Monday, August 26, 2013

1980s-90s Boss DS-1 OD-2 & SD-1 Effects Pedals

Vintage black label effects, industry standards, made in Japan and Taiwan


As promised, there are no shortage of effects posts. A month-long search for deals on vintage stompboxes yielded over a dozen candidates and the ones that made the cut will be featured. After the MXR Distortion +, I was able to score great deals on three Boss pedals, the DS-1 & SD-1 probably being the OD/Distortion pedals on most players' boards and the OS-2 was said to have a different feel, so one of those was swept up as well.

First thoughts are that the DS-1 is very noisy and the distortion a little muddy. I was hoping to get more of an 80s thrash metal sound with it, but maybe that's why they made the Metal Distortion pedal? The SD-1 has that classic Guns N Roses sound just nailed, but it's also noisy. At first I a bit worried that these pedals were bunk because of the noise, but I've read that the problem is common and many modifications are available to fix it.

The OS-2 is the only one of the three pedals that was made in Japan and the date ties to 1986. The DS-1 is 1990 and the SD-1 dates to 1981, but these pedals began coming out of Taiwan in 1989-90, so I'm guessing 1991 with some serial number referencing getting lost in the conversion. The OS-2 was putting out a sound close to that MXR pedal mentioned above, so I'll probably pair it with the DS-1 and put the SD-1 on a board with the MXR.

Thanks for looking, more high-resolution photos here.

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