Anyone have any DS-1 mods other than fuzzcentral?

[scottosan]

I've followed it to a tee and am not really digging the sound at all.  Does anyone else have any mods?

[SnooP_Wiggles]

indyguitarist/wampcat sells mod sheets...dunno if theres any others around...

[MartyMart]

scottosan, try this :
C3 to .068 rather than 0.1 for less bass "mud"
R14 leave as is, else there's toooo much distortion, from .....
......3mm red LED and 1N4001 for clipping diodes

This combined with the rest of Phillips mod should sound great.
Worked for me with a PV classic 30 and a Matamp C7 valve head/cab

I dont need the "Dist" pot passed 1 o'clock, too much :-)

Marty.

[scottosan]

scottosan, try this :
C3 to .068 rather than 0.1 for less bass "mud"
R14 leave as is, else there's toooo much distortion, from .....
......3mm red LED and 1N4001 for clipping diodes

This combined with the rest of Phillips mod should sound great.
Worked for me with a PV classic 30 and a Matamp C7 valve head/cab

I dont need the "Dist" pot passed 1 o'clock, too much :-)

Marty.

So does the R14 change the characteristics of the distortion also?  Looking a the top of the board the c4 stock diode has neegatice side pointing toward the input jack and the led only lights up with the negative pointing the opposit direction.  I have tried alot of different diode, led, ge combinations in different configurations, but with the stock diod still in it.  So what is the best c4/c5 combo as far as diode type and direction.

Thanks

[MartyMart]

D4 and D5 are the clipping diode pair, on the board   -->l
                                                                          l<--
negative side of LED connects to >l   side, its the larger bit of metal inside the LED to negative side, smaller bit of metal inside is positive.
cathode and anode
On a new LED the "longer"  pin in positive, shorter pin negative.
Try a pair of 3mm LED's or my favorite 1 3mm  LED and 1 1N4001 diode.
If you have those switched, it wont "distort" correctly at all ! which could explain your "nasty" sounding mod ?

R14 when reduced just increases distortion, but I didn't like the result.
It doesn't change the "tone" though.

Cheers,
Marty.

[scottosan]

D4 and D5 are the clipping diode pair, on the board   -->l
                                                                          l<--
negative side of LED connects to >l   side, its the larger bit of metal inside the LED to negative side, smaller bit of metal inside is positive.
cathode and anode
On a new LED the "longer"  pin in positive, shorter pin negative.
Try a pair of 3mm LED's or my favorite 1 3mm  LED and 1 1N4001 diode.
If you have those switched, it wont "distort" correctly at all ! which could explain your "nasty" sounding mod ?

R14 when reduced just increases distortion, but I didn't like the result.
It doesn't change the "tone" though.

Cheers,
Marty.

We I was up all last night modding again and I came up with some wierd compnent values but I like the sound.

Outside of the fuzzcentral mods, I did the following values.  Note, these were just trial and error, no science involved.  I'm still trying to understand value interaction

c1- .001uf
c3- (2).33u in series
d5- germanium 1n34a
d6- 1n4148
r2- 620k
r14- I stayed with the 2.4k

My big question is on c1 I went from stock 0.047 to .1 to .001.  The first values had way to much bass "flub"  I tried the 0.001 out of desperation and it seamed to put things into check.  Can someone explaint ot me what this did the the frequency by using the .001uf in C1?

[petemoore]

Well if it's not in a Boss Box or your'e very good at cramming extra pots ;n stuff in, check out AMZ Lab Notebook.

[MartyMart]

Scottosan,
              I'd have to ask "what amp/guitar" are you using ?
I can't see that you'd have such a huge "Bass" problem, to have to resort to lowering C1 so much !!
Changing C3 as i said before, to 0.068 should be enough, or even leave that stock, for less "bass" throught the drive section.

Did you try D4/D5 as LED and 1N4001 ?
Cheers,
marty.

[scottosan]

Scottosan,
              I'd have to ask "what amp/guitar" are you using ?
I can't see that you'd have such a huge "Bass" problem, to have to resort to lowering C1 so much !!
Changing C3 as i said before, to 0.068 should be enough, or even leave that stock, for less "bass" throught the drive section.

Did you try D4/D5 as LED and 1N4001 ?
Cheers,
marty.

Thanks for your reply.  You absolutly correct. I didn't have a .068 on hand, so I used (2) 0.033 caps in series(Ithought this would make 0.068uf, but its actually 0.0165uf).  At the time I didn't realize the screwup.  At that point, I didn't have any issues with excessive or lack of bass. After that, I like the tone, but the amount of distortion was just to much andwhen I hit the strings hard it would just peak past the limit. Then in desparation to tame the gain.  I started trying different values in some of the early stage caps and resistors. Not expecting any good to happen, I put the .001 in c1.  Much to my suprize it mellowed out the distortion tamed the highend andI didn't suffer any substantial percieved bass loss.  Somehow these off the wall cap values are altering the gain characteristics and I don't know what to think of it. Interestingly enough, i think this is the best I've got it to sound.  I will post some coundclips later tonight.

[scottosan]

Scottosan,
              I'd have to ask "what amp/guitar" are you using ?
I can't see that you'd have such a huge "Bass" problem, to have to resort to lowering C1 so much !!
Changing C3 as i said before, to 0.068 should be enough, or even leave that stock, for less "bass" throught the drive section.

Did you try D4/D5 as LED and 1N4001 ?
Cheers,
marty.

Also according to my math the corner frequency for a .001 cap with a 620k resistor would be 250hz. I don't think the lowend is suffering too much, but it did wonders for the gain characteristics.

[MartyMart]

according to my math the corner frequency for a .001 cap with a 620k resistor would be 250hz. I don't think the lowend is suffering too much, but it did wonders for the gain characteristics.

Thats cool, if you've found changes that are good for you/your rig !

Thats what its all about  

Marty.

[modmod]

Scottosan,
              I'd have to ask "what amp/guitar" are you using ?
I can't see that you'd have such a huge "Bass" problem, to have to resort to lowering C1 so much !!
Changing C3 as i said before, to 0.068 should be enough, or even leave that stock, for less "bass" throught the drive section.

Did you try D4/D5 as LED and 1N4001 ?
Cheers,
marty.

does it matters if D4/D5 as LED/1N4001 or 1N4001/LED ?

[MartyMart]

Scottosan,
              I'd have to ask "what amp/guitar" are you using ?
I can't see that you'd have such a huge "Bass" problem, to have to resort to lowering C1 so much !!
Changing C3 as i said before, to 0.068 should be enough, or even leave that stock, for less "bass" throught the drive section.

Did you try D4/D5 as LED and 1N4001 ?
Cheers,
marty.

does it matters if D4/D5 as LED/1N4001 or 1N4001/LED ?

No, they are the "Clipping diode pair" so either way won't make a difference to the "break up" as signal passes through both, one direction then the other.
....unless someone has a technical reason why it would be otherwise ??

Marty.

[TheBigMan]

I just did a DS-1 mod.  I went for:-
C1,C3, C5, C13 0.1uF
C2, C9 1uF
D4, D5 1N34A

Quite happy with that so far, I'm thinking of adding a softening cap across the diodes and messing a bit with the tone control to dial out a little more of the harshness.  The germanium diodes provide a much nicer tone to my ears though.  Much less harsh and nasal.

[MartyMart]

I just did a DS-1 mod.  I went for:-
C1,C3, C5, C13 0.1uF
C2, C9 1uF
D4, D5 1N34A

Quite happy with that so far, I'm thinking of adding a softening cap across the diodes and messing a bit with the tone control to dial out a little more of the harshness.  The germanium diodes provide a much nicer tone to my ears though.  Much less harsh and nasal.

That sounds great BigMan, I've never tried them in a DS-1 but have one + 2x1N4148 in my old SD-1, which sounds great.
I'll give that a shot, BTW did you notice a volume drop ?

Marty.

[TheBigMan]

There's slightly less gain at full bore, but I don't run it that high anyway.  No real volume drop that I noticed.  Increasing the values on the coupling caps definitely improves the thickness of the sound.  I like the more compressed tone of the 1N34As in the DS-1, haven't tried them in a feedback loop clipper though.  Might give it a go, I've got a TS-5 with three way clipping (1N4001/4148, diode lift, LEDs) that I could use.

[JIG]

I have a newer Tiawan model. Can't find C1 anywhere!

JIG

D4 and D5 are the clipping diode pair, on the board   -->l
                                                                          l<--
negative side of LED connects to >l   side, its the larger bit of metal inside the LED to negative side, smaller bit of metal inside is positive.
cathode and anode
On a new LED the "longer"  pin in positive, shorter pin negative.
Try a pair of 3mm LED's or my favorite 1 3mm  LED and 1 1N4001 diode.
If you have those switched, it wont "distort" correctly at all ! which could explain your "nasty" sounding mod ?

R14 when reduced just increases distortion, but I didn't like the result.
It doesn't change the "tone" though.

Cheers,
Marty.

We I was up all last night modding again and I came up with some wierd compnent values but I like the sound.

Outside of the fuzzcentral mods, I did the following values.  Note, these were just trial and error, no science involved.  I'm still trying to understand value interaction

c1- .001uf
c3- (2).33u in series
d5- germanium 1n34a
d6- 1n4148
r2- 620k
r14- I stayed with the 2.4k

My big question is on c1 I went from stock 0.047 to .1 to .001.  The first values had way to much bass "flub"  I tried the 0.001 out of desperation and it seamed to put things into check.  Can someone explaint ot me what this did the the frequency by using the .001uf in C1?

[MartyMart]

I have a newer Tiawan model. Can't find C1 anywhere!

JIG

http://www.pbase.com/martymart/image/36532354

C1 is just next to R1 and "R40" ( which is upside down ) at the top of this photo !  

Cheers,
Marty.

[JIG]

Thanks! It was pretty late last night when I was looking. Must have stared right at it :shock:

JIG

[Mark Hammer]

I recommended the following to a guy over at Ampage who wanted some DS-1 mods:

The picture of the board indicates that the two diodes responsible for the clipping action are D4 and D5, which are located exactly in the geographic middle of the board, smack between two big caps and an FET (Q7, a 2SK30, probably labelled K30).

For the least coloration possible, you probably want to not only lift the diodes to eliminate clipping, but also bypass the tone control since it introduces some coloration even when you try to make it as clean/normal-sounding as possible. The simplest fix here seems to be to cut the connection between C12 (0.1uf) and R16 (6.8k). I'll explain why.

The tone control is set up very much like the Big Muff Pi tone control. In the BMP, the signal is split before the tone control so it goes through a simple highpass and simple lowpass filter. The tone control then pans between the outputs of each section to produce combinations of lowpass and highpass output. Lifting the connection between C12 and R16 (while leaving R16 intact) would mean that when your tone control is turned all the way towards the bass end, it would take all the output of what used to be the lowpass filter (and which is now full bandwidth) and pass that on to the volume control. There is still a path for the highpass section via the other side of the tone pot, but for a variety of reasons, what has to pass through there will end up contributing very little to your tone when the tone pot is fully bass-wise. On the other hand, as you start to turn your tone control towards the treble side, you will keep your low end and especially your lower mids, and simply add in more high end for a bit more bite.

Apparently, the guy liked it:

I just tried the mods you suggested(Lifting the two clipping diodes and cutting the connection between C12 and R16). WOW! I can't believe no one has mentioned this before! This pedal had gone from a crappy-sounding POS that I couldn't give away to what may be my new favorite pedal. This modded DS-1 is the best boost pedal I've ever used. Crazy but true. I would HIGHLY recommend this mod to anyone looking for a great clean boost that can also add some crunch if you turn it up. It does not sound anything like a DS-1 after this mod.

Obviously, this mod has appeal to those who want a booster and not to those who want a fuzzier or scoopier DS-1.