great

i like it

It's a DS-1

My first pedal. Probably most people's as well. It does the DS-1 thing. If you want mindless distortion and bleeding ears, it will do that.

Don’t Listen to the Haters

Like many other beginner guitarists, I needed a distortion pedal to rock out with my new, electric guitar and amp. Otherwise, I’d be stuck playing Ventures with only a clean sound! Not knowing anything about signal chains, this was the first-ever pedal I picked up, and when I got home, I immediately plugged my 9-volt adapter into the wall, hooked up this pedal, and thrashed away with this raw tone!

Nowadays, I don’t use it as much anymore, due to the fact that I’ve found some better distortion/fuzz boxes to mess around with (ProCo Rat 2, Behringer Super Fuzz, Op-Amp Big Muff, etc.).

A major complaint people have with this is that this works more in line with other Boss products like the Super Overdrive SD-1 and Blues Driver BD-2, unlike most distortion pedals. But, because of that overdriven quality, I believe it offers more versatility and almost works like an OVER-overdrive.

Being one of the cheapest Boss pedals in the market, you can instantly achieve guitar tones like Kurt Cobain, John Frusciante, and even Prince! In fact, my used DS-1 was manufactured on September 2004, around the time Green Day released their album, American Idiot, which happens to use the same exact pedal!

Even though this pedal receives some backlash from pedalheads, this served as the stepping stone for me to dive into the world of guitar effects!

Preferred Settings + Usage:

From Gear Setup

A Legend for a Ridiculously Low Price!

When someone says "distortion," the sound of the DS-1 is immediately what comes to my mind! It's the classic transistor-style distortion from the 80s. It's been used by countless artists, from Kurt Cobain and Gary Moore to the Red Hot Chili Peppers 🌶 and many other modern players.

It's suitable for almost any genre, from blues to hard rock, and you can even make it work for some metal. It offers a wide palette of sounds: with low Gain, you get a light bluesy crunch; at medium settings, a dense grunge-style distortion à la Nirvana; and at maximum, a fuzzy, wild, and chaotic sound that can be really interesting for experimental genres.

Preferred Settings + Usage:

Amazing

Truly the pedal of all time. My first guitar pedal, and I can apply this pedal to any genre that uses distortion.

Learn how to use the controls on your guitar to compensate (1.5 stars).

Brittle and thin dense distortions, has some good settings, not enough to justify it. Just get something like an OD from boss, a Klon, or tubescreamer, you'd get more out of them.

Recommendation: (1) Stack gain stages (play it with other distortion or overdrive pedals), or into a dirty amp.

Good points: (1) Matching the level of your amp, in a low setting of tone, with next to zero distortion pushes your amp just enough to really give a good sound whether the sound is in the breakup, crunchy or distorted on your amp. (2) Built like a tank.

Bad points: (1) 75% of the tone knob is unusable. (2) To get some flexibility you have to use your tone and volume knobs on your guitar.

A classic, though very sensitive to what amp you use.

This is a pedal that needs no introduction and one that enjoys the same level of recognition that the Tube Screamer has. If you look hard enough you might find it in your dad’s closet.

It sounds great at any distortion levels, which is by far the most usable knob that you’ll find in this pedal together with the level control, because the tone is a hard beast to tame and one of the reasons why this pedal is often so unfairly rated. At higher levels, the tone can sound extremely thin and shrill so the actual range of it is much smaller than you might think making this a far less versatile pedal compared to something like a Proco RAT. This is also dependent on your amp, because in my solid state amp (Boss Katana MKII) the tone control was usable up to 2-3 o’clock, while in the vibrato channel of my Fender DRRI it wasn’t as soon as you got past 11 o’clock.

Now that the DS-1 Waza craft is out, I see no reason to get this over it except if price is a concern to you, in which case you might want to consider a RAT 2 unless you absolutely want the sound of a DS-1. Overall a great pedal, and a classic for good reason.

Preferred Settings + Usage:

Decent effect

What to say? It is an iconic effect, used by many artits in many songs. There are better distortion pedals, but this one does it well and has a good build quality, feels sturdy to use on stage.

A Bit Overrated Pedal

I know this might be a controversial opinion, but I think the Boss DS-1 is a bit overrated. Don’t get me wrong — it’s a very good pedal, used by countless legendary guitarists, and it definitely has its place in music history. However, it just didn’t work as well for me as I had hoped. Maybe my expectations were too high, but the sound simply didn’t click with me. That said, I really like it when used with low gain, where it delivers a more pleasant and versatile tone. It’s still a great pedal, especially for those who enjoy that classic distortion sound.

Much maligned and underrated in equal measure

So this is the second DS-1 I've had in my life. First one was when I had my keytar, and had the bright idea of futzing around with guitar pedals with a synthesizer. ...Turns out that 17 to 18 year old me didn't exactly have the best ideas. So I got rid of it.

Flash forward to today - I have been looking for a distortion sound that plays nicely with my chosen overdrive, the Boss SD1. My bassist buddy (and long time collaborator) had one of these things lying around in his office.

So, after "permanently borrowing" it from him, I slotted it into my pedal chain and was amazed that after a fair bit of fettling with the settings, I can get an amazing distorted tone very close to the guitar tone I had in my head when I first thought about becoming a guitar player myself.

As always, it's a Boss stompbox. These things can survive any and all abuse thrown at it.

The only thing that is keeping this thing from the five star rating is the finicky nature of getting it dialed in.
But in the up side, when paired with my Orange Tiny Terror, and giving voice to my SG, it sounds pretty damn good!

Preferred Settings + Usage: