| Ease Of Use |
The Boss PS-3 is one of those pedals that, for me anyway, has a certain mojo to it. I do not use it for its delay functionality very much, but mainly for its pitch shift.
With 4 knobs it's as easy as any Boss pedal to figure out. The first knob is the "mix" knob, allowing you to select the amount of dry tone and effected tone. The two middle knobs are variable depending on which mode is in use. The last knob is the "mode" selector, this knob allows you to select from seven pitch shift modes and three delay modes.
With one of the three delay modes selected, the middle two knobs are are for delay feedback and delay time adjustment, as with any Boss delay pedal. The three delay modes are just different delay time ranges, short, medium and long. From 32 to 2000 milliseconds I think.
The pitch shift modes offer a lot of interesting sounds. I mainly used the Dual Detune, which allows you to set to shifted tones to be mixed with the input. The other pitch shift options are along the lines of shifting with light delay, heavy delay, reverse shift, single detune and expression. I think there is another mode that lets you mix a different pitch to each output too.
Expression is pretty cool, it will allow you to set Pitch A as the start pitch, and Pitch B as the end pitch and let you plug in an expression pedal to shift from A-B and all notes in between. Pretty much like the Digitech Whammy.
I've never used it in a stereo setup, but it can be run in stereo with two outputs.
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| Sound |
I'm a chorus freak and love chorus tones, I'm always looking for the perfect chorus. This pedal is one of the few I've kept around since the 90's and it's because of its chorus-like abilities. Chorusing is basically detune with modulation and I favor the detuned sound, kind of an EVH tone. The PS-3 is one of my favorites for this. I like to set the mode to dual detune, and use pitch A as -3 cents and pitch B as +3 cents, mixed with dry sound at about 35% it is one of my favorite detune sounds (in a pedal).
The PS-3 can do octave tones nicely as well, even dual octave, with pitch A octave lower, pitch B octave higher, so it can function as a versatile octave pedal if desired.
The in between pitch shift tones and some of the, for lack of a better term, "wackier," settings sound pretty digital and cheesy. I've never been fan of all the other settings.
As far as delay goes, this is a very good Boss digital delay as well, with a decent range of delay times and settings to suit almost anyone. The delay tones sound as good as the DD-3 or DD-5.
The PS-3 is a great pedal for home player since it offers a lot of functionality in a single unit and can be had fairly cheaply via the used market. At the time of this review it is no longer in production unfortunately.
Really, I've owned two of these. The first I sold when I was purging some old gear I wasn't using at the time. I found I missed it and needed to buy it again. For that detune sound it definitely has its own thing going for it, nothing really sounds like it.
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| Reliability |
It's a Boss pedal... what else do you need?
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| Customer Support |
Never dealt with Boss directly.
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| Liked about it |
I love its versatility with so many pitch shift/octave and delay modes, expression pedal ready and stereo outs. Easy to dial in with just a turn of a couple of knobs. Built like a tank.
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| Didn't like |
The pitch shift tones can sound digital and cheesy if they're mixed really high, and some of the in between pitches sound nasty.
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| Overall satisfaction: |
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3.0 |
By blackspy Dec 30, 2009
Last updated: December 31, 2009
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