What makes BOSS guitar stompboxes the world’s best-selling effects pedals?

When the original BOSS overdrive stompbox, the OD-1, was first released way back in 1977, it looked very different from any other stompbox of the day. Where others were simple squared-off aluminum boxes crudely screwed together, the OD-1 was a smooth cast-metal body. It had no little button to step on to turn it on or off like the others. Most of the OD-1’s surface was the stompbox for the switch. Instead of the commonly used simple click switch that always caused an audio line POP when pressed, the OD-1 had a silent electronic switch under the pedal that never made a sound. More