Monte Allums Boss SD-1 DIY Mod Kit

I'm not commenting on the kit itself as I bought the pedal from the guy who modified it. It's a stock Monte mod with the Symmetric/Asymmetric clipping switch fitted but not the high gain option. It's a Boss pedal that's been modified so how hard can it be to get to grips with it. If you need a manual think about taking up the kazoo!

A great sounding pedal. I have a preference for the asymmetric (Boss) clipping rather than the symmetric (Tubescreamer) setting but both are good and very useable. This can be used to get a beefy rhythm tone with a cleanish amp or to push a crunchy valve amp over the edge. I also recently discovered that using a Digitech Screamin' Blues pedal (stock)into a just about to break up, Crate Powerblock gave a great AC/DC rhythm tone. Step on the modded SD-1 and you'll have one of the best lead tones I've ever heard from a transistor amp (actually from any amp!!). I've used this with a selection of guitars and amps (Les Pauls, Ibanez RG, Steinberger Spirit and a PRS SE with P90's) - all sounded great with minimal tweaking between models. The nice thing about this pedal is that it adds to the existing tone so your guitar still sounds like your guitar.

I've had no problems with this at all and with Boss build quality, I don't expect any.

Not dealt with either Boss or Monte Allums

I play in a classic rock covers band and this is a permanent fixture on my board. A great overdrive pedal made a whole lot better by the modding process. It sounds deeper, richer and cleaner (less noisy) that the stock pedal. More organic and more like a valve amp. The option to switch between the clipping modes adds a new dimension and is well worth having. Don't bother with the extra gain mod, there's plenty of gain here already and I believe that increasing the gain would make the pedal much less versatile. If you want more gain, get a modded DS-1.

All Knobs function like stock, but there are two toggle switches added. One is a slight treble boost, the other switches in an extra diode to the clipping section for a little different kind of gain.

This pedal sounds decent stock. With this mod it sounds much better for low volume, home use. At home volume it sounds really thick and rich with lots of definition; a near perfect overdrive for home practice. Live, however, it totally gets lost in the mix, as I expected it would. This mod flattens out the mids which sucks the guitar right out of the mix. Also, while the gain structure sounds really smooth yet biting at home, it sounds really fizzly and undefined when you are in the midst of a full band. Also, the volume of this pedal doesn't get very loud, so you quickly max out the volume knob and still need more.
This modded pedal will be great for keeping plugged into my practice amp next to my computer while I'm learning new material; very full and pleasing (at home).
Seems like no matter how many pedal I buy or how much I spend, I always end right back up with a stock tubescreamer. Actually, it's been the Digitech Bad Monkey for a year now. Totally stock tubescreamers truly get me there.

Oh yeah, I use this pedal mostly with a 1990 Paul Reed Smith CE 24 with Duncan '59 in the neck and GFS Vintage '59 in Bridge. Ampwise, I interchangeably use a 1967 Fender Super Reverb or a 1993 Peavey Classic 50 with Eminence speakers.

After doing this DIY mod everything worked great except for one thing: the switch started acting funny. Crazy, since the mods didn't even go near the switch. But, I've modded several pedals now and internal problems are always a slight possibility after you've been in there. While doing some Indyguitarist mods to my Jekyll & Hyde I accidentally forgot to unplug the power adapter while replacing a capacitor. Well, it never worked again. I've replaced the chip and tested everything I can so, I've given up on it. You just never know what you might accidentally do while poking around in there.
So, no...I wouldn't take this pedal to a gig without a backup.

Never dealt with them.

I have been in two coverbands (one Blues, the other Pop/Rock)for over 10 years and have been playing in bands for twenty. I began playing the guitar seriously in 1981, and have missed very few days since then. I own many guitars, some of which are: 1967 Gibson 335, 1985 MIJ Strat, 1992 MIM Strat, 1990 PRS CE 24, Gibson Flying V, 1971 Fender Mustang, New Hagstrom Swede, and a bunch of other junkers. I love the playing of Gary Moore and Warren Haynes and all the other usual suspects. If lost or stolen, I wouldn't do this mod again; it was alot of work and not exactly what I was hoping for. But, Monte Allums DIY mods are first rate, you just have to keep trying until you find the right pedal for you. I did his mod on a Boss GE-7 and it is one of my favorite all-time pedals.

it's a kit, and if you've never pulled a pedal apart before you may have some trouble, but then again you might not. I got the version with the germanium transistor and the 2 switches, one for gain and one to switch the type of clipping used. It was a bit easier, actually, than monte's ds-1 mods I think. The pedal itself is stupid simple. Ease of use is going to depend on you, so I'll not put a numerical rating here.

hm, yes. I always liked the stock sd-1 well enough, although I could always hear room for improvement. This improved it. at first I only installed the gain switch, and with the new guts in it, there was a little bit of hair I could never quite dial out... so I dropped in the clipping switch eventually and that evened things out nicely. I can get steely dan sorts of leads and I can get really raucous sounds out of it too, kind of an el-34 skronk at certain settings. There are some fuzz-tinged sounds in there too. I did find though that when the gain boost is toggled, the background noise comes out, but even then it's not particularly prominent unless you're absolutely dimed out. I get lots of replacements and ELO sounds out of this pedal now. yay! I use this on several amps: guitar rig 2 software, an epi valve junior with a 12" cab, an old ace tone rockey amp, and through an ada mp-2 with a peavey classic 50/50 through a couple of avatar 2X12 cabs. it plays nice with all the kids.

the thing about the tone of this pedal is that I really hear the wood more than I did before I modded it. it's sweeter, nastier, clearer, cleaner, everything it was but more so now. Can't complain about that.

yeah, I think I got the parts in there OK, it should hold up.

Monte's a swell guy. When I ordered my DS-1 mod kit from him he included paper instructions, which he didn't this time around, it was just an email attachment, albeit a very well put together HTML one. not everyone solders in front of their computers, though. The parts arrived in a couple days, the instructions were in my inbox in a couple of hours, and you can't really ask for much more than that.

overall... yeah, it's not hard to do, the mod's cheap, the pedal's cheap, it sounds good, you could find a use for it in pretty much any style, works well with the rest of your equipment... I'd do it again if I had to, it's the most cost-effective thing you can do to improve an SD-1.

if you are familiar with soldering and own a 30 watt fine pencil iron its an extremly easy process [fun too!] the instructions with pictures are the best i've ever used on any project,bar none.
monte is very thorough, and even points out the difference in modding a japanese vs taiwan pedal. [just 2 resistors].

this mod is the perfect mod for clarity,definition,string seperation and touch sensitivity in the boss sd-1.takes a muddy,passable sounding overdrive into boutique territory. i love my dod 250 and mxr distortion +[with in400x diodes] due to the clarity in both. now the sd-1 has similar qualitys. very touch sensisitive and dynamic-play soft and its clean,dig in for grit. i believe the germanium transistor accomplishes this. i'm a blues/r&b type player. i lent this pedal to a friend who is a pretty hot country player who gigs regularly here in nashville. its going on his board!
while the components are inexpensive to buy,montes instructions are worth at least twice the price of his kits.

monte recomemnds swaping one component at a time and testing after each swap.pretty fool proof if you know how to solder.
its a boss so reliability is 10+

heres were monte seperates himself from everyone else.
i had a problem where it powered up using my dc-brick power supply,but not using my friends voodoo labs pedal power. i was stumped!
i called monte and left a message. 5 minutes later he returned the call,and told me exactly where the problem was.one of my components wasnt making contact with the solder joint.
this guy is a player,and his mp3's of this mod are what prompted me to try it. to my pleasant surprise the clips are dead on,this pedal rocks! sweet low gain to saturated overdrive with clarity,ITS ALL THERE!

i play blues,rock,country,reggae r&b and funk.basically everything and anything! this is a great all around mod that will cover alot of bases. if you feel the ts-9 or sd-1 is kinda muddy in its stock form,then what are you waiting for? keeley and analogman have nothing on allums mods. now,if i could just get this pedal back from my bro i'd be usig it!

This mod is an easy one to do if you know your way around a soldering iron and you know how to solder electrical components. If you don't, or if you are a chimp then you shouldn't be playing with sharp pointy objects that heat up to like 1,000 degrees. With that said, the mod is very straight forward and Monte's pictures and step by step directions make it a paint by numbers thing. With the mod, all of the controls, level, tone, and drive are very intuitive.

I have a total of 4 Monte Modded pedals and this one serves a particular purpose. I run guitar into his sd-808 into this sd-1 GT then into his DS-1 Rectifier then into a CS-3 opto modded compressor, from there I run to a Digitech GNX3000 for effects, then usually a Carvin Bel-Air.

This is my main overdrive pedal and is on most of the time. It replaced my Barber Direct Drive. It delivers all of the rich overdrive you need for 70's rock, southern rock, and edgier blues and tough sounding slide without the boosted mids of other 4558 based pedals. Sometimes I use the sd-808 with it as a low gain booster of sorts for solos.

The mod makes this pedal very transparent, definately a boutique killer. The germanium transistor gives this pedal a very organic rich plexi type of tone at low drive levels with rich, thick sound. At high drive/gain levels its very musical and rich, very overdriven yet with unbelievable clarity. It will allow you to go into infinate sustain if you want it. True rich harmonic sustain and controlled feedback. Still Very quiet even at max drive.

Not a problem at all. First of all its a boss pedal for one. Throw it out of an airplane and it will still work. If you do the mod right, you should have no problems. I gig with all the pedals and don't carry any kind of backup. Not even worried.

Monte is "Mr. Johnny on the Spot" with help and advice. One time, I blew an led by mistake and he sent me another one, no questions asked, and it was my fault I blew it. He is always just and email or a phone call away. Very easy to deal with. He is a tone seeker just like the rest of us.

As mentioned earlier, if you are a chimp, get coloring books for christmas, or can't read or follow instructions, steer clear of any modding because you will mess up a perfectly good pedal and a great mod.

The sound quality really is incredible, especially with the Burr Brown chip and germanium transistor. People always ask me where I get my tone from then look at my pedalboard expecting to see Barber, Klon, Fulltone, Landgraff etc., and then they see a bunch of boss pedals. Thats when they just scratch their heads and look mystified. Then they go and buy all the boss pedals (Stock ones) they see on my pedalboard and their rigs sound like crap. Haha, my little secret. Mine, yours, and Monte's. SHH don't tell.

This is an update from my previous review. Originally I installed all the mods, including the 2x gain mod (which is just a resistor swap). I recently socketed that particular resistor, and spent a week the pedal's original resistor, leaving the gain lower and allowing the pedal to function as a completely clean boost. Last night I tried replacing it with the new resistor again, and I think it really improves the tone. A lot of people are leaving out the resistor because they want a clean boost, but I think the pedal sounds even more natural and amp-like with the gain mod in place. It doesn???t just increase the gain. It makes it sweeter. Sounds great with the gain knob all the way down. Goes from clean using a light pick attack to mild OD when you dig in a little.

I???ve also installed an ???on on??? toggle for switching between the germanium diode and the original diode, which is kind of interesting. I???ll play around more with that ??? I might try a symmetrical clipping option just for fun. But really, this mod is perfect as is, with all the components installed.

I play through a computer amp sim, so I???m not using this to push a real amp that???s already breaking up. This mod (especially with the 2X gain mod) makes it sound like it, though, at least with the gain knob toward the lower end. As you increase the gain on the pedal, it starts to sound more like an effect, but a good effect, at least. With the gain set low it really does sound quite natural, which is like manna from heaven for those of us who can't rock out with a loud tube amp in a small apartment. I just plug in my headphones and jam with a big smile on my face.

I also have Monte???s Tube Screamer mod. It???s good, but this one is better.

This is a kit, so it's not just plug and play, obviously. It took me about two hours to complete. This was my first mod. My only other experience soldering was doing a simple wiring modifaction on a guitar. Having said that, this mod was very easy. Instructions are clear and designed for those with no experience in electronics. Comes with a nice, clear picture of the circuit board, with each part to be replaced clearly marked, as well as pictures of the corresponding replacement parts. Much easier than I thought it'd be.

Note that this is the SD-1 mod, not the SD-808 mod.

Soundwise, even though my setup isn't the greatest (I don't even have a real amp, just a virtual amp on the computer, albeit a nice one), the sounds out of this thing are very pleasing to me. Very smooth gain all around, very tube-like. I know every OD pedal manufacturer peppers their product descriptions with the "T" word -- that's what everyone wants to hear. But the Monte Allums SD-1 mod actually sounds like it. No nastiness in the gain. It's also extremely dynamic. If you have the gain at zero and pick lightly, it's clean. Pick harder, you get some nice breakup. Crank the gain and you can still clean it up with your guitar's volume knob. I'm very pleased with the responsiveness of this thing.

It doesn't sound like a Tube Screamer -- no discernable mid-range hump. Also, it doesn't totally clean up. With the gain all the way down, it sounds like an amp that's just barely breaking up... very cool. You can leave out the 2X gain mod, if you wish to retain some totally clean tones. I don't really nead a clean boost, as I can accomplish that via other means, so I elected to do the 2X gain mod (which basically is accomplished by swapping out a resister for one of lower value).

My favorite settings so far are probably with the gain between 7:00 and 2:00, with the tone anywhere from 11:00 to 1:00. Very expressive and dynamic. Also, try it with the gain all the way up, the tone down, using your neck pickup, also with the tone down. Sounds very much like the lead guitar in "American Woman."

Since this EQ on this thing is very flat (ie "transparent"), it will basically sound like whatever you want it to sound like, depending on your amp/EQ etc. I have an EQ going after this in the chain that boosts the lower mids, which I use sometime when I'm looking for that throaty tubescreamer sound. Actually, I just bought a TS7 and the Monte Allums TS9 mod for that one, so I'll see how they work together.

Mod or no mod, it's still a Boss.

Monte is friendly and responds to emails.

I find myself playing with this thing all the time. I've played a lot more guitar since I finished the mod. I've finally got an overdriven sound that I genuinely like. I feel like I got a boutique overdrive for $60 ($40 for the SD-1, $20 for the mod kit). If you're looking for something with a mid-range hump, this won't do it. All the frequencies are well-represented. It won't cut out the bass or boost the mids (or cut them, for that matter. As I said, it will sound like you want it to sound, depending on what you use it with.

This was an easy kit to put together. Not much in the way of words, just a clear, easy to follow parts image and circuit picture. You can't screw up unless you don't know how to be careful with a soldering iron and circuit boards. It's easy to blow out a trace if you try to shove an oversized lead into a hole without enlarging it first.

Monte advertises these mods, and especially this one, as taking your pedal into botique territory. Yes, it helps, but it's still a pedal. I don't want to dis this mod, it's a good one and frankly, I'm not sure Keeley's doing anything different. When I plug it into my Marshall JTM60, it sounds pretty good at low volumes with the guitar volume backed off. Much past 5 on your guitar volume and it's going to suffer. Turn up the gain past half way and it's splatty and mushy. And man is it noisy. Don't be fooled into thinking that a pedal will give you less noise than your amp.
I can get twice the volume out of my amp before I hear as much hiss.

When used judiciously, it's a great compliment to a tube amp. But whenever I play through this and then turn it off and use my amp for the drive alone, it sounds so much more natural and less splatty and muddy. So remember, this is just a pedal folks. A darn good one, but still, just a pedal. Use it sparingly.

No problems. Boss pedals are very reliable. This will be no different.

Monte's tops. He will communicate with you. Better - he has some tips on his web site that will help avoid problems as you work on this pedal. This rating of "10" is rather curious. I assume Monte's kind, but certainly helpful.

After hearing the sound samples on his site, I ordered the Boss SD-1 mod from Monte Allums. It is called the Boss SD-1 DIY Pedal Mod Kit. The instructions are easy to follow and the modifications were completed in less than an hour. My pedal gets the same tones he has on his site and his component recipe sounds fantastic!

In the past, I have tried several of the popular Internet modifications on my Taiwanese Boss SD-1; Fuzz Central, SD-1 to TS808, SD1 to Fulltone, 1N4001 clipping diodes, LED clipping diodes, germanium clipping diodes, etc. All of the aforementioned sounded lackluster. Monte has the right combination to turn the SD-1 into a wide range, chewy, three dimensional tone box. It has more lows, clear highs and the tone control has better response.

My Stratocaster sounds great using it into a 1X12 40W tube combo. With the pedal tone at noon and the distortion dimed, the Strat is clean with the guitar volume set at 2. With the guitar volume control up to 10, the tones are full of sustain and sing sweetly without being muddy. I did not do the optional mod to increase gain because the stock gain was perfect. In between 2 and 10 there are lots of good tones to be had. I use an Alkaline battery.

Reliability is excellent if you know what you are doing.

Monty fills orders and replies to emails fast.

I have been a professional equipment tech for over thirty years and have played guitar for forty two years. Monte Allums has a winning kit here. I recommend it.

I have owned or used an Ibanez TS-9, Maxon 808, the Voodoo Labs Sparkle drive along with several economical overdrives including the Digitech Bad Monkey. They are all now history. This Monte Allums mod inspires me to play music. That's what it's all about.

I did not order the kit, just the instructions from his web site. The reason was I wanted a good mod without having to dig through lots of web pages. The instructions he sent did not disappoint, they were very clear and easy to follow. No problems.

It's hard to describe the improvement, night and day is close. The sound files on his web site were stunning, and my modified pedal is very close to that tone. The harshness and flat dull tone is gone, it now is a very lively, clear and responsive overdrive. It sounds great by itself and is magic overdriving a Marshall. As a distortion pedal with a clean amp it is not too noisy, and it responds extremely well to volume changes on the guitar. It has a very chewy and clear tone that allows the tone of the guitar to come through. The high end on the pedal is radically transformed, and the low end is boosted without being muddy.

As a Marshall overdrive to goose up the natural amp distortion a bit, it works much better than the stock pedal. The boosted highs of the modded pedal really help with the Marshall character of the amp, and really work well with a humbucker guitar.

Boss stuff is indestructible, and the mods do not seem to change anything to the detriment of reliability.

He emailed the instructions within 12 hours or so, very nice.

I play R+B and blues, with some southern rock thrown in. I used the pre-mod SD-1 as mostly an overdrive for a Marshall 1987 clone while using humbucker pickup guitars. It worked very well for that, but was useless as a distortion pedal with a clean amp; the stock pedal tone is a bit harsh and flat\cardboardy sounding. I replaced the stock op amp with a Raytheon RC4558, which helped a little. I also made some other cap changes found in various web sites, and these did not change the basic character of the pedal very much.

While looking for mods for a friend's TS-7, I ran across Monte's web site and listened to some of the sound files. His modded SD-1 files sounded basically unbelievable, the pedal was so clear sounding in the distortion and allowed the tone of the guitar to come through. It sounded like the best overdrive I have ever heard, it was that good. So I decided to buy the instructions and try the mod (I have a basement full of caps and resistors and was sure I would have something close to what he would specify).

Monte recommends to do his mods one at a time and try the pedal out between each change, which is a great suggestion, but I have been working on electronics for 30 years now (from tubes to surface mount circuitry) so I threw all the mods in at once. The difference was shocking; the modded pedal sounded almost identical to his sound files!! I suspect the differences are because I did not use the exact capacitor dielectric types he specifies in the instructions; and I will change these to the correct ones in the future next time I order some parts.

If you want a terrific overdrive for ANY price, buy a new SD-1 for $40 and his mod kit for $20, and you will NOT be disappointed. Even if you are experienced with pedal building, you can get all the proper mods in one easy-to-follow instruction sheet, no fiddling around with mods from different web sites. Very nice as a stand-alone distortion for a clean amp (this is HARD to do), and stunning as a Marshall overdrive. He has obviously thought this mod out very carefully and I can't think of how it could be improved.