And the winner is.........DS-1???

MIJ BOSS DS-1 Ok, I know theres alot of folks who plain hate the Boss DS-1,and I've been in and out of that camp a few times myself!
I'm finding that a DS-1 and JC-120 is an outstanding combination.Heck, in 79' when they created the DS-1, the JC-120 was the amp they voiced it through. Now at bedroom volume through a small tube amp the DS-1 sounds pretty terrible,harsh and fake. But I believe it comes alive at loud stage volume through a very clean amp. I've been using OCD's and recently I've gone through the Joyo Riot, Eternity clone,Ultimate drive and Double Muff but for a rock/solo tone the MIJ DS-1 kills.It brings everything to the table that the sterile [in a good way ] JC120 lacks. Like the MXR D+ it really shines after a wah pedal too.
Mine is modded ever so slightly[one resistor to add a bit more midrange and assymetrical clipping] but other than that its stock.
One tip for the old MIJ or black label Taiwan ACA DS-1 pedals. Try running it on a standard 9v power supply [not daisy chained either]. It sounds warmer at starved 9v voltage where it wants to see 12v ACA power.The LED barely lights up but the high end gets rounded off nicely!

Anyway, its kinda cool when a cheap old pedal makes its way back into your life :lol:

I like my MIJ '81, but the tone never goes above 9:00 or its shrill.

I like my MIJ '81, but the tone never goes above 9:00 or its shrill.

Yeah, mines at 9:30, its pretty ice-picky above 10:30.

I love my DS-1. I had one modded once and sold it for a loss to buy another stock one.

I don't use it a whole heck of a lot, but I really like mine in certain situations. Just a different color to play around with.

Yikes. I haven't felt an urge to go back to that pedal since I sold it waaaay back when I first started playing guitar.

Glad you found a sound you like out of it...

I've always liked my DS-1 with a humbucker guitar through my Bandit 112. Gives a good hard rock sound.

I've always liked my DS-1 with a humbucker guitar through my Bandit 112. Gives a good hard rock sound.

^ There you go, loud clean amp!:cool:

I love my DS-1. I had one modded once and sold it for a loss to buy another stock one.

The problem IMO with most DS-1 mods is that they go overboard. If just things that might make it more flexible or a little more suited for _____ (you gotta know your application or many mods will just be a waste) are done, there is no reason why it can't rival pedals like the OCD, Riot, etc.

And it doesn't need to be a MIJ - the main difference with them comes down to a pair of odd clipping diodes. A little modding to a brand new one will make it tonally match the MIJ.

Lots of people find a DS-1 to be buzzy sounding. So the 1st thing you do is change the bias to the first gain stage, which is a transistor. You change a single resistor from 22 ohms to 100 ohms. For many people, that is probably enough!

If it's still buzzy, make the clipping diodes "match" the MIJ's! Don't go insane and put LED's or mosFET's in there - just put something in series with the stock ones. The MIJ diodes had a forward voltage of around 950mV. The MIT's have standard silicons that are like ~600mV - more buzzy, compressed, less volume. Add some germaniums or Schottky diodes in series with the silicons to get to around 950mV. Boom - MIT-to-MIJ conversion - done!

Want more mids? Change one resistor or one capacitor. Want less bass? Same thing. Want to change the "contour" between the sweep of the two? You can do that too (although I have no need for "part C", ever).

I can mod a DS-1 (any year, any cheap one) to (IMO) kick the crap out of the OCD or so many other more recent drive boxes, and it only takes me about 20 minutes. It's such a liberating thing.

Things you (typically) DON'T have to change:

- no op amp changes - stock is fine - ANY of the stock chips

- no resistor changes other than for Q2 bias or tone circuit changes

- no capacitor "upgrades" just for the sake of "hi-fi performance"

- no "magical" clipping diodes - no mosFET's, LED's, weird germaniums (on their own), etc.

IOW, many/most mods for the DS-1 IMO are exercises in wasting time and/or money IMO, because they target the wrong stuff. Like anything, if you think about what it has that you want to take away (buzziness, too much bass) or what it might be missing (midrange, sufficient output), it makes it a little more obvious that changing a dozen caps and putting in a $4 chip aren't going to address those issues, IMO.

I've got two different Machine Head DS-1's and they are indeed formidable. Number 3 has the "two resistor" mod posted by 11 Gauge in an earlier thread. Works like a charm on the fizzies and scooped mids.

I've got no problem with the stock DS-1 but, like a lot of 70's pedals, it needs a bit of help from the amp to really sound good. Glad you found a combination that works for you!

^ Thanks, and thanks .011Guage for your insight. I guess the reason its working for me is that its anything but a transparent distortion.The OCD/UD/Riot all have a more transparent eq. Tubscreamers with a mid hump work well through my amp for low gain overdrive,and the DS-1 really seems to target all the right frequencys through my amp to cop a beleivable cranked tube amp tone,without sounding metally or over the top.Again, that might be attributed to the original designers basically tweeking it through my amp! :cool:

I guess the reason its working for me is that its anything but a transparent distortion.

Yeah - transparency is over-rated! :razz:

The truth be told, the DS-1 "sounds more distorted than it is" primarily because of its tone control. You could take many other pedals and transplant it into them (the tone control) and they would sound rather similar - when the mids are scooped (and distortion is occurring), the treble has more emphasis, and that is where the "clipped detail" is.

...There is actually the flat mids mod for the DS-1, and it sounds a lot less distorted by losing the bass and gaining all the midrange. If you took the fmm a few steps further, you would have the tone control in the Barber LTD!

My whole point with DS-1 mods is that they are like saffron or plutonium - a little goes a long way! But many of the popular mods change 6 or (many) more capacitors. If there are resistor changes, it's usually ONLY to give the pedal MORE distortion, and there is usually a toggle added to give two sets of funky diode clipping - usually LED's paired with something more compressed than stock (which gives more of a volume drop, causing complaints oftentimes).

And this chip madness with a non-transparent pedal - strange indeed.

I think the DS-1 is a good pedal for folks to learn about modding on. It's just sad that usually the first few end up in the trash. So many components get changed that they will usually over-shoot the point where they might be happy with the results. When they try to reverse things, they forget what all they changed, or just don't know what was responsible for altering any given aspect.

The other consequence is that the circuitboards get ripped up as someone might go back and forth trying to figure out what changes give the better sound. Again, not the end of the world for such a cheap and readily available pedal, but IMO it is a potential waste of time if it goes beyond just having fun and learning a thing or two.

I strongly recommend that anyone who wants to make a DS-1 remarkably more flexible (as in being able to crank up the dist control more) is to simply change R9 from 22 ohms to 100 ohms. It doesn't change any of the stock characteristics beyond making the distortion range more flexible and a tiny bit smoother.

Aside from that, changing R17 from 6.8K to a higher value will let more mids in. In stock form, you don't get any midrange because there is a "hole" at frequencies below ~1KHz. Simply changing R17 to 10K will give you mids that "match" a TS (@ ~720Hz), but don't sound the same because the tone control is "reverse emphasized," splitting out the treble and bass (TS obviously chops off treble and bass).

Pedals that have the same DS-1 tone control, and their treble and bass frequencies:

DS-1: 1KHz treble / 230Hz bass

triangle Big Muff: 1KHz treble / 400Hz bass (more "full" bass sound)

Skreddy Mayo: 1KHz treble / 480Hz bass (even fuller than triangle)

ram's head Big Muff (2nd gen): 1.85KHz treble / 400Hz bass (brighter treble)

WHE Swollen Pickle (V1): 2.19KHz treble / 100Hz bass (brightEST treble, deepest bass!)

Ed Guidry's Brown Sound in a Box II: 20Hz treble / 150Hz bass (treble actually lets midrange "all the way down")

Vex Box of Rock: 190Hz treble / 150Hz bass (similar to BSIABII, slightly less mids)

Barber LTD: 100Hz treble / 4.4KHz bass (same "all mids" as BSIAB/BOR, almost no bass)

DS-1 w/flat mids mod: 340Hz treble / 1KHz bass (slightly more scooped than LTD)

Big Muff with "Gilmour mid boost:" 400Hz treble / 1KHz bass (look at similarity to DS-1 w/fmm)

Skreddy Pig Mine (toggle "off"): 1KHz treble / 860Hz bass (more mids, slightly less bass than Muff w/"Gilmour mid boost")

...You can basically "match" the treble and bass response of any of the above listed pedals, as you can see. Is the sound the same? No. Will the tone control "behave" the same way? Yes. No chip or clipping diode changes will do that! Other than the flat mids mod, the tone control frequently gets "neglected."

''Yeah - transparency is over-rated!'' :razz:

^ Yes!



''I think the DS-1 is a good pedal for folks to learn about modding on. It's just sad that usually the first few end up in the trash. So many components get changed that they will usually over-shoot the point where they might be happy with the results. When they try to reverse things, they forget what all they changed, or just don't know what was responsible for altering any given aspect.
The other consequence is that the circuitboards get ripped up as someone might go back and forth trying to figure out what changes give the better sound. Again, not the end of the world for such a cheap and readily available pedal, but IMO it is a potential waste of time if it goes beyond just having fun and learning a thing or two.''

^Been there, done that!

''Aside from that, changing R17 from 6.8K to a higher value will let more mids in. In stock form, you don't get any midrange because there is a "hole" at frequencies below ~1KHz. Simply changing R17 to 10K will give you mids that "match" a TS (@ ~720Hz), but don't sound the same because the tone control is "reverse emphasized," splitting out the treble and bass (TS obviously chops off treble and bass).''

^yep, R17 is a 10k in mine, carbon comp too for added mojo! :roll:

''Pedals that have the same DS-1 tone control, and their treble and bass frequencies:

DS-1: 1KHz treble / 230Hz bass

triangle Big Muff: 1KHz treble / 400Hz bass (more "full" bass sound)

Skreddy Mayo: 1KHz treble / 480Hz bass (even fuller than triangle)

ram's head Big Muff (2nd gen): 1.85KHz treble / 400Hz bass (brighter treble)

WHE Swollen Pickle (V1): 2.19KHz treble / 100Hz bass (brightEST treble, deepest bass!)

Ed Guidry's Brown Sound in a Box II: 20Hz treble / 150Hz bass (treble actually lets midrange "all the way down")

Vex Box of Rock: 190Hz treble / 150Hz bass (similar to BSIABII, slightly less mids)

Barber LTD: 100Hz treble / 4.4KHz bass (same "all mids" as BSIAB/BOR, almost no bass)

DS-1 w/flat mids mod: 340Hz treble / 1KHz bass (slightly more scooped than LTD)

Big Muff with "Gilmour mid boost:" 400Hz treble / 1KHz bass (look at similarity to DS-1 w/fmm)

Skreddy Pig Mine (toggle "off"): 1KHz treble / 860Hz bass (more mids, slightly less bass than Muff w/"Gilmour mid boost")

...You can basically "match" the treble and bass response of any of the above listed pedals, as you can see. Is the sound the same? No. Will the tone control "behave" the same way? Yes. No chip or clipping diode changes will do that! Other than the flat mids mod, the tone control frequently gets "neglected."

^ Thanks for posting that, very interesting.