Introduction (scroll down to skip this
bit, its kinda boring)
Ahh the DS-1. Marketed as a distortion pedal widely used from
Kurt Cobain to Steve Vai. I'm sure I am not the first person to find
that when they plugged in this hyped up pedal to be disappointed. "A
shredder and tone monster Steve Vai uses this pedal? Bullshit!" I
thought to myself. Ever since that initial disappointment I have gone
on a quest to mess about with the DS-1 to make it sound somewhere
around the 'Good' level at the very least.
It turns out that Vai has his pedals modified by a man by the name of
Robert Keeley. If you live in America you will be charged $75
including return shipping for the mod (thats about £40 for us
English) not too bad for a high-end mod like this, only its $30 extra
for international shipping and more from the tax guy and not
forgetting customs people. They gotta family to feed too right? For a
new DS-1 with the mod its $129 (about £70) which again, ain't
too shabby.
Keeley also has a UK store...how much for a mod there I hear you cry?
Well...as far as I can tell...they don't do mods but for a new boxed
modded DS-1 it is £105. No joke. The components that I bought
for this mod cost me £12 and I bought an ultra-bright LED which
cost £3 in the first place! I'm sorry Keeley UK, you can get
lost, I'm a poor student with too much time on his hands! I used two
shops to get my components, Maplin and Small Bear.
Fortunately, Mr Keeley seems a very cool bloke. He puts this up on
his own site http://www.robertkeeley.com/audio6l6/dstech.html
and freely tells people about the mods. Kick ass bloke huh? Anyway,
this has allowed me (with a lot of help from some electronics experts
I may add) to prepare this step-by-step guide of how to do it. Nice
one Mr Keeley!
There is two things I will be covering in this Pictorial;