Boss DS-1 Distortion

Very easy

Sounds good, settings will really depend on your amp settings. This really can sound very good. I currently use this on a clean channel of a Mesa Mark III since I dont really care for the drive channel of that amp(can be too woofy and flabby) I currently own a Bogner XTC 101B, Soldano SLO100, CAA OD100 SE+, DR Z Z28, and a Hiwatt clone. So I have heard top notch stuff before. For the price this pedal is pretty good, it can sound pretty compressed but thats not to big of a deal. Just be liberal with the gain you probably will never need it past half way.

In all honesty the pedal is really as good as the gear you match it up with. Ofcourse this pedal infront of any amp with the mids scooped out will sound horrible. This pedal really needs the mids there to achieve a full tone.

Built very well

Never needed them and I think most people would just buy a new pedal than deal with them anyway if something happened.

Very good buy, good sound for the price.

Awerage easy, be careful with tone controls.

Not so good. I try a few distortions. DS1 sound a bit nasty and thin.

Here in Indonesia we dont get many choises for guitars or fx pedals but Boss and Ibanez, Digitech etc can available or you need to special order from some stores. DS1 easy to get in the second hand market.

I play a thailand made NNG guitar PRS santana copy with 2 humbucker. Sometime the amp distortion sound better, other time I use a old ibanes tubescreamer copy it sounds much better, more full sound and less nasty.

It feel solid but dont know, my one is second hand it looks very much used.

Here in indonesia not much customer support. The local electronics repair shop do many service for guitar and amps.

Not so good my ibanez drive fx sound much nicer.

If you can't figure this one out, maybe you should only play acoustic?

How do I explain? Well, this pedal has taken quite a beating in reviews. I used to LOATHE this pedal, then one day I played it at a rehearsal studio, with my Les Paul DC with a duncan super distortion pickup in the bridge, through the studios mrashall jubilee head and a marshal 4x12. It sounded AWESOME! It never sounded that good before? The moral or the story is: For those who say this pedal sux, what gear are you using it with? I have the feeling that some people may be playing with some ****** bottom of the line guitar and some crap amp. If you play with quality gear, you will have a VERY different result. besides, for the $40 you pay for this, what do u expect?

Well, say what u want about boss pedals, but they are tougher than tough!I've own quite a few boss pedals and have never had one crap out on me.

n/a

This isn't a bad pedal, it's just not a great one. Like I said, for $40 u get what u pay for.

I got a "silver knob" old japan made ds-1 that is supposed to be much better than the later taiwan or china made units. It is easy to use because there are just three controls, mine came without a manual but it ain't rocket science to figure it out.

Sounds blah. Very thin sounding. Thought my amp was busted. Dont know what's so great about this japan made ds-1. It sounded the same as my band mates black knob taiwan made ds-1. I can do some hard rock rhythm with it but cant use it for solos. We tried with a boss cs-3 compressor before and after the ds-1, and a combination of a chorus and delay to fatten up the tone, but it just made it sound very unnatural. My SD-1 sounds so much better and fuller.

Ive just had it a few weeks. Dont know about how reliable it is but I always take a backup.

Not used them.

Very thin sounding effect, I didn't like it. I went back to my sd-1

3 knobs how much easier would it get but you have to forget the turn all knobs up theory to use it well never turn the tone past 1 o'clock it sounds super thin.

like i said
tone- o-1 o clock
distortion- anywhere not a big difference b/t 12 and full on
level- i have found i used a whammy/boost in front of it and it caused it to clip very easily. at about 3 o clock its the same volume as the bypass signal. also as said in one of the other review; its sounds good in front of a tube amp that's just barely over driven.

boss builds there pedals like a rock i use a powered pedal board so idk whether it dies quickly but its tough.

it does one sound really well but overall its not a versitile pedal. if you tone everything back a little you get more fullness and less thin sounds

Three controls, easy to use, tone control also cuts out lows when cranked up, takes a while to get the right sound.

I use a '72 telecaster loaded with Lindy Fralin's replacement pickups that sound sweetly warm, and a beautiful 1988 burny "super grade" Japanese les paul running on Duncan JB and Jazz pickups. The guitars both sound wonderful when played direct, which is a very important factor in producing great tone.

I play these through a fender blues deville 2x12, a hot rod and a blues deluxe for practise and Laney LX412A with 4x12" celestion drivers or an LV300T or 412S depending on the gig.

I've been trying out a whole variety of overdrive and distort effects, and use the amp tube overdrive much of the time. I also use a boss blues driver, SD-1, and a digitech bad monkey drive.

Tried many combinations of effects, tried driving the tubes by maxing out the volume on the DS1, and stacking the DS with low gain effects before and after the DS1.

The DS1 in itself sounds very shrill and buzzy. It's rather nasal and I can't seem to get a good tone setting that doesn't kill lows and give me decent treble at the same time. I got my DS1 modded and it does sound a little better now but still not so good compare to the other drive effects.

I've used it a couple of times for gigging, but I've always been told my SD1 or bad monkey sound far better, specially with the tele which comes out sounding very much like angry hornets. Will probably keep it and play around a bit but wont use it for gigs.

My bad monkey and SD1 do a far better job of maintaining the wide open sound of a tele and driving my tubes nicely at the same time.

Dont know as I have not had it long. I would always take a backup, since I've had my boss BD2 die on me once halfway through a gig.

Haven't used them for the DS1 yet.

Cheap entry into the disto world but there are better sounding alternatives, look at the bad monkey and tube screamer clones or the boss sd1.

Very simple except tone is where level is on some other boss drives so can be confusing at first. But its very easy

Sound sgreat when used correctly, will sound different on various amps. On my Reeves hiwatt clone it sounds awesome, just keep drive low and level high and use it as a booster(trust me there is still enough high gain) this way gives you thick high gain with low noise. Keep the tone between 10 0clock and noon add more if you want more bite and treble.

Great pedal and sounds great. I have been playing for 25 years and do have lots of different equipment including Bogner xtc, Soldano SL100, DR Z z28 a whole bunch of Carvin electrics.

This pedal will sound good for you just use it lightly and remember this will work better on an amp that has its mids driven more. It will give you satriani and vai tones. Mine is a stock model.

Very slight rolling off some of the chimey highs or crispness when bypassed versus when not in chain at all, but its only slight. Just dont have to many boss pedals in a row and you should be fine.

Just make sure you are using this with an amp that is just about breaking or where you amp is already giving you a good crunch.

Very well made, boss probably makes the most durable stomp boxes

Never had to deal with them which is good and besides most stores swap these out if the one you had went bad.

Overall its a very good pedal no issues at all. I play every thing and I use a Reeves custom 6 for home use and recording, need somethign to pushed it into Bogner XTC red channel territory and this does this to a tee. Great pedal.

This particular DS-1 I am reviewing was made in the early 2000's. The circuit is still the same as it was in 1978 with no changes. It is easy to get a good sound out of it as long as you know what you are doing, i.e. move your guitar controls from 10 to something lower and play on a valve amplifier that can take advantage of the boost in the preamp stages.

I'll give this a 7 because most users forget to use a quality valve amplifier with the pedal, which should be mentioned in the manual like it was in 1978.

If you are using a solid state amp your review ends right here with a "5" out of "10." If you are using a valve amplifier, keep reading.
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The Boss DS-1 overdrives the preamp stage of most 2 and 1 channel boutique amplifiers (Bogner Ecstasy, Carvin Legacy, Mesa Lonestar, Fender Twin, etc.) and creates more distortion to push the amp. When dialed correctly on the pedal, your guitar, and amplifier, you can get some superb distortion tones out of this box. This is why Joe Satriani and Steve Vai use this box, even in it's original form.

The DS-1 was meant to be used in conjunction with a valve amplifier and with different guitar settings than "all 10 on the knobs." When used correctly, it is a perfect "10" pedal.

BOSS pedals by Roland are some of the most dependable pedals ever created. The design is the same as it was in 1978. "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" is most likely the BOSS philosophy.

Never had to deal with BOSS for repairs, but most pedals do carry a warranty of 5 years. I did call them for amplifier recommendations with the pedal and they recommended any valve amp that can have the preamp stage loaded. (Which is most quality valve amplifiers manufactured today.)

The new DS-1's have the same circuit as the 1978-81 models - don't let anyone fool you otherwise. They are tonally 100% the same, even when analyzed for frequency response.

The DS-1 is cheap at an average of $39.99 USD at most retailers. When used properly, with a valve (tube) amplifier, you can get amazing full distortion tones out of it.

A solid "9"

Fairly easy to figure out, mine has got hte keeley ultra mod and sounds fantastic...more on this later.

This is the reason I am writing this review. I had searched far and wide on the net looking for some idea of what to expect from this pedal. I am a huge Satch fan and thought this pedal would help provide that coveted tone. I had Keeley mod mine because I loved the sound bites on his website. Now, for EVERYONE who has reviewed this pedal...here is my take. When I first got it back from Keeley, I thought it sounded as bad as the original. It sucked. Very bright, overly aggressive....complete shit. I was using it thru a JSX head thru the clean channel and could not figure out why even Satch or Vai would bother with this thing. I was about to throw it out and then I struck gold!!!!!! I killed some of the treble on the clean channel and played with the tone controls on the amp and the pedal. I left the tone on the pedal at 10pm and left the treble on the amp at 4. OH MY GOD.... The real tone of this pedal came shining thru. suddenly I had SWTA and Vai all in one. Monster Tone with balls to boot. It was easy to nail early Satch or Vai. I am in love with what this pedal can do, but it is very dependent on where you run your tone controls.

Its a Boss pedal, you could drive over it and it would still work. enough said.

HUH?

If you put the time in to playing around with this and your rig, you will be rewarded but its going to take time to figure it out. When you hit on that tone, this pedalis the Mac Daddy of them all....why do you think Vai, Satriani and Gilbert all own and still use DS-1's......I'm not making this up!!!!!!!!!! And Keeley does a great job modding this pedal!

I've got in my hands a "special" DS-1 with silver/gray knobs that says it's made in Japan, of a particular sweet vintage that is much sought after. It appears rather easy to figure out how it works without the manual, use your ears, easy.

I'm one of those over-obsessed stomp box crazies who pretty much blows almost his entire income on gear, much to the displeasure of the missus. I've tried out almost every overdrive, distort, fuzz and "death metal" type distortion boxes around, from cheap off the shelf danelectros to exotic stuff like custom made hand-crafted moollon gear from Korea.

I use a variety of guitars, from the stock Fender H-1 strat, an Ibanez RG, a Gibson explorer, an SG and a Yamaha AES 920. Once in a while the old "lead-butt" epiphone les paul equipped with JB's comes out. They go into a relatively small pedal chain, one compressor, one od/distort and possibly a second, one phaser/flanger, one delay and one eq. This is played off a 1966 fender twin reverb blackface, or a Genz Benz El-diablo 100 or a mesa boogie dual rectifier solo head.

Sound-wise this pedal is a mixed bag. It most definitely sits within the "distortion" class of effects, nothing subtle about this one here and none of that "mild transparent overdrive" nonsense. The tone is rather shrill on the strat or any single coil pickups but does fairly well with a very low to mild distortion setting. The gibson does ok with a higher distortion setting. The tone control is pretty much unuseable - moving it out of a 11-11.30 setting produces very shrill sounds when cranked up, or muddy bassy sounds when turned down. It has some volume boost but not much.

All in all a pretty simple pedal, but the sound quality lacks character and depth. The tone could have a lot more depth and juice, which even a cheap "bad monkey" or SD-1 can do.

This pedal is very solidly built, but my particular unit has been exhibiting problems on and off, very intermittent. It would suddenly drop volume/gain by nearly 80% and sound awful, like you're playing a very bad sounding distorted "sitar" (Ravi shankar in the 70's through a bad overdrive?). If I powered it off for about 3-4 minutes and powered on again, all would be well. Dunno what the matter is - definitely not the cables or power as we checked that time and time again, and this pedal is far too old for warranty repairs.

Dunno, mine is too old for support.

This is a mixed bag. It's cheap enough for anyone to give dist/od a shot. Sound wise, I've used better.