Heliodor-Boss.OD-3

[Thewintersoldier]

In this week's build report I'm taking a look at a pedal I had never played or really considered playing prior to building it...the Boss OD-3. This is a mistake on my part, as this pedal knocked a mainstay off my board and I could have saved a lot of money years ago had I given it a chance.

I'm not generally one that's been too interested in low gain overdrives, as I've always sort of viewed them as a boring but necessary evil, sort of a utility pedal. The two that have lived on my board for the past ten or so years are a TS of some sort and a klone. The klone has been my main OD the past decade as I feel it really suites my fenders single coils into blackface amps setup. So when I decided to build this I was really surprised by how good this pedal was, and not just for a mass produced boss pedal either. I guess you could say that this is more even in the frequency response than most other OD offerings from boss. It's like a really nice marriage of what I like about various pedals in one.

The compression is really nice and more natural than man pedals, and is very dynamic when it comes to digging into the strings. It's not got a nice airy presence but not overly bright like a KOT. The bass is filled out but it's not muddy and holds together well. It's got the classic filled midrange but not honky like a TS or klone, just enough to poke out. Its a low to mid gain drive with a very gradual gain knob that makes dialing in the amount of grit, and with the classic asymmetrical boss clipping it's got that tube breakup feel the more you push it. This thing has a LOT of volume on tap so as a boost this thing can really push a preamp cleanly. The all discrete opamp topology gives the pedal a really smooth transition into clipping that's a little more refined than the traditional soft clipping opamp drive.

I used regular mmbfj201 for the jfets in favor of the current production equivalent of the originals. Other than that it's all standard cheap stuff from tayda and stompboxparts. For the enclosure it's a yellow tayda box with UV print. I had to Google what a heliodor was and it's a yellowish crystal. I didn't want to just put a yellow crystal and say it was the mind stone so instead I used Loki's staff containing the mind stone that he used for mind control in the first avengers movie. A very simplistic and understated look in contrast to the circuit that has so much going on for a three knob low gain overdrive. If you want an alternative to a klone or a more full range drive then this might be a good one to try, it's been in production for 26 years now and I can totally see why.

[harryklippton]

That looks fantastic. All that yellow is really striking too

[jimilee]

Fantastic build man. I built one not too long ago also. Many years ago, I was gigging with Nan ODB-3. Great on bass.


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[brucer]

Great build, pics and report.  Thanks for sharing. 

[jessenator]

yeeeeeee that yellow all around is super nice. Now I want cheese.

[Bio77]

That look killer, Chris!    I'm about to look this circuit up, your write up got my wheels spinning.

[gordo]

That yellow nails the Boss color.  Great build!!

[Thewintersoldier]

That looks fantastic. All that yellow is really striking too

Thanks Will, sometimes simple and the original aesthetic is the way to go.

Fantastic build man. I built one not too long ago also. Many years ago, I was gigging with Nan ODB-3. Great on bass.


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Now I wanna look up the bass version and see what the component changes are.

Great build, pics and report.  Thanks for sharing. 

Thanks for the kind words, it's a great pedal and I think it's a worthy build.

yeeeeeee that yellow all around is super nice. Now I want cheese.

This pedal certainly doesn't sound cheesy lol

That look killer, Chris!    I'm about to look this circuit up, your write up got my wheels spinning.

Honestly John, I was shocked by how much I liked this pedal, plus I got to practice soldering my smd jfets haha

That yellow nails the Boss color.  Great build!!

Thanks Gordy, I have one more in this color, so watch for that in the the coming weeks.

[jessenator]

Thewintersoldier layin' on that style like