Boss CS-3 Compression Sustainer Compact Pedal

Nice compression with no hum. Gives you them crisp clear edges and makes all your notes / scratches of an equal steady volume. Useful for clean funk or could be used to great effect as a boost pedal for lead guitar work.

Pretty Good Compressor, for the price you pay its well worth it. I use this to boost my signal, slightly, while adding subtle sustain and evening out all levels. Little noisey but its in a compressor/sustainer's nature to be so. Perfect service from Andertons.

I'm not a massive user of pedals. This is my third purchase in 10 years. Was tempted by the MXR Dyna Comp, but the CS-3 had more knobs. Knobs rock!

Sounds fantastic, gives my Strat and amazing amount of punch. Use the neck pickup for that perfect shimmering vintage boost sound.

There is nothing wrong with the sound, not too noisy, no pops when you stomp on it, I used it as a sustian pedal at first but it works as a really good clean boost, and that's what I use it for mainly. When used as a sustainer you can quite happilly go doing legato really easily, all day long, even string skipping legato, on a clean sound as though you have loads of gain without having loads of gain. I use it through a Peavey 6505+ which is BTW, a very good amp. Overall the pedal is great but if yu want to use it with distortion...it really adds a VERY subtle effect.

Forget my last review i never knew what i was talking about. Okay the Boss CS-3 is a great compression pedal. it does as it says compresses louder signals while boosting lower signals for smooth sustain without degrading the original sound quality.

If you’re looking to really squeeze your signal, this’ll do it. 4 knobs provide great flexibility to shape your compression. For the money, it’s a pretty good deal.

Compression is a very subtle effect, it took me a few days to appreciate what this pedal could do for me.

It gives an overall warm to the tone and evens out the highs and lows. Think Dire Straits type of stuff.

Very good quality pedal that compresses very nicely. It has great control over the shape of the compression applied and can be the key to get that smooth tone (clean or dirty). The only thing I would change is to make it true bypass as the top end sparkle of my fender was lost, but I wouldn't lose it as the overall tone with it on is so much better!

I bought this pedal after watching various demos comparing it with the similarly priced MXR compression pedal. I decided to go with the Boss CS-3 after watching numerous demos, having previously intended to buy the MXR pedals. I preferred the sound of the Boss pedal in the demos I watched, and I liked the the Boss pedal has 4 controls, as opposed to MXR's 2 controls. The Boss pedals has controls for Level, Tone, Attack, Sustain, whereas the MXR pedal only has 'sensitivity' (ie. sustain) and Level. I find the Attack control especially handy as it allows me to add sustain to my sound without 'squashing' my initial pick attack (I prefer a more 'squashed' sound for rhythm stuff, but not for lead).

I bought this pedal in order to give me a bit more Les Paul sounds from my Strat when playing Clapton and Peter Green stuff, and am frankly amazed at how well it works. I am particularly surprised at how silent the operation of the pedal is, compared with modelled compression effects I've used (eg. on JamVox).

This is my favourite pedal and has surpassed all my expectations of it. It allows great tonal shaping and the sustain sounds very natural (unlike the modelled version I've used where it just sounds like someone is turning a volume knob to swell your sustain). I highly recommend this pedal, and would be curious to see how Keeley has improved upon it enough to justify a pricetag more than double the relatively palatable price of the Boss pedal.