This ugly thing is my modded Boss DS-1. It
reminds me of the 1st Star Wars movies. Maybe because it just has a
bunch of random knobs all over the place like the control panels in
those films. That and it completely lacks guards rails.
These things are cheap and less than wonderful so I got one with the
intention of modding it. The Keely mods
are of course famous. So, I looked into it here
at the Keely site to get an idea of where to start. I also found these
excellent tutorials from Overdrive
Spider about performing the Keely mods.
I didn't see the sense in changing the caps unless the values were
different. So, I did the cap and resistor mods to different values. The
Keely mods alter the clipping section to either the ALL SEEING EYE or
THE ULTRA. They do sound impressive don't they. Of course you could put
a switch in to get both but I was not satisfied there.
I tried out my own diodes combinations. I really liked the 2 yellow 5mm
LED's the best(I am not sure if yellow is special I just had 'em.) Go
figure. I encourage you if you are modding it to try different things.
Anyway that knob under the tone control is not a pot. It is the tiny
1p6t rotary switch from Small
Bear. So, instead of 2 I have 6 clipping options. I t was a
tight squeeze. I point to point wired it keeping wires short as
possible. Granted some of the differences are subtle(as the distortion
is turned up it becomes less differentiated) between the different
diodes but some of the are quite different. I understand clipping a
little (unlike many other things) so it is fun and easy to play around
with. Something like this can really be used with most distortion
pedals. The only draw back is there is a volume difference between the
different clippers. 4 diodes could be used to keep the volume up. After
the mod is seems less harsh and smoother. I good thing to my ears but
maybe not to yours.
The toggle switch is one of the bends suggested by Overdrive Spider.
Very Sc-fi again. Thanks to him for that. I never thought of bending it
for some reason. When I was kid I thought I was breaking everything
come to find I was being cool and bending it. The one problem with the
bend is it introduces noise which is a good thing for a circuit bend.
But if it is left on and the pedal bypassed you still get noise. Never
the less it is cool.
Here is some schematics of the DS-1 for your refenernce (click to embiggen):
