Boss DS-1 "fuzz mod" issues (borked pedal)

[danieloneill]

Hey guys,  I was wondering if anyone with more know how than myself could give me a hand with one of my mod projects.  I'm very new to this scene, I modded my old Boss OC-2 with a synth mod I found online, and it's help up really well, no issues. 

I had an old DS-1 that I thought I'd mess around with, and I found this [http://www.instructables.com/id/Circuit-bend-the-DS-1/#step1] mod on Instructables, and started playing around with the DS-1.  I messed around with the mods on the site, did some temporary alligator clip jumps with the mods, and they generally came out like the examples linked off that instructables.

Eventually I soldered the points together shown in the linked picture after doing a bit of touch bends.  It resulted in a sound similar to a zvex fuzz factory.  It was very fuzzy, with a kind of weird characteristic.  When too much treble hit the pedal, (using a Strat, in the bridge position or in the neck position with the tone knob rolled full open), the pedal would "bottom" out / "sag" and there would be no sound, then the sound would fade back in.  In the neck position with the tone rolled all the way off, the pedal was very usable, and had a great fuzzy sound. 

The only thing was, the pedal seemed to be kind of different every time I'd power it up.  Sometimes it acted like there was a noise gate, and there'd be no feedback/sound coming from the pedal until non-trebly signal hit it.  This only happened 2 or 3 times that I had hooked it up, and generally when the pedal had been first turned on.  Over time having the pedal powered up, the gating would go away.  Other times there'd be no "gating" per se, just the fuzzy sound, and the "sag" when signal hit the pedal.  Over time, the pedal seemed to change.  First, I found that the Dist. knob would have to be set in really certain positions for the pedal to do the "sag" correctly.  If it was turned up too high, it would "sag" whenever any signal hit it, no matter the amount of treble going into it.  Over 4 or 5 play sessions after this mod had been done the pedal got more and more touchy until I thought that maybe the mod had been shorting on something it was crossing.  I left the pedal for a bit, then went back to it this afternoon.  It didn't sound anything like it had when I had done the mod earlier, and now sounds nothing like a DS-1 at all.  I cut the mod, and tried it out without the extra wire, and it still doesn't sound like it had before.  It sounds like a fairly quiet OD/distortion pedal, nothing at all like a buzzy harsh DS-1 distortion. 

I had a few questions based on that description and the pictures of where the jumps were soldered.  I've attached a link to a PDF with a few different versions of schematics for the DS-1.  [http://urso94.free.fr/techniguitare_com/Boss%20DS-1%20us.pdf#search=%27boss%20ds1%20schematic%27]

First, connecting the marked sides of C5 to C7 as I did, why would I have gotten a fuzz style sound out of the pedal, and the two types of odd sounds that I got out of the pedal (1- volume sag, 2- "gate").  Why would the sag type sound have been affected by the Dist. pot?  Why would the sag sound have changed over the number times I had the pedal powered up / why would the gate sound only be present when the pedal was first powered up and fade to no gating while it was on.  Finally, could the way the pedal sounds now, under distorted compared to what a DS-1 typically sounds like, be the result of damage to one of the two caps that I connected.

Any information that someone with more knowledge than me could share would be great.

Daniel

[danieloneill]

Another aspect I guess could be useful to note:  at some times, when the gating/sag sound was going, turning the tone knob, around where the pedal went from playable to totally "sagged", it would produce a high pitched hiss/whistle, something akin to the zvex fuzz factory Bias knob being turned.