Boss Overdrive Pedal Comparison & Pricing Tool

This is a comparison page with pricing tools and a table that allows you to see all of the Boss overdrive pedals side by side. It includes all currently manufactured Boss overdrive pedals, as well as the bass overdrive pedals, and a couple older discontinued variations. Use the compare buttons to compare the specs for up to four at a time.

All of these pedals link to either Sweetwater or eBay, and we might get a commission if you make a purchase, though at no extra cost to you. 

Which features matter most?

Overdrive pedals are pretty simple devices. You should have at least a two-band EQ, a drive control (gain) and a level control (overall output).

A bonus would be a voicing switch and an analog circuit. Some of the more aggressive ones have noise gates, but that's not going to be the case with Boss overdrive pedals.

True bypass is also a nice touch, but again, that's not going to be the norm in the Boss series. There are a handful that use a buffered bypass connection.

Which power supply do Boss overdrive pedals use?

Most Boss pedals - overdrive or otherwise - run off a simple 9V DC power supply. These pedals do not include a power supply and Boss sells its own 9V DC adapter. Though we'd recommend going with something like a Voodoo Lab Power Supply so you have isolated power source that allows you to power more pedals.

Read more: Best guitar pedal power supplies

Are they analog or digital?

Most of the Boss overdrive pedals actually use a digital signal processor (DSP), though it is generally difficult to figure out which pedal is analog and which is not, within the Boss family.

The Waza Craft series pedals are all analog, but Boss is oddly quiet when it comes to other pedals.

For example, the original BD-2 Blues Driver doesn't list analog or digital, which would lead us to assume it's digital - the less attractive of the two possibilities.

At the same time, we've never cracked it open to find out for sure.

In either case, the Boss overdrive pedals all tend to sound quite good, analog or otherwise. 

What's the typical price range?

Assuming you're buying new, Boss overdrive pedals start at about $60 and can go as high as $200, like the $185 BD-2w Waza Craft, for example. Used pricing comes down significantly lower, especially for something like the SD-1 that is fairly plentiful in the used market.

Here are a couple pricing tables that might help get a feel for at least the SD-1, which is Boss's most popular overdrive pedal.

Boss SD-1 Pricing from Multiple Vendors

Boss SD-1 Pricing History (based on Sweetwater retail)

Finding Boss Overdrive Pedals

All of the major retailers carry Boss overdrive pedals. Active used markets like Reverb and ShopGoodwill also tend to have a ton of these pedals, simply because they've been in circulation for so long and are relatively cheap.

As we've mentioned Boss overdrive pedals are going to be ambiguous about whether their pedals are analog or digital. Unless otherwise stated, like in the Waza Craft series, we think it's safe to assume most Boss overdrives are digital, just because their price point tends to be so low.

However, this is not something we can confirm.

Shop around, use our comparison and pricing tools, and hit us up in the comments section if you have questions.

We'll see you there.

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