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initial thoughts on my DS-1 experiments.
exhausted
Posts: 6,638
ok, so my DS-1 arrived today. i don't have my mod parts yet so all i could do was the "swap D5 with an LED" mod. also known as the "seeing eye" as keeley calls it.
ok, stock DS-1. yes. harsh as hell. fizzy. loss of bass etc. etc. pretty standard criticisms of the DS-1.
open it up. for $30US there's a lot of potential in it. i plan to do all sorts of cap changes etc. etc. to improve the bass response and lower the noise floor primarily. but it's a gain pedal. it's noisy. no noisier than my BD-2.
after i did the seeing eye (yes, it actually does glow when it's distorting) i notices a bit better bass response and the distortion is a bit smoother. also, there is a much wider range of gain. in stock form with the gain knob zeroed, it's still pretty distorted. with the LED in there, it cleans up pretty good without sacrificing much upper range. so all in all, worth the effort. it's a brighter pedal generally than the keeley BD-2 i have. it's just another colour to add to the palette. and for $30, can't go wrong.
i just popped the new LED into a hole i drilled under the check light and ran wires to the circuit board.
oh, and here's something really important: pretty much all distortion pedals sound like ass in front of dead clean amps. unless you're close to tube saturation to start with, distortion pedals sound like crap. DS-1 included. ever play a fuzzface in front of a clean amp? it sounds like ass.
the good sounds lie in the combination of naturally overdriving your amp and the clipping diodes of whatever pedal you're using.
i'll post more once i'm able to do more mods. but hey, day one is over and the pedal still works. bonus.
none of this probably made any sense but i worked for 12 hours today plus another 2 working on the pedal and test driving it. there's a reason i used exhausted as a screen name.
ok, stock DS-1. yes. harsh as hell. fizzy. loss of bass etc. etc. pretty standard criticisms of the DS-1.
open it up. for $30US there's a lot of potential in it. i plan to do all sorts of cap changes etc. etc. to improve the bass response and lower the noise floor primarily. but it's a gain pedal. it's noisy. no noisier than my BD-2.
after i did the seeing eye (yes, it actually does glow when it's distorting) i notices a bit better bass response and the distortion is a bit smoother. also, there is a much wider range of gain. in stock form with the gain knob zeroed, it's still pretty distorted. with the LED in there, it cleans up pretty good without sacrificing much upper range. so all in all, worth the effort. it's a brighter pedal generally than the keeley BD-2 i have. it's just another colour to add to the palette. and for $30, can't go wrong.
i just popped the new LED into a hole i drilled under the check light and ran wires to the circuit board.
oh, and here's something really important: pretty much all distortion pedals sound like ass in front of dead clean amps. unless you're close to tube saturation to start with, distortion pedals sound like crap. DS-1 included. ever play a fuzzface in front of a clean amp? it sounds like ass.
the good sounds lie in the combination of naturally overdriving your amp and the clipping diodes of whatever pedal you're using.
i'll post more once i'm able to do more mods. but hey, day one is over and the pedal still works. bonus.
none of this probably made any sense but i worked for 12 hours today plus another 2 working on the pedal and test driving it. there's a reason i used exhausted as a screen name.
Post edited by Unknown User on
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My biggest complaint of the Rat2 is its in ability to get really clean (Duh Paul its a distortion pedal right) What it lacks alone it more than makes up for as the number 2 pedal essentially providing me with 3 tones from a single channel amp. The weber really allows the smoothness of this combo to come through. Very nice, I would assume the DS-1 cleaned up like you want will sound very nice and edgy when combined with the BD-2. Distortions seem to have a much higher compression level to my ear than do overdrives.
good luck with the mods.
that breadboard and parts grab bag arrived as well. i don't know when b/c i didn't get home until 8 last night but there it was at 6:45 this morning. i didn't get a chance to open it though. i'll have to do inventory tonight.
hopefully, i'll have what i need to breadboard a distortion+, replace the output cap in my class A boost and do some more DS-1 mods. my smallbear stuff isn't here yet.
i think i'll breadboard a clean boost as well.
fun fun. cathy goes out of town for the weekend so by rights i should be out carousing with the boys or something. but i'd rather stay in my basement playing with circuits. sad.
Yeah, I'll be all by myself too. The distortion+ and the Rat are very similar. Late 70's early 80's AC/DC marshall type distortion.
i found a CE-2 as well. should be here early next week. and i got a CH-1 cheap for my acoustic chain.
pedalhawggin'
the mr. echo should be fun.
and now i'm off back into my review meetings. dammit.
Adios.
some info from gg about one person's experience.
"OK. I ordered the Mr. Echo from Music Toyz when it first came out and there was a bad problem with first 50 pedals produced that created an overload of 2 transistors and made the Delays distort (sounds heinous on clean tones). SIB told Music Toyz it was fixed and to send back the unit I had for a replacement. I just got the replacement and guess what, it has the SAME ****ing problem! Music Toyz gave me the option of returning it for a full refund(Kudos to them!) or contacting Rick at SIB to have him fix the 2 bad transistors. I think the pedal has some potential so I am gonna try to have it fixed. Others may NOT be as forgiving as I am so I thought I'd post hear to warn people to wait a few months before ordering this pedal or to skip it altogether. One run of bad production is one thing..a 2nd run with the same problem indicates to me that they don't care enough about the business to even TEST THE DAMN THINGS before they push them on unsuspecting customers. Music Toyz is fantastic so this post is in no way a slight against them. I will never order another pedal from SIB though no matter how good people say it is. So...BUYER BEWARE!"
I'd heard they fixed that, that sucks. We'll maybe the MD-3 though I am skeptical about the small case.
Maybe I should just bite the bullet and get a DL-4.
Mr. Echo seemed just so cool with the slam switch and endless repeats, I pretty much know I won't need much over 500ms anything over that is sound on sound.
I want one soooooo bad...
it ends up boosting the level beyond maximum, darkening the tone and boosting the available distortion by a bunch too.