this pedal is a steal - look around and find a used one for a good price

If you have a guitar, this pedal is a necessity for the best price of all pedals out there.

One thing for sure is that the price is hard to beat, and as others have noted, Boss sound effects pedals will last long after you have gotten tired of them and sold them at the garage sale

Amazing pedal for a great price, would recommend to anyone looking for cheap distortion.

Been building up my pedal collection, and came across one of these at a great price

If you are new to effects pedals, this product is definitely worth your time.

I highly recommend this product who looking for a gear.

All I wanted to say is that Boss in general makes awesome products and this is one of them

2nd defective product item in a row

If you like other pedals, it's great, but trashing this product just because you don't like it, it's kind of not fair

That said, if you have a tube amp or play guitars with humbucking style pickups through decent solid state amps, you may like it

No pedal is going to make a crappy solid state amp and $300 guitar sound fantastic

I tried it on both my amps (My practic amp: a solid state Fender Frontman 25R, and my big amp, the B-52 AT100, which is a 100w tube halfstack

Not to be used alone (bad bad bad solid state).

Physically, the pedal is a tank, I don't think they can be killed as I let my 16 year old use

If you want a basic, solid, well-built distortion pedal, this is it -

The casing is strong, the build is very sturdy, and the effects are clean

burn I like os1 better.

If you want a basic, solid, well-built distortion pedal, this is it -

Out L (Mono), R (1/4 phone type), Master Out L, R (RCA pin type), Individual Out A, B (1/4 phone type), Digital Out (coaxial), USB, CTL 1/2 jack (1/4 TRS phone type), CTL 3/4(EXP Pedal

I can use this and turn up the tone to play a tone filled, dirty Mötley Crüe song, and on the other side, I can turn it down and get a deep rumble and play some Black Sabbath and anywhere in between

But as a platform for great-sounding mods, you can't go wrong.

Don't get me wrong, I have some nice boutique pedals and mods (like the Cusack Screamer and the Keeley MT-2) that I would never part with

It's the most popular and effective mod for this DS1.There are many videos on YouTube about this simple great mod

This effect sounds really good through a fat cab or a larger amp that can let the cabinet give the tone a little color

No pedal is going to make a crappy solid state amp and $300 guitar sound fantastic

It is not a terribly loud pedal and it will not make a crappy amp sound decent

(I mean, it's a good amp, but not like those nice tube amps)

It doesn't really make a solid-state amp sound like a tube amp, it's just a very honest distortion

This pedal will give you a decent vintage sounding crunch (think AC/DC) through your amps clean channel

It has that classic crunch tone that you'd get from an amp cranked to 11

For those looking for insane crunch, this isn't for you.

The way that this one kind of gargles with the super trebly crunch of the Jet City is just perfect

so if your struggling getting a good crunch from your amp id highly recommend this pedal

there is virtually NO coloration to your tone) to high gain metal stuff, with plenty of great overdrive and rock tones in between.

It may be useful for some lead guitar, but the sound is very 'fizzy' and thin sounding- not a rich, complex tone by any means

i like to turn the tone down a little and the distortion up a little.

It can give a great Classic Rock & Rock n' Roll tone, or even a heavier, Pantera-like tone

Without the excessive hum and almost-unusable tone control, this would get 4 stars.

Why pedals that make your guitar sound like a piece of junk are the most popular is beyond me

Physically, the pedal is a tank, I don't think they can be killed as I let my 16 year old use

and I have a much better guitar and amp and a lot more knowledge.

and it gives a very messy noise, but then roll down the tone and limit the distortion and it becomes a fantastic sounding stomp box that gives great depth and feel to even the cheapest, crappiest chinese plywood guitar

I am teaching myself to play and I wanted to make my guitar sound like some of my favorite rockers

It turned my Boss DS1 distortion into a fantastic, way more expensive sounding pedal

It's the same sound as the original orange DS-1; that classic solid-state distortion that's a little noisy, heavier than the SD-1 or those Tube Screamer type pedals

It distorts sound, not quite the way you would imagine though

It doesn't really make a solid-state amp sound like a tube amp, it's just a very honest distortion

Great sound if you looking for a distortion and not sure

If you want a basic, solid, well-built distortion pedal, this is it -

This is an excellent distortion pedal for people who want a traditional rock sound

classic distortion is good but it sucks volume and is really noisy, i guess you get what you pay for

If you love classic rock from the 70`s turn the distortion to half-way and you will love this pedal

This is not a boutique Distortion pedal like Hendrix would use

Great pedal if you're looking for that punk-meets-noise/college rock kinda sound from the 90's

Even If you love 90`s alternative rock turn up the distortion all the way and you will love this pedal and guitarists are still using it in 2014

The sound it puts out is very balanced: you can get a subtle overdrive-like sound out of it, or a high-gain hard rock/80's metal sound out of it.

If you love 80`s hard rock or hair metal turn up the distortion anywhere from 3 quarters of the way up to max and you will love this pedal

The DS-1 gives me almost everything I was looking for for the music I play (Heavy Metal and some Classic Rock)

Musically, it has enough gain to cover almost anything you would want to play accept for something like crappy black metal or some other non-musical noise

Physically, the pedal is a tank, I don't think they can be killed as I let my 16 year old use

but not so heavy that you can do modern metal if running into a clean amp - if that makes any sense

tough built (metal), simple, but delivers quality and wide distortion sound, from hard to soft, as you set it

there is virtually NO coloration to your tone) to high gain metal stuff, with plenty of great overdrive and rock tones in between.

The ds-1 is a no-frills tank of a pedal; it was designed to withstand a direct nuclear blast as well as Michael Moore stepping on it, so you know it can take any amount of punishment you might care to give it.

It's the same sound as the original orange DS-1; that classic solid-state distortion that's a little noisy, heavier than the SD-1 or those Tube Screamer type pedals

although it does not give as much distortion as the BOSS DS-2 or MD-1, the BOSS DS-1 give you a great sound with small amounts of feedback for the cheap price of about 40 dollars where the DS-2 and MD-1 cost

As the DS-1 completely overshadows the DS-2 in popularity, you can find DS-2's all over ebay for very cheap prices.

Like many people one of my first pedal purchases was the DS-1.

My main reason for posting this lengthy review is to give newer players some information.

That pedal isn't ideal either, but if I turn the knob all the way to "distortion", it's a much better tone than I ever got out of a DS-1.Then again, it is very dependable and usually only $40 (or less), so I can't really give it a bad review because it probably does belong in everyone's collection.

I often find many of the negative reviews come from people who are using substandard equipment to begin with

It it doesn't make sense, there are ample Youtube reviews you can check out before pulling the trigger.

For your convenience, and so you can get a perspective what this pedal is all about, I will break up my review into several parts: (1) functionality (weighted value: 40%), (2) quality and built (weighted value: 30%, (3) value (weighted value: 25%), and (4) appearance (weighted value: 5%).(1

Musically, it has enough gain to cover almost anything you would want to play accept for something like crappy black metal or some other non-musical noise

It has never crapped out, never made any weird noises, never done anything different from exactly what it did 20 years ago.

It can give a great Classic Rock & Rock n' Roll tone, or even a heavier, Pantera-like tone

and it gives a very messy noise, but then roll down the tone and limit the distortion and it becomes a fantastic sounding stomp box that gives great depth and feel to even the cheapest, crappiest chinese plywood guitar

Musically, it has enough gain to cover almost anything you would want to play accept for something like crappy black metal or some other non-musical noise