Some of the Boss pedals are great, like the BF2 flanger and the DD3 or DD5 delay, the MZ2 (Metal zone) or the CE2 (Chorus) all of which I have had loads of fun with. I have an old Boss overdrive from the 80s called Squealy pig (OD2 I think !!!) which is a total trooper so please dont thing that Im just dissing Boss pedals in general. I used to love 'em until...... I got a hold of the double pedal things.

My problem is with the GP20 (The Amp Simulator thing) which was just horrible. 0 out of 10... horrible! You can roughly emulate the sounds this thing made by sticking a pencil through the card in your speaker several times. You can further modulate this stunning effect by either moving the pencil around or moving any of the dials on the stomp box (the sound is the same).

To add injury to insult, I figured Id give the Boss stomp box modeler a go. (OD20)..” It was by Boss, I must have just got a bad one, I have had loads of cool stuff from them in the past etc etc.”… How wrong can a young man be !!!!!

The OD 20 was problematic (unfinished more like). It was OK for playing blues, however if you wound up the gain, the noise floor came through the roof. So I got a noise gate. This sort of solved the problem, unless you wanted to use a Boss GE7 (seven band EQ pedal) and this proved more than a match for my poor noise gate and my sound buds. As far as Im concerned, the reason I get a stomp box is for winding up the gain and this beast couldn’t do it without sounding like word war III was going on in the background. SO.......out they both went along with Bosses remaining credibility.
CMOSS modeling, if you see this acronym, be very suspicious !

I still occasionally use the Dr770 drum machine and that is not bad, but you can see (After parting with nearly 400 bucks) why Im a little disappointed with Boss.

It is interesting to look at the steady decline in the price of the GP20 relative to the price of Say the DD3. One has remained constant for about 10 years and the other has halved in the last 6 months.

As far as Im concerned there is only one moral to this story and that is...... dont trust brand names !

As for working out of the box, well I have been using guitar pedals for 20 years and have never bean flummoxed yet. I am not entirely stupid and still after a month of perseverance …..no joy. Both of these pedals were just not up to the job. The fix, I got me a POD, which solved all my problems.

[Edited by Dr_simon on 08-29-2002 at 06:33 PM]