BossAreaForum

It's a fairly polarizing pedal, but I love it.
Use it as a SD style boost on a dirty amp, use it as a DS style dirt on a clean amp... It only takes up one space on the board.
However, the magic (for me) happens when the color knob is set in the 11-1 o' clock zone. Flatter, higher gain SD or more mid forward DS tones.
Lovely!

Exactly! I had one for some time and that was the setting that I liked most as well.

Pepe wrote: ↑

Mon Jan 17, 2022 8:14 am

Exactly! I had one for some time and that was the setting that I liked most as well.

It's what really uniquely defines the pedal.
It's still on my small board to this day, it has been perfect for my needs. I like to have a SD1/OD1 as a boost for my dirty amps and it does that great.
The good ol' OS2 has delivered on some gigs with shared amps. I am able to just rotate the color knob toward the DS side (never going farther than 1 o'clock) and dial in my favored crunchy tone on a clean amp.
I have also been able to get it pretty close to a RAT type dirt tone on the DS side. I sat down one day with my '91 RAT (with my preferred settings-which is lower gain and highly filtered) and was able to closely mimic it with the OS2. That's cool, too!

I think the OS-2's sound has already been compared with that of a RAT in the previous incarnations of this forum. It is in the BOSS product lineup since 1990 - for a good cause.

This is my '91 RAT setting and the closest clone of it on the OS2. I did the resistor clip (Reutz Mod) on my RAT. The simple clip lowers the gain and boosts some low end. Easy mod, too. The resistor leg that got clipped is accessible through the battery door! I spent more time reading about the mod than it took to do the mod.

Pepe wrote: ↑

Mon Jan 17, 2022 8:52 pm

I think the OS-2's sound has already been compared with that of a RAT in the previous incarnations of this forum. It is in the BOSS product lineup since 1990 - for a good cause.

Ha! It was probably the previous incarnation of the forum where I heard about it, and probably posted about it there, too. That picture above was from Jan 14, 2014.
Here's my OS2 on the small board. It used to be a little more BOSS. The TU2 was put in a BCB-6 and a Polytune moved in. I was looking for a modded or revised TR2, but found this used Hummingbird for $50. The DD6 was ousted by the Echo Park. The Echo Park has a much more user friendly tap tempo. There just isn't room for the DM2, so the little Hotone analog delay will just have to do.

In fact the Hotone EKO is a digital echo, based on the Princeton PT2399 delay chip. Nonetheless it is a fabulous pedal with a very analogue sound. My brother has one on his permanent board as well.

OS-2 was my go-to dirt before I discovered the DA-2 featured on my profile pic.

I loved that I could get the best of both worlds. Without excelling in any of them, it allowed me to get both sounds depending on what the song needed.

If I were to build a compact board with 3-4 pedals (like 1 wah, 1 dirt, one modulation and one delay) I would be tempted to put the OS-2 in there, if they don't come up with the OS-2X (I like the DA-2 and BB-1X so I figure I'd love an OS-2X).

(Man. Now I want an OS-2X.)

Pepe wrote: ↑

Tue Jan 18, 2022 9:02 pm

In fact the Hotone EKO is a digital echo, based on the Princeton PT2399 delay chip. Nonetheless it is a fabulous pedal with a very analogue sound. My brother has one on his permanent board as well.

Yes, it does it's job very well! That low level, 2-3 repeat approx 250ms delay is a crucial part of my sound, particularly since I don't use amp reverb.
I used to run a Ibanez AD80 on my big board, which in turn was replaced with an AD9, to preserve the AD80 from beer spills, etc... at gigs. I got my DM2 about a year ago, probably gonna throw it on there now.

bigtone23 wrote: ↑

Mon Jan 17, 2022 9:27 pm

This is my '91 RAT setting and the closest clone of it on the OS2. I did the resistor clip (Reutz Mod) on my RAT. The simple clip lowers the gain and boosts some low end. Easy mod, too. The resistor leg that got clipped is accessible through the battery door! I spent more time reading about the mod than it took to do the mod.

Yes OS-2 in great, surprised to see it is still on production.

I also keep dist. and tone fairly low and work mainly with level and color control.

It has been some time when I used it. At the moment I mainly use the DS-1 in combination with the DD's and the Tech 21 Double Drive.
I am also a big fan of the RAT, they are fantastic!

Today I went to back to the OS-2 and tried it against the OD-1, SD-1 and OD-3.
In the past I have tried to get the OS-2 to sound like a DS-1 and a TS9 TubeScreamer.
It is amazing to see that the OS-2 is able to get the sounds of all of those, or at least, getting close to any of those. The trick is in the color control, you just need to be careful with where you put this as you are well aware of.

Thanks for bringing the OS-2 into focus, without your comments I would not have thought of getting it to sound like any of the other OD's