Another New Boss Clone - The OD-3 Overdrive!

The Boss OD-3 Overdrive pedal is a newer (well, relative to most other Boss pedals I've built recently!) pedal first released in 1997. The AionFX Heliodor clone was released in November alongside five other Boss clones in DIY PCB form. As I mentioned in my recent Emerald (Boss PH-1R Phaser) build, I went ahead and picked up the whole set (along with a few other surprises), and this is the second one of that set I've managed to complete. Unlike many of the pedals I've built, the OD-3 is still in production and is available new from Boss. It's not terribly expensive (you can pick one up for $113.99 from Sweetwater), but building it is still cheaper than buying one outright. The only downside is you can't really replicate the Boss-style enclosure easily - unless you happen to have a dead one lying about.

As you'd expect from a Boss pedal, the board is incredibly dense with a lot of different components. As such, AionFX rates this as another "intermediate" build. However, given you don't have to make adjustments with trimmer resistors, I'd say it is a bit easier than the Emerald build. In addition to the normal resistors and capacitors, there are no fewer than six on board diodes (there are actually seven in the BOM, but one is on the standard AionFX bypass.). There are also a total of seven transistors in the circuit, five of which are currently impossible to find in a through-hole version. Once again, AionFX offers the SMD versions on a mini adapter board. All you have to do is add some jumpers (see photo with three of the five ready to go) and they fit perfectly onto the PCB. Rounding out the build is one IC - though apart from actually finding the right one, I find ICs to be one of the easier parts of the process. That could be because I always tend to use high-quality sockets in my builds. 

For the enclosure, I again went with a very standard style as I want to try and keep my Boss clones fairly uniform looking going forward. It also helps me keep better track of the growing collection as unless it is a unique DIY pedal, I tend to remember them better by the original name rather than one of the various trade names used in the DIY community.

As to the sound, this is the Sweetwater description of the OD-3:

"The rich, fat, dynamic overdrive of this stompbox produces distortion that is miles warmer (and somehow more "natural") than the harsh buzzsaw distortion of many effects pedals."

To test this, I added the OD-3 to my pedal train and compared it to my stock Boss SD-1 Super OverDrive pedal (which is so inexpensive it's actually cheaper to buy than build). Honestly, I agree with Sweetwater. The SD-1 is quite a bit crunchier than the OD-3, especially with my P90 guitar I built last year. The OD-3 is a bit tamer with a little more depth, whereas the SD-1 is more "metallic" for lack of a better term. They're both great pedals, and they're just different enough to fill their own individual niches.