- Build Rating
I briefly owned the actual Boss version of this a while ago. They are readily available, fairly cheap brand new, and super cheap used. So with this circuit, going DIY is absolutely about the love of DIY! I remember being not terribly thrilled with it, and sold it fairly quickly. But when @Guardians of the analog came along with his build of the Distortion Surpreme, my interest was renewed. As soon as Effects Layouts made the Distortion Supreme available, I bought one. I sat on it a while, until @VanWhy's excellent build report got me motivated to finish this.
I shamelessly stole @VanWhy's design concept, also using Mega Man (because it's the MD-2 Mega Distortion). I too used 2SK209-GR SMD JFETs, because I had some on-hand. The build doc calls for 2SK170, which are no longer made. LSK170 appears to be the modern replacement JFET, but those are over $6 each at Mouser. 2SK209 looks to actually be a reasonable substitute here.
Other than the JFETS and 1N4735 (6.2v Zener) diode, it's all common parts I had on hand. Lots of parts and a densely-populated board, but otherwise unremarkable. The smaller board at the bottom is my CMOS-based relay bypass; this is the SMD version that was made by JLCPCB. I've been using this bypass circuit in almost all of my recent builds, it's a great, super-simple implementation of a soft-touch (momentary) relay bypass scheme.
As for the sounds: better than I remember! Nice tight drive, at least at the lower gain settings. It gets way too high in drive for my tastes (might find some random use for that I suppose), but with drive up just a bit and (mid) boost up towards 10:00 or so, it's a great hard-rock tone, that keeps its composure wonderfully. The sustain is really impressive - at least as good as a Big Muff, maybe even more. If you stack it into another drive, you basically get infinite sustain. Low gain it won't really do. You can of course turn the boost and drive all the way down, but that sounds pretty anemic IMO; this isn't the pedal you buy or build for low gain! But for what feels like fairly versatile upper mid-gain, with the capability of doing some brutally heavy stuff - this is definitely worth some consideration.
Edit: I meant to include a link to this: Guitar Pedals Visualized: Boss MD-2. What's interesting is that it shows the "boost" knob is specifically a mid boost knob. And I suspect that's why I find this pedal to have a pretty "tight" sound, at least the way I have it set (drive around 8:00 or 9:00, boost around 10:00 or 11:00).
I shamelessly stole @VanWhy's design concept, also using Mega Man (because it's the MD-2 Mega Distortion). I too used 2SK209-GR SMD JFETs, because I had some on-hand. The build doc calls for 2SK170, which are no longer made. LSK170 appears to be the modern replacement JFET, but those are over $6 each at Mouser. 2SK209 looks to actually be a reasonable substitute here.
Other than the JFETS and 1N4735 (6.2v Zener) diode, it's all common parts I had on hand. Lots of parts and a densely-populated board, but otherwise unremarkable. The smaller board at the bottom is my CMOS-based relay bypass; this is the SMD version that was made by JLCPCB. I've been using this bypass circuit in almost all of my recent builds, it's a great, super-simple implementation of a soft-touch (momentary) relay bypass scheme.
As for the sounds: better than I remember! Nice tight drive, at least at the lower gain settings. It gets way too high in drive for my tastes (might find some random use for that I suppose), but with drive up just a bit and (mid) boost up towards 10:00 or so, it's a great hard-rock tone, that keeps its composure wonderfully. The sustain is really impressive - at least as good as a Big Muff, maybe even more. If you stack it into another drive, you basically get infinite sustain. Low gain it won't really do. You can of course turn the boost and drive all the way down, but that sounds pretty anemic IMO; this isn't the pedal you buy or build for low gain! But for what feels like fairly versatile upper mid-gain, with the capability of doing some brutally heavy stuff - this is definitely worth some consideration.
Edit: I meant to include a link to this: Guitar Pedals Visualized: Boss MD-2. What's interesting is that it shows the "boost" knob is specifically a mid boost knob. And I suspect that's why I find this pedal to have a pretty "tight" sound, at least the way I have it set (drive around 8:00 or 9:00, boost around 10:00 or 11:00).
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