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

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

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

Mainly, it doesn't add enough tone or low end for my current tastes and sometimes it feels a bit hollow

There is a whole world of great tones to be found out there if you keep your eyes open

For the price, this is a great pedal, sound by its self may be a little thin, but mixed with an Ibanez tube screamer, the tone is amazing

No reason to buy boss anymore, unless you don't want to improve tour tone and do something differently...

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

This pedal has a much nicer tone to it, not to mention 2 distinct distortion modes.

This will get you those classic distortion tones or in the general ball park

By backing off the output ("volume" knob) from the guitar, you can get some good rock tones, at a variety of distortion levels.

The tone on the DS-1 can get very bright, but as I indicated I play with single coils, and I have no problem finding sweet spots on the tone knob - I generally run it around 9-

Love it, good dirt, good tone!

I use it as a lead boost, but by itself it's a nice overdriven tone that you'll find plenty of use for.

The I setting is pretty much a higher quality DS-1, the II setting is a brighter, richer tone.

Buy it and experiment with the gain and settings and find your favorite tone

Very muddy tone

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've never heard a bad tone out of mine

Seriously, if you're looking for a simple, set and forget distortion that has a good basic tone for rock and metal, the Boss DS-1 is a great value

Set tone on 9 o'clock, gain at 3 o'clock and output to full, nice, creamy and very responsive

Used heavily in the 70's for classic rock tones, also in the 90's and beyond for tons of grunge and garage.

3 Knobs: Distortion (Dist.), Tone, and level

The DS-1 DOES NOT warm up the tone in your amp

It is very diverse and full of great tones

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.

This pedal is great, not only because it has great tone, but also because of its extreme cheapness

the tone sounds great, but it stopped working about a week after I got it which really made me mad

You can mess with the TONE and DIST dials all you want, but there has to be dozens of other affordable pedals, and even on-amp distortion, with a richer, deeper tone

With a vintage Peavey 30 watt with heavy reverb and some creative delay, it's a great solo tone for what I'm doing, and gives me plenty of drive if I need to just rock out with some power chords.

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

With this pedal, I have to crank the level to make the clean tone the same level as the distorted tone.

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