Drive Boss

[Vikki Nagindas]

Following on from the Analog Drive I have had a number of Multi-Drives in and around my pedal-chain - including the fantastic BYOC Crown Jewel Multidrive and Empress Multidrive - both excellent pedals, but lacking in some features (presets in particular) to make them properly useful in an extended live playback scenario.

And so with the OD-200 I made my usual mis-step in starting the process by trying to exactly replicate some of my favourite drive pedals - which include the following selection in sort of 12 Degrees of Saturation order:

I was intending to go through each of the voicings and compare them to / try to tune them to the most obvious equivalents of my own favourite preferred pedals - for instance using the JHS Bonsai OD-1 voicing. In fact now is a good time to explain the very top and main visual - where I've tried to equate each Drive Type voicing / Mode on the main Mode dial with my perceived Boss equivalent pedal - as follows:

* - MDP / Multi-Dimension Processing is Boss's own proprietary 4th generation Digital Signal Processing methodology which has been designed to maintain individual note clarity and dynamics throughout every variation of EQ and Gain saturation.

There seems to be quite some degree of misunderstanding in the marketplace as to what exactly some of these modes are supposed to represent - with different reviewers mentioning somewhat diverse equivalents - but by and large the modes tend to offer a wider range of tone-sculpting possibilities and gain than the stand-alone pedal equivalent originals. I also feel that my own extrapolations are about as close as they could be - noting that you don't always get exact equivalency in terms of the extended knob ranges and different tapers on the OD-200.

In any case, I soon ran into similar scenarios I had with the Analog Drive all that time ago, but not nearly as acute or pronounced - When you're doing side-by-side and exact audio comparisons then the differences can really stand out, even though the overall character may be very close. Let me try to explain what I mean by that - in terms of how the OD-200 manifests for me, and what I can discern from its overall tonal characteristics and timbres.

First off the bat I have to say that the pedal is very impressive on first run-through - with none of those obvious DSP side-effects or inherent signal-processing give-aways. Yet if and when you do head-to-head comparisons with equivalent analog pedals - there are certain differences that become very quickly evident.

With any drive pedal there is a considerable vocabulary that can be applied to describe those key tonal characteristics and timbres you are hearing, with several other more subtle differentiators involved too:

It has to be said that the OD-200 has a lot of different voices differently applied, while there are some fairly distinct characteristics in the core default tonal profile that seem to be pretty constantly there. This includes a slight hardness to the overall timbre of the drives and distortions on the basis of soft versus hard clipping effect equivalency. I am also aware of a very slight hint of darkness in most of the profiles. This is particularly evident when dialling in Low and Middle frequencies - which for instance when compared to my Basic Audio Tri/Ram when you ramp up the equivalent Fat / Lows knob you get more bass / low-end for sure, but it applies a harder texture with it and more density on the OD-200, while the Bass on the Tri/Ram is somewhat softer and more open, which makes the Tri/Ram sound somewhat warmer too.

The same is largely true of the Middle EQ frequencies - where they don't seem to be as elastic or chewy as many of my preferred Marshall-esque / Plexi pedals. That does not mean you cannot get amazing tones out of the OD-200 - is just means the character of the voicings is often somewhat slightly different in the overall nuances of texture and feel.

With my initial foray into head-to-head comparisons I found I could get pretty close to most of those I tried bar the Dumble-Style drive - which is a really elegant fuzz-edged drive/distortion or fuzzy-drive even as I like to call it. Yet I tried here to apply the FUZZ voicing to a tiny degree combined with the OVERDRIVE Boost, and then vice-versa - but the character and taper of the Big-Muff style FUZZ just isn't sufficiently nuanced for creating those subtle Dumble-Style tones - so that was the only significant failing / omission really. In fact the Big Muff style FUZZ voicing itself was the first one I really bonded with, and I was able to get really excellent Triangle and Ram's Head style flavours really very quickly and easily. In direct head-to-head comparisons with the Basic Audi Tri/Ram there was a marked difference in the Low and Middle frequencies - yet the OD-200 still sounded pretty stellar with its own voicing. I feel this is a really great Muff-style voicing where you can easily dial in Triangle, Ram's Head and even Green Russian style varieties - and when combining with the different boosts - almost anything is possible here - bearing in mind though that the OD-200 does have its own distinct distortion character.

So the FUZZ voicing was the first big success for me, and then I found I could also pretty easily dial in some Stellar OVERDRIVE, BLUES, SCREAM, CNTR OD and DIST voicings. The 'X' drive variants actually took me some time to get used to - even though I have a DS-1X pedal myself - there is a touch of an unusual feel to that which takes some getting used to - as you don't get the typical saturation bloom you get with conventional analog pedals so it does not initially react exactly how you're used to. I feel that it will take me a while to get to grips properly with the X-DRIVE, X-DIST and X-METAL modes - even though the last mentioned was actually the easiest to dial in of those - but generally from X-DIST through to X-METAL I preferred to apply those in conjunction with a BOOST - as we will cover in the next part below.

I might also question the omission of certain drive types versus some of these chosen - for instance I think a RAT voicing would have been another great flavour here possibly in place of the FAT DIST. But overall this is a really cleverly set up and calibrated pedal with some minor flaws for sure - which I will detail in the third chapter below. Overall though I'm actually really impressed with the OD-200 - with the Interest Curve veering from excitement and wonder to bemusement and surprise and then a quiet glow of satisfaction at the end. I did not find all the voicings necessarily wholly useful for me or even entirely to my liking - but there is so much here, and on pretty much every voicing you can dial in something interesting at the very least - albeit you need to be careful with differences in DRIVE/Gain taper and LEVEL/Volume unity when switching between modes.

In short, the modes I enjoy the most are OVERDRIVE, BLUES, SCREAM, CNTR OD, DIST, BROWN, X-METAL and FUZZ surprisingly in particular! With my being able to dial in extremely satisfying variations of each.

Note also that I was considering sharing my own settings for some of these - but they are so rig-specific I've noted that other players boost the Lows while I usually roll them back a little etc. You're fine off starting in the usual Boss default position with every dial at noon / 12 o'c and adjusting to taste from there - note also that there can be a fairly significant / audible difference in volume and gain for each of those 12 o'c positions. Level runs 0-100, Drive 0-120, and each of Low, Middle and High are -50 to +50 Active EQs.

One of the surprise elements of the OD-200 for many of us was its vast array of BOOST modes, and how Boss allows you to apply them both in Parallel and Series - the first as more of a touch of a texturising and thickening agent, while the Series Boost gives you lovely blooming saturation and extra richness.

In my above visual I have attempted to distil all the key elements of deploying a BOOST, including the different varieties and applications, and how to switch between the key modes and parameters. There are 15 BOOST TYPES in the OD-200 - 10 of those are the same as the Drive Types on the main Drive Mode / Type dial, while 5 are unique to BOOST, the full overview is as follows:

When I started applying the various BOOST TYPES, I initially got a little confused between the PARAM Button and PARAM Knob and main LEVEL knob too - often inadvertently reaching for that to set higher level of Boost - before it all snapped into place for me and settled into am established pattern.

As mentioned, you can have the BOOST either in Serial mode (default) or in Parallel mode. To switch mode you will need to enter Global Settings by pressing on both PARAM and MEMORY buttons simultaneously. You should then notice that the Main LED Display changes to 'Str' which is the first of the Global Settings. Press the PARAM Knob down to switch between SEr (Series) and PrL (Parallel) BOOST Modes.

When I started playing around with BOOSTS I thought I would surely just have them all set to Parallel as that is how I most enjoy using my JB-2 Angry Driver pedal, but you get quite different outcomes obviously in each mode - with the SEr Boost giving you more saturation bloom and body overall, while the PrL type kind of doubles up the texture - particularly evident when using same Drive TYPE and BOOST TYPE together - e.g. BLUES and BLUES - you get a richer more harmonic texture - somewhat akin to double tracking, but it does not fatten up the sound a whole deal - thicker yes, but not necessarily fatter - if you want fatter and more body - then you are better of with 'Ser' mode - where I now find I use both for quite different purposes.

Much like with the DRIVE TYPES I started by matching up all the usual suspects and testing very much known paradigms and combinations, while latterly I took to just more freestyle experimentation and trying more interesting DRIVE and BOOST combinations. Note that the EQ knobs in particular have a lot of range to them and relatively small movements can lead to pretty significant changes when searching for sweet-spots.

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