Boss DS-1 Distortion

The knobs and the stomp part of it are very easy to use, the batteries hardly go dead, but sometimes, the DS-1 messes up the sound coming thru my amp if kick it on, play full blast and kick it off and then back on. (like the blur song), but otherwise, its great.

The sound is great, I use it on my bass and it gets a great sound, low, grinding and sometimes I will turn it so that it sounds like a grungy guitar tuned way down.

It has great dependability except for that minor flaw in the ease of use evaluation but no, i would not bring a backup because I wouldn't need one.

If it got used to the bone, I would buy it again, the souns is great and it keeps the bass sounding like a bass with distortion, not like some boxes that always keep your G sounding terrible, this box is designed for the guitar but its great for the bass. It keeps up and is very useful in most of my songs.

This pedal is fairly easily to use, three knobs, tone, level, and distortion. It can be extremely bassy, or tinny, either way, it's easy to use. It came with a manual, read it once or twice, not bad.

The pedal has absolutely no noise whatsoever when not in use, but if you tweak the distortion and put your guitar on a treble clean channel, there's a ton of crappy noise, I don't care much. If you have patience, you can make it sound good. I like to keep my pickups on bass, and put the tone knobs on the two o clock position, level on the max, and distortion at twelve o clock.

I have played tons of shows with over two hundred ppl, and i never even thought of having a backup pedal, this thing is indestructable, it's a Boss!!!

Never dealt with them.

I would definately buy it again, I love it.

Pretty easy to use -- just gain, tone, and level knobs. I'm using it mainly as a "kick the tube preamp in the head" level/treble booster for soloing. Manual's pretty decent.

It's a little noisy, but not as bad as my old ME-6. Using it as a booster works, but not quite as well as I'd like, because it compresses things too much. It seems to like single coil pickups better than humbuckers, too. Using it as purely as a distortion pedal yields a tone that's too grunge-oriented for my tastes; not bad, but not me either.

It's pretty tough, like all of Boss' stomp boxes.

Never needed it.

Probably wouldn't buy it again (it was an impulse buy). I think I liked my old Marshall Guv'nor better, although it *really* sucked as a booster pedal. I wish it had a clean boost option, but that seems to be strictly the domain of boutique pedals.

- its kinda hard to get a satisfying sound out of it, for me depends what mood im in - what are editing patches? - manual? lost it useless - my unit has not been upgraded, its kinda been re-issued they stopped makeing them in Japan in 1994 i think and now ther made in Japan

- it has loud treblle sounds which i like sometimes, kinda sounds like foo fighters "exhausted" on some settings - the effect sounds good depending on what you want to hear, you can get a good mudhoney sound outta it - i have a DS-2 and DS-1 and soon a CE-2 (vintage 80's) an i just recently hooked them both up, useing both at the same time is great for getting instant feedback and weird noise so im keeping the DS-1

im not gonna say "its a BOSS" its a cliche on Harmony Central

I think BOSS just tells people they have customer support so people feel nice, its probaly just a guy in a little room with a gameboy sitting there all day

- I would not buy it again cus theres no need to unless i sell it - i like its nice high trebble sounds and noise when combined with the DS-2 (wait till CE-2 comes in!) - I compared it to the DS-2... The differance? DS-1 "trebbly" DS-2 Bassy - I wish it could talk to me, and a differant color or the same color as the DS-2 - It helps me make music! When im playing some sonic youth "Drunken Butterfly" i can make nice noise with it - yes i would like to warn people buying this becaude Kurt Cobain used it- It sounds nothing like the Bleach Era, they stopped makeing the ones he used go here if interested in vintage pedals www.soundbarrier.com

It can't get any simpler. Just tone and distortion knobs. A few seconds of playing around with them and you'll have a good sound.

Very little feed back with my 61 SG reissue. It kicks ass for Nirvana like sounds. Otherwise it not very good at duplicating the sounds of many other bands. It gets extremely muddy with the tone turned down. Mainly just very crunchy and sharp distorion. The best setting is tone 1/2 way and distortion 3/4 of the way.

Roll over it with a tank if you want and it will still work. I'm sure they test these babies at ground zero.

There probably isn't any because nothing will go wrong, most likely.

If mine was taken by aliens, ya sure, I would definately run out and buy another even if I had to sell my car for the money.

You'd have to be an idiot for this to confuse you.

A little more low end would be nice, otherwise is great

I have used this thing for 10 years. That's not a typo. It is still goind strong, no problems

Cobain apparently must have used this for all the references to him here. I can assure you that it wasn't modeled after him. I have had mine 10 years, no problems.

Extremely easy to use and come with a manual.

For the most part is sound great. Could use a bit more punch, but is still better sounding then anyother pedals I've heard.

It's a BOSS. You could back over it with your truck and it would still work.

Never had a problem

Great pedal. Great price. Definately would buy it again.

It's pretty simple to operate, so you should have no problem dialing in on a good tone. It has three knobs: tone, level & distortion. It can go from fuzz, to warm and even kinda bluesy, and its normal rock distortion is great. The manual has some sample settings which are really good, and can help tou to develop your "own" sound based on them.

The normal distortion is awesome, and is a little bit noisy, but that's common in distortion boxes. Its really good for standard, all-around rock distortion. Sometimes the distortion doesn't feel as powerful as it should be, but it rocks anyway.

Built like a tank. Can withstand some serious stomping.

I've never dealt with the company, their products are very reliable.

I would definitely buy it again, and would even consider buying another one for back up since they're not that expensive, though I seriously doubt the unit would ever fail me. I do wish it had a bit of a little more punch, but its a great stombox. In fact, it's the one all other distortion boxes should be judged against, it's kind of a standard. And you can't beat it's price, it's value greatly surpasses it.

It's very easy. It has three knobs; Tone, Level and Distortion. The manual is for retards, eg: "If the pedal isn't working, make sure there is a battery in it."

It's noisy when you aren't playing, but a NoiseGate pedal can fix that. With the Distortion cranked, it gets really loud. This better is way better than the MT-2 or the DOD FX50-B. You can get that raw gut-wrenching distorted sound if you back off on the tone and distortion and crank the level up.

I can depend on this, baby. It's a BOSS!

Never delt with them.

I would buy it again, definately. I am using it for the effects loop on the Boss ME-8. I like the orange colors and the old-fashion looking knobs. The original price was $135 Canadian but Tom Lee Music had a sale and was selling it for $120, but I talked them down to $80! This pedal rocks.

It will give a good Nirvana or Smashing Pumpkin type sound. Nothing like a Metallica or Marilyn Manson. The manual is pretty good, though I lost it within the first week. But it does give some pretty good settings for the type of music that you might want to play

It is pretty noisy if you crank it up all the way (which I do alot), but anything other than that is pretty quiet.

I would be willing to bet my life on this pedal. It is one of the best quality pedals. I have totally abused this for about 3 months and it is still going strong. I would definetly use this on a gig.

Never dealt with them

I would probably buy this again, but I might go for something with a more Marillyn Manson type distortion. What I love though is that it is so simple to use, just 2 little knobs.