Boss OC-3 Super Octave

I am gonna go ahead and just state early on that I think that Boss pedals totally fuckin rule ass. Not many agree -especially among the Tonemoan contributors- but don't let anyone tell you different. Yes, absolute everybody is using them, so if you're looking for that unique box that will totally tag your sound and turn you into Jimi Clapton Bruce Lee or whatever, then Boss is not your manufacturer.

Of course there is a great reason that a lot of people use Bosses, and that is because -as previously indicated- they totally rock. Period.

Their original octave pedal -the OC1- is the Jesus of Octaves pedals and it descended to Earth to save our solos from thin-sounding indie lameness. YES, even the most brain-dead petatonic-my-ass vomit of a solo would sound divine played through an OC1.

I have tried a couple of other octavers, namely the EH rig (the Multiplexer Octave) and a cheapo Danelectro one. The Danelectro was pretty shit as always, but the multiplexer is not that bad, although the OC1 is better to my ears. And it's not an EH, which is always a plus.

I hear MXR is doing one, but haven't played it yet. Could be cool, but its homepage is currently giving out a php error. Call me a geek, but that is not cool.

Anyway, back to the OC3. This version features polyphonic octaving, which basically means that when you play a chord in polyphonic mode, your guitar doesn't sound like Billy Gibbons farting a particularly vile taco lunch. That doesn't mean it sounds much better. Useless feature, never used in a recording, and 'm pretty sure I never will.

Clean and processed outputs are pretty useful though, if you wanna sidechain a couple of more effects to the treated signal (a compressor is usually interesting) or simply drive each signal through a different amp so that your solos can reach God and make His balls bleed.

The overdriven mode is again pretty much shit, and I really can't figure out why they added it along with the poly mode. Probably some marketing ploy, which I am glad to say didn't work for me. It did however work on a very good friend of mine, who went and bought the OC3, only to subsequently give it to me for free. Note: that guy already owns two OC1's and an OC2, which would make him a brainless tool of our capitalist society. That's ok though.

So, to wrap the tone talk up, the OC-3 work decently as a single or dual octave duplicator, and that is what anyone should stick to. My fave position is 2 o'clock direct, about 11 on the first octave, and 9-10 on the second one, with the OC sitting right after my Big Muff.

Construction-wise, the OC will never die in less than 10-15 years, which is one of the reasons Boss pedals rule. That is a 10 out of 10 right there.

So would I trade my OC2 with the refurbished, yet bloated OC3? No, not really. But it is still a decent stomp box that will stick around your rack for a long, long time, even if you only use 30% of its fuctionality.

By AC. Posted at 2008-02-12 01:45:54