4 Boss DS-1 Style Pedals (Boss DS-1, Keeley Ultra Mod, Mooer Ultra Drive MkII, MXR '78 Distortion) 

Nic Burrows it's really great to get responses like this! Makes it all worth while. Thanks

+1 thank you very much for this video, great job!

You're welcome! Glad you like it

It really is very good.

Back in like 2004 I always steamed of having one of those Keeley modded pedals, that literally everyone in the music business said were the best. Then once I got old enough to buy one, I find out he doesn't do mods anymore, which made me sad. Until I realised a lot of his pedals ARE modded DS-1's and tubescreamers etc. Just in his own unique housing with his logo on etc, and with a different name. So that Boss and Ibanez wouldn't sue him I guess I got his modded tubescreamer. Which is the one I always wanted, cos I was such an enormous Stevie Ray Vaughan fan as a teenager (and I still am). And yeah, I've got a bunch of tubescreamers and clones of them, but the Keeley one blows them all out of the water. It is gorgeous sounding So I haven't gotten round to buying his pedal that's literally just a modded DS-1 circuit yet. But I want it. It's the one people like Steve Vai used, they all went to Robert Keeley to get his mods, they're just unanimously agreed to be the best Although now there's more great companies like Keeley. Like JHS for example, they began by modding Boss and Ibanez pedals etc as well, and now make their same modded versions of those but in their own JHS housing and logo and name etc. Exactly like Keeley JHS have just come out with a pedal that's a clone of 9 different ProCo Rat pedals. Not digital imitations, it's a pedal that has 9 different analogue circuits that are identical to the various different ProCo rats over the decades. So you can get an original 80s ProCo rat, a modern ProCo rat, and everything in between. That thing is gonna cost me a lot, but it's a hell of a lot cheaper than buying the original 80s Rats second hand. I love it. Guitar pedals have never been so varied, so widespread, so boutique. I wanna buy some Wampler pedals too. Where he very very very accurately recreates the sound of famous amps, in a pedal. He matches the frequency response very exactly, he uses science, and lots of graphs, to adjust the pedals until the soundwave matches the amp exactly. So I need his pedals too lol. I believe he even has his own Rat clone too But yeah. The ProCo rat has become my favourite pedal in recent years. That thing makes any guitar sound amazing. I can actually use the single coil bridge pick up on my strat for big meaty power chords, because the ProCo rat makes it sound great, and not tinny at all Sorry I'm rambling now

Thank you!

Gracias por las amables palabras!

Thanks - appreciate the support!

'this made me a DS-1 believer' - there is no higher praise!! Thanks

That's very kind of you - thanks! (I secretly think the MXR is the best sounding one for the money here too, but I've only kept the original.)

True, maye

@@ThePedalBored agree! Mxr sounds better!

Thanks! There's several other much better pedal demo channels than mine, I think. Check them out - The Pedal Zone, Knobs, Livingroom Demos, schnobel, and especially Andy from Reverb. I have shamelessly and lazily stolen from all of them!

Haha, I'm subscribed to all of those guys, yet I still can't comprehend how you can give the audience so much useful information in a small amount of time and a small format!

I made an important discovery when I moved the pedals closer to the bottom of the frame - my hands didn't get in the way of the text anymore!

High praise indeed! Glad you like it.

It puzzles me too :)

Crazy, right? I make it in one part of the World, you, someone I’ve never met, watch it in another!

I wonder if they can still be tracked down on Reverb.com? Might take a look.

Glad I could help!

This is a class comment!!! Loved it

@@ThePedalBored , Haha, you have a nice sense of humor. Loved it 😉

Yeah, my Boss Katana is pretty good for just over $100.

Thanks! I try. Though I am slow.

Chris VanWhy Thanks! (Do you mean the 12 Muff High-Speed Shootout, or the Six Muff In-Depth one?) Funnily enough I'm not a huge fan of Tube Screamers! Only own the EQD Dunes. Shot a 'Boutique vs...' video comparing the DrJ Emerald against the TS808DX though - yet to edit it.

The Pedal Bored both the Muff vids were great but I was referring to the in depth one. Cool stuff either way, I look forward to any future demos from you.

Chris VanWhy I'm with you. I've never understood what people see in the DS-1 but the video was really well done

@@thehobbit1116 I couldn't agree more. I own 2 of them and don't use either. 1 is Reverb and Frommel modded I bought CHEAP! It's just a fuzz.

Thanks! (the stock one was my first ever pedal, bought in the '90s)

Thanks. Thanks. And they are, aren't they? (Though not mine, of course.)

I frickin’ ROCK

I have just got hold of my first one! Not sure what to compare it to, though. I don't see a lot of copies or mods of it out there, though I may be wrong...

@@ThePedalBored you could compare it to every other boss overdrive pedal. Because I've never been able to find a good comparison video and the descriptions from Boss on these pedals are so vague that thwyre useless. Like what's the difference between a boss overdrive and a boss super overdrive and a boss blues driver and so on. They've got like a dozen different pedals with "overdrive" in the name and they're all very slightly different to each other. Funnily enough I've found the blues driver is the least blues-like of any of them. It has way more gain than the others, and so metal guitarists use them as a boost going into their amp

Thanks!

Ha! Thanks. Just go 'thumbs up' another of my videos :)

The Pedal Bored you got it.

really annoying and irritating side power plug.

Yes, a lot of people have said that. Is that on its Extra mode?

Love that!

I has too much compression. That is why.

Ah! I've done that before with modulation pedals (seven choruses at once is something you won't want to hear again) but never thought of doing it with drive ones. On the next video!

wow... Yeah, I can imagine 7 choruses would be rough... :)

Levi Jesse I don't think so. It's hard to see the Volume control because it's so small, but I would normally run through the gain range of the pedal with the volume around halfway / unity volume

@@ThePedalBored It's hard to tell with my speakers but would you say it has the most bass out of the other three? That sound is almost exactly what I'm after

As far as I can tell. Seems a bit more cheaply made, perhaps, but then it is a bit cheaper to buy so...

you like the pedal? can you get like fat low end stoner tones out of it? I'm thinking about getting one

It's just a visual signature of Keeley pedals. They have always had blue rather than red on/off LEDs (until very recently - their X-Pedals range is all red LEDs for some reason).

I did for a while, about a year or so ago, when I was checking to see if the volume drop on my '90s DS-1 meant it was faulty, but the same thing happened with the DS-9. Wasn't interested enough in the SD-9 side of it to keep it though.

No worries! I bought on because I figured it would have Keeley takes on the SD-9 (which I am not a huge fan of either) and the DS-1. I just haven't had anything to compare it to so I can tell the difference. I guess it's like you said... for $40, I guess I could do my own shootout! :)

Robert Simpson You've reminded me that I also bought it to compare the SD-9 side to the Vertex Dynamic Distortion which is apparently based on it. The Vertex didn't sound anything like it!

Wow! That is pretty interesting! Did the Vertex sound better or worse to you?

Robert Simpson Just totally different. It claims to be a tube screamer crossed with a fuzz. It's a good pedal and I liked it a lot. Did some comparison videos with other similar pedals (Cusack Screamer Fuzz for example) but have never edited them! Can't remember the sound of the SD-9 side of the DS-9 at all, so I guess I must have preferred the Vertex.

Thanks!

If only I had any high-gain pedals! (Actually I have the Keeley Retro Super Phat Mod, I think that counts.) Point me towards some high gain demos and I can find out if it's my thing...

I think this video makes it sound great :)

Thanks! The music is from my head.

Thanks! It’s just my own composition.

It is indeed.

I'm very glad the first comment was about Elmore Leonard and not about the pedals. I have seen Logan Lucky. It's good! (Not as good as Out of Sight though.)

My brain 🧠 😃

I’m confused - my whole thing is to go back and forth from one pedal to another without needing you to jump around the video to directly compare sounds.

@@ThePedalBored Yep I'm confused too, the levels and tones jumpes around so much, that this isn't a comparison. It was more like a demo

@@b.scottfarthingsworth So, when I switch from one pedal set one way to another set the same way without a gap in between you don't get to compare the sound?

@@ThePedalBored bro I'm not trying to be a jerk, nor am I trying to make up stuff. If I had these four lined up before turning on the camera, I'd have done a playthrough for myself and dialed them all in close as possible so that they sounded as identical as possible. Then the viewer sees that all the settings arent the same but they all do sound as similar as they could from the beginning. I mean I didn't even get to the end because there were so many volume/tone jumps just between pedal two and three, I didn't stick around to hear the Bad Ass because now the 'comparison' between one and two was gone. maybe I need to be patient? I wanna hear a comparison, not 7 minutes of knobs just turning wildly while tones are not comparative. Sorry, I must be alone on this.

I see. You want to compare like sounds, not like settings. Fair enough. That’s just not how I do it unfortunately.

David Durden My own, I think! (Though I feel like it's a little influenced by Califone's 'Wingbone' on Heron King Blues.)

The Pedal Bored very nice Riff

Shhh! Don't tell everyone!

If you love to mod, go for it!

Not a Klon fan especially. Tube Screamers neither. Though I guess not liking something didn't stop me doing a shootout of octave fuzz effects, a type of effect I just don't really understand. Next up in this format I think I'll do a Rat-style pedal shootout.

@@ThePedalBored ah yes, the octave fuzz, the Jean Paul Sartre of effects pedals

Up to you!

Thats why they have volume knobes

Sean Alexander Hi - can you point me to somewhere that backs this up? I know the MXR Distortion+ and the DOD 250 Preamp are very similar circuits but I haven't seen any evidence that the DS-1 and MXR D+ are connected at all...

Sean Alexander Hi - can you point me to somewhere that backs this up? I know the MXR Distortion+ and the DOD 250 Preamp are very similar circuits but I haven't seen any evidence that the DS-1 and MXR D+ are connected at all...

Oops. Must have misread that somewhere.

Shhhh! Do not besmirch my first ever pedal!

@@ThePedalBored I say you post on video on the topic! ;)

I'm sure my lack of knowledge (and the lack of detail in my ear) would be exposed!

I heard somwhere that all Boss pedals are buffered.

Go on then, tell us.

@@ThePedalBored What's funny about that comment is that you are using a distortion pedal correctly (with a pretty clean sound), but that's not a good way to use the DS-1. It sounds better into a slightly breaking up tube amp. A clean solid state/modeling amp...it's going to sound really harsh. So, ironically, you need to dial the DS-1 in more like a TubeScreamer or OD than a typical distortion with the amp already breaking up a little. I also hate these on typical Fender cleans (unless it's a Bassman) ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-9Vz63o-wmXo.html has a better demo of how to dial this pedal in

John Blake You might not think it’s a ‘good way’ but I do. It’s all subjective, right? There’s no proper way to do it.

No idea. I think they sound great. But then I probably have different speakers on my computer to you, a different amp, a different guitar, different ears. You know.

@@ThePedalBored well the treble overload is just there, I see you use a Katana. Never liked a DS-1/RAT into SS or modelling amps and I ride the treble really low.

Nightingale1887 Sure - it's all subjective. Some like it, some don't. I don't have any other amp, like many people - tube amps are disproportionately more expensive. I have to use the tools I've got and find a way to be happy with the sounds I can get out of them. So, you know, it is what it is. Hopefully it's useful for other people who have similar gear. You don't like it, but you've got your own setup that's different that you do like, so it's all good.