# Boss DS-1



## fractal33 (Nov 23, 2021)

Earlier today I ordered some boss ds-1 clone boards from Aion and about an hour later my buddy came over with a DS-1 and said he would trade it to me for making him a pedal(which I was going to do anyway). Serendipity I suppose. Anyway, it is made in Taiwan and has thru-hole components. An online serial decoder says it was made in '04. Just wondering if there are any go-to mods for this thing I should try out. A quick google search is showing me the Keeley mod. Does anyone have experience modding a DS-1?


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## Barry (Nov 23, 2021)

Send me your email. I got a spread sheet of a few I tried


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## bifurcation (Nov 23, 2021)

Barry said:


> Send me your email. I got a spread sheet of a few I tried


Share with the entire class! 😜


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## Barry (Nov 23, 2021)

bifurcation said:


> Share with the entire class! 😜


I'll gladly share with whoever wants, trust me there's not much there there, I just have an issue with broadcasting it on the web


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## Chuck D. Bones (Nov 26, 2021)

The DS-1 has to be the most modded pedal out there.  A Google search will turn up quite a few.  I'll share the cb mod if anyone's interested.


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## fractal33 (Nov 26, 2021)

Chuck D. Bones said:


> The DS-1 has to be the most modded pedal out there.  A Google search will turn up quite a few.  I'll share the cb mod if anyone's interested.


I am interested!


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## Chuck D. Bones (Nov 26, 2021)

The mods I did are in 3 places.
1.  Keeley clipping mod.  Replace one of the clipping diodes (D4 or D5) with a red LED.
2.  Tone mod. Replace C11 (22nF) with 47nF.  Replace R16 (6.8K) with 3.9K.  This gets rid of the dreaded mid notch.
3.  CB voice mod.  I've seen other people mess with the gain and biasing of Q2, the gain stage in front of the opamp, but no one made Q2's gain or freq response switchable.  Until now.  Replace R9 (22Ω) with 470Ω.  Add a SPDT on/off/on toggle switch and wire it so that it adds either a 22uF or a 2.2uF (or neither) in parallel with R9. With 22uF in parallel with R9, you get the same gain as the stock pedal.  With 2.2uF, you get a tighter bottom end.  With the switch in the center position, you get less gain and very little, if any, distortion in Q2.
Almost forgot: I increased C2 from 470nF to 2.2μF and C3 from 47nF to 1μF.  Fattens up the bottom end.  I used tantalum for C2 & film for C3.

The other thing people like to do is reduce R13 and increase C8 for more gain when DISTORTION is dimed.  I didn't bother with that mod because I think the DS-1 has plenty of gain already.


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## fractal33 (Nov 26, 2021)

Chuck D. Bones said:


> The mods I did are in 3 places.
> 1.  Keeley clipping mod.  Replace one of the clipping diodes (D4 or D5) with a red LED.
> 2.  Tone mod. Replace C11 (22nF) with 47nF.  Replace R16 (6.8K) with 3.9K.  This gets rid of the dreaded mid notch.
> 3.  CB voice mod.  I've seen other people mess with the gain and biasing of Q2, the gain stage in front of the opamp, but no one made Q2's gain or freq response switchable.  Until now.  Replace R9 (22Ω) with 470Ω.  Add a SPDT on/off/on toggle switch and wire it so that it adds either a 22uF or a 2.2uF (or neither) in parallel with R9. With 22uF in parallel with R9, you get a little more gain that the stock pedal.  With 2.2uF, you get a tighter bottom end.  With the switch in the center position, you get less gain and very little, if any, distortion in Q2.
> ...


Not gonna lie I’m pretty excited to hear from you specifically. What a great group of helpful people we have here. Thanks Chuck!


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## Barry (Nov 26, 2021)

Chuck D. Bones said:


> The mods I did are in 3 places.
> 1.  Keeley clipping mod.  Replace one of the clipping diodes (D4 or D5) with a red LED.
> 2.  Tone mod. Replace C11 (22nF) with 47nF.  Replace R16 (6.8K) with 3.9K.  This gets rid of the dreaded mid notch.
> 3.  CB voice mod.  I've seen other people mess with the gain and biasing of Q2, the gain stage in front of the opamp, but no one made Q2's gain or freq response switchable.  Until now.  Replace R9 (22Ω) with 470Ω.  Add a SPDT on/off/on toggle switch and wire it so that it adds either a 22uF or a 2.2uF (or neither) in parallel with R9. With 22uF in parallel with R9, you get the same gain as the stock pedal.  With 2.2uF, you get a tighter bottom end.  With the switch in the center position, you get less gain and very little, if any, distortion in Q2.
> ...


I'm going to have to modify my spread sheet to fit this one in


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## eh là bas ma (Nov 30, 2021)

https://www.diystompboxes.com/DIYFiles/up/Build_Your_Own_DS-1_Distortion.pdf
		


This document might be usefull. It is the most exhaustive work I could find on this subject.

I partialy did the mondo mij version, p.18, (with a switch instead of a blend knob), and it really sounds great.

I think i will do the Phlat mod p.24 soon, looks interesting and simple enough.


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## Diynot (Dec 1, 2021)

@fractal33 i believe wampler has an article out there, maybe from an issue of guitar world, that I used some mods from. And as a cross over from one of your other threads here, there a few spots you can circuit bend a ds-1 to get the JHS synth mod








						Boss DS-1 Mods
					

Follow along as the Wampler Pedals leader shows several tweaks you can easily make to personalize your orange box of rock.




					www.google.com


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## Chuck D. Bones (Dec 1, 2021)

That's the one!


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## Bio77 (Dec 1, 2021)

I think Aion's build doc does a pretty good job of summing up the most useful mods.  The mods that are listed for his board will translate to the actual DS-1 or you can search for these online.  For my ears the best DS-1 is a silver screw with the TA7136P.  I'd recommend that one for the Aion board if you can get the TA7136P, BYOC used to have them.


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## Matmosphere (Dec 1, 2021)

I gutted mine and put a Rat into it a few years back. 

Not saying the DS1 is a lost cause, but I’ve never liked it much.


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## fractal33 (Dec 1, 2021)

Haven't built the clones or gotten around to modding my DS-1 yet, but I'm starting to wonder if there is something wrong with it or if it just sounds the way it does normally. the tone knob is mud until like 2 o'clock and the output is extremely quiet compared to my other pedals. Is this normal?


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## Coda (Dec 1, 2021)

fractal33 said:


> Haven't built the clones or gotten around to modding my DS-1 yet, but I'm starting to wonder if there is something wrong with it or if it just sounds the way it does normally. the tone knob is mud until like 2 o'clock and the output is extremely quiet compared to my other pedals. Is this normal?



The DS-1 was designed to drive an amp into distortion. It was designed to go into an amp already a bit overdriven. Think of it as a distortion boost.


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## Chuck D. Bones (Dec 1, 2021)

The output is fairly low compared to most pedals.  You can definitely get above unity.  The stock Tone control is the weakest part of the circuit  IMHO.  Try the Tone Mod I mentioned above.  If you change one or both clipping diodes to red LEDs it gets louder and less compressed.


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## fractal33 (Dec 1, 2021)

I'm thinking about building an Aion clone tonight or at least starting one. Going to make some notes on the build docs and probably socket a bunch of parts to try some of these mods out. Thanks, everyone!



Chuck D. Bones said:


> The mods I did are in 3 places.
> 1.  Keeley clipping mod.  Replace one of the clipping diodes (D4 or D5) with a red LED.
> 2.  Tone mod. Replace C11 (22nF) with 47nF.  Replace R16 (6.8K) with 3.9K.  This gets rid of the dreaded mid notch.
> 3.  CB voice mod.  I've seen other people mess with the gain and biasing of Q2, the gain stage in front of the opamp, but no one made Q2's gain or freq response switchable.  Until now.  Replace R9 (22Ω) with 470Ω.  Add a SPDT on/off/on toggle switch and wire it so that it adds either a 22uF or a 2.2uF (or neither) in parallel with R9. With 22uF in parallel with R9, you get the same gain as the stock pedal.  With 2.2uF, you get a tighter bottom end.  With the switch in the center position, you get less gain and very little, if any, distortion in Q2.
> ...


Chuck, what would be the best way to go about wiring the caps in parallel via a switch? One lead of each of the caps connected to the net of R9 and Q2 emitter, and the other leads on lugs 1 and 3 respectively, and ground on lug 2? Sorry brain not so good.


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## eh là bas ma (Dec 9, 2021)

I built the comet from aion, with mod 1 & 2. I think a TL72 sounds better than a RC4558 in there. I tried to upgrade it with an OPA2134, but I can't really feel any improvements, maybe slightly less gain with pot fully CW... I wonder if it would change anything in the sound if I try the vintage op-amp TA7136P. Has anyone tried both ?


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## Chuck D. Bones (Dec 14, 2021)

fractal33 said:


> Chuck, what would be the best way to go about wiring the caps in parallel via a switch? One lead of each of the caps connected to the net of R9 and Q2 emitter, and the other leads on lugs 1 and 3 respectively, and ground on lug 2? Sorry brain not so good.



Yes, the way you describe will work.  I did it this way. Same result because C100 is so much bigger than C101.  Note: the stock soft-switching is not shown in the schematic below.


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## fractal33 (Dec 15, 2021)

Chuck D. Bones said:


> Yes, the way you describe will work.  I did it this way. Same result because C100 is so much bigger than C101.  Note: the stock soft-switching is not shown in the schematic below.
> 
> View attachment 19918


Ahh I see that makes sense, but I never would think to do that.  Thanks Chuck! Going to try and work on this soon... got sidetracked running down a hum in my used marshall 2203 reissue I got online recently. Excited to throw this in front of it!


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## jeffwhitfield (Dec 15, 2021)

I built an AionFX Comet and, while it was pretty good, it just seemed like it didn't quit capture the same sound as a Boss DS-1...especially a modded one. I ended up picking up a MXR Custom Badass '78 Distortion which is spot on. That's my DS-1 placeholder for now.


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## fractal33 (Dec 15, 2021)

jeffwhitfield said:


> I built an AionFX Comet and, while it was pretty good, it just seemed like it didn't quit capture the same sound as a Boss DS-1...especially a modded one. I ended up picking up a MXR Custom Badass '78 Distortion which is spot on. That's my DS-1 placeholder for now.


When you say modded, what mod are you referring to? I honestly am less than impressed with the DS-1 I have but I get that it isn't one of the good mojo one's from pre 94 or whatever.


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## jeffwhitfield (Dec 15, 2021)

fractal33 said:


> When you say modded, what mod are you referring to? I honestly am less than impressed with the DS-1 I have but I get that it isn't one of the good mojo one's from pre 94 or whatever.


It replicates the Keeley mods to a good degree. Definitely not a stock DS-1 for sure.


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