The humble SD-1- irreplaceable?

JamesSGBrown

Hi all,

So I'm looking to replace my trusty SD-1 (clipped a capacitor out yonks ago).

I recently bought a very lovely Dr Scientist The Elements, but I think it may be too similar to my Smallsound Bigsound Mini OD to justify keeping (and the Mini hasn't displaced the SD-1 either).
My current drive chain is this- Mini ->SD-1 -> VFE Alpha Dog (essentially a whiteface Rat) -> SS/BS Buzzz (Superfuzz). I do a lot of switching live and need things to stack well.

What I've always loved about the SD-1 is that it seems to be less 'spikey' than my other dirt pedals, which get more ragged as the gain turns up. It's almost like the SD-1 is a more compressed sound really. I want that- kind of going for that Television esque, dirty-ish but biting sound without having a Super Reverb to crank. So why not keep the SD-1? Well it cuts a little too much bass, and has nowhere near enough output. I'd also like it to be a tad more versatile and, shitty word I know, transparent. 

I've been looking at the Hungry Robot LG, The RYRA Klone, the Visual Sound VSXO amongst others. Also interested in the Bogner La Grange- seems to be very versatile. I play teles and jags into a Traynor YRM-1 and Roland Bolt, so I'm running things fairly clean. Music is post punky stuff, think Mission of Burma, Yo La Tengo, Sonic Youth etc, tune here for reference



Thanks in advance

Corvus

I haven't had the others but I like the La Grange a lot, it's very Marshally and quite loose. It is flexible but all around that base Marshally thing. The controls took me a while to suss out, they're not that intuitive and there's lots of change lurking in them. A poke with a screamer-type tightens it up a treat and adds new flavours, I use a Rocket Blue Note (the older version) - it can be flat & nearly transparent or give a hard middy push. (BN's also nice as a smooth low-gain drive on it's own).

thermionic

Try an OD-3, quite similar to the OD-1/SD-1 but doesn’t cut bass anywhere near as much.

alalalkasar

This dod250 Video starts with a bit of television, sounded good enough to make me buy one and I love it. Great with my rat for pretty much all the bands/sounds you mentioned.
Also its cheeeeeeeeeeap.

althy

why not turn everything else down and turn up your amp's master? it should add bass on your clean too

Dave_Mc

If you can find one and are ok with going used, what about a digitech hardwire tube od? don't pay too much, it was £45 new at one point on thomann It's pretty much a higher headroom/voltage tubescreamer, with a ton more volume boost on tap, and much more useful EQ so you can dial in the TS humped mids/compressed/bass cut thing, or a much more transparent tone.

chromatuna

I have had an MXR Custom Modified Badass Overdriven or whatever it's called for a number of years an it's not going anywhere soon. It's does that smooth tube screamer kind of sound but has a low end control. I have a dislike for TS style pedals that slice off the low end which is why I ended up with this one. Lots of shops stock MXR so it's quite easy to try before you buy too. 

TTBZ

Dave_Mc said:

If you can find one and are ok with going used, what about a digitech hardwire tube od? don't pay too much, it was £45 new at one point on thomann It's pretty much a higher headroom/voltage tubescreamer, with a ton more volume boost on tap, and much more useful EQ so you can dial in the TS humped mids/compressed/bass cut thing, or a much more transparent tone.

+1 for this, I got one looking for a TS that doesn't cut so much bass and it does exactly that. Although I seem to end up setting it fairly similar to how a normal TS sounds now anyway. The modified mode is a good backup option as a slightly higher gain overdrive as well, and the stomplock feature is very useful. Shame the hardwires are ugly as sin though.

I was going to get the MXR CBAMOD but read some complaints about iffy bypass (why don't MXR just put true bypass on every pedal?), but the hardwire was so much cheaper anyway and has a decent boss style switch.

chromatuna

I am pretty sure that the MXR one is true bypass, at least they state that it is and I haven't heard any problems with it whereas I can hear a significant change in tone that I don't like with their analog chorus

timmysoft

The best SD1 variants are:

MXR ZW44 - try and get the original bullseye version. It’s an sd1 but with thicker lower mids. On a Marshall it’s unbeatable
Boss SD1w - the Waza version is superb, custom mode really is a great place to be

Dave_Mc

TTBZ said:

Dave_Mc said:

If you can find one and are ok with going used, what about a digitech hardwire tube od? don't pay too much, it was £45 new at one point on thomann It's pretty much a higher headroom/voltage tubescreamer, with a ton more volume boost on tap, and much more useful EQ so you can dial in the TS humped mids/compressed/bass cut thing, or a much more transparent tone.

+1 for this, I got one looking for a TS that doesn't cut so much bass and it does exactly that. Although I seem to end up setting it fairly similar to how a normal TS sounds now anyway. The modified mode is a good backup option as a slightly higher gain overdrive as well, and the stomplock feature is very useful. Shame the hardwires are ugly as sin though.

LOL yeah it's a bit big and bulky, but other than that it's really good. LOL I usually set it pretty similarly to a TS as well. I tend to use bother a flatter mids pedal like a timmy alongside a ts or sd1-type pedal, so I kind of need both pedals separately, but if I needed both in the one pedal, the hardwire is hard to beat.