Over-compressed DS-1 - help!

[beatstrat]

Ok - so after a yr or so of lurking, I have a question.  I modded my Boss DS-1 with the usual cap swaps, etc, and for D4/D5 I have an 1N34 in D4 and two 3mm red LEDs in D5 (LEDs in series - correctly polarized).  The pedal works fine and sounds great (if a DS-1 can in fact sound great!), but when I goose the front end of the DS-1 with a boost pedal (be it my compressor, EQ, or AMZ mini booster), the notes compress and sag like crazy - especially the lower freq notes - then the sag "releases" and the note sings/sustains just fine.  If it was a smaller amount of 'sag', I wouldn't care and it might be seen as cool, but it's too much (according to me).  I realize that compression is a characteristic of the 1N34 diodes, but what I'm hearing is extreme and not just the fuzzy/compression of the Ge diode.  I'm not *killing* the front end with a huge volume boost from the other pedals , just a 'normal'/typical volume boost from "rhythym" > "lead" sounds.

Question: Is this sag/over-compression typical of the two LED in series sound/mod?  I tried a single LED and it seems to me that there is some sag/release going on, but it's much less than with two.  All of my other component values are typical of all std DS-1 mods - resistors, caps, etc.

Any ideas, experience, words would be appreciated.  Thanks.

[gulliver]

Is "sag" a technical term? 

Do you mean too slow of an attack?

As far as the compression...

I recently finished my best mod yet, after many many hours of combinations. I have the two stock diodes in series going in one direction and two LEDs in series going in the other direction. D4,D5, it doesn't matter. This is less compressed than using 2 or 3 diodes. I keep the distortion control pretty low, 9:00 - 11:00. Keep in mind, I have this going into an already distorted amp channel, which I think is what the DS-1 is all about, just adding that extra oomph of gain and clipping.

Hope this helps ... just add a 2nd 1N34 in series and you'll know if it's for you.

[woulfer]

The thing I did to fix this issue with mine was change C3 to a lower value. I tried .047uf and it worked good, until anything boosted in front of it, so I changed again to .022uf. It's easy enough to change these values out so trust your ears and start a swappin'.

[beatstrat]

Thanks, Woulfer - I've got C3 @ .1uF right now, but will lower it and check it out; thanks again.

[MisterTrimpot]

Just change the R7 (a 470k) at the input of the first gain stage to a 180K. It will clean up a little but give more headroom at the input. You can recover the lost of gain by changing the R13 (a 4.7k) with a 2.2k.

It's a good mod for those who play with hi-output active pickups.

[beatstrat]

Thanks, Trimpot - I'll try this too.  This may be the biggest help, as I do have fairly hot pickups but also like to push the front end of dirt boxes for extra 'sing'.