, but also had a great
> sense for knowing when to grab what was there and learn how to wring
> the best out of it.
>
>
>
> Ron
>
> Effect pedal demo's up at * w w w .soundclick . com /ronsonicpedalry
>
>

Well said. Not that it's wrong to look for quiet pedals, but, None of the
stuff we grew up liking had boutique pedals or amps.

Get some Boss pedals and start rockin!!! :)

Re: Boss Obsession

On Mar 24, 10:57 am, The Chris <cab...@nospam.hotmail . com > wrote:
> RonSonic <ronso...@tampabay.rr . com > wrote innews:c2s80312aivaarha1vjekn04=
csa4cuj7i2@4ax . com :
>
>
>
> > On 23 Mar 2007 14:15:08 GMT, The Chris <cab...@nospam.hotmail . com >
> > wrote:
>
> >>Juergen Klein <see t...@technik-klein.de> wrote in
> >>news:18m703pc49ukeue1ghqsrujsdgjq5hbkn3@4ax . com :
>
> >>> The Chris <cab...@nospam.hotmail . com > schrieb:
>
> >>>>I think they sound great. All of the great players I've seen live,
> >>>>many have Boss pedals on stage.
>
> >>> But mostly they are custom made or moded or used with loopers and
> >>> not the one that you buy in a store.
>
> >>> I don't like pedals without truebypass so I don't like boss or
> >>> ibanez or other stuff like that.
>
> >>> greets
> >>> Jürgen
>
> >>Watch any Prince show - he's got everything right in front - same with
> >>Nugent. Sound is subjective - I think they sound great. True Bypass
> >>is great for certain situations, but, if I have 5 Boss pedals, I'm not
> >>going to worry about that.
>
> >>Think of any great pedal-using player from the 70's or 80's - not a
> >>true- bypass pedal to be found... I'd give my eye-teeth to use the
> >>crappy tone- sucking MXR Flanger and Phase 90's that Eddie Van Halen
> >>used back in the day :)
>
> > There are two very different types of non-bypass pedals. There's the
> > old-school version that leaves the input of the circuit connected to
> > the guitar when the effect is off. These present relatively low
> > resistances to the guitar's output and will load it down - "tonesuck."
>
> > The other type is buffered, in these there's a simple transistor or
> > FET or opamp based circuit that is left in the circuit path at all
> > times. It does two main things; prepares the signal to drive the rest
> > of the circuitry in the pedal when it's on, and drive the capacitive
> > and resistive load of all the other pedals and cable that come after
> > it in the signal chain. This eliminates tone suck, but does change the
> > sound by negating the load of the other pedals and cable.
>
> > Having a buffer in the signal path is a good thing, especially with a
> > lot of pedals and/or long cable runs, but it will change things a
> > little. Some pedals don't work all that well without being directly
> > connected to a standard guitar. A lot of fuzz pedals suffer from that
> > and should be put in front of any buffered pedals. My own rig is set
> > up like that. Guitar goes to a fuzz face clone, then a modern wah with
> > a buffer built in; from there to the other pedals and amp.
>
> > One factor that almost everybody forgets is that the old non-bypass
> > pedals were designed by guys who expected they player would turn up
> > the treble on the amp to make up for the tonesuck. Because of this
> > they designed the pedals a little darker sounding than works best with
> > a true bypass arrangement. This is not necessarily a bad thing if the
> > whole player / guitar / cables / pedal / amp system is coordinated.
> > Jimi did fine with what looks like 80 feet of coilly cable and a pile
> > of unbypassed effect pedals. He also played a very bright guitar into
> > the high power professional amps of his day which were also very
> > bright by modern standards. Anyway, modern adaptations of vintage
> > pedals often need to take this into account.
>
> > The bottom line is that the great players seemed to always be
> > searching for the new, better, exotic thing, but also had a great
> > sense for knowing when to grab what was there and learn how to wring
> > the best out of it.
>
> > Ron
>
> > Effect pedal demo's up at * w w w .soundclick . com /ronsonicpedalry
>
> Well said. Not that it's wrong to look for quiet pedals, but, None of the
> stuff we grew up liking had boutique pedals or amps.
>
> Get some Boss pedals and start rockin!!! :)

I've used the reverse argument. A band member who's not a guitar
player asked: why don't you use "real" pedals, like boss, and why so
many?

The way I explained it was the timeframe of what I consider the golden
age of lead guitar (early brit hard rock and metal- Blackmore, Page,
Barre, Tipton etc. ) boss pedals didn't exist. So much of what I
have is replicas of those old time pedals -Dallas Rangemaster clones,
Clyde wah, univibe etc- made with more reliable switches....

To answer why so many, I said because I like a variety of sounds-
Barre used this one, Page used these two, Jimi had these 3 and so on).

Another reason why it's better to support the smaller operations is
because they build with the player in mind so they make a fair profit
while not building a pedal for three dollars and sell it for $79.
Thats the major problem with mass produced stuff, as soon as an MBA
takes charge there's no talk of making future classics. Its all about
sourcing cheaper parts, moving operations to sweatshop A in country X
where they make 40% less in wages... not keeping the player in mind.

Re: Boss Obsession

"Terry" <delayfreak111@hotmail . com > schrieb:

>Another reason why it's better to support the smaller operations is
>because they build with the player in mind so they make a fair profit
>while not building a pedal for three dollars and sell it for $79.
>Thats the major problem with mass produced stuff, as soon as an MBA
>takes charge there's no talk of making future classics. Its all about
>sourcing cheaper parts, moving operations to sweatshop A in country X
>where they make 40% less in wages... not keeping the player in mind.
>

Yes, thats the point: boss, ibanez and so on produces their pedals in
masses. If they could safe one cent on a resistor, they will use the
cheaper one, not the better one.

They do not use the buffered toggle swiching because it's good. They
use it because a good 3dtp-switch costs 10times the price of a simple
toggle switch with a fet or transistor.
--
Mailadress: klein AT technik-klein DOT de
Advertisement to this mail address is prohibited!
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Re: Boss Obsession

In article <c2s80312aivaarha1vjekn04csa4cuj7i2@4ax . com >, 
ronsonic@tampabay.rr . com says...
> On 23 Mar 2007 14:15:08 GMT, The Chris <cabell@nospam.hotmail . com > wrote:
> 
> >Juergen Klein <see text@technik-klein.de> wrote in 
> >news:18m703pc49ukeue1ghqsrujsdgjq5hbkn3@4ax . com :
> >
> >> The Chris <cabell@nospam.hotmail . com > schrieb:
> >> 
> >>>
> >>>I think they sound great. All of the great players I've seen live, ma=
ny 
> >>>have Boss pedals on stage.
> >> 
> >> But mostly they are custom made or moded or used with loopers and not
> >> the one that you buy in a store.
> >> 
> >> I don't like pedals without truebypass so I don't like boss or ibanez
> >> or other stuff like that.
> >> 
> >> greets
> >> Jürgen
> >
> >Watch any Prince show - he's got everything right in front - same with=
 
> >Nugent. Sound is subjective - I think they sound great. True Bypass is=
 
> >great for certain situations, but, if I have 5 Boss pedals, I'm not goin=
g 
> >to worry about that.
> >
> >Think of any great pedal-using player from the 70's or 80's - not a true=
-
> >bypass pedal to be found... I'd give my eye-teeth to use the crappy tone=
-
> >sucking MXR Flanger and Phase 90's that Eddie Van Halen used back in the=
 
> >day :)
> 
> There are two very different types of non-bypass pedals. There's the old-=
school
> version that leaves the input of the circuit connected to the guitar when=
the
> effect is off. These present relatively low resistances to the guitar's o=
utput
> and will load it down - "tonesuck."
> 
> The other type is buffered, in these there's a simple transistor or FET o=
r opamp
> based circuit that is left in the circuit path at all times. It does two =
main
> things; prepares the signal to drive the rest of the circuitry in the ped=
al when
> it's on, and drive the capacitive and resistive load of all the other ped=
als and
> cable that come after it in the signal chain. This eliminates tone suck, =
but
> does change the sound by negating the load of the other pedals and cable.
> 
> Having a buffer in the signal path is a good thing, especially with a lot=
of
> pedals and/or long cable runs, but it will change things a little. Some p=
edals
> don't work all that well without being directly connected to a standard g=
uitar.
> A lot of fuzz pedals suffer from that and should be put in front of any b=
uffered
> pedals. My own rig is set up like that. Guitar goes to a fuzz face clone,=
then a
> modern wah with a buffer built in; from there to the other pedals and amp=
.
> 
> One factor that almost everybody forgets is that the old non-bypass pedal=
s were

Great post Ron ,thanks you explained it in good concise language.I 
remember reading an article by Pete Cornish about true bypass and have 
since tried to get the best out of it.I have a vox 847 modded as the 
first then Teese Compressor,fulltone OCD,T-rex Tremster,carl martin 
chorus and then a Boss DD-20 delay which as you say buffers the signal 
over the 15' cable to my amps