Re: DIY Boss Pedal mods?
I decided after looking around quite a few sites and then spending part of a day trying to find a place that sold all of the parts I needed to just order a few kits from Monte Allums. I liked the sounds clips and at under $24 a kit I felt I had nothing to lose.
I went with the "BD-2 Mod" and the "DS-1 Rectifier Mod Plus." The kits arrived yesterday and I've completed the DS-1 and I'm about 75% done with the BD-2, my neck started to hurt so I called it quits.
So far, I'm very impressed. The DS-1 has a nice fat tone now instead of the raspy drive it had before. Some of that raspiness is still present at the higher gain settings but overall it's a much better, smoother sounding distortion now. It has a fairly natural distortion now, it sounds like it could be coming from an amp and not a pedal.
You can also make your guitar sustain for hours now, I hit a notem on my Les Paul with a little bit of a finger mute and it rang out perfectly for at least 30 seconds. I really don't know how to explain it, my guess is it was some sort of feedback but I've never heard a note ring out like that before. I just held perfectly, no flucuation in sound or volume, just a steady note.
I'd still like to get rid of that high end raspy sound but it's probably just not possible with the pedal. I paid $30 for the DS-1, factor in the kit and I'm at $54, I don't know that you can get distortion like this for $54 anywhere else. Overall, I'm happy for the $24 investment.
Like I said I'n not finished with the BD-2 but it's already a huge improvement over the stock pedal. There is zero high end rasp like before. It still goes from an overdrive to slightly distorted sound at full gain but the tone is fattened up and smoothed out over the stock pedal. I really wanted some bottom end and right now this mod gave it to me. It really added some depth to the overdrive.
Monte splits the mods up into section, detailing what each change will do. One of the sections of the BD-2 mod is a "Tube Screamer" mod. He says to hold off on this for a few days to see what you think of the pedal before adding this. He happens to like the sound but says that it really mellows out the overdrive.
I'll post some more on this one when I'm finished if anyone is interested.
