Ibanez SD-9 Distortion

easy to use, once you realize the range of the controls.

I use mainly strat-style guitars-some with single-coils, some with hb.'s depending on how i set them up-thru a fender sidekick 25, peavey pacer(don't spread it around ;-) ) and old tube PA heads converted to guitar amps. It's a good pedal for boosting an overdriven sound as well as a single source of distortion.

I've had it for ten years,and all I've done is change the battery. I used to work in a music store doing repairs,so I got to try a lot of pedals-the sd=9 had the widest range of tone for a basic pedal.

I've never tried their support-I seldom buy anything new,so if I get a few years use,I'm happy.

I play blues, un-classic rock (they don't play Gentle Giant or Crimson on the radio around here) and acoustic folk(Pentangle,etc.)-the SD-9 is a good box for this kind of stuff-it ranges from a bluesy tone to a Rory Gallagher clang to a smooth Fripp-ish purr-or dime everything for "Red". It has a lot more gain than a tube screamer,but it still lets the guitsr you use with it show thru-one of my girlfriends used to say it made the guitar jump at you more-I'd say that's as good as any tech analysis. If it got stolen,I'd be rather be rather upset-although they sell new ones now, they won't be $5.00! I've been using it lately with a Zoom GFX-707, the gain levels match up pretty well, so I can kick-up some of the clean pre-sets without re-programing and the noise reduction covers the noise of the single-coils the best solution I've found short of a set of joe barden pickups.

As easy as cherry pie. 3 dials, my dog uses this pedal while I'm out of town.....

I usually run your strats, your tellis, a few variations of the Les Paul Customs (Hot Rodded of coarse), into my 5150.
Noise, what noise, when I play play this puppy she shins like a polished shoe sunday morning before church.
The effects...well, lets see, no.
I play mostly your Hendrix, your Page, your Vaughn S., your Clapton, yea it cuts like knife, but it hurts so goooooood!

Can you really trust/ depend on anything in life?
Whether it be a guitar pedal, a woman, or a an old beat up pickup truck that brakes down all the and you misss gigs.

If I had a phone, I usually just rock out like a double edged sword cutting through cherry pie!!!!!

Like a piece of broken glass chewing glass and spitting little tiny glass chunks out at you, yes its a good match, it in your mamas face man! My rig runs high in dry in the summer with the fd's running hot and the 5150's running side by side, you can't run you can't hide.
I wish it had blonde hair, thats about it, good pedal otherwise.
Thanks, gotta run to a gig.
-Jet

Simple to get a great sound!

I'll take this pedal over my tubescreamer anyday. I've got the analog mike tubescreamer silver mod on my TS9 and this SD9 kicks it out of the park. Finally a distortion pedal that lets the guitar sound like itself. You have to keep the distortion fairly low and the tone almost all the way the left for a good tone...otherwise it sounds like a chain saw, but man, this sounds good with my Deluxe Reverb as well as my Tophat. I hate that midrange nasal thing that the tubescreamers do.

Very reliable so far. I bought this one on e-bay a few weeks ago. It sounds soooo goood!

I've been playing for 17 years and play for a living. I know good tone. You have to let the guitar, be the guitar. Let it breath through whatever you are playing through. That's the essence of tone. This pedal does it's job without dinking with the guitar's natural sound.

Easy to use, hard to get really good sounds out of it.

Really too bright and brittle - lacks the lower midrange warmth something like a Rat has in abundance. When the gain is too high, it's fizzy - too low and it's punchless. Tone knob is ear-piercing past 10:00. Kind of cool for trashy sounds.

Sure, I guess.

I bought it because I thought it would rock. It rocks, sort of. Don't fall for the hype. My hope would be a tubescreamer style warmth and midrange bump, but with more gain. Sadly, that's not the case with this pedal.

The sonic distortion SD 9 is easy to use. Vol, Tone and Gain, thats all what can be controlled. Like all pedals of the 9er series its build to last and cpuld be uses either with a 9V battery or a 9V DC adapter.

My SD 9 is an early 80ies black-label type, containing an JCR 4558 OP amp of the same type, the early and amazing sounding TS 9 has. Despite this, not only amount of distortion is higher, but also the sound is different to the ol' TS 9. Different doesn't mean less good, my SD 9 cuts like a knife through the rest of the band when played over my 69 Super Lead Marshall. No matter what guitar I use, in combination with the band it helps to add a great sound .

Bought in on ebay several month ago and had so far no problems.

I play hard rock and metal since 1969 and used and abused a truckload of gear in all those years I had been on the stage. Depending on my age I'm deep into easily-usable, analog equipment. Digital equipment is fine for recording, but I would never use a POD on stage (damn, how does that look like, awefull), and analog sound rule in life situatioins.

3 knobs, 1 switch.

I have a Laney GC120(solid state) using a Fenix(Strat copy(coil)) and Tanglewood Semi(humbuckers) and it sound great with both, obviously the humbuckers giving a sharper, brighter edge.
Its great in that it doesnt limit the volume, some pedals are either on or off, but with the SD-9 you can pick the notes softly and strum hard and the distorion amount goes up or down accordingly.
Alot of other reviews said that the tone knob hardly does anything, this is nonsense. Even a slight movement will change the tone, going from muffled base to ear hurtingly trebley.

With the gain down full its a gentle, loose sounding distortion. Up to a good solo sound with full dist. It works really well with the Laney's onboard overdrive, giving a really grungy thrash sound.

I would like to give it a higher score here but the switch used to be a bit dodgy(I think from non use). Although it has been fine for years now. I also took it to bits for some reason and it still worked after I put it together again!
Use it without a backup.

Don't know, 2nd hand.

I also have a Danelectro Daddy-O which is crap in comparison(but it is an overdrive, not dist) and I never use it. Also have a multi-effects but the dist on that is crap.

Would absolutely rob graves to get another one if need be.

I think it helps me write stuff, you know when you can be a bit bored of your guitar, but just turn the knobs a wee bit and it's like a new instrument.

I am not sure how much I payed for it because I got it as part of an amp-guitar-pedal combo second hand. #280 for a Park G10, Fenix guitar(very nice strat copy), SD-9, bag of cables and a tuner. I have seen the reissue SD-9 for #99 so that can't have been a bad deal eh?

u can get very good sounds out of this pedal w/o hafta spending a bunch of hours trying to mess w/ it my sugestion use it with a tubescreamer and it just sings

my setup is a tubescreamer dx the sd9 a dano echo into a marshall jcm800 head through a mesa cab loaded w vintage celestion 30 and i cann get that crunch like the beggining riff pearl jams this is not for you

this is a 9 series pedal the most best built ibanez series these pedals are over 20 yrs old and still goin strong i own 6 others from this series and they all perform flawless the footswich on my sd9 can be tempementall sometimes but would be no biggie to get fixxed

i always give a low one for ibanez they need to have better customer support i mean if i want to order a battery door for the 9 series i have to go through a third party dealer which cost about 15 for a battery door when it should only cost 2

im glad i got this at a good price i had been searching for one of these on ebay for a while but didnt want to spend a 100 i got one cause i saw pearl jams guitarist was using one in his chain

Simplicity thats whats so great about it, same as a tube screamer which every guitar player on the planet knows of. Drive / Tone / Volume.

Compared to a stock SD-9 which I also run in my chain right next to the SD-9/808/brown to really get some metal tones goin, it's like a buttered up version, visualize this Analog Mike's Mod compared to the stock pedal is similer my Firebird's pickup's, Analog Mike's being more rich and buttery like the neck pick-up.I
also play w/an SG-I w/JB pick-up/ through a 95 blond Custom Vibrlux Reverb Amp, or a 65 Black face pre CBS champ (pactice and recording amp), and a 63 Silvertone Twin Twelve through a larger Bandmaster cab w/EV 15".

This is Analog Mike were talking about, he has returned all of my inquires in record time. Not to mention the original design Ibanez
were built to take abuse.

As I said above Analog Man is the Man.

I play multiple style's of music, If your looking for a reliable distortion pedal that's not all that costly yet, get an SD-9 it will
do blues and hardrock like nobodys business. And if you really want
to take a little of that high freqency squelch out of the equation,
which all the Ibanez 9 series distortion pedals w/or w/out the JRC 4558 chip have, especilly w/out. I'm talking TS-9, SD-9, SM-9, never
played w/OD-9 or STS-9,
WHAT I'M SAYING IS ANALOG MIKE'S MOD TO MY SD-9/808/BROWN, IS GREAT
I HIGHLY RECOMMEND IT TO ALL.

best pedal i've ever heard.and it is built like fort knox.

such an amazing sounding distortion pedal, if u want to seel your's, please email me at capttiny420@aol.com. mine got stolen a few years ago

i weigh 285, and i stomped and jumped on it and it didn't even hurt it.

i play power-pop like material issue. and it is a perfect match. it is my favorite distortion pedal

Very easy to use, many many many good sounds in this box. The tone knob is only useful in the 11-1 o'clock range, but is very sensitive to slight changes. Overall, very intuitive pedal.

I've used this with an Ernie Ball Axis Super Sport and Yamaha Pacifica through a Dr. Z Carmen Ghia, and most recently, a '62 Bassman head. Man o man, what a pedal. I've searched for years for this kind of versatility and tone in a pedal, and I finally have it. As mentioned before, this thing does the Tubescreamer sound perfectly. Merely roll the gain all the way down, and turn the tone knob more to the bass side, and voila, wonderful crunch in the spirit of your amplifier. Turning up the gain adds gobs of distortion and body, and yet still retains its character. Really changes with different amps, and yet always sounds good. Quite possibly the perfect overdrive/distortion pedal.

Made back in the early '80s, and still going strong today. The paint isn't the most durable thing in the world, as there are several chips, but cosmetics take the backseat to tone. The only problem electronically is that when the gain knob is turned up, and the pedal is off, there is still some slight white noise on my clean signal. Hmmm. Anybody know how to remedy this?

No idea. They probably wouldn't be too keen on helping me, given the pedal is at least 15 years old. Then again, I wouldn't call them...

I like blues. I like classic rock. I like alternative. This pedal suits me perfectly for all three. Pretty sure I'll be holding onto this pedal for a while. I've owned (roughly in order): DOD Supra Distortion (horrible), Prescription Electronics Yardbox, vintage DOD Overdrive/Preamp 250 (gray version), Vox Valve-Tone, Ibanez Tube King, Blackstone Mosfet Overdrive 2s (terribly overhyped), Carl Martin Hot Drive n' Boost MK I, and now the SD-9. I can honestly say that this is the best distortion pedal I've owned. Stolen/lost? I'd buy another. They're relatively cheap on Ebay, and a good one comes around every couple of weeks. Oh, and interestingly enough, I was pawing through a Guitar World recently which featured the rigs of the stars, and apparently one of Pearl Jam's guitarists uses one of these. Get 'em while they're cheap, people will catch on soon.