Visual Sounds VS-XO Dual Overdrive Update.

A little while ago I posted about the new pedal being released from Visual Sound. This is the pedal that has so many of us waiting in uncontrollable fits. Now I've learned that the powers that be have postponed the release of this pedal even longer! I once had hope that it would be released by mid-October. That date has come and gone. Visual Sound had given themselves a window of mid to late October, but recent rereading of their official article on their website reveals they have pushed the date back to mid-November. I've seen some independent music retail website have the pedal for sale for as much as $400. I am very skeptical of these listings and anyone else should be as well. They may be trying to capitalize off the buzz made by the all the pedal-hype and selling the hope to get the pedal (but really pre-selling) the pedal for much more than the actually retail price... Shady stuff...

Still can't wait to actually get one of these pedals to try-out. Once again, if anyone out there has one and would like to send it to me so I can give it a review, then feel free to let me know.

Boss DS-1 Distortion Guitar Effect Pedal Mod

       So there is a lot of mods out there and I would be lying if I told you that I tried them all but I have done a few. Some turned out to be big improvements and others were even bigger disappointments. So how do you know which mod is right for you. Well, I can't really tell you. Maybe you want something completely different out of your pedal, I can't tell you that a mod makes a pedal better or worse. I can tell you which I've done and what I've liked.

       A few months ago I found my self owning a Boss DS-1. Picked it up in a gear trade. I've never been a fan of the pedal. It puts dirt on your signal like a box with the word "distortion" should, but there are complaints with the way it does this. I'm not technically gifted. I'm not going to tell you that it compressed my tone, or sucked it dry, or had some kind of mid-hump/scoop I didn't enjoy. It did seem like the mid frequencies were scooped and that no matter how I turned the "tune" knob I couldn't find a sound that I liked. I've tried the pedal in (bedroom)studio and life setting. I did not like what it did for me. So I then turned to mods to make it do something I did like.

      Research. (Google) so looking into what I should do with this big hunk of orange took some time. I had to find something that I found appealing and seemed like I was capable of. (also the first step could not include "throw pedal away and buy -enter boutique pedal here-") I dismissed anything that said "Metal", or "Crazy", or "Super". I did find a mod that seemed to fit the "make it not sound like crap" requirement. Described  plainly as "vintage mod"

The Mod:

Boss ds-1—Vintage 
Mod Location Mod value 
D5 Led 
C3 .033uf 
R16 1k resistor 
C11 .01uf 
C1, C5 .1uf

     Simple enough. 6 pieces. It took less than half an hour. It made all the difference. The Eq was evened out and the nasty, fizzy distortion was lightened into a more mellow, overdriven amp-type sound. Side by side test proved that the mod had turned a hunk of junk (in my opinion) into something that I'd actually use. The change of the diode really changes "type" of distortion and the resistor and capacitor change the "shape" if that makes any sense. (probably not) The tone knob seems to "work" better. The Drive actually controls the amount of gain the unit produces, unlike before were it just went from a little fizz to a lot of fizz. Level kinda works the same, but the sound sounds more transparent. I even had my non-music playing wife listen and she confirmed the mod made it sound "clear-er" 

    So, if you have a DS-1 That you hate and want something that you don't hate, then do what I did and make your own vintage-y overdrive boosty thing

Boss GE-7 Graphic Equalizer Guitar Effect Pedal Mod

If you are at all familiar with the line up of boss pedals, then you've probably notice their equalizer pedal. If you've used then you may know that it can get a little noisy. Some of this noise is the pedal just amplifying your guitars signal which is going to have a little noise just by its nature. Using a Equalizer is a great way to boost certain frequencies to shape your tone without doing anything else to your tone. It may not turn your twangy tele into a moody jazzbox, but it wouldn't hurt to add it to your chain to fatten up a rhythm section. This pedal has enough flexibility to make you stand out on leads or have a big fat bottom end. No matter what gets moved or replaced on my pedal board I always keep my handy GE-7 around. So if this is such a great pedal, then why the mod? Well, I did mention the noise. The kit that got from Mounte Allum included no less than 6 opamps. As with most of his mods, this kit included some "hi-fi" passive parts. After I installed this kit I was actually surprised at the difference it made. It turned a good little tool into something great. HOWEVER, I'm not 100% sure why, but this mod makes it so that a 9-volt battery is drained in seconds. So If you are looking into this mod, then be sure to have a power supply on hand.

Here is what Mounte Says:

This is very handy tone shaping tool to have on your pedal board. This is actually a very nice sounding EQ right off the shelf. But it suffers from excessive noise as a result of the cheaper components Boss uses. With this mod we replace the cheaper noisy op-amp chips with low noise higher quality chips.

Lower quality capacitors are also replaced reducing noise even more and also adding a more focused Hi-Fi tone to the circuit. Noise is substantially reduced and the signal is passed through preserving the original tone of your guitar. The bypass circuit is also much improved. You will not find a better mod than this anywhere for the GE-7! You'll be shocked at the improvement this mod will make on this pedal.

My Newest Piece Of Gear

...is The Visual Sound V2 Series V2RT66 Route 66 Overdrive and Compression Guitar Multi Effects Pedal.
I Live by a set of rules and one of those rules is: No Multi Effects Pedals. This is not your normal Multi Effects. It is really 2 pedals in one casing. The two effect work totally independent of one another.

Compression is an easily over looked effect. Some may shy away because they may think that it squashes the tone and yes it definitely can BUT if used properly (and if the effect unit is worth its weight) then one can enhance there sonic achievement by judicious use of a compressor.


Overdrive is a commonly use effect that gets called everything but overdrive. I like to think of it as dirt. A little bit can really be cool, too much and its just a huge mess. I'm not a fan of Distortion, but that does mean that I don't like to get heavy. I think that your sound should come from where its supposed to com from, Your Amp. Overdrive (and really all distortions) come from your line (unamplified) signal being too strong to be processed properly by the amp. Many things can effect the handling of this signal; such as the wiring, capacitors, and routing of the signal. That's a bunch of technical talk for, "Good sound comes from good amps." No Pedal is going to make your amp sound better. They will defiantly make it sound different, but that's not exactly better.


So how does this pedal stack up? Very Well. Both sides of this pedal do what they should do. The overdrive is tuneful. Not fissy. It can go from Tame to Saturated very well... It also responds to your volume control and playing weight very nicely. Compression is something I use very lightly. In most cases I use it to brighten, boost and cut. But I've also been able to enhance me technical playing by using the compression to extenuate

the note that would have gotten lost otherwise. This Pedal has quickly become one of my most used and favorite pedals and has found a full-time spot on my pedal board. Although its not a metal-head's choice, but for just about everything short of metal it can be useful.


Visual Sound V2 Series V2RT66 Route 66 Overdrive and Compression Guitar Multi Effects Pedal, Highly recommended.