Brand Spotlight: Boss/Roland

HISTORY

Engineer Ikutaro Kakehashi established Roland in 1972 after leaving his previous venture, Ace Electronics (best known in the U.S. as the maker of the Ace Tone line of combo organs). With some staff from Ace and a substantial amount of Kakehashi's savings, the company designed and put into production its first product, the TR77 drum machine, only 90 days after founding the company. The company moved very quickly after that; the next year, it introduced its first synth, the organ-like SH1000, which became the first synth to be manufactured in Japan, and several more keyboard instruments followed shortly, as did some guitar amps. Also, Kakehashi, faced with needing to find more work for some of his engineers, established the Boss subsidiary that year.

WHAT MAKES BOSS/ROLAND SPECIAL

Prince, Kurt Cobain from Nirvana, Robert Smith from The Cure, John Frusciante from the Red Hot Chili Peppers and many more rely on Boss/Roland Products for their tone - The Roland JC-120 is one of the most iconic clean tones of all time - The Boss DS-1 is the sound of Nirvana and the introduction to pedal distortion for most - Boss Pedals have offered reliability, availability, consistent quality and technical innovation for over 50 years.

Often considered a “Gold Standard” in design, sound and practicality, BOSS Compact Pedal sales reach over 15 million units worldwide. These beloved little stompboxes are at the feet of everyone from professional musicians, studio engineers and players at home.

They’ve made their way onto millions of records and sat on probably every performance stage in the world. BOSS Compact Pedals have even played a significant role in shaping entire genres of music! BOSS Compact Pedals are truly ubiquitous. As a result, they don’t always get a second thought, other than being taken for granted that they will deliver great results, function intuitively and just work!

It’s often easy to forget just how many heads BOSS turned in 1977, when they launched the first three models of BOSS Compact Pedals onto an unsuspecting guitar community.

The OD-1 OverDrive, PH-1 Phaser and SP-1 Spectrum compact pedals not only sounded great, but represented a quantum leap forward in both electronic and physical design, while setting the (still unsurpassed) new standard in build quality and reliability.