MichaelW
Well-known member
- Build Rating
So in my journey to explore all the DIY-able Boss pedals (thanks to @Guardians of the analog 
) I've up until now avoided the DS-1.
Seems like the Boss DS-1 is the butt of a lot of jokes even though I've never played one myself.
I do remember back in the day when Robert Keeley was just starting to make a name for himself selling modded pedals on Ebay, he sold a lot of modded DS-1's and what caught my attention what that Steve Vai bought one, liked it so much, the bought one for his friend Joe Satriani.
But "distortion" was never my thing back then.
Despite the poor reputation, the Boss DS-1 seems like a ubiquitous pedal and Boss sells a crap ton of them. They are very affordable and you can just about get them anywhere.
So when I was looking at the Aion Comet legacy board and reading up a bit on the history of the DS-1, it was an interesting read and I decided to build it.
The AionFX board supports both the Pre-1994 version as well as the post 1994. It seems like the older MIJ pre-94 ones are supposed to sound better and it was the changes post 94 in the components as well as component quality that has contributed to it's reputation of being thin, fizzy, and trebly and generally unpleasant gain character.
So my intention originally was to build the pre-94 version with some of the mods that are an amalgamation of the mods from Keeley, Analogman and Monte Allums.
Well that got thwarted when both of the obsolete SIP TA 7136AP opamps I rolled the dice on Ebay turned out both to be duds. Fakes, or duds, whatever, they didn't work in the pedal. Fortunately, I thought ahead and planned for that possibility and soldered in a DIP 8 socket anyway, so as soon as I popped in a 4558 it fired right up.
The second issue I ran into I'm still scratching my head on. Like most of Aion's older boards, there's an alternate clipping section on a toggle where you can have both the stock clippers and one alternative. The pre-94 MIJ clippers in this pedal were the 1S2473's which are unobtanium. The main feature being that they have a fairly high vF and clip at between 1 and 1.2v. To simulate that I tried "stacking" a 1N914 + a BAT46 which got me to around 1.02v.
For the second set of clippers I used a pair of red diffused LED's.
The problem is, the clipping toggle doesn't work and I'm not sure why. I've had the thing apart a couple of times, tried some different configurations of using the pads but I can't get it to do anything. I have a feeling I'm just not using the pads correctly as it's not very intuitive but gave up.
So I'm not exactly sure what clipping I'm hearing but I have an idea.
One of the other mods I did was the "Big Muff" mod, in that with a cap and a couple of diodes, you can turn add another pre-op amp clipping stage like a Big Muff.
So the signal gets clipped before the opamp amplifies it. It could be that this is the clipping thats actually coming through since my post opamp clippers don't seem to be working.
I may take one more shot at figuring out what's going on with the clipping toggle but here's the irony, it sounds pretty darn good the way it is!
I'm not sure if it's just the BMP clipping that I'm hearing or what.
Anyway, it's been a bit of a frustrating project but I'm digging what I'm hearing. I think it sounds pretty darn good with all the mods. Lot's of rich harmonics and a rather dynamic pedal. It's still a bit bright but that brightness is easily tamed with the tone control or turning on my Clandestine Preamp after the DS-1.
I did a demo of how it sounds, just some noise making and turning knobs. I also threw in some sounds from my Boss PW-2 Power Drive that I posted about here.
If I ever figure out the clipping toggle thing, I'll update the demo.
Here's a shot of the SIP opamp I originally had in there. I ended up with a 4580 in there right now.
) I've up until now avoided the DS-1.Seems like the Boss DS-1 is the butt of a lot of jokes even though I've never played one myself.
I do remember back in the day when Robert Keeley was just starting to make a name for himself selling modded pedals on Ebay, he sold a lot of modded DS-1's and what caught my attention what that Steve Vai bought one, liked it so much, the bought one for his friend Joe Satriani.
But "distortion" was never my thing back then.
Despite the poor reputation, the Boss DS-1 seems like a ubiquitous pedal and Boss sells a crap ton of them. They are very affordable and you can just about get them anywhere.
So when I was looking at the Aion Comet legacy board and reading up a bit on the history of the DS-1, it was an interesting read and I decided to build it.
The AionFX board supports both the Pre-1994 version as well as the post 1994. It seems like the older MIJ pre-94 ones are supposed to sound better and it was the changes post 94 in the components as well as component quality that has contributed to it's reputation of being thin, fizzy, and trebly and generally unpleasant gain character.
So my intention originally was to build the pre-94 version with some of the mods that are an amalgamation of the mods from Keeley, Analogman and Monte Allums.
Well that got thwarted when both of the obsolete SIP TA 7136AP opamps I rolled the dice on Ebay turned out both to be duds. Fakes, or duds, whatever, they didn't work in the pedal. Fortunately, I thought ahead and planned for that possibility and soldered in a DIP 8 socket anyway, so as soon as I popped in a 4558 it fired right up.
The second issue I ran into I'm still scratching my head on. Like most of Aion's older boards, there's an alternate clipping section on a toggle where you can have both the stock clippers and one alternative. The pre-94 MIJ clippers in this pedal were the 1S2473's which are unobtanium. The main feature being that they have a fairly high vF and clip at between 1 and 1.2v. To simulate that I tried "stacking" a 1N914 + a BAT46 which got me to around 1.02v.
For the second set of clippers I used a pair of red diffused LED's.
The problem is, the clipping toggle doesn't work and I'm not sure why. I've had the thing apart a couple of times, tried some different configurations of using the pads but I can't get it to do anything. I have a feeling I'm just not using the pads correctly as it's not very intuitive but gave up.
So I'm not exactly sure what clipping I'm hearing but I have an idea.
One of the other mods I did was the "Big Muff" mod, in that with a cap and a couple of diodes, you can turn add another pre-op amp clipping stage like a Big Muff.
So the signal gets clipped before the opamp amplifies it. It could be that this is the clipping thats actually coming through since my post opamp clippers don't seem to be working.
I may take one more shot at figuring out what's going on with the clipping toggle but here's the irony, it sounds pretty darn good the way it is!
I'm not sure if it's just the BMP clipping that I'm hearing or what.
Anyway, it's been a bit of a frustrating project but I'm digging what I'm hearing. I think it sounds pretty darn good with all the mods. Lot's of rich harmonics and a rather dynamic pedal. It's still a bit bright but that brightness is easily tamed with the tone control or turning on my Clandestine Preamp after the DS-1.
I did a demo of how it sounds, just some noise making and turning knobs. I also threw in some sounds from my Boss PW-2 Power Drive that I posted about here.
If I ever figure out the clipping toggle thing, I'll update the demo.
Here's a shot of the SIP opamp I originally had in there. I ended up with a 4580 in there right now.
