Maxon SD-9 Sonic Distortion

Easy but not in a TS9 way becuse it has a variete of distorsion degree.Initially I compared to a Maxo DSII and much prefered the openness of the DSII. but when sued with the band I found the extra bite was welcome and this was indeed closer to the more distorted TS( I had always wanted for many times. But for me it ment setting the distorsion low at say 9 oclock. Experiement with it and it mayu suit you greatly.

OK suprise after finding the right settings the pedal opened up and let the tone of my strat out but still had more grit than my TS9. I used through a VoxAC30 and a Marshall 30 (two 10's). At a low distorsion setting it had TS9 midrange bump but added a tad more low mid and some dirt. Much better for classic rock rythem htan the TS9. As far as fuzz of heavier modern tones it is not a fuzz tone and never sounds like a heavy metal (thank god) tone. But still is best in the classic rock tone from zztop to cream.

yep

Well thsi may be premature becuse I only tried at once a/b against my Maxon D& S II and once in a rehearsal. But I then decided I was gonna keep it. The TBS may be a bit bogus but it is better than others that claim to be TBS (true bypass). So do not always believe waht the manufactures say as tone sucking comes in more ways than just volume loss. Well 30years and tones of the best gear tell me thi is a keeeper.

This pedal is worth all the hype people give it. You can get a load of different distortions out of it. The tone knob is the key. Many many different colours can be achevied with the tone knob

If you can think of any different type of distortion( not overdrive), chances are, you can probably match this. I am currently using my 1985 G&L Invader superstrat with my 1983 Peavey MX 130 watt tube hybrid amp. I use it in coordination with the Menatone Fish Factory. If anyone knows what pedal that is, it is AMAZING!!!!!!! I use the blue on the fish factory as a boost for the sm-9. I Honestly do think this could be one of the best distortion overdrive duos of all time. If I could rate this thing 1,000,000 I would. I am really into everything from Stevie Ray Vaughan( Fish Factory sound) to Umphrey's Mcgee( SD-9) The one that I have has true bypass circuitry and upgraded technology from the originals, yet still retains the classic SD-9 sound. I think it has the jrc 4558d op amp chip in it so they still stick with the best guts. At first, I ran the SD-9 before my fish factory and It sounded like hell. I couldn't get the decibels out of it. And I was very dissapointed having spent $133.00 on it and having them boast about how it can raise your guitar signal a max of 42 db. But I switched it around and use the Fish Factory Red side as a boost and this pedal has BALLS!!!!! Boost before distortion id strongly recomended.

I am pretty sure I could depend on it. It is a 9 series maxon pedal. And I would gig without it if needed because the fish factory is amazing.

Never dealt ith customer support. I don't intend on either. I don't need an upgrade. This thing already comes stacked. Like a Cadillac

I play in a band called Colfax, We are from Minnesota. www.myspace.com/colfaxmusic Bear with the recordings, They are not our best stuff as it was a while back but keep checking the website soon because right now we are professionaly recording with my buddys pro tools rig. We play everything from rock to funk to reggae to everything, and we add a fair amount of improvisation to our songs. Kind of in the same alley as Umphrey's Mcgee. But Not nearly as awesome as I am just being honest. Not yet at least. I Have been playing now for 17 years. I just recently made a wood pedal board to house all my pedals. I have about $1000.00 invested into my pedalboard. Too many pedals to mention but if you would like to see pictures email me and I will send You pictures of my pedalboard. I came to a point where I didn't like the sound I was getting from procesors so I started buying individual pedals to customize my sound. I can creat lots of experimental sounds with my pedals. I would recommend it to anyone looking to push the creative boundaries of music

It just don't get any easier to use, than this. I own the most current version. Tone control, Level control, Distortion control. Works like a dream. Sometimes the best things come in little packages.

I use it for distortion, with a Fender hot rod deluxe, that I had a vintage celestion 30 speaker, and SED tubes, installed in. The amp set on clean, and the sd-9 takes care of the rest. I looked at alot, of other pedals, all the while thinking there would be something, better, more exspensive, maybe even more complicated, but in the end, The sd-9 just held it's own, very natural, very clear, almost to good to be true. I am particularly happy with the tones and sounds, when using my Fender Powerhouse Deluxe strat. Alot of pedals will sound okay with humbuckers, but the true test of a pedals integrity is, how it sounds with single coil pick ups. Many different tones can be dialed up with this sd-9. WOW!

Have you ever looked inside the battery compartment on any of these maxon pedals???? These guys invented all the Ibanez pedals also you have come to love. Go to Maxon f/x .com, and learn some history. They make the most rock solid pedals I have ever seen. The case thickness, when you look inside, is just, amazing. You won't need a back-up. Anolog-man, tells you on his web-site, that the maxon sd-9 comes with true by-pass, so the price is right in line, when you look at all the factors. DEPENDABLE AS HELL.

Never needed any repair help. Can't see needing any, but I did call. They were very nice to me and honest. CAN YOU TOUCH THAT! CAN YOU TOUCH THAT!!!!!

The sd-9 is simple to use. PERIOD! I own more gear than most will ever know, but I make smart choices, and don't like wasting time. The most important thing for the pursuit of your playing satisfaction, and reaching any amount of contentment, lies in your ability to, use what works, even if the thing is an ugly, glow in the dark , sea-green. HA~ HA~, If it were lost or stolen, I would feel like a friend was gone. I would need time to grieve, and then, according to DR.PHIL, I would need to get right back to another sd-9. I don't find the everlasting where/with/all, that makes me do cart-wheels, just because I own it, but I definitely, am overcome with a happy, satisfied warmth, over the sd-9's abilities, to give me great, tones. DO WHAT YOU GOTTA DO. I DID!!!!!!!!!!

distortion and tone setting are hot! manual is good but this varies from amp to amp. 3 nobs that have subtle change when turned slightly so procede slowly when adjusting!

Godin HB and mex tele -pedalboard to traynor valve 40 . I put the sd9 after my volume pedal and compressor(bosscs3)3rd pedal in chain this thing stands out dynamically on its own.I find in my setup it can be bright so tone usually between 2-3. Distortion varies from guitar or song situation use this pedal to beef up leads or slightly fuzz up overdrive from amp ie :revolution by the beatles dis set around 2-4. Single coil seems to deliver tube screamer well ,turning up distortion level can produce fuzz from 6oclock on.... I find this pedal takes my amp sound some place else especially when used in clean channel. Also fattens up my big muff when used in conjunction. Pink floyd to Godspeed you black emperor! this pedal compliments overdrive or using with other pedals it's harmonically rich for bringing out subtle nuances from your guitbox without mucking up the tone. Quiet as they come...

Owned it 3 months and seems durable switch seems strong .Gigged about every other weekend no probs so far..

I play in a band that ranges from pop to experimental so from tube screamer transparency to big muff fluffy the sd-9 lays somewhere in between which helps a tone junkie like myself get closer to the glail! Plus the super blue light has me convinced that the millenium group is watching me when I have the pedal on... great tone Maxon this is who you are!

its a 3 knob distortion pedal... c'mon...

im using this with an Acoustic 270 head, home built Eminence 4x12 cab, and an Ibanez RG420(set neck, aluminum pick guard, and seymour duncan LiveWire Metal pickups, http://photobucket.com/albums/v621/GODLYKE/RG420/ ).

its not too noisey. the distortion itself is a bit grainy. its kool tho... i use it to boost a Zoom Tri Metal distortion pedal. its not a metal by itself... not at all, but when using it to drive something else, i love it.

its never died o me and i dont think it will... built like a tank. i believe this have an upgraded switch since the old Ibanez pedals were out so i dont think that will go any time soon. i wont rate it because its a bit too soon to tell.

i dunno...

i love it! im using it to replace my Morley Delux Distortion, which is a good pedal too. if it was lost or stolen... well, it WAS stolen. my brother and his friend found out who stole it tho and now i have it back. we couldnt get in touch with the fucker that took it for about a week, they all thought he put himself in a witness protection program or something, hahah! but ya... good pedal, get one.

Well, this is a distortion pedal pedal that I use as an overdrive pedal to boost the front end of a tube amp. I've used it with a few amplifiers, but I'll get to that later. I'm not really a pedal type of person as I love to just plug straight into the amp and whale away. This was a little tough to set up and fine tune it. Like I said earlier, I'm not a pedal person. Other than that, it has 3 controls. You just have to find what works best for you.

Here are the amplifiers that I've used this pedal with:

VHT Ultra-Lead
Marshall JCM 800 2204
Naylor Superdrive 60

I leave the tone knob pretty low at about 9:00 or maybe just a hair above that. After that, everything starts sounding fake. I set the Level to Max so I can hit the front end of the amplifier harder. Then I vary the Distortion levels from all the way off to about 8:30, but not more than that. I'm mainly using this like an Overdrive pedal. It works well enough for me though.

The tone, while using it this way, is like a lot of the other reviews state. It is very natural and doesn't color up anything. I find that it doesn't compress any of these amplifiers and the meat is still there. I don't recall there being any added noise either.

I think it's pretty stout.

Never had to deal with them, but a fellow on the Harmony-Central Amp forum sells them. I could always give him a shout and he could put me in contact with the right people. I'm not really all that worried about this thing going to crap.

There are probably a lot of great pedals out on the market that may do what this thing does, but I'm not a pedal person. I'll see how this thing works into the equation once I get the Soldano Hot Mod in my JCM 800, but I'm pretty sure it will start collecting dust again. Overall, it does what it's supposed to do when I need it to do what it does. It's natural sounding, but it can get out of hand if I start experimenting with it. It's not a 10 in my book, but I'm a tube nut.

at the risk of looking like one of these kids who gets their first pedal from their doting gramma as a bar mitzvah gift & then logs on to harmony central & gives the $25 piece o' junk 10's across the board, i'm gonna gush here. the distortion & tone knobs can be yanked this way & that w/out regard for human life & limb; i didn't hear one peep outta my amp that i woulda kicked out of bed. every sound in this thing is totally useable. the level knob is just there to give you the option of having more of a good thing.

set-up when using the sd-9: 1976 gibson s-1 w/lindy fralin p-90s > maxon sd-9 > ayan smooth & slim > dr. z mini z (5-watter w/8 inch speaker). sound quality? how about "wow"? you want more description? okay. uh, i think i've finally figured out how to get the sound of my favorite players when i was a kid growing up in the 70s (truly THE decade of the guitar solo, by the way). those players being ace frehley & roger fisher (of heart). thing is, those guys used les pauls & 50 or 100 watt marshalls. i, personally, can't afford a les paul & don't have the luxury of cranking out lear jet-type decibel levels when i wanna play. problem is finally solved... the s-1 was re-strung w/a set of 10s rather than 9s, the sd-9 is providing the drive & grit, the smooth & slim is tightening up any looseness on the bottom two strings, & the dr. z is like having the best of both the fender & marshall worlds when set at about 10:30 on the volume pot (right at the beginning of so-called "breakup"). really, it's hard to stop playing. i'm sure the neighbors are thoroughly sick of it. 's a pity they can't recognize THE TONE OF THE GODS when they hesr it.

it's a maxon. some people don't like the switches. whatever. i got no problem.

i buy stuff on-line from pedalgeek.com & i buy stuff in person from truetone music in santa monica. both establishments have been a big help to me in finding the gear i want at prices that are cool to get the sounds i hear in my head.

i now own four of the six pedals in maxon's "9" series. i state this not to seem like a braggart or to induce drooling, but rather to give the reader a true indication of how i feel about the entire maxon line. if you are looking for "frills", look elsewhere. (electro harmonix fills this niche rather nicely, i believe.) the maxon pedals (which also include their "reissue" & "vintage" series) are dead quiet, interact awesomely w/each other, & produce the classic sounds of the effects-pedal revolution ca. mid-60s to late-70s w/out the unreliability (& outrageous price tags!) of vintage units. kudos to ya, maxon.

This pedal is very easy to use; there are only three knobs. It's all analog, so there are no patches. The manual is adequate. My unit has never been upgraded and I do not know the firmware revision number. It is, however, the newer version that is True Bypass. I am assigning an 8 to this category because although it is easy to get good sounds out of the unit, you must keep the settings fairly low.

I am using this with a Schecter C1+ (2003 version, stock HB-102 pickups.) The effect is only noisy when you crank it. I run it into my all-tube Crate VFX5112 50-watt class A/B combo. This unit was exactly what I was looking for, it's got a raspy, warm sound like a Boos SD-1 but much clearer and full-frequency. It's very organic sounding. I use it to add some edge to the built-in amp gain. The crate's gain is smooth and this adds a slight jagged edge to the sound, very good for punk and alt-rock. It sounds good through the clean channel, too, but I use this as a boost. I originally ordered the Maxon OD-9, but I returned that because I didn't want to sound like Stevie Ray Vaughn, what with my humbuckers and metal tunes and all. The SD-9 can get a good Ramones or Clash sound, and it's brilliant for AC/DC. It has none of the annoying mid-range boost you get with any variant of the Tube Screamer family. I give this a 9, but bear in mind that the SD-9 is not a metalcore distortion, it's kind of out-there. This will not please everyone, and don't get it if you expect a wide range of different tones. If you want something different (I don't want to say 'unique', 'cause, hey, they make thousands of them....) think about this, but check out the sound samples or try it in person. It may not be for you.

I keep this unit in a box on my shelf; I don't tour. It looks very sturdy, but I refuse to comment at this time since I've only had it for a few months.

I've sent mail to GODLYKE, who are Maxon's US distributor. They also run the Maxon website. They were very courteous and helpful.

Like I said under "Sound Quality", this is a non-mainstream pedal, good for punk and alt-rock, but NOT metal. I use this to supplement the distortion on my high-gain channel on my tube amp. Beware that minor adjustments to the controls (particularly 'tone') create broad changes. As you adjust the tone knob, the frequency spread gets very thin (in the higher ranges) you can get a sound like angry bees if you crank it all the way clockwise. Keep the tone around 11:00 and the drive around 12:00. I use this with the Maxon CS-9 Stereo Chorus Pro--that sounds awesome as well. I think Maxon has brought great products to market at reasonable prices (caveat emptor: "you get what you pay for" in Latin...which means that if you buy cheap gear, you get cheap quality.). You will pay more for Maxon that for Boss, but think about it--there's a reason for it! You're not getting suck in a box.

BTW, I've been meaning to submit a review on this for quite sometime. I had to do it now because of the guy below who typed using ALL CAPS. Don't write your reviews that way! They're hard to
read.

DEDUCING A TOLERABLE TO AWESOME SOUND FROM THIS PEDAL IS CHILDLIKE. ONE SHOULD HAVE VERY LITTLE TROUBLE TWEEKING THE KNOBS. THERE WAS A MANUAL THAT CAME WITH THE PEDAL, BUT LET YOUR EARS FORGE THE TONES YOU DESIRE. NO UP GRADES ON MY PARTICULAR UNIT , STRAIGHT OUT OF THE BOX , BRAND NEW!

I RUN A TRAYNOR 40 WATT ALL TUBE, MARSHALL 212 EXT. PEDALBOARD - SD-9,- MAXON 808 REISSUE, DELAY, NOISEGATE. ALL MY PEDALS ARE HIGH QUALITY UNITS, YOU GET OUT WHAT YOU PUT IN. THE SD-9 , BASICALLY SOUNDS QUITE SIMILAR TO THE 808 , BUT WITH MORE GAIN. THE SD-9 IS AN ECONOMICAL WAY OF GETTING A LARGE MARSHALL SOUND. IF YOU PLAY STADIUMS GET A MARSHALL, OR TRIPLE RECTIFIER. I'VE NOTICED A HISS WHEN ENGAGED ON HYPER , HENCE THE NOISE GATE, BUT TOLERABLE, I'M JUST PICKY. MINE IS A GREAT SETUP FOR VENUES FROM 0- 2000 PEOPLE OR EVEN MORE. YOU CAN'T GO WRONG WITH THIS PEDAL VERY VERSATILE. FROM SLIGHT OVERDRIVE TO CLASSIC NATURALLY COMPRESSED DIST.

I GIG EXTENSIVELY NO TROUBLES YET, BUT HEY, IT'S JUST A MACHINE. I PREFER THE STOMP BUTTON ON THE 808 TO THE SD-9. GIGGING WITHOUT A BACK UP IS LIKE DRIVING THROUGH THE SAHARA , YOU'LL PROBABLY MAKE IT , BUT MAYBE NOT!!!!

NO NEED .

I'VE PLAYED ELECTRIC ALL OF 30 YEARS, I LKE SIMPLICITY IN A SYSTEM, IT SOUNDS AWESOME, VERSATILE, TROUBLE FREE.I COMPARED IT TO OTHER DIST. UNITS, BOSS, ETC. THIS UNIT SUITS MY MUSIC AND PLAYING STYLE. A BIT MORE EXPENSIVE THAN MANY OTHER UNITS, MORE NATURAL SOUNDING, ORGANIC. ALL TOGETHER A TRANSPARENT PEDAL , LETS MY AMP SOUND THE WAY IT'S SUPPOSED TO. I'LL NEVER SELL IT. DON'T BE FOOLED BY PEDALS THAT HAVE A TUBE IN THEM, THEIR NOT NECESSARILY GOING TO SOUND BETTER, WHY PUT A PEDAL WITH A TUBE IN IT, AND STICK IT IN FRONT OF YOUR PREAMP WHICH ALREADY HAS TUBES THERE? THOSE PEDAL HAVE A DIFFERENT APPLICATION. BUT EFFECTS ARE SUBJECTIVE , PURCHASE WHAT YOU WANT TO HEAR!

Three knobs set up like an Ibanez TS-9. A monkey could use this thing!

The best sounding distortion pedal I've ever owned! I also have a Boss DS-1 which is an excellent sounding pedal in its own right. However, I prefer the tone quality of the SD-9 over the DS-1. To me it sounds more natural. I use it along with a Maxon OD808 reissue (which I'm also crazy about). Sometimes I even use these two pedals together for an incredible blend of tone. Use this pedal as a stand alone overdrive through a clean amp or use it before a dirty sound like I do. Either way you'll get some really nice sounds. Even with the gain turned up all the way it isn't offensive. The only minor complaint I have with this pedal is that it's tone circuit is a tad on the bright side. I have to keep the tone level rolled all the way down.

Hasn't failed me yet!

If you're a metal-head this is not the pedal for you! However, for classic rock and blues tones it will serve you well. If you're looking for a good buzz box, check out a Maxon SD-9.

Easy to use. Good manual with lots of information.

Ok I tried it with a Kramer Baretta with a Seymour Duncan JB. I also used it with a B.C. Rich Gunslinger with an EMG-81. I also used two different amps. One Marshall TSL602 with a 1960A cabinet and a Marshall Lead 12 solid state micro stack. Ok I didn't like the sound of this thing. It gave me a muddy tone in the bass frequencies through my TSL even with the gain turned down to .5!. It seemed as if the boost was way too much. I'm not sure. Maybe it's defective. I don't know. I thought it would sound better than it did. It seemed to sound better through my solid state amp. The distortion wasn't the quality that I expected. I've come to the conclusion that nothing sounds as good as my own amp's all tube signal path distortion. I'm convinced of that and so I won't be buying anymore distorion/overdrive pedals from here on out.

It's probably reliable. I don't know. I'm taking it back for a refund if I can.

Never delt with them. I like their website though. Lots of information including specifications etc..

I play 70s and 80s rock and metal type of tunes. I've been playing guitar for 28 years. I have about 6-7 electric guitars, 2 amps, and 2 acoustic guitars. No I wouldn't buy it again. I love the paint color of the effect. That's about it. I think the Boss metal zone sounds much better. This pedal gets in the way of my tone. It hampers my amps tone. It doesn't improve it at all.

Anyone who gives this thing less than a "9" in this category needs to ditch his crappy Line 6 or solid state Crate. I mean, you can't polish a turd, so if you think getting a good distortion pedal will make your ghetto setup sound decent, well... better yet, he should sell his SD-9 for $20 to a real player with common sense. Gain, Tone, Level... duh!

Absolutely brilliant. Thanks to the reviewers on Harmony Central I was able to choose a good distortion pedal without wasting my time at some stupid strip-mall guitar store which is bristling with... Crate and Line 6 products. I have a Soldano HR50 and I wanted to dial in a nice, sweet, slightly overdriven sound for chunky funk / rhythm work and then have a killer distortion pedal to step on when I need to knock the fillings out of peoples' teeth. No signal coloration, true bypass, very nicely engineered. Awesome tone. Awesome. I like the ProCo RAT, and all the classics. I LOVE this pedal. Noise-free operation, and when I strike a note / chord and then turn the "gain" control I get a nice, smooth, even increase / reduction in drive. Same goes for the other controls; no spikes, surprises, mud, or dead spots. I noticed some other reviewers commenting that this pedal is good for rock, not metal; I can achieve BOTH, no sweat. (Depends on your amp, I suppose.)

This thing is built like an old Volvo. I would feel safe driving it off a cliff. Maybe I'll try it sometime.

Practically new pedal so I have had no issues. However I will kick them down a "10" because I feel they are directly supporting my cause (i.e. rockstardom and eventual world domination) by providing such a kick-ass product.

Yeah! I might have to go ahead and buy another one. Anybody got one for sale? You, with the Marshall Valvestate! This pedal sucks, right? I'll give you $20 for yours...

this is an addendum to an earlier post on this same pedal- when i initailly got it i was so excited about it that i made a posting just two days after purchasing it. in retrospect maybe that was a bit premature seeing that i hardly had any time to REALLY, REALLY get into what it can do. well, now that ive had about three weeks to do that in live and rehearsal band situations, i can only sing its praises further. if you are looking for a boss- metal-7 string kind of sound, this is not your peadal. dont bother with it. however, if you want a versatile low to mid gain distortion box with tons of character this may be what you have been looking for for quite some time. the best thing about this pedal may be the tone dial. very, very responsive. it can bet super bright, but somehow not harsh. if you have a dark sounding amp, this will brighten it up without overshadowing its character. on the other hand the tone dial allows you to creat useable tones from top to bottom. the people who designed this pedal really did their homework...i love it

i gave it a 9, im now upgrading it to a 9+

still havent dealt with customer support and the pedal seems pretty rugged, so i cant definitively say

see above

kick ass, kick ass, kick ass

maybe if i had this pedal for more than two days id give it a five. you really do have to experiment with it to find the gems buried within...and let me tell you when you do, you will not be dissappointed.

having amassed a serious collection of distortion/ overdrive pedals, i recently decided i hated all of them except for my fulltone fulldrive, my fulltone ultimate octave (irreplaceable) and my ibanez ts-9 (original)...i have two rats; an original which i absolutely loved, but has completely died, and a reissue with that annoying indicator light that doesnt really go completely out when you turn it off- and on top of that, its a harsh, brittle, nasty sounding lead tone that has become all but useless to me, a boss metal zone that i bought on the street from some homeless guy for $8 only because i was curious...after 2 minutes i realized that i have no use for this pedal, and im still trying to sell it, and a boss ds-1 which i can get one decent sound out of. i have heard this compared to the sd-9, and i can see how one can see some similar characteristics, but over all, especially in terms of versatility, the sd-9 completely blows the ds-1 out of the water and then bitchslaps it twice...my setup is pretty basic- my main axe is a very sweet swamp ash G&L Legacy with a paf single coil size humbucker in the bridge, two stock single coils and a phase switch for a bit more versatility. i run this into a vox wah, fulltone deja-vibe, fulltone ult octave, the sd-9 and an original mxr phase 100. all of the pedals are connected with george l's and the other leads are monster cables. all this runs into either a mesa studio 22.+ or, a mesa IIb amp. but, we are not here to talk about my other toys, were here to talk about that little lime green blessing, the sd-9. all i can say is;"ahhhhhh"...this pedal simply kills...like i said you really have to mess with the tone control in particualr as it can get very, very bright, but with the right combination of tone adjustment on the pedal along with treble and presence adjustment on your amp, you will find something you are VERY happy with. this pedal is very sensitive to nuances in your picking and cleans up very nicely when you back of on your guitar volume. it has stunning definition with fairly complex chords and can totally go from a snarl to a purr depending on how you dig into your strings...i recommend this toy without reservation. if you have a good clean tube amp, this pedal will really impress you as it has me...just get it, get it already....

it seem rugged enough and i try to take good care of my equipment in general, so i dont expect any problems

dont have anything to say here because i havent dealt with them

i play everything from funk to blues to hip hop to alt-indie hard rock. this pedal is extremely versatile

Very easy to use, just play with dials til you have found your sound. There is a manual and a warranty. 3 years for transistors one year for pots and jacks. -

the sd 9 sounds great. I play a gibson les paul into a marshall jcm 800. the sd 9 has a true bypass feature so when the unit is off, the sound you hear is right from the guitar. If you crank the vol. on your guitar to about seven the tone from this pedal is a real target classic.

It seems reall strong. I had an old Ibanez when I was a kid and the thing was indestrucable. Somewhere along the way, the pedal vanished. I finally found the Maxon sonic distortion and that was it, the same thing different brand name.

Sent in warranty. Do not anticipate any problems/

The sd-9 is a keeper

Three knobs in a TS type format; how much easier can it get? However unlike a TS it requires a little more tweaking to get a awesome sound but once you hit pretty close its gives you a lot of room to play around in. It is pretty bright so you might need to turn down the Treble a tad but other than that Ive had no problems.

I run an American Tele into a TB'd Dunlop Wah (with several other mods) into a PE Yardbox then the SD-9 and finally into a Line 6 DL-4 which goes out to either a Mesa Boogie Mark III or a Fender Bandmaster with a 2x12 cab. I pretty much leave the SD-9 all the time now even though it is True Bypass. The Bypass as far as my ears dont add or take away extra brightness so it earns a A in my book. For its best sounds I have found that the tone knob must be past 12:00. For a Tele/Fender Amp player this can over bright and even harsh so you have to roll back your tone to around 5 or 6. When you roll back the tone its becomes so rich and fat it has become my main distortion.
The sweet spots are around 9:00, 12:00, and 2:30. At 9:00 I can get a pretty good TS copy with a little more presence that sounds perfect for my neck pickup. At 12:00, you get a very nice increase in gain which allows really nice crunchy rhythm but still allows you to turn down the volume and get the TS clone and a sparkly clean. At 2:30 (My favorite) you start to take on some of the characteristics of a fuzz with increased sustain and harmonics out the wazoo. You can still turn down the volume on the neck pickup for a dirty/clean tone which has become my slide tone/blues tone. Also what I like is there is not an overwhelming Mid hump and allows more bass than a TS which is a plus when concerning TS pedals.
Because this is a TS pedal with a higher gain its works well to fatten up fuzzes as with my Yardbox. I roll back my volume to around 8 and kick on the fuzz for what I swear can get my 30 seconds straight of sustain for a single note! This combo has become my main lead sound.
In the future I hope to ditch the Yardbox and get a CC2 and a really nice clean boost/overdrive like the Banzai Cold Fusion. After that the world's my oyster.

Its twice as heavy as my Boss Blues Driver and looks like if my Tele was to fail as a bludgeon I could use this instead. The only thing I am worry about is the switch b/c the orginal SD-9's were nortorious for bad switches. However b/c this is a new RI I think the switch will hold. Since I have only had this pedal for about 1 month Ill give it a N/A

Im sure they will help me but nowhere near the quality of guys like Dave Fox or Robert Keeley. So they get another N/A

I mainly play Blues Rock with some twists (ie Funk, Jazz, and Metal) I have been playing for about 5 years and I feel that I have a competant ear for things (I can tell if things sound good or not). Im sure one day like always it will end up on the auction block but at least for now I am happy. If it was stolen I would buy this pedal again in a heart beat but probably not for the price I got it for. Any questions about the SD-9 feel free to email me.

This is as easy as it gets! The same as every distortion pedal,volume,distortion and tone.

This pedal sounds amazing. I just bougth an Analogman Ds-1 and I love it, but this pedal has it beat!! It just lets more of the guitar come through. I play hard rock through a plexi stack with a les paul custom, and this pedal is the meanest by far. It also sounds great as an overdrive at low distortion settings. My favorite so far.

so far so good

The best distortion pedal I own and I have all the good ones.

Very easy. 3 knobs. Level, tone, dist.

The sound is fantastic. Similar to a Boss DS-1, but more warmth, bottom, and fullness. Doesnt lose any bottom end. Keep in mind, the clean channel that you are playing into has a MASSIVE effect on the sound of this pedal, let alone any pedal. especially solid state. Thought a great clean channel on the brink of breakup is the optimum way to use this pedal.

these new maxon effects say there new and improved, and i believe it. its built like a brick, and the switch is a better model than the original ibanez pedals

Great pedal. A great alternative to the standard marshall high gain sound or the boogie sound. This pedal through a warm clean fender is a fantastic set up.