Boss OD-3 Mods

[souped-up]

I've been modding the DS-1 and SD-1 for a while,and I bought an OD-3 to try out some mods to.My main issue with this circuit is too much bass,ear piercing highs(like the BD-2 and OS-2),a little fuzzy,and more mids.I'm looking at the schematic,and there's so many components on the PCB I'm a little lost.
Anybody have any ideas I can try? Thanks in advance!

 

[MilwMark]

I might suggest you just don't prefer the OD-3 circuit, or don't have a rig optimized for it. That's a pretty long list of issues with it, actually. I hear you on the bass issue, but I've just learned that due to the bass it's not a "live" pedal for me - only a home pedal. And at home it's perfect through any amp I throw at it. I tried some mods to nip just a hair of bass, but somehow it lost a little magic in the process. I think Boss got that circuit pretty much as perfect as it can be, and have learned to work around the bass issue. Happy hunting though.

 

[chris m.]

I agree-- go with something else rather than mod the OD3. I swear I am getting less picky, personally...OD3, SD1, OCDv4, RAT all yield overdrive and distortion that make me happy, with no clear winner.

 

[Ringo]

I used the OD3 with a few different amps Fender Deluxe Reverb , Princeton Reverb, Z28 style head, and a Roland Cube 80XL, it sounded good with all of them for my needs, I mostly used it with the gain no higher than halfway usually about 9 oclock.

Do a search here on the TDPRI and you'll find some info, but to me the OD3 sounds really good stock, I liked it , unlike the Boss BD which I never liked even when modded.

 

[souped-up]

I've been modding the DS-1 and SD-1 for a while,and I bought an OD-3 to try out some mods to.My main issue with this circuit is too much bass,ear piercing highs(like the BD-2 and OS-2),a little fuzzy,and more mids.I'm looking at the schematic,and there's so many components on the PCB I'm a little lost.
Anybody have any ideas I can try? Thanks in advance!

Thanks folks for your ideas.I've played it through different amps,and I still have the same issues with it.I do agree that Boss,Almost got it right.There's a high-end frequency that's ear piercing that I can't dial out.That's my main issue with it.

 

[MilwMark]

Thanks folks for your ideas.I've played it through different amps,and I still have the same issues with it.I do agree that Boss,Almost got it right.There's a high-end frequency that's ear piercing that I can't dial out.That's my main issue with it.

Honestly I'd suspect a defective unit. Ice-pick highs is not something I'd associate with the OD-3. And I've owned two (after I foolishly traded the first one). The highs and detail are there, but not piercing. I use mine most often to warm up a solid state amp that lacks all lows and tends to somewhat shrill highs. Roll tone back to 11 and it tames the shrill highs inherent in that amp.

 

[wtk0315]

Yeah I'm gonna second that. I haven't really put tone past 1:00 but even with treble on amp maxed its not ice picky. Maybe tone all the way guitar tone all the way and amp all the way it'd be shrill but in general its pretty warm.

Do you have hotter than stock pickups?

 

[11 Gauge]

Honestly I'd suspect a defective unit. Ice-pick highs is not something I'd associate with the OD-3. And I've owned two (after I foolishly traded the first one). The highs and detail are there, but not piercing.

If the pedal was purchased used, it may already have some mods done that wrecked the stock sound.

I can't tell you how many Boss pedals I've found like that, even if they were never advertised/listed that way. I think some places just buy & sell and don't really test as to what these things should actually sound like.

The OD-3 has a sort of "pre-emphasis notch filter" prior to really hitting any gain stages, but it's on the mild side. So while it might be possible that this is the part of the circuit that the OP is hearing too much treble emphasis with, I doubt it a bit.

...When I hear that there's a problem in the treble registers with something that makes an overdriven sound, I tend to suspect that someone has been playing around with clipping diodes. And something that is semi-unique to the OD-3 is that there's no small-value caps that roll off some high frequency content like you will find in the vast majority of OD's. IOW, they were in the OD-2 and BD-2 but omitted from the OD-3. So if the clippers are goofed/hacked, that will really wreck things.

Also IMO - the reason why folks think the pedal is bass heavy is because it has a BIG gain range for an OD. If it's kept to what I think is more reasonable (between 9:00-12:00), the bass shouldn't be as much of an issue for a great many players.

 

[MilwMark]

If the pedal was purchased used, it may already have some mods done that wrecked the stock sound.

I can't tell you how many Boss pedals I've found like that, even if they were never advertised/listed that way. I think some places just buy & sell and don't really test as to what these things should actually sound like.

The OD-3 has a sort of "pre-emphasis notch filter" prior to really hitting any gain stages, but it's on the mild side. So while it might be possible that this is the part of the circuit that the OP is hearing too much treble emphasis with, I doubt it a bit.

...When I hear that there's a problem in the treble registers with something that makes an overdriven sound, I tend to suspect that someone has been playing around with clipping diodes. And something that is semi-unique to the OD-3 is that there's no small-value caps that roll off some high frequency content like you will find in the vast majority of OD's. IOW, they were in the OD-2 and BD-2 but omitted from the OD-3. So if the clippers are goofed/hacked, that will really wreck things.

Also IMO - the reason why folks think the pedal is bass heavy is because it has a BIG gain range for an OD. If it's kept to what I think is more reasonable (between 9:00-12:00), the bass shouldn't be as much of an issue for a great many players.

Interesting. Can you elaborate on why the big gain range affects the bass? Or is it affecting the perception of bass?

My first go round I used to run the gain above noon (1-2 o'clock maybe). Farty, splatty, "weird" OD/bordering on distortion.

This time, I run it pretty much 9-11 o'clock and like it much better. Bass is full, but not overbearing. And the clipping is a lot more pleasant/natural. I thought the issue was that I wasn't using it at gig volumes but maybe it's where I'm setting the gain? Or both?

 

[codamedia]

The OD3 is one pedal that I really like - stock! I generally use two overdrive pedals, one for a softer overdrive and one for leads. After buying/trading/modding at least a dozen different pedals I settled on a stock OD3 for the soft dirt and a stock TS9 for the lead.

The OD3 is very loud, so I tend to run both the gain and level down quite a bit (9 - 11 o'clock), but my tone is pretty much flat (ie: 12:00). I don't notice any undesirable highs or overbearing lows.

 

[MilwMark]

The OD3 is very loud, so I tend to run both the gain and level down quite a bit (9 - 11 o'clock), but my tone is pretty much flat (ie: 12:00). I don't notice any undesirable highs or overbearing lows.

I find the same thing. On mine, unity is about 8 o'clock with the gain at about 9 o'clock.

 

[RetroTeleRod]

As others have stated, keeping the gain at noon or below is the way to get the best from this pedal. IMO anyhow. In fact I love mine as a clean boost with the gain nearly off, volume at 10 o'clock and tone at noon. (I'm using it into a Hot Rod Deluxe, clean channel.) I'm one of those folks that is very sensitive to high end frequencies, and I don't get that at all from my OD-3, even with my amp set pretty bright. In fact I tend to think of the OD-3 as one of the creamier ODs out there. Just Rod's 2 cents worth...

 

[FenderLover]

I like the OD-3 because it has a warm distortion and lack of piercing highs. However, like too many Overdrive pedals, it has way too much gain. As people have noted using the gain less than 12:00, many Overdrives don't contribute anything useful for the last half (or more) of the Gain pot rotation.

Unless you see the OD-3 mod as a personal interest/challenge, I'd go back to the SD-1. A terrible sounding pedal stock (IMO), yet so simple to mod for just about anything you desire in sound. I change 4 resistors and one cap, and I'm left wanting nothing more. Having two SD-1's modded differently would really cover a lot of ground.

 

[11 Gauge]

Interesting. Can you elaborate on why the big gain range affects the bass? Or is it affecting the perception of bass?

My first go round I used to run the gain above noon (1-2 o'clock maybe). Farty, splatty, "weird" OD/bordering on distortion.

This time, I run it pretty much 9-11 o'clock and like it much better. Bass is full, but not overbearing. And the clipping is a lot more pleasant/natural. I thought the issue was that I wasn't using it at gig volumes but maybe it's where I'm setting the gain? Or both?

With any amplified signal, if you don't have the power/headroom necessary - even at what is basically a preamp stage - you get all of that farty/splatty/ugly distortion sort of stuff.

So long story short - w/an OD pedal, you can have more bass at low gain, or you must reduce the bass at higher gain. The only exception would be if you had the power/headroom to pass it on, and we are limited to just 9 volts for our little "preamplifiers." Actually, the OD-3 cuts this down to 8 volts.

Along with something like the SD-1 or TS allowing it to "cut thru" or stay "tight," you don't experience any of these issues when you max the drive/gain.

With a mass produced pedal, it is not uncommon for there to be what IMO amounts to an unusable portion of the control sweep. With drive boxes, this tends to be the gain/drive knob. With a fuzz or distortion, it can be something on purpose or expected, but not so much the case with OD.

...So Boss could have done one of two things - either cut the bass so that it might have sounded anemic at lower gain settings but great when you cranked it up, or effectively cut the gain range down to about a half of what it is. If they killed the bass, I'd argue that the OD-3 would be just another variation on the SD-1 or a similar type of OD. It's not to say that it would be a bad design, but Boss had already made such a product. So - option 2 - limit the gain range - is something they didn't want to resort to. There's clearly a percentage of users with mass produced gear who are going to max out some controls even if the sonic results are not stellar.

...I mean - I hear folks refer all the time how with some pedals that if you dime the gain it turns into a fuzz. That includes the BD-2! And I personally don't know why Boss would do that, until I consider that they are trying to appeal to the biggest percentage of players as possible. So that includes all of those folks who dime the gain in spite of what they hear.

 

[leonard d rock]

.11 gauge, i already did the c12,c15 mod you suggested and i'm very happy now. the bass is still there (i put in .1uf) , but not overbearing to my ears,and it sounds good through my marshall amp. i can hear that piercing shriek that the OP is complaining about but it disappears in a live band setting, just like the fizz in the bd-2. if i'm at home and facing my amp, i can hear it, but live its not there anymore. its probably due to the eq curve of the pedal and ill try to use it with an eq to dial it out. i think for some people like me, we immediately compare the od3 with the TS9 or SD1 with its midrange, and when we dont find it in the OD3, it sounds strange to us.
sidenote;
i also noticed the newer issue boss pedals bd-2 and od3 with the RHOS stickers, the pcb is not as strong as the older ones. the traces lift up easily, not as strong as the sd1 and ds1 that could endure lots of modding and the pedal cases seem lighter.

 

[chris m.]

11Gauge-- given your explanation about needing headroom to avoid the bass getting splatty at higher gain, does anyone ever mod an OD-3 to run at higher voltage? Say 18V? It's funny, Fulltone recommends checking out the OCD at 18V instead of just 9v but to my ears it didn't matter much-- but now I understand that's probably because I wasn't cranking up the gain too far.

 

[cctsim]

To get rid of the bass change C14 to 1uF (or even 0.47uF).

This is the only mod I did on my OD3.

 

[souped-up]

To get rid of the bass change C14 to 1uF (or even 0.47uF).

This is the only mod I did on my OD3.

Excellent!

 

[souped-up]

With any amplified signal, if you don't have the power/headroom necessary - even at what is basically a preamp stage - you get all of that farty/splatty/ugly distortion sort of stuff.

So long story short - w/an OD pedal, you can have more bass at low gain, or you must reduce the bass at higher gain. The only exception would be if you had the power/headroom to pass it on, and we are limited to just 9 volts for our little "preamplifiers." Actually, the OD-3 cuts this down to 8 volts.

Along with something like the SD-1 or TS allowing it to "cut thru" or stay "tight," you don't experience any of these issues when you max the drive/gain.

With a mass produced pedal, it is not uncommon for there to be what IMO amounts to an unusable portion of the control sweep. With drive boxes, this tends to be the gain/drive knob. With a fuzz or distortion, it can be something on purpose or expected, but not so much the case with OD.

...So Boss could have done one of two things - either cut the bass so that it might have sounded anemic at lower gain settings but great when you cranked it up, or effectively cut the gain range down to about a half of what it is. If they killed the bass, I'd argue that the OD-3 would be just another variation on the SD-1 or a similar type of OD. It's not to say that it would be a bad design, but Boss had already made such a product. So - option 2 - limit the gain range - is something they didn't want to resort to. There's clearly a percentage of users with mass produced gear who are going to max out some controls even if the sonic results are not stellar.

...I mean - I hear folks refer all the time how with some pedals that if you dime the gain it turns into a fuzz. That includes the BD-2! And I personally don't know why Boss would do that, until I consider that they are trying to appeal to the biggest percentage of players as possible. So that includes all of those folks who dime the gain in spite of what they hear.

Hey 11 Gauge.I've heard you're the MAN with the pedal plan on here!My OD-3 is completely stock.Ideas from you and cctism the Bass issue will be fixed. The tone knob is my other issue.The BD-2 has the same tone control problem,except worse.Not sure why folks aren't hearing it?I changed the tone-stack of my BD-2 to a "Marshall Tone-Stack".That fixed that problem.Can I do the same "tone-stack" tweaks maybe to the OD-3?Thanks for your posts!and to you and everyone on TDPRI,Happy New Year!

 

[JHVH!]

Not sure why folks aren't hearing it?

I can tell you exactly why. No two nervous systems are the same.
And we're not all using identical equipment. So those two things mean
that we're all hearing something similar, but yet, different.

Or as Einstein was overheard to once have said: "It's all relative, baby."

It's subjective, dig?