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Boss SD-1 Super Overdrive

Posted on 11/12/201328/03/2014 by mirosol

Boss-SD1

What is it?
Boss SD-1 Super Overdrive. Made in taiwan, january 2010.

One of these boxes that i knew i had to have, no matter if i like or not. And the answer is not. Must be one of the most sold Roland Boss pedals ever. The design has been on the market since 1981. As the box has already reached 30 years of age without any changes to the design, it must be popular product. If it wasn’t, it wuold have been axed and/or replaced by some other design a long ago. Cool thing about the circuit is that it still looks and feels pretty much like the original japan made SD-1s, even though it’s taiwanese and nearly 30 years younger.

Boss-SD1-guts1

One of my friends has an early 80’s japanese version of the SD-1. According to him, the current production versions sound exactly the same, if not better. Haven’t had a pleasure of trying out really old unit myself. Value of those early 80s versions are through the roof. So i’m kinda hoping that 25000 of these units suddenly break up beyond repair and that 25 years passes very quickly. Maybe then my unit will have more value than twenty european dollars.

The board traces are the same as the photos of old units found on the web. Let’s then take a look at the schematic (from hobby-hour.com). Doesn’t that look a bit similar to something we’ve seen before? With just a couple of component changes (a few values, a 1M pot for gain and asymmetric clipper diodes), and it surely does seem like something really familiar.

Boss-SD1-guts2

Funny. I thought it sounded and felt pretty familiar too. So in fact, it is a slightly modified Tubescreamer with added gain and asymmetric clipping. The pedal is so common that modding it is very popular. No one will ever cry after an original SD-1 because of the mods. One can simply use the mod sheets found on the internet that apply to TS-family.

With just couple of component swaps and one could easily mod this to TS808 specs. Sounds so bad as an idea, that i may have to aqcuire another cheap used unit and mod it to 808.

UPDATE. I did get another from around 2005 in a trade (thanks Kasperi!). And i did mod it to TS808. All it takes is removal of one cap, swapping the places of one resistor and a cap, swapping 25 components to different values (including two pots) and making a few slight modifications to the circuit board. In all, about 30 components need some attention. Doable, but it’ll take couple of hours to perform. I A/B’d the result with my TS9 (as i don’t have TS808, yet), and i really couldn’t tell which one of the pedals was on at a time. So yes. It can be done. Do i recommend it, or is it really worth the trouble? Can’t say for sure, but it feels pretty damn weird to have TS808 sound coming from SD-1 box. After trying the result out, i sanded the SD-1 text off from the label and used permanent marker to tag it as “SD-808”.

How does it sound?
Like a Tubescreamer with slightly more harmonics on the clipping due to asymmetrical clipping configuration. Oh. And lots more gain.  Does it sound better than TSs? No. But it doesn’t sound any worse either. Mid-humping overdrive that keeps slapping you on the top of your head. Doesn’t take good pickups well, jsut slaps you even harder. For P90s with  moderately low output, this shines. As do all the TSs. A classic, but not that great. I do get why some people do like this and keep using it. To me, it’s just another cheap TS alternative in yellow box. Swap the diodes for two silicon ones for symmetrical clipping and you’ll have something that’s close to a Tubescreamer. that’ll cost you a lot less than current reissue of TS9.

After the mods, it is a TS808. I think i want to keep them both.

4 thoughts on “Boss SD-1 Super Overdrive”

  1. Syrus says:
    5/12/2014 at 19:17

    Older post – but – you do realise that the timeline goes like this?
    BOSS OD-1 > Ibanez (Maxon) TS-808 > BOSS SD-1

    The SD-1 is based upon the OD-1 (TS-9 therefore too). For example the c6 mod is a low pass inherited from the OD-1 design, where there was no tone control.

    I own a Raytheon OD-1 and 4 SD-1’s. Stock, C6, Zen and OD808 modded.

    Reply
    1. mirosol says:
      5/12/2014 at 20:21

      You do realise that you are wrong?
      Maxon OD808 was released in 1974 (and the circuit is basically a TS with opamp buffers instead of later transistors), while Boss OD-1 was released in 1977.

      http://www.matsumin.net/diy/bunkai/od-808/index.html
      http://www.bossarea.com/loadpage.asp?file=boxes/od1.xml

      So no. OD-1 was not the first design with clipping diodes in the feedback loop of non-inverting amplifier. Maxon had done it over three years earlier. SD-1 entered the market in 1981. At that time Maxon had quite a few different derivatives of 808 out already.
      +m

      Reply
  2. Jek Jeen says:
    30/11/2018 at 05:14

    Can I buy only PCB board that has modified already?

    Reply
  3. Mike Moore says:
    21/07/2020 at 17:20

    I do not think the sd-1 was designed as a ‘stand alone’ od. That’s why it gets complaints. People buy them thinking they are gonna sound like God then hear the bass go, the mid go up and are not impresssed.Boss has more sophisticated pre-amp boxed for that. These things are meant to go in front of cranked amps in live situations. The most mis-aligned pedal of all time.

    Reply

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here used to be a short description of me. however, it wasn't exactly accurate anymore. so i'm replacing it with this placeholder for now. and yes. it's been a long time since my last post. but let me assure you. i'm very much still alive.

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