Paradigm Shift

These new Boss pitch-shifting pedals have been a long time in the making, and now they're here and ready to go toe-to-toe with DigiTech

- Words Trevor Curwen Photography Phil Barker

BOSS XS-100 & XS-1 £349 & £195

CONTACT Roland UK WEB www.boss.info

When it comes to pitch shifting effects, it's probably fair to say that most guitarists’ first thought would go to DigiTech and its Whammy range. After all, it has ruled the roost for quite some time with several well-known players such as David Gilmour and Tom Morello. Boss is no stranger to pitch effects, of course, but it hasn't released a new pitch pedal since the PS-6 Harmonist about 15 years ago. Also, the company has never had a dedicated treadle-equipped pitch pedal like the Whammy - until now, that is.

The XS-100 and its compact XS-1 sibling have large-interval pitch transitions of one or more octaves, along with a smaller interval Tune Down that instantly drops the tuning or raises it like a capo would. Chorus-like detuning is also available. But what are the differences, apart from size?

XS-100

The larger XS-100 has one footswitch for Effect that makes the treadle active and another for the Tune Down function. Both can be active at the same time, and there’s also another switch under the toe of the treadle that can be assigned to functions such as raising pitch an extra octave.

Boss has kept the user interface simple and uncluttered. There’s an encoder that supports twist and push actions, and two buttons; all three being used to set up all parameters that can be seen on a display.