NPD: Boss DF-2 Super Distortion & Feedbacker

Flanging_Fred

Well, clearly not a new pedal day as it’s about 40 years old now, but it’s new to me. I thought I’d give one a go as there’s a song our setlist that might suit a bit of feedback stuff.  I’ve tried drone type pedals before and struggled a bit with them, so we’ll see how this pans out.

It’ll also be interesting how it compares with the good old DS1. Early impressions are it’s a bit darker, but not by much.

Anyhoo, a bit of vintage Boss is always a good thing in my opinion!

Revolutions

They’re good fun. And it’s in nice condition. you’ve got the first year lawsuit version too. Which has a cooler name 

ICBM

My favourite standalone distortion pedal. You’re right, it’s not - despite often being said to be - the same as the DS-1, it’s less scooped and has a wider window of good sounds on the tone control. It’s possibly slightly closer to a Rat - or the Ibanez FC10 Fat Cat, which is Rat-based. If the distortion part of it has a flaw it’s that the maximum output level is a bit low.

The feedbacker is very useful, but has a fairly steep learning curve to get it to work well - the timing of pressing the pedal is everything, as well as the note and tone you’re using at that moment. Unlike the later FB-2, it isn’t really a feedbacker - it’s a simple monophonic oscillator that locks onto the frequency it’s hearing and then will play that indefinitely as long as you hold the pedal down. Once you get the hang of it you can not only create natural(ish) sounding feedback from notes or even chords, including at too low a volume for any real feedback, you can deliberately trigger it ‘wrongly’ on the pick attack or muted notes to make odd drones and machine-like noises as well.

Have fun, there’s a lot more to it than it may seem at first .

UnclePsychosis

I love the DF-2 as a straight up dirt pedal, the drones and feedbacking is just an added bonus.