Boss DS1 (LED indicator Mod)

The Very First thing i did to my DS1, was to change the Colour of the Status LED. its not really a Mod per say because it does not affect the sound of the pedal in any way, shape or form. However, if we're going the mod this thing we may as well change it and make the pedal a bit more unique.

from the pic below you can see that the original LED is a 3mm Red LED which is fitted to almost all Boss compact pedal. they are cheap and readily available so for a company that produces thousands of pedals per year every penny you can save counts.

I opted to go for a defused 5mm Blue LED that would stand out from the crowd of average DS1's and also stand out on my pedal-board. to get it to fit properly you will have to drill out the original hole with a 5mm drill bit, which is pretty easy to do then you will have to resize the LED stand post to the correct length so that the LED sits in the hole at the right height. once you open up your DS1 it will become clear to what you have to do & this mod only talks about 20 minutes of your time.

As you can see the LED i installed looked like its factory fitted, no need for a holder or Chrome bezel and the result is luminosity of Blue.

Getting Started on Modding the DS1

here is a picture of some progress as i mod the DS1, as you can see the important tools i need are all there. I'm talkin about my bottle of 'V' energy drink, its proved to keep me going even when my hands just want to give up. i also have some old underwear handy so i wont damage my desk, its important to use old underwear because its the basis of good tone.

Modifying The Boss DS1 Distortion Pedal (Entry No.1)

The Boss DS-1 Pedal has been around for decades and gives us a rather basic distortion tone for todays standards. most people will buy the pedal thinking they can pull off all there favorite bands distorted tones, however, after some tweaking the control knobs in time as our ear develops the pedal seems to sound a little thin and we notice its more like a one trick pony.

Now, this is not a bad thing the pedal does what its designed to do and back in the day that distorted tone was cutting edge. The Pedal is a good sound for what it is and we can't expect it to perform miracles. After all its an old design and sells for roughly $40 USD street price.

So, what do you when you have outgrown your DS-1 or have received a DS1 for a gift and like the general gist of the tone but wish it could be a little more on the bass side, more mid heavey or a little more modern. well.... you modify the circuitry & get what you want.

If you know how to use a soldering iron the battle is almost won, changing out parts/components is a simple task and can give you exactly what you want the revive the old DS-1 Distortion pedal.

I started this blog so that i could document the various changed My DS-1 pedal has gone through to keep track of exactly what i have done for future reference in case i need to change anything back. I also decided to do this as a blog so aspiring modders can learn from my mistakes & Success to keep an online reference on the various mods i find along the way.

In my next blog i'll provide a few links to other peoples mod pages so we can get started on our journey to modify a Boss DS-1 Distortion Pedal.