Boss Corporation
Formerly a division of Roland, Boss predominantly manufactures effects pedals for electric guitars and bass guitars; although in recent years they have expanded their product portfolio with Digital Portable Multi-Track Recorders, Drum machines and other electronic equipment.
In the early 1970's Roland made the decision to form a subsidiary company which was subsequently entitled Boss, their first product release - the B100 - was a clip-on pick-up with on-board pre-amp for amplifying acoustic guitars.
However Boss really started to turn heads with the release of the CE-1 Boss Chorus Ensemble, which was much revered at the time and clocked up well over a million sales.
Thereafter quality products continued to flow from the Boss manufacturing plant which at the time was based in Japan - later in the early 90's this moved to Taiwan. Some of the classic pedals from the 70's & 80's are the Boss DS-1 distortion pedal closely followed by the CE-2, which was a compact version of the Chorus Ensemble pedal and had a much smaller footprint.
Boss created their first Flanger pedal, the BF-2, in 1980 followed 3 years later by the world's first compact Digital Delay foot pedal the DD-2. Other classic distortion pedals followed such as the Turbo Distortion DS-2, the Metal Zone MT-2 and finally the Heavy Metal pedal HM-2, which came to play an important part in the Metal sound development.
Boss Differentiators
Three important factors helped to gain Boss a foothold in the effects market, firstly it was the quality of their pedals - both the sound quality and build quality were commendable. The second factor was the price point - almost all Boss pedals were priced within easy reach of most musicians' budgets. Thirdly they were increasingly seen used by celebrity guitar and bass players of the era - giving the pedal range a further stamp of credibility.
Boss Today
Today Boss are the most popular brand of effects pedal in the world and have a huge range of pedals on offer, covering every possible musical effect. They have also expanded their product range with other high quality accessories which include the DR range of Drum machines, several multi-effects processors (GT10 & GT10B) and the Boss BR range of Digital Multi-Track recorders.
Boss continues to innovate and expand the boundaries of music technology, whilst thanks to the falling price of electronic components on the world market, innovative products are now available to all but the smallest of budgets ...