Appreciating the DS-1 (Un-Modded)

[Silence Kid]

If it took years of tweaking/trying with diff. equipment, does it count as "appreciating..." Or am I just forcing it?

It's been around me for years, too cheap to sell off, never cared to mod. When I only had a crappy solid state amp, it sounded terrible like other cheap pedals did not. I pull it out through the years to note that different/better equipment seems not to make it better in a relative way. Flash-forward, I took some time exploring this pedal:

-With humbuckers through a clean amp... Still harsh and weird. Sort of like a caricature of hair metal from someone who wasn't a fan. The tone knob allows you to go from worse to bad
-But sounds pretty decent in conjunction with overdrive/amp distortion
-And it sounds pretty awesome paired with a darker amp and a single coil guitar, through the clean channel or along with dist. and so long as you've dialed the pedal tone back to about 10:30 , and keep the gain at about 1:30 .

Actually in that latter scenario, this pedal sort of kills it in a hilarious and wonderful way; with my Telecaster and my darker amps I'm hearing the pedal's smoother characteristics, with a ton of chunk and clarity; also exhibiting some sensitivity to picking dynamics that I figured had been purposely engineered out. Kind of like having a stupid dog that's for some reason really good at killing ground squirrels, but not really anything else. Like not falling on its face.

Or maybe my perception is just altered by time and effort :P

[eclecticsynergy]

Re: Appreciating the DS-1 (Un-Modded)

Classic for good reason. Not surprised it doesn't sound good through a clean amp; I think it wasn't really designed to stand on its own. But with a good sounding driven amp it rocks.

[Gainstage]

Re: Appreciating the DS-1 (Un-Modded)

Maybe a good player is once again making a cheap pedal sound decent in some aspects??? It think you could probably use anything and muster something out of it.
Many have used that pedal. Many like Boss. I had the Keeley mod on one and I tried, really tried to use it and I just did not like anything about it. Was probably my last attempt at using Boss some years ago.
At times we must consider is the pedal sounding good or is the player good in spite of it? Difficult question. Satriani and Vai used the Keeley mod of this pedal and really case in point those guys are so bloody enabled they could make the worst thing ever sound like it was cooking. I mean could they possibly sound bad no matter what they played through or used?
Makes one wonder when we recommend gear what is really the case?
I tend to evaluate pedals based on the quality of the components, its buffer or bypass, the versatility it has with adjustments and usage, its headroom, it's feel- is it amp like or not, over the course of a very long time there are just some pedal lines I find consistently lacking and I look elsewhere for better sound quality. My choices would not always be someone else's but that is sort of the fun of pedals.
You could give an inexperienced hack of a player the best drive on the market and they could adjust it terribly, you could give a genius player a piece of crap and they could manage to get something out of it. That is why it pays to learn about gear and circuits so one knows what the differences are instead of some cat with a chain of two dozen B grade buffers on his board that just cannot pass the sonic 1st grade.

[Vasshu the humanoid typhoon]

Re: Appreciating the DS-1 (Un-Modded)

^You can also overthink it all

[Gainstage]

Re: Appreciating the DS-1 (Un-Modded)

Or possibly not think at all.

[Silence Kid]

Re: Appreciating the DS-1 (Un-Modded)

Haha. The idea of being too complimentary to my own playing scares me. But I'm also not claiming it's a good pedal. I have "good" pedals that have a great sound and varied tone no matter how the knobs are set. But having heard all the flack the DS-1 gets, perhaps my expectation was that it could never do anything well; cause for celebration that it does exactly one thing well

[Aceman]

Re: Appreciating the DS-1 (Un-Modded)

The DS-1 was, and always will be designed to go into an already dirty tube amp. It's how you made a modded Marshall out of whatever wasn't one (including a Marshall) back in the day. It did that for a loooooong time before the late 80's mega gain amps started showing up. That and the "pedal explosion" of that era for molten metal sounds made it passé.

That said - I could plug one into my Fender Pro Jr. and make a killer sound. As with all things musical - love them for what they are.

Glad you figured out what it does!

[ArtieToo]

Re: Appreciating the DS-1 (Un-Modded)

My DS-1 sounds fine into a clean amp, but that's only if I precede it with a good wah-wah. The wah controls and shapes the "fizz" and fartyness.

[toneseeker74]

Re: Appreciating the DS-1 (Un-Modded)

If you are willing to lift/clip out diodes D4 and D5 you will lose lots of the fizz. Makes the pedal sound much much better. I also power my DS-1 (black label Taiwan version if it happens to matter) with 18 volts. Has worked without a single problem for the past year, and sounds superior to 9-volt and 12-volt power supplies.

[Vasshu the humanoid typhoon]

Re: Appreciating the DS-1 (Un-Modded)

Have had an old early 80's for years...sold most of my 80's collection to an old friend...
That DS-1 from back then sounds different from the newer ones for starters, and with a good amp and all that, they do sound good.
They are just tools.

[skyydogg01]

Re: Appreciating the DS-1 (Un-Modded)

If you are willing to lift/clip out diodes D4 and D5 you will lose lots of the fizz. Makes the pedal sound much much better. I also power my DS-1 (black label Taiwan version if it happens to matter) with 18 volts. Has worked without a single problem for the past year, and sounds superior to 9-volt and 12-volt power supplies.

Try replacing D4 and D5 with red LEDs. It makes the pedal so much better than stock. The mod increases volume and smooths out the distortion a little but not as much as clipping out the diodes.


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[Gainstage]

Re: Appreciating the DS-1 (Un-Modded)

Or.....you could just get a much better pedal and have a nice door stop.

[Chickenwings]

Re: Appreciating the DS-1 (Un-Modded)

Les Paul-Ds1-jcm800
Killer sound in anyone's language

[devastone]

Re: Appreciating the DS-1 (Un-Modded)

Have had an old early 80's for years...sold most of my 80's collection to an old friend...
That DS-1 from back then sounds different from the newer ones for starters, and with a good amp and all that, they do sound good.
They are just tools.

Yep, the early ones are very different from the current ones, starting with a different type of chip (I know you already know this Nils). The old ones with the TA7136 chip are much warmer and smoother sounding than the new ones (I actually was able to do a side by side years ago with a friend's old DS). That said, they can all be made to sound good and have been used by a list of who's who of 80s/90s guitarists, and yes, as has been said, they work best to boost an already crunchy amp.

[hydro]

Re: Appreciating the DS-1 (Un-Modded)

I used a DS-1 for ages as my main distortion box. in those days, I didn't really think much about tone or gear, playing as loud as I could through begged/borrowed rigs.

When I finally got my own amp with a dirt channel, I didn't need it any more - and my bass player suggested taking it to the shooting range. He really hated it. Buzzy, killed low end, etc. But it got the job done for me for years...

Today I have another cheap orange dirt box at the end of my chain - the MXR Distortion III. I've never heard a dirt pedal that was more "me" than this one. When you find the sound you love, you stick with it.