GAS Relief - And maybe some questions..

[Kremlin]

Well, today I went down to the store to grab a pack of strings and walked out with the strings, a bad horsie, a BOSS DS-1, and some tweed covered cables. Agh.. I need someone to take my debit card away from me!

Anyways, it's all working GREAT, except the BOSS DS-1 doesn't sound quite how I remembered.. I don't remember it sounding this shrill! I remember it was bright and I had to keep the tone knob at around 9-10 o'clock, but it seems much brighter and less pleasant sounding than when I borrowed one from a friend a while back. Any tips or suggestions?

[sixstringphoenix]

1.) About the GAS: it's incurable.
However, if you were left-handed (and played left-handed, like me) then your GAS would be considerably less! :laugh:

2.) About the DS-1: Your friend might have had one of the mystical Japanese ones. Apparently they are smoother-sounding. I've had no experience with them; my Taiwanese (or whichever one is common now) one works just fine. If that is not the case, you must be hearing things! :silly: I don't have any idea what could be the cause.

Shades of EJ: I remember one night when I was rearranging my pedals on my board (I had just taken a few off), and when I plugged everything back in, my distortion sounded different. It just didn't sound quite right; I can't remember how. Turns out it was because I MOVED the DS-1! :loco:

Good luck,
-Justin

(Edited by sixstringphoenix at 10:44 am on Oct. 14, 2001)

[Kyle Odom]

Although a great pedal, the DS-1's tone is very dependant on your preamp and preamp settings. *It's got to be in front of the amp instead of the effects loop. *If you are putting it into a clean preamp and you use a bright clean sound then it's going to be a little sharp. *Same if you are using it to overdrive an already driven preamp. *I generally use the tone knob on my DS-1 at 9:00 as well, but when I use it, I have a specific channel on my Triaxis that's pretty dark sounding. *The problem is, I don't like the tone knob at less than 9:00.
Justin has a point too that supposedly the Japaneese DS-1's of old have a much better tone to them. *I can't speak from experience, because I, like Justin, just have my more modern pedal, and it works out for me, with some tweeking. *Make sure it is after your Bad Horsie in your chain, but you probably already knew that.
What amp are you using and are you using it for a gain boost on a lead channel or just as distortion on a clean channel?
Hope that helps,
KO

[Kremlin]

Thanks for the responses! I've already discovered that my DS-1 is a pretty quirky little pedal.. I initially had major problems with feedback, and couldn't figure it out.. Later on when I turned the whole thing on I didn't have any feedback at all. It turns out, it was interfering with my computer, which was on the first time. Must be all that crazy-fast stuff I have in my puter, right? :biggrin:

I'm using it as distortion on my clean channel (the distortion on my Mesa Boogie Mark IV is great, but the DS-1 does a beautiful job of fattening up FRED pickups) and I do like my clean channels pretty bright.. For clean tones I usually prefer single coil pickups, so when I use humbuckers I end EQing to taste quite a bit.. Thanks for the suggestions, I'll try tweaking with the amp a little more.

Anybody here have a scanner and a Japanese DS-1? I'd be curious to see how the innards compare.. It wouldn't surprise me if the only difference is that some cheaper (and probably harder to find) transistors are used in the Japanese version.