Skip to content

a blog on effects

Menu
  • Home
  • collection (486)
  • Ibanez (111)
  • Danelectro (53)
  • DOD, Digitech (51)
  • Electro-Harmonix (40)
  • Boss (54)
  • Other Brands (177)
Menu

Boss DS-2 Turbo Distortion

Posted on 19/09/2014 by mirosol

Boss-DS2

What is it?
Boss DS-2 Turbo Distortion from compact pedal series. Made in taiwan, february 2003.

Probably the best known as Kurt Cobain’s distortion of choice. I had to get one out of pure interest. I sourced all the Nirvana CDs as used ones last spring. Since there are now expanded reissues out of each and every one of those, one can score the original CDs for pennies. Sure there’s some nostalgia in there, as i (and probably half of planet’s population within certain age range) did listen to those records a  lot when i was in school. I think Nirvana’s grunge was the last “boom” of guitar music to reach an audience as huge as it did. Of course there were a few bigger attractions after it too, but nothing as huge (Green Day’s Dookie craze, scandinavian action rock, etc. etc.). Anyway. As i listened through the discography, i felt like it would have simply been the sound of AC/DC-styled marshall stack maxed instead of somewhat puny DS-2. But as the internet lets us believe, Cobain was apparently a fan of Fender amplifiers. And those aren’t exactly known for their powerful overdriven tones, so the sound had to come from somewhere else. Ok, ok. I promise. No more talk about Cobain on this blog. There’s a schematic up at distortionpedals.org.

Boss-DS2-guts1

Modernish traces and the board looks rather full. If we look at the schematic, we find at least four gain stages and as most interesting single feature – no opamps. All the distortion is coming for all discreet design. Two JFETs and two BJTs do create sort of a discreet opamp for the distortion control. In addition of those, we see soft and hard diode clipping stages. The circuit does remind me a bit of the design inside BD-2 Blues Driver. Only remind. The similarities aren’t that notable. As features, we have the standard gain/tone/level setup. Plus something called a Turbo mode. The electronic turbo switch seems to add a lot of punch to the first gain stage. One can use a latching remote switch to toggle the mode on and off.

Boss-DS2-guts2

The electronic and board design, build quality and, well. Everything else is on par with the whole Boss catalog. Not super interesting, but i see nothing wrong with it either. Nice box.

How does it sound?
Like a machine that transforms squeeky clean amp to a Marshall stack with everything maxed (or with all settings louder than everything else). Two modes are for high gain distortion, or even higher gain distortion. With the gain setting one can get rather Marshallesque overdriven tones as well, but the brightest shine is still on when that control is maxed. All the controls have sufficient, usable ranges. The amount of distortion isn’t has high as for MD-2 Mega Distortion, but still high. There is slight overdrive-style mid hump present, which without a doubt a feature. This pedal doesn’t sound bad at all. It sounds pretty much  the same as the guitars on those Nirvana albums.

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

/usr/bin/locate

/usr/bin/whoami

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.

Found an error? One of my assumptions is dead wrong? Something else is just not right? Let me know! Leave a comment to a post, or drop a line to mirosol at kapsi dot fi.

I do mods, repairs and custom builds too. For inquiries, use the email address above.

/var/lib/collection

  • Electro-Harmonix (40)
  • DOD, Digitech (51)
  • Other Brands (177)
  • Boss (54)
  • Danelectro (53)
  • Ibanez (111)

/var/lib/tags

Amp Autowah Bass Boost Booster Chorus Compressor Delay Distortion Echo Envelope Filter EQ Filter Flanger Fuzz Harmony Loop Modulation Noise Gate Octave Overdrive Phaser Pitch Power Preamp Reverb Special/Multi Synthesizer Tremolo Tuner Utility Vibe Vibrato Wah

/usr/lib/comments_recent

  • zix on DOD FX55-B Supra Distortion
  • Ali Imran on Ibanez MF5 Modern Fusion
  • Ali Imran on Ibanez MF5 Modern Fusion
  • Schlunzo on Ibanez MS10 Metal Charger
  • Jefferson on Ibanez MS10 Metal Charger

/var/lib/archives

  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • September 2015
  • June 2015
  • May 2015
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
  • February 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014
  • September 2014
  • August 2014
  • July 2014
  • June 2014
  • May 2014
  • April 2014
  • March 2014
  • February 2014
  • January 2014
  • December 2013
  • November 2013
  • October 2013
  • September 2013
  • August 2013
  • July 2013
© 2025 | Powered by Superbs Personal Blog theme