Monte Allums Boss SD-808 Mod Plus Kit

3 knobs, clearly labeled, the only deal is that you have to install the mods yourself. A bit more difficult than the BYOC kits, but that's only because you have to desolder as well as resolder the components. But this is for ease of use, not ease of creation.

Using this with a modded epi valve junior and a 50w plexi copy. Sounds much better through the plexi than the valve junior, probably because the plexi is brighter and can really take advantage of the clearness of the pedal now. I played it both before and after the mods, before it was very harsh, much better for rhythm than for leads. With and Without the mod is like night and day - the pedal now very clear with great treble detail, although to my ears the symmetrical clipping sounds a bit even and artificial. I didn't include the 2x gain mod, quite frankly because I'm using it primarily as a low gain OD and boost.

To my ears, at unity gain, the SD-1 makes your tone slightly thinner, but that's fixed once you turn up the level or the gain. I can't tell if it's sweet in the upper register because of my amp or because it's based on the ts-808 - at any rate its a very transparent pedal.

My only complaint is that the bypassed tone isn't improved at all, you still sound noticeably duller plugged into the effect with it bypassed. Although I may very well leave this pedal on all the time and use my volume knob to make small adjustments, great stuff.

I know I wired it correctly, but some of the solder joints wouldn't adhere to the PCB and I couldn't figure out why... Although plenty of people have done this mod so I'm certain it's either my fault or a faulty pedal so I'm not really concerned. Plus, the boss enclosures mean that little stress is put on the PCB. I'd be surprised if it isn't working 10 or 20 years from now.

I didn't order the kit myself, it was included as a bonus with a SD-1 I got on an online forum, so I don't really have any experience with the customer support. Although, like all things DIY there's probably a community you can bring your questions too. And you don't even have to send it in to get it fixed when you can do it yourself!

For $21 in addition to a $40 pedal (new, that is, you can get them used much cheaper), it simply can't be beat. Even a reissue ts-808 will run you more than double that, a vintage at $400 is more than 6 times as expensive! The circuit with the mod is largely identical, the only difference is your pedalboard won't look like SRV's. But it'll sound the same!

After the mod, almost any combination of settings between the 3 knobs will produce a good sound. Performing the mod itself is fairly easy, except dealing with the glue from the factory on a few capacitors and one resistor.

I play a '79 American Strat through a JCM 900 amp, and the sound I hear coming out with this pedal in front of it just simply makes me smile. I get real good control over the gain with my guitars' volume knob and a very nice response to my picking attack. The sound is very transparent even with doing the mod that gave it 2x the gain.

Should be fine as long as my solder joints hold.

This is the third Monte Allums mod that I've done and it went smoothly. However during my first mod, I emailed him a question and got a complete and concise answer that same day.

Monte Allums has turned me on to my new addiction of modding guitar pedals. Eventually I'll have to do all of his mods not because I want to, but because I have to.

Its easy to use and the knobs are all very responsive.

I have never used an unmodded SD1 so I have nothing to compare with. My first opinion was pretty good, it has a great harmonic screech when needed and plenty of gain. It has an extremely prominent mid range and treble which drowns out the bass quite a bit. After a few months of use I started to feel that it didn't have enough bass response and decided to try it as a dedicated boost by dropping the gain and upping the level. This sounded ok but I lost the ability to vary the drive of my valve amp by picking harder or lowering the volume so I switched it back to high gain as the primary distortion. While I used it as a boost I had another pedal in its place which sounded buzzy in comparison to the SD1 and I soon realised what the mid spike on the SD1 was for.

Very well built. Has not failed on me yet.

Never had to deal with either Boss or Allums.

The SD1 may have extreme mid range and low bass which sounds terrible on its own but it cuts through in a live environment with a strangely pleasing grind like nothing else and for this alone its worth a 10.

Update:

Monte's mod is well worth doing. I don't know what his bleed mod consists of, but if you find the bypass upsetting, here is another way to fix the bleed problem when bypassed:

http://i227.photobucket.com/albums/dd43/stompboxschems/SD-1%20TS808%20etc/sd1-bypass-fix-406-1.gif

Pretty easy to perform the mod, just take your time, follow the instructions as they are very well described.

Once the mod is done, the pedal obviously works the same as before. 2 knobs, pretty basic.

Man oh man. This mod takes the pedal to new territories. Great full, even, hi-fi sound. Personally did not perform the high gain mod, as I just needed an overdrive to push my David Bray modded Super Bass Marshall. The great thing with this is that is does not suck out the amp's tone, which is crucial to me.

But I also tried the pedal aside a stock SD-1, a Sparkle Drive and a Wylde overdrive, in front of a clean Marshall Jubilee 25th anniversary. The Monte Allums SD-808 eats 'em all dead spot on.

For me, this did it. My SD-1 is an old beat up japanese version bought in the '80s... It was sitting around useless. After having performed this mod, I will start re-using it.

Lespaul -> SD-808 -> David Bray modded Super Bass Marshall. Rock/heavy metal playing style.

AWE-SOME. Best overdrive sound I have heard from a pedal in 25 years playing guitar. In front of a clean amp, or to add an extra kick to your already distorted tube amp, this thing is simply great.

3 knobs :)

I didn't bother with the 2x gain option as I wanted it to stay cleaner :) and it sounds great, warm, smooth, clear and much better than the stock pedal, could be my fav Monte Mod so far, I really like this one :)

I have a CE-2 thats over 20 years old! and in perfect working order, theres Boss for you :) can't see why this wont survive that time

Very nice mod, worth getting, makes a big difference, you find yourself playing with it loads, the sound is so nice, you might find its going to have a place on your board for a long time :)

How easy you find the mod depends on your soldering skill though this one is relatively easy, the SD-1's circuit board is pretty sparse compared to a lot of electronics gear. As far as using the pedal after it's modified, it's a 3 knob overdrive. Pretty simple.

Yamaha 2HB RG - SD-808 - '71 Traynor Bassmaster

I was always a big fan of the stock Boss SD-1, straight out of the box they sound really natural. But they have the tubescreamer focused, mid-hump sound and it started to bug me. So I tried the mod kit. I ordered my kit with a Burr Brown opamp instead of the JRC4558D that comes normally. I also went with asymetrical clipping and tried the pedal out with both the standard gain option and the optional 2X gain mod.

Standard gain - Honky mids are gone and the pedal has a much flatter eq. The bass is boosted compared to stock and instead of fizzy highs with the tone up, you get a sharp, biting sound with a lot of pick attack. Actually, pick attack is more present at all settings, it just increases exponentially with the tone up. Harmonics are very apparent now and pinch harmonics are a lot easier to grab, even with the gain low. Overall the pedal sounds a lot more open and responds better to pick attack, it's cliche but it does sound like I took a blanket off the speaker.

2X gain - Noticeably more distorted and compressed. You lose some dynamic response in exchange for the extra gain, the pedal sounds more squished and less open than with the standard gain option. Sustain stays smooth and liquid instead of fizzy. There is some loss of definition on the low strings and you can't use the pedal for clean boost now, it stays distorted with the gain on zero.

I decided to stick with the standard gain option, I like being able to turn the distortion back and I love the biting pick attack you get with this mod. Either flavour is a big improvement over the standard SD-1.

Reliability is dependant on your soldering.

Great customer support, read my review of the MT-2 Sustainiac mod. On this one, Monte let me pick a different LED colour with no extra charge.

Great option for clean boost, light overdrive or medium distortion. Way more open and transparent (hi-fi really) than the standard Boss pedal. If you're sick of the honky mid-boost of the standard, get this mod, it's worth more than $21US.

If you know how to read diagrams and solder, you'll have no problem. that being said, it's a 5 in ease of use. That's the difficulty level presented in this mod.

This mod sounds great - the modded pedal will not dissapoint EXCEPT when it is bypassed. Here is where I'm very very dissapointed in Monte. He knows that bleed-through is a problem and still sells mods that don't fix it. Why on earth would I want a mod that doesn't fix the bleed at the same time that it improves the tone? This is a gross marketing error on Monte's part and I suggest you look around for other mods before going here. All in all, you'll spend $35 to mod this pedal if you want true bypass. Not only that, $15 for the bleed fix is criminal. It's a trick everyone out there should be privy to and I hope someone out there figures it out and makes it free! Why not Boss? Monte - two thumbs up for the mod, two thumbs down for not including the bleed fix without extra charge.

It's as reliable as you.

Monte responds fast and gives advice.

This will greatly improve the tone of your SD-1

You will still have to buy the true-bypass, so only a seven.

This is the SD-1 to TS808 conversion kit from Monte Allums [SD-808]. My first Allums mod was to my CS-3 compressor. The results were so impressive I immediately thought that a TS808 conversion should be a must-have acquisition for my pedalboard.

The instruction sheets are clear and logically set out. Anyone contemplating an MA kit would be well-advised to ensure that the recommended list of tools is adhered to. A multi-meter proved extremely useful in confirming the values of the resistors in the kit.

The experience in doing the CS-3 upgrade obviously made a difference in undertaking the work. I think the confidence factor is as important as any technical skills.

The work I carried out was not the full SD-808 conversion. Only two clipping diodes were used, with a jumper, to achieve symmetrical clipping and the 2X gain option was left out. I am considering fitting a DPDT switch to the chassis that would allow me to select between symmetrical and asymmetrical clipping options using the third diode supplied with Monte's kit. The supplied instructions make this option realtively easy to carry out.

In all it took three hours to do the work. This includes coffee breaks and checking the pedal after each component change - another Monte recommendation you would be insane to ignore. The net result is amazing. The before-and-after is like two different stompboxes. Which, of course, is exactly what was intended.

Reading the PCB illustration was easier second time around. I am reasonably proficient at soldering so that held no fears apart from a proclivity towards using too much solder. That was relatively easy to overcome and the solder work was pretty tidy.

Removing the old 8-pin chip was far easier than I expected using the supplied braid which had a smidgen of flux applied before it was used. I found flux helped start the capillary action of molten solder into the braid. Fitting the 8-pin socket for the fabled JRC4558D chip was very straightforward. Resistors, diodes and capacitors were chnaged over without problem.

Well... where do we begin? I bought the SD with the intention of converting it to TS808 specs. So its original sound is a starting point in the conversion process. The unchanged SD was never gigged.

Sound quality is by its very nature subjective. Noise levels are reduced, the smoothness and sweetness of the symmetrical clipping is very obvious compared to the harshness of the original overdrive. Transparency is enhanced and the SD-808 just works brilliantly with my Strat. It complements and enhances each of the five pickup selections without coloration. The neck pickup is warmer, the middle is more bell-like, the bridge is cutting but NOT harsh. It will interesting to see what tonal options open up with the switchable asymetrical clipping option.

Driving the front end of an amp like a Hiwatt DR103 is what this pedal was designed to do. And it does it IN SPADES!! It is simply amazing.

It IS a Boss chassis. Only components on PCB were changed so provided the solder work is competent I would expect the SD-808 to be equally as durable as any other 3-knob Boss stompbox.

Fitted to my pedalboard and therefore with a mains power supply I do not envisage any problems.

Monte Allums is amazingly responsive to e-mails. Very helpful and very courteous and very understanding of Dear Wife who thought all Monte Allums kits were the same! A real pleasure to do business with this guy. His products are brilliant and he is a true gentleman.

A genuine example of the Small Is Beautiful school of customer care. Can't say any more than that.

I play in Dr.A's Blues Consortium and have with been with them since June 2004. In that context good, preferably great, overdrive is at the heart of my guitar sounds. I switch between two Les Pauls, an HSS Strat and a Hamer Special P90 depending on how the mood takes me. Although some venues that are notoriously noisy with mains hum dictate that humbuckers rule there. Amps are either a Marshall MG30 [small gigs] or a Hiwatt DR103 with 2x12 or 4x12 cabs.

My pedalboard has developed since joining the band. Originally it contained:

Boss CS-3 [stock] >> Ibanez Blubber wah >> ProCo Rat2 >> Boss DD-3

A total absence of overdrive you notice. Adding additional stomp-boxes and Monte Allums modifications has really raised the stakes. It now comprises:

Monte Allums CS-3 >> modified Ibanez Blubber wah [original red TDK 'Fasel' and replacement Hot Potz]>> Monte Allums SD-808 >> Keeley SD-1 (Ge) >> ProCo Rat2 [original with LM308]>> Boss DD-3

Two overdrives and a distortion? Different jobs for each and in combination. The Allums and Keeley have different specs, different sounds and different roles. Audience members [invariably other guitarists] have commented upon the range of good guitar sounds, regardless of which guitar is driving the chain, which is always welcome.

Monte Allums products work - brilliantly. And help make my band sound sonically much more adventurous and varied.

Monte Allums mods are superb. For a ridiculously small outlay, a bit of time and patience you end up with production-line stompboxes that sound like boutique/vintage units. Looking at the going price of TS808s on eBay you cannot help but wonder why more tone hunters are not taking the Allums route. OK this ignores the collectability/snob value of originals but in terms of satifying your ears in my opinion Monte Rules.

As long as you know how to solder, this is a straight forward modification. I think Monte's instructions are clear and concise and should be easy for most anyone to understand. The pedal itself is still a Boss SD-1 and is easy to use with just tone, level and gain knobs.

This is just a great sounding pedal now. I always hated the SD-1 as a stand alone pedal in front of a clean amp - it always sounded blah and seemed to suck the life out of my guitar - so I put it away. I decided to try this mod and, WOW! Now I have a pedal that is just about useful for anything. If I put it in front of my JCM-800, I think it sounds smoother and more natural, yet as heavy and cool as Zakk Wylde. If you use it alone in front of something like my Peavey Classic 50 4x10, then you get this cool, natural bluesy break up, or use it conjuction with something like the Monte Allum's modded TS-9 and keep your amp clean, use the SD-1 for bluesy breakup and then turn on the TS-9 to push the SD-1 into metal meltdown. This pedal is so incredibly versatile now and sounds so smoooooooth. You still have high end if you want it to bite a little bit, but it never sounds harsh. There is a complete tonal response now that wasn't there with the original SD-1 - there is more note definition and better balance. There is no tonal "masking" like there is in the original. Another great mod from Monte.

This is still a bullet proof Boss pedal and as long as you do a good soldering job, then I don't see why this pedal wouldn't work forever.

Monte is always there for you. Email him any time and you will get a quick response. Great to deal with.

Someday I would like to meet Monte in person so I can personally thank him for all of the great mods he has come up with and how he has changed my guitar sound into something useful and toneful. All of the money I have spent on "boutique" and higher priced pedals and to think all of that is sitting in the closet now and I use a $40.00 pedal with a $20.00 mod and other modded pedals from Boss and Ibanez that I have done. The music I play is mainly classic hard rock to metal and progressive rock. I love Rush. This pedal can get you any sound you want depending on the amp and guitar you use it with. Bluesy or just to push the front end a little or to push a dirty amp into metal meltdown. Try any Allum mod and you will love what it does to your lifeless, toneless pedal - instant Tone and all of your guitar's sound will shine through!