Have a Boss SD-2 and think the Crunch Channel Stinks? Mods for Dual Overdrive

[nicksorenson]

If anyone owns a Boss SD-2 Dual Overdrive pedal you probably like the Lead channel but hate the Crunch channel (at least that was my experience).

Anyways, if what you hate about the crunch channel is that it's flabby and not quite enough gain here's one solution:

-Want More Gain?? Increase the value of R36 (feedback resistor). Stock is 10k. I used 68k and it was just right for me.

-Want tighter and less flabby?? Change C28 which is the tone shaping on the feedback loop (Stock 4.7uF electrolytic) to a lower value for less low end = tighter overdrive. I used a .47uF electrolytic with a a switch to turn on a 1uF in parallel for a little extra fatness. .47uF was nice and tight. I would have been happy with just that. But the switch makes it 1.47uF total which is still much smaller than the stock 4.7uF but a little more bass than the .47uF. The rule is just go smaller than the stock value if you want less bass/flab. 4.7uF was WAY too flabby for my needs. .47 really tightens it up. You could probably go up to around 2uF and keep it tight. .47uF and the switch to add another 1uF in parallel seemed to do it for me.

Nice to give back once in a while. Hopefully that helped someone. I know my sd2 Dual Overdrive now has two useful sounds instead of just an awesome singing lead channel. The crunch is now a very good rhythm overdrive sound (nice and tight). Very cool pedal now (especially for the price).

Enjoy!

If anyone needs to see the schematic what I used is the first Google result I found (and what helped me to see what I was doing while tweaking).