Boss SD-1 Overdrive

Overdrives are often talked about, and I must admit for a long time I was somewhat ignorant. Only in the last year or so I learned how they can be used to boost an amp, rather than for their own overdrive/distortion.

When I pair this with an old Marshal, it makes the amp sound so tight and cutting, the kind of tone I always wanted but for years struggled to get!

These are so cheap, and the impact they have, I believe now everyone should have one! An overdrive can save an amp that sounds too dull or doesn't have enough bite. Set drive to 0 and level to max, and it pushes your amp into a nice and tight, cutting saturated tone.

Highly recommend this!

I?ve been using lots of boutique pedals but I have returned to basics with this pedal. Drive section sounds great especially on a cleaner / at the edge of breakup set amp, but I don?t necessarily use it for this purpose.
It works exceptionally well with darker guitars such as Les Pauls because it removes a lot of the low end before you hit the amp by setting the output gain to maximum. When this low en is removed it gives you a much clear and punchy drive signal.

Lots of boutique takes of this pedal do not cut the low end as much, and they have a much higher output level. But the amount of output gain and low end cut I find that just correct.

This is a classic and it does not need to get fixed. So if you?re in doubt I highly recommend this overdrive.

I bought this pedal to be used as a tubescreamer equivelant to help improve clarity when playing high gain style music. After searching and reading hundreds of reveiws for different pedals of a similar purpose i eventually took a punt with the boss pedal, as they seemed to have a reputation to be extremely well built and with this i cannot disagree especially compared to the cheaper chinese copys. With a solid metal housing and nice feeling knobs.
The pedal serves its purpose with my rig and cleans up the sound improving overall clarity. The pedal does however cut the bass quite noticeably when kicked on which can be lowered by cutting the tone and level knobs.
The gain within the pedal can produce a gritty and dirty bluesy sound when applied to a clean channel but will not produce metal level gains like other pedals as it is only a overdrive , not a distortion pedal.

Overall as a tubescreamer equivelant the pedal is undeniably an option to anybody. It sounds good, does the same job as the tubescreamer and especailly considering the price of the pedal being atleast £40 cheaper than the TS. The only main gripe i have is the colour but thats just being picky

The most important thing to keep in mind when looking for a drive pedal is IF and HOW it affects your natural amp tone.
Compared to a "transparent" drive pedal (Klon type) which acts as a clean boost of that's already there, this one enhances and pushes the mid range, while cleaning up the low end. This behaviour is actually useful in a band playing heavy music, where you want good frequency separation between instruments and add presence to your tone (I hate the phrase "cut through the mix").
One more thing to note: compared to a TS-9, the SD-1 is more aggressive and vicious. Keep that in mind when making a purchase.

For years of playing acoustic, about a year ago starting to play electric, I wanted to get an overdrive pedal to get that nice sound you hear in so many songs. Immediately, I started looking at Boss's pedals because I've heard so much good about them. I'm not disappointed, it is a high quality pedal. First off the build is very...durable? It seems like you could smash it against concrete and it wouldn't break. On the features - there aren't that many, but for the price I'm not complaining, it does it's job. You can get a decent sound of hard overdrive (for playing metal, for example) and it still sounds pretty clear, not just a bunch of chaos. You can also get a nice rock n' roll vibe to the sound, it's great. Like I mentioned, I'm not a pedal expert by any means, but I'd recommend it to a friend, it's a great little pedal.