Sometimes, it can be hard to find great gear to go along with your acoustic setup, as so much gear is geared (hehe) towards electric playing. Granted, you can use electric pedals in your acoustic rig, but that seems a little lazy to me. I’d rather spend the money on something that had thought put into it, had great sounds specified for a mellower sound and had options that wouldn’t throw my wooden friend into a feedback frenzy at unpredictable times. Well, the list just grew by one pedal: the AD-3 Acoustic Processor from Boss.
The AD-3 is basically 4 pedals in one, if you want to think about it like that, and they all work together to strengthen and beef up any acoustic sound. First off is your basic EQ section – just Treble and Bass, but it adds just enough sparkle to your tone to make your guitar sound instantly better. The Anti-Feedback feature is a great one as well, and solves so many problems instantly in an acoustic environment. There are 2 separate ways to adjust the anti-feedback, and both work together at the same time to ensure no unwanted screeching creeps into your gig. You can manually adjust the frequency using a control knob on the pedal, or use the left footswitch to automatically detect when feedback is approaching and squash it in its tracks. How could it be simpler?
Next up comes the effects section, which utilizes Chorus and Reverb together, but each can be controlled on its own, making for an immense amount of fine tweaking for each player. Both effects are controlled by the right side footswitch, which may be this pedal’s only blemish, as it would be nice to be able to shut off the reverb by itself, but it’s a small detail, really. Both Chorus and Reverb are dialed in through control knobs on the pedal, and while you can turn off the Chorus with the footswitch, if you don’t want any Reverb in your signal, you simply have to turn the knob all the way down. Who doesn’t want a little reverb all the time though, right? Plus, both sounds are very useable and don’t sound mechanical or digital, until they’re cranked to the max, but that never sounds good anyway.
There’s quite a lot going on in the connection portion of the AD-3 as well. Aside from the regular single Input jack, there are 2 Output jacks, allowing you to run in mono or stereo, and connect to an amp, mixer or mutli-track recorder if you wish, opening up more possibilities in a live or studio setting. There’s also a power switch and an Input Level control, which allows you to run effects before and after the AD-3 and still be able to control your volume.
This pedal is a great addition to ANY acoustic rig, period. You can get just a hint of mojo added to your sound, or a whole wall of chorus and reverb, sending your tone to outer space and back again. Pedals designed specifically for acoustic instruments are so much easier to dial in and use to your advantage, they’re definitely worth checking out before you just dismantle your electric setup to get a particular sound, and the AD-3 Acoustic Processor from Boss is an excellent place to start.
Specs:
Compact acoustic instrument processing pedal developed exclusively for gigging acoustic-electric guitarists
Footswitchable Bi-Stereo chorus offers split-frequency processing (Low and High) for natural, smooth chorus effect
Studio-quality Reverb provides clear, deep reverberation specially tuned for acoustic guitar
Newly developed “Bottom” and “Top” controls offer variable tonal shaping to eliminate “dry” sound from piezo pickups and add rich, resonant lows and brilliant highs
Special Guitar Amp output provides proper impedance and tonal balance for great-sounding connection to a guitar amp
Stereo balanced outputs allow for direct connection to PA
Dual Anti-Feedback function can be manually set to eliminate feedback or can be set to “Auto” mode via footpedal
Battery or AC-powered for maximum flexibility
Submitted by Mike B, Website
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