Arion SDI-1 Stereo Distortion

How easy is it to get a good sound out of it? 3 knobs so it was easy.
How about Editing patches? no patches. Just set and play
How is the manual for it (if there is one)? don't remember. that was 20 years ago!
Do you know the firmware revision number? Has your unit been upgraded? not applicable

What setup (i.e. what guitars and amps) are you using this with? My original set up was an Aria Pro II ZZ Deluxe into a cheapy crate amp (I don't remember the model as it was 20 years ago). Later it was same guitar and an Ibanez s540 into an Ampeg V4 with matching 4x12.


Is it noisy? On what settings? It was as noisy as any other distortion I have used over the years.

Are the effects weak or do they always sound great? It sounded pretty good

What amp are you using it with? Not using it anymore though I am looking for an older Japanese version.

Can you get the sound of your favorite artists? Who are they? I did kind of have an Yngwie type lead sound through the neck pickup and with the right eq I had close to older metallica rythem sound. Also with the right setting (See below) I got close to Megadeath's Killing is My Business sound.

Here is the deal with these pedals. This was my first distortion pedal I ever got. I tried it against a DOD Supra distortion, another DOD distortion (Maybe a Thrash pedal?) and also a Boss distortion. I thought it was better than the DODs and as good as the boss but it was like $10 cheaper than the Boss. I used it for a couple of years with my 2 set ups mentioned above playinng classic and 80's rock. It was pretty good for it. I added a Boss eq and it was even better! When I first got into death/speed metal I used it for the first year or so until DOD came out with the death metal pedal (Their original ones are great) and that became my main pedal. I lost interest in the older music so I sold the Arion. About 10 years later I got back into the older music of my youth and got another Arion distortion. Here is where it gets bad. It was one of the newer ones and it just wasn't the same. Now it wasn't going through the exact same Ampeg I had with my original Arion, but it was a second Ampeg V4 that I had owned. The distortion seemed a little drier and not as much gain to it. I didn't realize until after I sold it that that wasn't made in the same Japanese factory but somewhere in Shri Lonka. Definately get the old grey ones! These are ok for heavy metal but it is really best for 80's hair bands and 80's metal and 70's rock. You can get in some decent different sounds out of those older pedals. It also had one of my favorite lead tones I had. One of my favorite things to do was run the guitar cord out of the out 2 jack only and flip the stereo switch (Can't remember which way) and I'd get a really dry ****** gritty tone close to Megadeth's Killing is my business. It was fun to mess with.

It's all plastic but mine lasted me about 5 years without any trouble other than losing the battery cover. I never did gig with it but I NEVER had any problems with it at any band practices or just playing at home and I used it for 2-3 hours a day back then easily. I wouldn't trust it too much if I was a touring pro that went around the country though.

I have no opinion because I never had to deal with them

What style of music do you play? Now primarily death/speed/thrash/black metal and also 80's metal. Back when I had this it was mostly classic rock and 80's metal

Is this a good match? It is for the older metal vibe. I wouldn't recomend it to someone who is looking strictly for brutal distortion.

How long have you been playing? 24 years...Jesus Christ I am getting old.....
What other gear do you own? Now I own Jackson Warriors, a B.C. Rich Kerry King V and an Aria pro II ZZ all cheaper bolt ons all with EMGs. I also have a digitech GSP2101 Artist through a BBE, into a Rocktron V100 power amp and into 2 Avatar 2x12s.

If it were stolen or lost, would you buy it again or get something else? I am actually thinking of buying one to run through the effects loop of my 2101 to use for my neck pick up leads.

what do you love about it? It was easy to use and had a really good sound for something that was so cheap in price!

What do you hate? Kept losing the battery cover

What is your favorite feature? the stereo out puts

Did you compare it to other products? Yes

Which ones? Why did you choose this one? See above

Anything you wish it had? wish it had seperate tone controls and more gain

Does it help you make music, or does it get in the way? It helped. Most of my early songs (both rock and death metal) were written with this pedal. I still play a lot of those old songs

Anything else you'd like to share? Definately try to get the older Japanese version!

Stupid Easy just take the time!

High gain crunch use the volume on your guitar!
Gets noisy if you Dime the thing.

Pots can get scratchy with time, cover is easy to break but all in all my black model is over 20 years around and just had the switch repaired and pots cleaned.

The good guys are no longer building these things!!

Since I wrote my last review (Three Levels down!) I have picked up three extra Gray models I have reached my limit for sure, but do believe these pedals have a distinctive late 70???s most defiantly 80???s sound that fits well with my amps witch are Fender: BF Deluxe Reverb, 68 Droop front Princeton, Hand built Bonepicker 40 Watt Super Reverb, 18 Watt Bonepicker non reverb Combo 2xEL-84???s this pedal loves this amp in the Studio and a Budda Verbmaster also 2xEL-84;s.
I also own a SOD-1 overdrive that is awesome as well, these gray model SOD-1???s are starting to get a price on them and also are getting harder to find.
Never the less I dig these pedals and to understand them you need to play with them and fine tune them to your guitar and amp.

level, tone, dist

Great sounding distortion. Punk, some metal, indie, whatever....It's nothing too extreme but it sounds better than most. Beats any Boss distortion ever made and I've had them all.

Make sure you get the GREY BOX made in japan pedal!

If you look through the reviews you'll notice the people who love it have been using it a long time. In other words they are using the vintage Japanese pedal not the made in Shri Lanka crap arion is making now with the same names.

Arions strategy used to be: make a better sounding pedal for less money. Now the strategy is: make the cheapest pedal possible and who cares what it sounds like because it's made for 14 year old kids who don't know any better. Vintage arion pedals are a great value.

Somehow they live on...or limp on.

Tone for $$ these are hard to beat.

all you do to get a good sound is basically twist the nobs until it sounds good.

i use my fender strat with a small amp. I found out if u really want some hard core distortion put the little button that slides to soft and of course crand up the distortion nob. over all for how much i paid it is a really good pedal for the beginner. u can get a really good black sabbath sound or any band that has muffled sounding distortion. the distortion is a good distortion compared to some other pedals. it kind of sounds like a garage band style distortion.

u can mostly depend on it, just be careful when you open the battery cover because i broke mine while changing the battery. i dont know if i would rely on it because i have had some trouble with mine.

i play metal on it. and it is a good metal petal. ive been playin on it for about 2 months. i also own the russian big muff and blue tube by tube works. i might buy it if it got stolen. because of the price though.i love the amount of distortion it gives. i hate the quality. my favorite feature is the tone secelect. i wish it had a better quality battery cover.

Like most pedals people that bash before they realy understand how to use it they will give this little pedal a bad break!
It is cheap (YES) don?t buy the new ones they truly suck ASS if you can find one buy the first issue gray model but the trick is what your combining with this pedal I run a
1976 Les Paul Custom fited with SD Seth lover in the neck and JB in the bridge Tonepros Bridge and tail piece into a Maxon Compressor into the Arion then into a Guyatone MD-3 delay or my maxon AD-900 into my 64~65 Fender Deluxe Reverb amp here is the trick the lower output I think is A this output is so smooth when you tweak your rig, the top output sucks for sound.

Work with the box turn the gain all the way down tone around 9 or 10 o?clock and play with the volume you get that sound happy with your amp then use the volume control on your guitar and watch your pick attack as well take your time to get the feel and it starts to click how to work this pedal, yes it can get over the top but some tweaking and you will like this box! The ones made in Japan rule I had a black one for 15 years until I bought a gray model and yes there is a bit of a difference between the two the gray model is a little more organic and smoother while the black model is a little louder and harsher, never the less I dig them both. My Paul really gets that early 70?s bell tone Allman brothers Marshall tucker to Zepplin Framton Thin Lizzy with my ES-335 fitted with Seath Lovers it nails Neal Young?s powder finger with the bridge Pup to a TEE!
Just be open minded and hear what your tone is doing.

15 years still alive!

WHY?

Gray is the best as with the Gray Arion SCH-1 Chorus It is usefull when you need the sound its not the only pedal for everything!
If i fell apart I would buy another.

Well... yeap. It's easy to use. I mean... it's a stomp box...
You plug your guitar in one side and your amp into the other.
But I'm only going to give it a 6 because although it's easy to make crisp crunchy distortion, it's not so easy to make it do anything else.
I have trouble integrating it with my other effects units without it overpowering them to the extent that I might as well just use the box on it's own.

Mine is the black version by the way.

I normally use it with my Peavey Rage practice amp. Which probably dosn't help.
It IS noisy, and sounds a lot like a bunch of transistors eating potato crisps.
My main grudge is the lack of control. The distortion knob basically goes between Hard distortion and noisyer hard distortion. You will have difficulty getting anything out of this box. The tone can help a little, and using the soft output can help too if you want to get that warm crunchy sound when you strum a chord and let it ring, but you'll need to have your guitar volume knobe down at about quater way.

Ha!
I got mine second hand and the batterry cover was brocken. I've since lost it. The battery connector had previousely been repaired and has fallen off since (that may be due to abuse though). I stepped on on of the knobs and it made a crunching noise. Another knob fell off. I don't know what happend to the 3rd one... I think I saw it lying around the other day.
Apart from that, the circuitry still works. The switch still works great (it actually has a "momentary on micro switch" inside that has some circuitry to toggle the pedal... quite impressive... probably wont break in a hurry) The knobs aren't noisy. I would use it at a gig without a backup as long as my amp had overdrive becasue quite frankly the sound from this pedal is nothing special.

N/A

It's alright if you just want a dist. Pedal for the sake of having one. I could imagine it being alright as a first stomp box for a beginer. But beyond that it's almost useless. (I HAVE used it in church maybe twice.)

it is very hard indeed to figure out how to use this thing. it dosen't come with any instructions and it doesn't even tell you what knobs do what. this thing is a death trap, i plugged it into my microwave and it blew the thing up. i ended up in hospital with third degree burns.

when i actually got it to work it sounded terrible. just like a squier strat, absolutely awful, toneless and boring. this distortion pedal is about as weak as the vegetable soup down at cafe le weak.

the cheap plastic fell apart straight away. the box it came in lasted longer and i was playing in it all day, it was more fun than the actual pedal. i made a really cool fort and played cowboys and indians with my little brother.

that was the only good thing about this item.....NOT

waste of money. DO NOT BUY THIS!!!!!!!

Plug in and play. Doesnt get any easier than this. You can connect to a second amp using the second output. You can run the second clean while playing dirty w/ the other.

One of thee best sounding distortion pedals in my opinion. Ive been using them since 1985. The people giving it a bad review undoubtedly expect the pedal to magically make them sound like a better guitarist. The only thing that will accomplish that is more practice. The pedal is everything a distortion pedal should be...and more.

Im on my second one. The first one I bought began shorting out after some time. This is due to the construction, not the componants. To be able to offer the unit at an affordable price, it's constructed of plastic. As long as you secure the cables at each end of the pedal down to the ground w/ duct tape, you should be fine at gigs.

Ive tried about every pedal under the sun, and I can honestly say the pedal sounds as good (if not better) than pedal over twice the price. Get one today!

I got this pedal used, without a manual. It's simple to use. It has the 3 basic controls that most distortions do- knobs for level, tone and volume. It has a switch marked "Direct-Soft"

But the simplicity is deceptive. It actually has a lot of sounds it can produce (some good, some bad). So it took a little trial and error to get the best sound out of it.

I tested the pedal with an Epiphone SG and a Fender Champ. I also tried it with a Fender Strat and a silverface Pro Reverb amp. It was noisy at high gain settings, but with the distortion level under 1:00, it was fine.

The other reviews here mention 2 different versions of this pedal (gray and black). I've got the gray one, and the sound is actually pretty good. The distortion is kinda generic, but good (somewhere in the neighborhood of a Boss DS-1). Even with the level knob all the way down, it's still fairly distorted. All the way up gives you a noisy, nasty fuzz. With most settings, sustain was great and harmonics jumped out nicely. Note definition within chords was pretty good, except at the fuzzier levels.

The tone knob made a big difference. Experimenting with level and tone settings was fun. I was able to get everything from ZZ Top-ish crunch to 70's metal to a Robert Fripp-like buzz.

IMHO, The best thing about the pedal is the stereo output. With the switch on "Direct", one output is distorted and the other clean. On "Soft" (?) both are distorted.

The best sound I was able to get was with the distortion level low (about 8:00), the tone slightly below 12:00, and the switch on "Direct". I ran two cords out to the two inputs on my amp, and set the volume on the pedal so that the distorted and clean signals were about the same level. It sounded somewhat similar to a Voodoo Labs Sparkle Drive- the sustain and crunch of distortion with the attack and definition of a clean sound. This alone makes this pedal a keeper for recording. I think I've continue to use my Boss and EH pedals for gigs.

Well... When I bought it, this pedal was covered with dirt. It was missing one knob, and one of the others kept falling off. And of course, the battery cover was gone (as it is on all used Arion and DOD pedals).

I cleaned it up and put some spare Radio Shack knobs on it. I discovered that the distortion level pot was loose. So I resoldered the connections.

Now it works fine. So, how reliable is it? It's plastic. But it seemed to survive its previous owner(s). It looked like it had been thoroughly abused. But with just a little tinkering it's now working perfectly. I think it'll hold up under my use.

No idea? Where are Arion pedals made? China? Southeast Asia?

Overall, this is a decent basic distortion in mono and a very cool pedal in stereo. It's sort of a "poor-man's Sparkle Drive".

I bought it simply because it was cheap. I was at a flea market, and it was literally the first thing I saw. It was only $3.00, so I grabbed it.

I'll probably use it to record with. And I'll keep it as a backup to my Boss SD-1 and Big Muff. It doesn't really do what those pedals can, but it can supply a good distortion.

If it gets lost or stolen, I'll keep checking garage sales and eBay for another one (as long as the price is right).

This thing is easy to use. All you do it mess with it till u get the sound u like, 3 dials....

For its price , this thing is great, peeple call it too much, what do they expect. Im happy with the sounds i have got from this, and i have heard quite a few disortions.
Good sound for nice price :)

Mine aint broke, its plastic, but it seems strong enuff to me. Its pretty heavy too so its not gonna be flyin around everywhere.
I never gigged so i wudnt know if it wud be reliable or not in that departement.
BUT i had it a while, and its bin great, exact as wen i got it.

Never needed em probably a number in the instructions, but i get a feelin a mite not speek the same language.

I play mostly modern rock stuff, liek radiohead and muse. Its fits the bill, and has done me good. I bin playin about 2 years and this thing bin there since the start, so its now my friend.
If it were stolen, i think i would buy it again, i like its sound, and it seems cool enough.
If you see it, and its cheap enuff, get it. Its an ace buy, and i doubt it will do u too much harm.
Arion did ok id say, yeeeeehh!(cheering)**