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Okay, so it's not a madbean build, but yall have been giving me advice in the general forum, so... yea.

It took me 15minutes to close this thing because boss in the 90s just liked to rats nest their wiring and I didn't wanna replace literally everything in it, so I don't have a gut shot, per se, but I threw the book at this thing and it paid off. Riffing off the internet's version of keeley mods, I replaced the following parts:

C1: 100n film
C2: 1u film
C3: toggled on/off/on - 440n, 100n, 1u; all film
C5: 100n film
C7: 220p ceramic
C8: 1u film
C9: 1u film
C11: 47n film
C12: 100n film
C13: 100n film
D5: 3mm red diffused led + 47p ceramic parallel
R13: 2.4k
R14: 1.5k
R35: 2.4k
R39: 20k
Switch: normally open momentary foot switch
LED: 5mm red diffused
Power: swapped in an "outie"

Removed the battery and rewired the power to be direct. Had to augment ground wires to the jacks as a result to test, but it worked!

The rest are pretty much the keeley seeing eye mods as found on the internet, which have some degree of variance, albeit slightly. All EXCEPT:

C3 is what lets this get pretty fuzzy. Even 100n (stock is 47n, I think, and Keeley didn't change this) darkens it up slightly and nicely for a distortion, but the further north you go the fuzzier it gets - the left switch is stock center, fuzz bottom, fuzziest top. This might make it great for lead work. I think wampler showcased this in a video, and I went all in for it. 

The so called synth mods are... fine. lol. I'm wondering if these keeley mods actually messed with how the synth mods work, but I'm not sharp enough to figure it out. Toggle in the middle of the pedal turns them on, toggle on the right is on/on/on and goes through the varied mods. They're a bit unpredictable in mine and therefore I think I'll be leaving them off, but I do like to add noise here and there for texture, so I'm glad they're at least there and toggle-able.

I notice in bypass it's a little fatter than direct - attributing this possibly to the change in c3, which I believe is part of the buffer circuit, and the fact that I did not make this true bypass. It honestly doesn't sound half bad, lol - but at some point I might need to address it. If I wind up liking the sound, I might throw together an actual board that's not so messy with a 3pdt true bypass.

Anywho, here are the pics I have:

Welp; it's done - for better or worse (but actually, better). Boxing it up alleviated any noise in bypass, but there's still a little bit the higher the distortion, which isn't abnormal for pedals in my house (will see how things play in our practice spot).

I'll throw a very lame build report into that forum of what I changed - the guts are a MESS, no thanks to Boss in the 90s, and it took me 15minutes just to seal it up, so... yea, no gut shots, unfortunately. Thanks for all the tips and encouragement!

I was debating a generic 3d printed box for testing this stuff. I think you're right about RF tho. I'll play it by ear. If it's noisy, well... I wasn't using it anyway lol.

I've got this ALMOST ready to box up - just have to drill the enclosure and wire up the fuzz and synth switches.

Before I do that - I went to test it last night and everything worked, but there was a high pitched hum/hiss when not in play - like the grounding was wonky or something. I checked all the solder points and made sure it wasn't the guitar or something else in the chain. When I touch the sleeve on the guitar side, it helped but didn't solve. I'm HOPING it's because it was just un-enclosed and picking up some room lights or something, but on the off chance someone may know something I don't ...

Is this a "thing" with this pedal? For all I know it's been doing it the whole time and I just haven't played it in so long I didn't notice lol. (I've had this thing for at least 25yrs and haven't played it in at least 20, outside of a quick "does it still work?" moment before modding when I wasn't paying attention).

Any tips on what to look for before I just call it and box it up anyway?



(An aside, the mods actually do sound pretty good - replacing c3 with 3 switchable options lets this get into fuzz territory with some articulation that I wasn't expecting and will be fun to play with. In normal mode, it's definitely a more rounded out distortion - I haven't tried the synth stuff yet, but I'll do a demo when I'm done.)

Decided to get the board going while I wait on a couple caps and resistors. Just gonna do the keeley mods - was originally gonna socket em, but life's too short.

Of course I ran out of 2k2, so had get a parallel situation going at r10 - worked great with that open space.

Trying to use up some enormous 47u electros in c28 and c27 cause I'll have a little room with the 125b and really just want them gone.

What I thought was a 100ka in my stash was actually a 100kb, and I only had a 9mm 100ka, so got creative to make that work with some perf board and leads, as well as making the 250ka dual gang - this lets me have a little play, but keeps things relatively stable when I'm tightening everything up.

Once I get the foot switch board and enclosures I'll be good to go (I even have some 10kb trimmers - BUT, if in a pinch for future, I assume a 20k is fine, it'll just be harder to hone, yes?)

Thanks again for all this!

Ah; see this is what happens when you don't pay attention, hehe...

I'd need 2 of them... and could always shoot a Zelle payment or something... just PM me details.

I gotta wait for my tayda order with my enclosures anyway, so I have a little time before I'm boxing em up. ;-)

Dumb question - I just got a couple blue steel boards.

I did not get any boards for 3PDT switches and was just going to wire it "classic" - which makes me think that I need to manually add a resistor with the LED, where it used to be on the main board and is no longer (or at least so far as I can see in the schematic).

Can someone verify please?

Very cool. I built a Keeley DS-1 from perf and pcb layouts. I need to mod my actual boss DS-1.


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Nice - It's definitely more to get something out of a thing that I never even consider using. Unlike its blues driver and overdrive siblings, I have just never connected with this thing, so why not, right?

I went down this journey years ago and eventually gutted my DS1 and put a Rat into it's case.

I think I saw that thread! lol... but I already have 2 runts and 2 homebuilt RAT clones with 8 different clipping modes. I'm also weird in that I've never really been into the Boss pedal enclosure - though noting it does have its place and is iconic in and of its own right, hehe - it's just not for me. Also, if I change the parts, add the synths and fuzz options, and still don't like it, I'm out MAYBE $15 in parts (the enclosure being half of that, which I could always reuse for something else after learning the painters tape/JB Weld trick).

I think it *could* sound good through my Marshall, but not my Allen. We'll see. More to follow for sure.

Hi everyone! I'm finally taking the old DS1 that was my very first pedal and that I have always despised and throwing the book at it...

Plan to do the seeing eye mod based on the PDF below (2nd to last page), and will test out some values from evil distortion or tube emulator (first page). (I found the attached PDF online and now can't find where from - please raise your hand if it's yours and I'll give credit!).

I also watched a YouTube vid where c3 was replaced with a higher value cap (somewhere around .5u to 1u) to change it into a fuzz, which I'm VERY interested in.

I'm thinking to incorporate a few switches, if I'm able - a toggle to activate the synth mods (pages 5, 6 and 7), which I'll manage with a separate on/on/on, and another toggle possibly for the fuzz vs. DS1.

I'll rehouse the whole thing into a new 125B (or at least attempt to). What's my goal? Turn it into something interesting I might actually want to use instead of sitting in a drawer... and I mean, this pedal building/modding is supposed to be fun, right? hehe...

My question to y'all - is there anything in this PDF that's off-base? Also - what are your mods that you've done that I should check out? Is there something better than the Keeley Mod? I'm open to suggestions!

Thanks in advance if you've got some ideas!

Welcoming to the ever-expanding number of pedals in my arsenal: the Distortion 3 (squared - cause there's 2). Thank you [mention]Bret608 [/mention] for the suggestion.

I really dig this pedal and the possibilities within it - pretty sure this is my first 6 knob circuit in a 1590B, so that was certainly an adventure, but it's all board mounted and not hard at all. I had a lot of the parts on-hand, and had to order only a few - I had to parallel some caps, too, but it's works. You can't see the pots, which I fake-board mounted using lug pots with twisted leads to get everything in line and otherwise used standard 9mm pots cause I had em. I also socketed the 1n34a diodes so I could play a bit - one of these will keep it stock, the other gets D9Vs. It all worked out!

The VFE board was interesting - the pads were slightly smaller than I'm used to and sort of sunken a bit, so I was always paranoid I didn't get great solder contact. While I was originally thinking I'd just go the route of a 3pdt, I decided to go all-in with the switching board, which is certainly cool and definitely silent in the signal, but it was more effort than a standard 3pdt for me. Wiring it to the main board was pretty easy, though, and I like the trimpot for the LED to dial that in perfect. (I think the LED is too close to the knob if you use a bezel, so for future ones I might move that down a little at the expense of not being right above the pads on the board).

With any pedal I've ever made I try to make them look like toys, so I like a colorful, simple enclosure and Davies knobs - I can always figure out what knobs do what later. I miss Mammoth if for no other reason than they had the best powder-coated enclosure colors just ready to go. For one of these, I sprayed a bare enclosure the seafoam green color as best I could (and with really good paint, but we'll see how long it lasts, hehe), and the other is plain white from stomp box parts. The 1510 knobs I had on-hand, and the white ones are modified Davies 1900s I resized, modded the sides to swoop downward and then 3D printed.

Overall, I'm stoked to add it in. It's a cool pedal!

Hey folks - going back a decade or so here and found myself with a self-etched egghead that used the old drill template with the battery (you can see it on the left side in the yellow enclosure - I forgot to take a before pic of the seafoam green one I augmented).

Decided since I don't use batteries and having the switch further from the pedals is better than closer to them, I would modify.

I've done this before where I put a jewel lens where the switch went and moved the switch down - the jewel lens has a weird size nut (9/16-24, and half of the ones I got don't even fit that), but this time I had a 3D printer, so I was able to make the proper nut for this thing finally. I also added a holder for the LED in the bolt. Used a yellow, which you can't see well in any picture, but it does look kinda cool...

You can't see the tiny daughter board with the resistors for the LEDs cause I heat shrunk it up and hid it under the power, but it made it so much easier to work 2 LEDs. It's a little messy still, but I did what I could to keep from fussing things up too much in there - it IS an antique at this point, after all, hehe.

The egghead was my first foray into etching boards myself, which... was a lot. lol. The wired pots, the LED that needs a direct connection (plus resistor) to the 9v, the STEREO jack connected to a battery terminal... brought back memories of excitement at trying something new - and succeeding! BUT... I never loved this pedal til now - it might be cause I swapped to humbuckers in my guitars and it finally plays nice with everything. Either way; I'm glad to have it up and working again - even if it is a little messy inside still.

Alright here's the alignment "fork" part.

Tried to make it as condensed as possible for really narrow control spacing.

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It should also be large enough to accommodate 22mm knobs

Still thinking about the block portion whether to have a screw anchor or whatever.

Ooooh, looks great! Yea, a bolt and block would be good. One side angled slightly for enclosures with an angle (I think they're usually the same angle?), and one side straight otherwise. I just made a 9/16-24 nut for a rehouse project I'll post about in the builds thread, but I looked up how to use Blender and this bolts plugin they have - it was pretty easy to follow and make something once I knew the conversions (of course, my 'bolt', which was an amp LED jewel housing, was ever so slightly TOO big, but I was able to get it after a few tries). Even modded it to hold the LED in place. Yea!

Could be easy enough to make a block that way maybe?

I guess my question, as someone that barely knows how clipping diodes work, is: will I ruin a part around these diodes if I tinker, or is there a range of forward voltages that I should be staying within to ensure the 914s remain intact and I don't blow out the ic ?

Tinker away, you can't hurt an IC by swapping out passive parts.

FYI, LEDs have a very high forward voltage (~1 to 3 V) compared to silicon (~0.6 V) and Ge (~0.3 V).  In a feedback loop, LEDs give you more gain; in clipping to ground, LEDs will give you less clipping and more output volume. 

This is exactly what I found to be the case! Tried out a few iterations this morning - the DV9 edged out the 1n34a, but I liked the BAT41 and the LED was ... I don't know, crunchier? less controlled? Wasn't great, but in actuality they were all in the same buffet. I was able to get a bit more clarity from the DV9 than the others given my amp, so that's the winner here - but if I ever get my hands on some D9x variations, 1n60p or 1n4678's, I'll definitely tinker further...

Thanks for the help, folks! Now to print all those knobs I need for these pedals...

Looked at the Dist 3 schematic, and if you've got the means I'd breadboard it test out what you'd like.

I've tried red LEDs in a tube screamer (landgraff), OD-1 (YATS' father), and a honey bee, but those are soft clipping scenarios. Scratching my head where I've done it in hard clipping configs. Maybe I tried it in a D+/250? Definitely didn't like them in a klone. Kind of strange that I've never tried them in a Rat!

It's one of the mods on a slow loris - I forget which one, but it allows to toggle select between the stock rat 914s and some LEDs. LEDs are louder and meaner for sure (I almost can't use the rat without them, otherwise I can never match my flat signal).

I just tried the DV9s - I might prefer them! Added a bit more clarity and range when I was playing with the levels and knobs (but I am on a jtm45, so they might just not be as bassy as the 1n34a, which makes them a bit better for my instance). Will try some others for sure.

Already built the pedals, so don't have enough parts left to breadboard em - but I did socket those diodes out so I can swap to my hearts content. Gonna leave one pedal stock for comparison.

I guess my question, as someone that barely knows how clipping diodes work, is: will I ruin a part around these diodes if I tinker, or is there a range of forward voltages that I should be staying within to ensure the 914s remain intact and I don't blow out the ic ?

Thanks [mention]jessenator [/mention] and [mention]mauman [/mention] - that's very helpful!

What about LEDs? I know I like those a lot in the RAT... think they'd play nice?