Boss Celebrates 50 years of Pioneering History with Special Limited Metallic Editions of 3 of its Legendary Pedals - the SD-1 Super OverDrive, BD-2 Blues Driver, and DS-1 Distortion

’Boss’ was actually originally incorporated in 1973 as a Roland subsidiary / daughter company. While the first product to sort of carry its name was a collaboration between Roland USA and Roland Japan to release a clip-on acoustic preamp - the B-100 The Boss (leather-clad wood trapezoid no less!) - with Boss being the actual name of that product.

Boss’s first proper branded product was then 1976’s CE-1 Chorus Ensemble, and of course we all know what happened in 1977 - for the birth of that legendary compact pedal enclosure format.

Here is a brief potted history of the formative years of ’Boss’

• 1973 : Boss Corporation formed as a subsidiary of Roland Corporation - specifically to design and manufacture effects for guitars
• 1974 : Roland USA with Roland Japan release B-100 The Boss Acoustic Preamp
• 1976 : CE-1 Chorus Ensemble is first to carry the Boss brand!
• 1977 : Introduction of the Boss Compact Pedal - with latching stomp plate, concealing battery compartment, and smart Check LED - all pedal firsts! : OD-1 OverDrive (Asymmetrical), PH-1 Phaser, SP-1 Spectrum 
  1978 : DS-1 Distortion is released (Most popular Boss Pedal ever - over 1.5 million+ sold)
  1981 : SD-1 Super OverDrive (a smoother clipping refinement of the OD-1 with added tone control - to compete with softer-symmetrical-clipping Ibanez Tube Screamer - which largely copied Boss’ original OD-1 (while Roland had the patent on asymmetrical clipping!)
  1995 : BD-2 Blues Driver introduced (my still favourite overdrive - albeit in Keely Freak Fuzz Modded Edition - but the BD-2, BD-2W and JB-2 Angry Driver come very close too!).

So as you can see from the above visual - 3 of Boss’s most legendary pedals get the automotive metallic paint job makeover - and don’t they look gorgeous. The SD-1 and BD-2 have a sort of inner luminosity that often looks mesmerising - while the darker metallic orange of the DS-1 doesn’t quite have that inner luminosity - but still looks pretty darn magical. 

Inside those beautiful enclosures you will find the standard edition circuits - and the Made in Malaysia stickers on the back - revealing how good a value these are. 

I already have each of these in several versions and varieties - but I still wanted to have these beautiful metallic versions  in the collection - all with Gold Top Knobs and Silver Screws. It’s very hard to convey just how pretty these are in conventional photography - hopefully my visual does them justice!

If you’re unfamiliar with the great tones of these pedals - all you need to know is that they’ve been used by many of the most legendary guitar players out there - including Eddie Van Halen, Prince, Steve Vai, and of course Kurt Cobain!