Boss DS-1 Distortion

It has three knobs - tone, level and distortion. As simple as you can get. Tap the pedal to switch between clean and distorted sounds.

Quite a few people have a misconception about the tone. Many people remark on the 'tinny' or 'high' sound. Many people also recommend setting the tone to about 2 to get a good sound.

However, if you plug in the guitar to your amp, and cut the amplifier gain to zero, or if you plug in to the auxiliary/CD input on your amp, then the tone control works as you would expect, and you get a great sound. The tinny sound is obtained only if the gain on the amp is high - the equalizing circuitry in most amps throws the tone out of balance.

The sound is good for a generic rock sound ... you can tweak with the settings to get sounds that suit either soloing or accompanying. A light touch of distortion provides a warm tone to the sound. It has very low noise.

Sturdy metal build.

I play my Jackson JS-1 through a Peavey 158 Rage. Though both of these are low-end, basic gear, the pedal generates a good sound. I liked the distortion from the pedal much more than that built-in in the Peavey amp.

Simplicity at it's finest. I bought mine that has the "Monte Allums" mod, toggle switch on the front of the pedal. This kicks ass, as it has yet another 3 tonal ranges it can cover, rather than the "Stock" DS-1. I bought mine from eBay, perfect condition, and it didn't come with a manual, but no drama, it's easy to setup, and it's easy and fast to find the setting your looking for!

My one is the Taiwan version, but I'm not sure what the difference is between the japanese and taiwan versions.

This pedal is very good to get that added distortion I was hunting for. The monte allum mod makes this pedal sound a whole lot better, than stock versions I've tried in Music shops. I use this with my strat and fender champ amplifier.

But alas it doesn't quite cut it for me, as it is clean hard distortion, and therefore not the best for shredding and good fuzzy metal, therefore I have also just recently bought a BOSS HM-2 Heavy Metal distortion. It is still yet to come, but when it does I'll review it. With these two distortions working togther, I'll have a blistering fuzzy overdriven distorted sound that will rape anything else.

But this gets a perfect sound for AC/DC kind of rock, etc.

This is a pre 1980's pedal, making it over 20 years old, with maybe more than one original owner. It's NEVER cut out on me, or stuffed up. I can always sleep at night knowing this baby won't fuck up on me last minute.

Never delt with them, but I have heard they are quite nice about helping out with pedals, etc.

Not the stand-alone distortion for me. I'm looking for a more overdriven fuzzy metal tone, perfect for ripping hard solos and good metal tuned down riffs.

But with this as my backup distortion, working with my lead BOSS HM-2, it should be perfect.

But if you are looking to buy the DS-1, make sure it has the Monte Allums mod intalled. If not, buy it off their website, it's cheap and apparently easy to install. It's even easier if you find one with it allready in it.

NEED MOAR FUZZ!

Ok, 3 controls but watch the tone dial.

I have a slightly older made in japan ds-1 with weird metallic / aluminum looking controls. Dunno if they were swapped out by the previous owner. I bought it because my gig-mate lost his gear and we needed something for him to jam with urgently, for practice sessions.

It sounds sort of ok for a distortion, but I wouldnt gig with it, sounds too tinny and harsh. He plays an american strat through it with overwound single coil pickups from wolfetone I think.

There are many better distorter pedals around, at the same price. We replaced this with a digitech bad monkey and it sounds far better.

Dunno, this pedal looks like it's been used as a football, still works. But god knows for how long.

Never used. this pedal was probably 3rd or 4th-hand. It sure looks it.

Ok pedal for practice/jamming but I wouldnt take this for serious playing. Sounds sub-average.

Well there are just three controls so it's not rocket science.

This was one of my first distortion pedals I used for a year or so. I didn't have much experience with effects. The distortion is harsh and fizzy, very thin sounding and lacks sustain. Some of you praising this unit should take the time to try out other pedals. Forget the botique pedals like the blackstone, lovepedal etc, just pick up an el-cheapo box like the bad monkey overdrive or even a boss blues driver or SD-1, they all sound FAR better than this noisemaker.

After I disposed of this orange tin of noise, I'm not surprised ad how much better my tone sounds now. I'm giving it a 2 because it does sound sort of acceptable in some settings.

Just don't get the tone way up - it sounds like the oft spoken about bees-in-tin-can cacophony.

Mine was about a year old when the power supply went flaky. It wouldn't play off the mains - I had to use a battery. Then the on/off switch started acting up. It often wouldn't register I'd pressed the switch, it would take a few attempts before it would switch off. This was especially embarassing during a few gigs when the stupid thing would refuse to switch on just when I'm launching into that huge power chord.

Look elsewhere. I have no idea why people praise this box of noise, but I suppose they haven't tried better stomp boxes. As soon as I heard some better stomp boxes I got rid of this **thing** .. the boss SD-1 which I got modded sounds faaaaar better, nicer, warmer, more sustain and really more organic.

very easy to use

ok folks, i have here a vintage ds-1 circa 1986 as stated buy the serial#. very warm compared to the the modern units. tone control is very usable, never harsh. has that 80's analog style distortion. great alone or adding gain to a slightly overdriven amp. great for anything except nu-metal. a little noise, but its analog and a little white noise is ok. works with single coils, p-90s, humbuckers, any amp.

its a boss and it lasted this long

got it for free back in 96, put it away until now, plugged it in and marveled at the tone. compared to a friends keeley ds-1 ultra and completley blew it away! they just dont make them like they used to. i cant believe how harsh the new ones are. you'll never know until try a vintage unit. people, save your cash, get on ebay and find one!

very easy to get a good sound, three knobs only, though i would like a little more bass on it. the drive pot can approximate almost any od/dist from the tubescreamer to the heavy metal. i bought it new with manual which gave suggestions on how to get certain settings.

the distortion is really good, i can get almost any sound from blues, hard rock (lynch mob,badlands) to ac/dc, malmsteen, van halen, whitesnake judas priest. what is lacking is clean boost and extreme metal sounds but i don't use those sounds everyday. i use a yamaha rgz, boss od-1, super chorus, delay, pitch shifter and heavy metal into a marshall combo. there's some noise sometimes but its probably the cords or the switches on the guitar.

its built in the legendary boss quality. i've seen a ds-1 before floating on two inches of water during an outdoor gig but it did'nt fail. its my new take-one-pedal-only pedal.

they have very informative websites plus the boss area

i've played blues, some crossover country; southern, classic, hard rock and metal since i was in my teens and i'm now 40! i definitely would buy boss pedals if it would get lost. this thing deserves its tag as a legend and it makes me wonder why many hate this pedal. you just need to tweak your pedals and amp's knob to get the sound you need. i think boss should make a ds-3 with high and low eq to make it more versatile. my ds-1 is an mit so i don't know how different it is from the mij, but its really the workingman and the (guitar hero's) distortion pedal.

Hard to get a decent sound, but it is in there.

I use a USA Custom Strat (w/ S.D. neck humbucker) into a Fender Deluxe Reverb. In other words I live in Toneville.

Or used to, until I got this pedal.

I have a real love/hate relationship wih this thing. Sometimes the sound is exactly what I'm after, other times it sounds like a drowning cat.

I am intrigued by the people on this site who say they turn the tone right up. I find that if you turn it past 10am it sounds like someones chucked a few forks in a blender.

Last night I was jammin and could not believe how awful it sounded. Thought maybe the batteries were going or something. Sounded like the TV aerial just broke, you know that fuzzy screen sound. AND THEN....maybe it was just a matter of the tubes in my amp warming up....maybe an overhead UFO boosted my signal....but I entered the TONE ZONE. It was the perfect distortion ive been searching for. Everyone in my band was like WOW, what did you do? Hope it's not a one off.

Really i should give this thing a 5, but after last night it's getting a 10. It was almost mythical.

SSOB A STI

3 knobs ! easy as it can be.

It sounds really excellent. Better then the MT-2 and SD-1 because they sound less natural. De DS-1 is more clear and cuts through the mix much better. I own the MT2, SD1 and DS1, and I really find the DS1 the best.
!!!! You have to use it as a boost in front of your amp. Through clean channel it's useless.
My setup: guitar (seymour duncan sh6 pups) > Boss GE7 eq. > DS1 > Rocktron noise gate > amp (on od, with gain on 3/10)
To me as good as the Proco Rat.

10 years of gigs no problems

dont know

excellent

Very easy to use and very easy to get any type of tone out of it. It comes with a manual that is pretty good, and it shows some factory setting that you can try. It has settings for "hard rock" "Fuzz" :"american rock" and a few more.

I can get very very close to Black sabbath tone with this pedal. "Tone" at just past half. "Dist" maxxed out and the "volume" at just past half also, try that out!

I'am useing a ****** little Crate amp at the momment with a dean ml and an epi SG. When I upgrade to a better amp it will probley sound 100% better.

It's a bit noisy if you have eveything maxxed out (which I do sometimes for fun lol) but aside from that by anything just a wee bit of feedback

would take it to me with a gig everynight if I was in a band. If this thing crapped out on stage I would be in shock cause this thing is built so good. "Like a tank as many people say" lol

Nothing has gone wrong yet. One thing though...I cant register it online or by sending the form in. I bought it from america and I live in Canada so...

Hard rock and metal are my style and it matches up perfectly! If it was stolen or lost I would order another one right away. For 39 bucks I dont understand why someone would steal it... must be really strapped for cash...

Couldn't be simpler. Tone, level and distortion. If you can't figure that out you're probably a chimp with dementia.

I absolutely LOVE this pedal. I work in a guitar shop and the other day we hooked up every distortion pedal all in a row to play them all off against each other. The best two out of our stock was this and the Marshall Guvnor 2- they actually sound pretty similar. DS1 totally owns way more expensive distortions. But you've got to have the tone knob turned right down! even on a level setting this thing is SO trebly that it hurts. But set the tone to about one and a half out of ten and it's fantastic. I've noticed a lot of distortion pedals are like this actually. Maybe they're all designed by people who've spent their whole lives surrounded by too much volume and they've all lost all the high-end from their own hearing? Just a theory. Seeing as it's such a cheap pedal the unwanted hiss is really low n all. Although I have heard more expensive pedals that had way less or no hiss to em. But this one's blooming good nethertheless.

A ha! I'm not alone in what has happened on occasion with mine (which I bought second hand so it could have been properly hammered- I just don't know!) And that would be- VOLUME DROP! One dude who's wrote a review on here even seems to think that this is a design flaw rather than a fault. Dude, your pedal is shafted! Of course it aint supposed to be quieter when it's turned on! And doesn't it just seem to be a common fault?! Almost everyone reports getting a big volume drop either always or (As in the case with mine) intermittently. As faults go, this is pretty ****** bad. Imagine if half way through a gig your distortion suddenly was half the volume of your clean. Imagine if you were playing Smells like teen spirit- you'd look like such a prick! Mind you, if you're covering smells like teen spirit you probably sodding deserve it to happen. NO ONE WANTS TO HEAR THAT SONG COVERED AT GIGS BY BANDS ANYMORE, NO MATTER HOW MUCH THEY LIKE IT, COZ EVERYONE'S HEARD IT A BILLION BILLION TIMES, TRY SOMETHING ELSE FOR ONCE!!!! But I digress, it happened to me in practice luckily. But the n it worked fine for weeks before catching "level-drop-fever" again. I still use it for gigs but now I make sure I've got another distortion pedal in my set-up in case the wee orange beauty dies on me. Shame really, if it wasn't for this totally annoying and REALLY common fault It'd probably be the best pedal in the world- considering it's price obviously.

We don't stock BOSS pedals in the guitar shop I work in so I really don't know. But I believe they're part of Roland who for reasons completely inexplainable still seem to have a reputation for making good keyboards. I don't care if you like em, they're rubbish- fact! So no idea what BOSS are like to deal with. But with a huge firm like BOSS any complaints/ customer care is gonna be up to your dealer rather than the manufacturer. Buy local, keep music shops alive coz they're closing every day, and please please please if you're gonna buy online don't use us as your proxy internet show-room and then sod off back to the internet when we're unable to match the price. IT'S COZ THE INTERNET DON'T HAVE THE OVERHEADS OF KEEPING A SHOW-ROOM AND KNOWLEDGEABLE STAFF TO HELP YOU OUT, THAT'S WHY SHOPS ARE A BIT MORE PRICEY *********!

I can't help but feel I've strayed slightly from time to time in this review away from the BOSS DS1. Camel's final judgment overall- Amazing sound, but one hell of an Achilles heel in the really common occurring fault. Such a shame, coz the tone of the thing just breathes pure quality which shouldn't happen at this price point. Actually, how much are they anyway to buy brand new? Mine was twenty five english pounds second hand so they must be proper cheap yeah? I'd totally recommend it, I still use mine even though I know it could bail on me coz it really is worth the risk. But make sure you've got a back-up pedal coz one day it WILL let you down. In summery then the BOSS DS1 is like a genius who occasionally has a nervous breakdown. And where the **** would music be without them?!