Boss OS-2 Overdrive / Distortion Pedal Reviews

This is a great pedal. Having the ability to blend in your overdrive and distortion to taste on one unit is great. Not overdone and has the ever expected Boss quality and style. I'd highly recommend this unit. As always, I'd also recommend Sweetwater as they are the best.

After 20 years OD-2 was my go to sound. Then I experimented. Packed it away. Still have it. Bought this pedal 10 years ago. I wasn't too crazy about it until now. It's OD-2 with DS-1, obviously. I got bored with the OD-2 sound. This has same platform, except I can tweak it to DS-1 world. DS-1 very popular and unpopular. Irony. Now I've got DS-1 with an OD-2 flavor. And vice versa.

Don't need my other distortion or overdrive pedals anymore. This baby will serve me well. Sounds great on the clean I'd recommend the OS-2 to anyone

I was worried this pedal was good at distortion but bad at overdrive, thankfully it's good at both! It has a lot of body and presence, but also cuts well in the highs and has a good leading sound, I compared it hand-to-hand with an SD-1 overdrive and I can tell you that I was able to get very similar sounds using the knobs, one thing you should know is that the SD-1 overdrive with a gain of 10 is equivalent to this OS-2 pedal with a gain of 2, so it has enough gain to almost every taste

just got my OS 2 from a trade, at first I thought "its just another boring overdrive, im gonna sell it" but dawm !! i was wrong, this pedal its amazing !!!! goes from booster, to drive, to very good Distorted sounds, I got all kind of overdrives, from Blues driver, to Ts9, Sonic Distortion, Jet driver (ibanez), Maxon Overdrive, this pedal its different to all classic drivers, its got its own personality, if you like blues and rock sounds you are going to be very happy whit this buy .....

Well, to begin with,I have been a Boss OD-3 user for almost 13 years now. Its my stand alone Rhythm and Lead sound with occasional Boss SD-1 in front of it for solos when needed.

So about the OS-2, first of, its analog and sounds fantastic! and easy to tweak. One can go from snarly mid growl to scoop mid chunk. And if your using 2 or 3 different guitar on a live show, color knob can compensate for what you want to hear depending on single coil bridge or humbucker bridge use, really kool.

It is now my go to stand alone pedal. And for the price new! you can't pass this one up, it can hold its own along side the $200 plus OD/Distortion pedals out there...

This pedal is versatile and does just what it says. With both overdrive and distortion you can dial in just the right amount of both for the perfect tone. Nice job Boss!

I really love the tone that I get from the Boss OS-2 Overdrive / Distortion pedal. I still have my original one that I bought back in Spring of 1994 & "It still works!" Boss pedals are very road worthy. I bought this pedal as backup because as far as I know, Boss no longer makes this pedal anymore which really ticks me off big time. I mainly use the Overdrive on this pedal because it sounds so good using either single or double coil pickups. All I can say is "I really love this pedal!"

If you are like me, you like recording distorted guitar and you like that huge wall of guitar sound... Well how do you achieve that LIVE? Use this guy, it sounds like you're running two amps. One small, tweed-like sound and another huge marshall type sound. There are loads of mods, but the pedal sounds great stock-- another trick is lower the voltage the pedal is getting or using an old battery. Regardless, this pedal is like getting an Sd-1 (overdrive like tubescreamer) and Ds-1 (rat-style distortion) in one unit, with the added benefit of being able to blend the circruits (parallel processing!!!)

This pedal screams! Love it! Much thanks to everyone at the warehouse

I've been reluctant to use a distortion pedal preferring the natural overdrive of my amp. When I bought my new recording amp it only had a single channel so I could not switch easily from clean to crunch. The OS-2 effectively allows me to simulate a second channel with a tremendous amount of tonal versatility, and to switch back and forth between clean and crunch quietly and seamlessly. No clicks or pops or other artifacts. Just a really great piece of gear, reasonably priced, and built like a tank. I've always been a fan of Boss and Roland products. This one certainly lives up to that legacy.

Just what the doctor ordered!! From a slightly dirty sound to Heavy Metal distortion. Easy to use, settings are well marked. Built like a tank. If you are looking for a simple well built pedal this is certainly one to consider.

I use this pedal on synthesizers, and this actual pedal has been known to frequent the acid house scene, which is why I opted for this pedal. The nice thing about this pedal is that one can dial in over drive or distortion, or a mix of the the two. It sounds great on any TB-303 like sounds.

Replaced my SD-2 DUAL Overdrive with this pedal.
The SD-2 was sold from April 1993 to December 1998.
The gain control is what sold me on this.
This unit goes from grit to screaming high gain.
This is the one to buy!

Works fine and is very user-friendly. Also has a very competitive price!

I am so amazed with this pedal. It's the first pedel i bought and i bought it a few hours ago and i fell in love right away with the first chord. you have to buy this right now do it! DO IT!

As with many Boss pedals, this is a very versatile distortion pedal with plenty of range for many sounds. I certainly recommend it. Sweetwater is nothing short of pro on delivery and items arriving in excellent condition. Good people.

This was my first distortion pedal when I started playing about 27 years ago. I've gone through all types of other stand-alone pedals, and mutiple digital effects boxes and none of them sound as good as this one. I don't care what anybody says, this thing is awesome! Both in it's simplicity and it's sound. It's beautiful man! My favorite professional guitarists prefer stompboxes to the digital effects and it's easy to hear why. Stompboxes rule.

gives every guitar a chunk of metal

I bought this over 2 weeks ago from somebody who's obviously insane.The reason I say that is,why would somebody want to sell this pedal?I've been playing for over 30 years,and I've used Digitech,Pro-Co Rat,Morley,Alesis,etc. and all I can say is that this is the best overdrive/distortion pedal that I hve had the pleasure of owning.It's that good.You can go from a bluesy type tone to straight out metal,contrary to what other people say in their reviews of this product.The metal casing is quite sturdy and the controls are very easy to get used to.This is one versatile pedal,let me tell yu.This has a permanent place in my rig and is going nowhere.

Lovin" this box! It added life to my rig and it"s so adjustable! Lots of variation on tap. First and foremost...it"s a BOSS! Indestructible! I recommend it highly.

Having played rhythm guitar in bands since 65, i finally broke down for some 'extra umph' in my backups.. really pleased with the OS-2!

Its a great pedal and it has really sick effects but it runs out the 9 volt battery sorta fast so youll need to get an adapter for it.

i had this pedal before so when it stopped working, after 20 or so years, i knew what i wanted and ordered another. this pedal does exactly what i need

This a great pedal to have on your board. You can leave this pedal on continually or set it for a specific sound to be used for soloing. Easy pick!

This is my go to dirty/distortion pedal. I use it to get my ***** to the wall metal type tone. Versatile pedal for dirty tones. I like to set it on overdrive with the gain cranked. Has a looser sound when set to overdrive and a tighter edgy sound when set to distortion. It can get some bluesy tones however I use my MXR GT-OD for that. Run an overdrive before it and liven it up a bit. I gave it a 4 cause it can get a little fizzy at times and it's made in china.

My reson for selecting the pedal was that i wanted something to give me enough drive to compensate for heavier playing, but also that could handle a small boost to enhance the character of the sound of my instruments. The two circuits, od and dist, do a decent job of mixing together. You can achieve many sounds from a subtle drive boost to over the top grunge. If you are looking for drive with the option of more gain, I would give this pedal a look see.

What I've heard so far from this pedal I like, but haven't had the chance to " turn it up ".

I got this pedal a while back because it was reasonably priced and has both overdrive and distortion. It has been good for my needs up til now but I'm switching to something else. This one just doesn't have enough control. You just have the knob from OD to distortion and can't control the effects separately. If overdrive/distortion is just one pedal in a long string of effects then it's fine. But if you are really trying to play something that relies on dialing in that specific OD to distortion ratio (Blues, Indie, etc) I would recommend going elsewhere. I'm about to get the Visual Sound Jekyll and Hyde and I think it will be much more suited to my needs.

I obtained my Boss OS-2 on the evening of January 2, 2013. Over the years, I've only managed to find a few useable sounds. In "OD," it sounds like a thin, yet hot sounding SD-1. In "DS," it sounds like a DS-1 trying to be a Big Muff Pi in a '90s metal band. I personally have the level dimed, tone and drive at nothing and all the way over in "DS."

So how does it sound in between those two settings? Exactly like you think, poo-poo. As far as functionality and durability goes, it's the standard fate from Boss, nearly indestructible. However, almost exactly five years after getting it, in December 2017, the color knob developed a crackle which is still present to this day. Little funny how it begins to dump out on me right when the 5 year warranty was about to lapse.

All in all, it gets a 2.5 from me. You truly would be better off getting a separate DS-1 (NOT the DS-2, which is every bit as muddy and dark as the OS-2) and an SD-1/OD-2.

Got it as a gift a couple of years ago, and I've never been able to coax a serviceable sound out of it. Tubes or solid state, humbuckers or single coils, it just never produced anything I wanted to hear. If I turn the color knob all the way to distortion and turn the tone down to about 8:30, it sounds ok for some stuff, but not nearly enough. And the more OD I dial in the worse it sounds. It's tinny, screechy and noisy. You can have it back.