Skip to content

a blog on effects

Menu
  • Home
  • collection (486)
  • Ibanez (111)
  • Danelectro (53)
  • DOD, Digitech (51)
  • Electro-Harmonix (40)
  • Boss (54)
  • Other Brands (177)
Menu

Boss OS-2 Overdrive/Distortion

Posted on 8/01/2015 by mirosol

Boss-OS2

What is it?
Boss OS-2 OverDrive/Distortion. Made in taiwan, january 1996.

I was rather keen on trying this one out. I find the idea of OD and Dist made blendable in a single unit intriguing. This, among with other basic or classic hits as DS-1 and SD-1 are probably the cheapest and most common boss pedals around (sure the number of Metal Zones sold may top everything, but still..), so the money spent versus the fun had was nicely in balance. Before digging any deeper, let’s take a look at the board.

Boss-OS2-guts1

Just as one would expect from a boss pedal that was released in 1990. All the japanese hand craft pointers are already gone and CAD software with auto-routing feature has been in use. Nothing even resembling a visual beauty has not been a part of the board designing process (yes, you can argue that it doesn’t have to be as much as you want).  So no matter what way we look at this, it is just dull looking, but well functioning board. There would have been room on the board to place things differently, but why bother. It’s not like anyone else than some pedal freak/enthusiast will ever be looking at the board from a visual perspective. But let’s look forward. There’s a traced schematic up at FIS. This is where things get a lot more interesting.

Boss-OS2-guts2

The switching and input buffering are per most analog Boss boxes, so nothing of interest in there. After the input buffer the incoming signal is split in two ways. The upper part in the FIS schematic resembles a ProCo Rat with its dual high pass filters and hard clipping. The WTF points go to post clipping filtering. After this filter network, that sort of mimics the filter control on Rats, there’s an buffer stage, followed by a mixer amp that takes care of the mode mixing with a pot called “color”. But we’ll need to back up a bit. The second path from the input buffering was sent to an overdrive stage. This stage isn’t a lot different from SD-1 clipping amp with its asymmetrical clipping diodes in the feedback loop. There is more gain coming out of it and the high pass filter is set lower than in Tubescreamers or Super OverDrives. The output of this clipping amp is then fed to the other side the color pot. The gain setting is the most peculiar thing in this design. It’s a dual (or as some folks like to call it – a stereo) pot with value of 270K that sets the feedback resistor for both sides simultaneously. Rest is just the tone control not completely unlike the one in SD-1 and the output buffering.

So yes. There is some effort in the design. I’d even go to lengths to call some parts of it interesting. Simple, but convincing. Nice design in a cheap package. But then comes the issue.

How does it sound?
Not that great. If we start with the OD side of the color pot, the biggest thing that the sound does is raise eyebrows. Maybe even shoulders. It mid honks its way to the drive-in and leaves you with warm cup of soda and cold fries. But the distortion side of the color pot is the burger. Double cheesed and not bad at all. It sure does remind me of a Rat, but not to the degree where it would be “something alike”. Nope. It’s sleeker in its tone and does not go as mushy. Not a Rat, but not a DS-1 either. Good sounding distortion that goes closer to DS-2 Turbo Distortion range. So overall sound of the pedal isn’t too impressive. But it isn’t bad. These do come cheap, so you might as well get one. Hope you like your soda warm, fries cold and burger delicious.

1 thought on “Boss OS-2 Overdrive/Distortion”

  1. Simon says:
    7/05/2022 at 20:26

    Help. Can anyone tell me the value of C39 on a Boss os-2? Thanks, simon

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

/usr/bin/locate

/usr/bin/whoami

here used to be a short description of me. however, it wasn't exactly accurate anymore. so i'm replacing it with this placeholder for now. and yes. it's been a long time since my last post. but let me assure you. i'm very much still alive.

Found an error? One of my assumptions is dead wrong? Something else is just not right? Let me know! Leave a comment to a post, or drop a line to mirosol at kapsi dot fi.

I do mods, repairs and custom builds too. For inquiries, use the email address above.

/var/lib/collection

  • Electro-Harmonix (40)
  • DOD, Digitech (51)
  • Other Brands (177)
  • Boss (54)
  • Danelectro (53)
  • Ibanez (111)

/var/lib/tags

Amp Autowah Bass Boost Booster Chorus Compressor Delay Distortion Echo Envelope Filter EQ Filter Flanger Fuzz Harmony Loop Modulation Noise Gate Octave Overdrive Phaser Pitch Power Preamp Reverb Special/Multi Synthesizer Tremolo Tuner Utility Vibe Vibrato Wah

/usr/lib/comments_recent

  • mirosol on DOD FX53 Classic Tube
  • mirosol on DOD FX55-B Supra Distortion
  • mirosol on Morley CCB Crystal Chorus
  • mirosol on Boss RV-5 Digital Reverb
  • mirosol on Ibanez BB9 Bottom Booster

/var/lib/archives

  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • September 2015
  • June 2015
  • May 2015
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
  • February 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014
  • September 2014
  • August 2014
  • July 2014
  • June 2014
  • May 2014
  • April 2014
  • March 2014
  • February 2014
  • January 2014
  • December 2013
  • November 2013
  • October 2013
  • September 2013
  • August 2013
  • July 2013
© 2023 | Powered by Superbs Personal Blog theme