Product: Monte Allums Boss DS-1 Rectifier Tri-gain Mod
Price Paid: USD 55
Submitted
04/14/2009
at
04:07pm
by
Leon.
Ease of Use
:
10
Cosmetically, the only differences to the pedal are the sticker, the bright white LED, and the 3 way tri-gain switch.
The 3 way switch lets you choose the clipping. The left and most quietest position is 1n4002 diodes, the center is diode lift, and right position is the LED diodes.
Sound Quality
:
10
I play through a PRS SE Singlecut and a Kustom Defender amp. I chose this amp because I didn't want to sacrifice good cleans for distortion.
The sound quality of the DS-1 is now unbelievable! I can turn the gain to max and the buzzy can of killer bees have been completely removed from the pedal!
I like the left position(1n4002 diodes)the best. It cleans up best when rolling back on my guitars volume. Using this diode can also make the pedal perfect for clean boosting, but I think that would be a waste of this pedal. I keep the Tone control to about 9 or 10 o'clock as it sounds superb at that level.
The center(diode lift) and right(LED) positions offer slightly different clipping approaches. The sound level is higher in these modes, and there is definitely more bass response.
Reliability
:
10
Boss pedals come from the factory very tough, and Monteallum's choices of high quality components and Chad Matthew's excellent skills, I feel safe using this pedal for years.
I also had my TS9DX modded from him, so it's my backup. I'd use it with my amp's gain meeting it half way to get nice distortion, though I prefer my DS-1.
Customer Support
:
10
Monteallums is very supportive. I have no soldering skills so having someone else mod it is awesome. We sent a few e-mails back and forth, and he referred me to Chad Matthews at Cmatmods. Chad is very very helpful! He answers his e-mails really quickly, and even did some custom work on my other pedal.
Overall Rating
:
10
I play rock. From classic to 90's and now. The DS-1 was a good pedal to begin with, but now a totally different beast has been unleashed! Before I had my TS9DX modded, I was neglecting it for the DS-1. Due to it's new character, I could just roll back my guitar's volume and use it as an overdrive pedal.
It does sound nice, but I realized that the DS-1 is more for heavier applications, since it's frequency response has a slight dip in the mids, whereas the TS9DX has a nice bump in mids.
I will definitely send any other pedal to Cmatmods to have a Monte mod done to it!
