Clips

Boss BE-5: Digital Delay and Chorus Test Into A Clean Amp
Testing Digital Delay and Chorus effects on Boss BE-5. These feature circuits very similar to early DD-3 and CE-2 respectively. Delay is very clean, natural sounding without being sterile and artificial. Early DD-3 are highly praised for their warm sound. Chorus is based on Panasonic BBD chips (MN3007 and MN3102) and offers little control (Rate and Depth) but works pretty well. It can add dimension to clean sounds or thicken high gain riffs. In this test I tried both effects separately and also combined for huge clean sound.

I used my Bancika MK1 guitar with Dimarzio PAF Pro in the neck position.

Guitar: Bancika MK1
Pickup: DiMarzio PAF Pro
Effect: Boss BE-5
Amplifier: Positive Grid BIAS Roland JC-120
Interface: NI Komplete 6
Recorder: Reaper

Boss BE-5: Overdrive/Distortion Test Into A Clean Amp
Overdrive/Distortion test with Boss BE-5. Plugged straight into NI Komplete 6 audio interface, running Bias Amp (Dumble Clean model) in the Reaper. BE-5 features overdrive circuit taken from Boss OS-2 standalone unit. It’s basically a distortion and overdrive in the same box with a pot that can blend the two effects. It’s a very cool idea. I tested it with drive and tone set to noon position and blend pot set to overdrive only, 50:50 blend of overdrive and distortion and distortion only.

I used my Bancika MK1 guitar with Dimarzio FRED in the bridge position.

Guitar: Bancika MK1
Pickup: DiMarzio FRED
Effect: Boss BE-5
Amplifier: Positive Grid BIAS Dumble Clean
Interface: NI Komplete 6
Recorder: Reaper

Boss BE-5: Overdrive/Dist and Chorus Test Into A Distorted Amp
Fooled around heavier rhythm tones and what can Boss BE-5 do in that department. I started with a distorted IIc+ model from PositiveGrid BIAS Amp, which sounds good and crunchy but lacks oomph and definition needed for good tight rhythm. Then I added some overdrive/distortion with gain set very low, just to tighten the low end and push the amp a bit harder. It made a lot of difference. Then I recorded two guitars and panned them left and right. To me that sounded the best – tight, yet creamy and rich. Some players like to use chorus to simulate that richness when playing live, so I also tried that. May have taken the chorus level way too high, but you get the point.

Btw, I didn’t spend too much time tweaking the EQ, adding reverb and whatnot, it’s just a simple demo.

Guitar: Ibanez RG2550EGK
Pickup: DiMarzio Crunch Lab
Effect: Boss BE-5
Amplifier: Positive Grid BIAS Dumble Clean
Interface: NI Komplete 6
Recorder: Reaper

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    The idea behind this site is to share my experience with Do It Yourself approach to guitars, amplifiers and pedals. Whether you want to save a couple of bucks by performing a mod or upgrade yourself instead of paying a tech, or want to build your own piece of gear from scratch, I'm sure you will find something interesting here. Also, this is the home of DIY Layout Creator, a free piece of software for drawing circuit layouts and schematics, written with DIY enthusiasts in mind.