The Pick of The Pedals - Boss SD-1 Super Overdrive

This weekend is the first instalment of The Pick of The Pedals, a series of reviews I'm writing looking at a variety of different pedals, beginning with a few from my personal collection. Today I'm taking a look at the Boss SD-1. I've had this pedal for a good few years now, and has been a regular feature of my pedalboard (as you can see on the post I did about my pedalboard).

The Boss SD-1 is a relatively cheap overdrive pedal, costing around £40 nowadays, but a plethora of guitarists have them in their pedal arsenal, including Avenged Sevenfold's Synyster Gates and Zakk Wylde. This pedal ranges from a smooth, creamy lead boost to screaming lead tones, probably why it is so popular.

Set with all the knobs at 12 o'clock, using my Epi Les Paul into my Marshall 80 watt Valvestate 1x12 combo on a clean setting, the tone is noticeably thicker, with a slight volume boost. The thickness of tone is probably down to the compression inbuilt in the pedal, bringing the amplitude of the harmonic frequencies up to join that of the fundamental frequencies, but the compression is by no means overbearing, with alterations of tone accessible by dynamic picking or changing the volume or tone knobs on the guitar.

Bringing the tone knob on the pedal up to 3 o'clock gives a great heavy rock lead tone, with high frequencies which will comfortably cut through a band mix without being too harsh. In front of a crunch amp setting, this pedal really sings, working really well with the bridge humbucker on this guitar, pinch harmonics are a dream to play.

Back on a clean amp setting, increasing the gain on the pedal gives more sustain, and the compression really begins to kick in. This tone would be really usable for long, sustained solo parts, with fast, alternate picking passages becoming slightly muddy with the gain this high. Cranking the tone control to full, however, solves this issue, giving a searing, approaching fuzz territory tone.

I think this pedal really begins to shine when you back the gain down and use the volume boost in the pedal to push your amp. Even on a clean amp setting, with the pedal gain at 9 o'clock and the volume at 3 o'clock, this pedal gives plenty of gain and a really nice lead tone. With extra gain on tap by digging in with a pick, or perhaps adding in a boost pedal, as well as accessible clean tones by rolling off the guitar's volume, this is where I usually keep this pedal.

Rolling off the tone and boosting the gain gives a rich, creamy solo tone reminiscent of the Money For Nothing tone, and decreasing the gain makes a variety of other 'woman tone' sounds.

Overall, I love this pedal, giving me consistently good lead tones which work well in the live mix, and being a Boss pedal it is rugged and you can really stop on it. The yellow colour is a bit garish, but mine has faded a bit and has dings which give it some more character and make it look loved. Of course everyone knows the high standard to low cost ratio which Boss have covered, so if you like the sound of this pedal, it's definitely worth trying out!

Are there any pedals you think I should review next? Maybe one from my pedalboard post, but I'd be up for trying any you suggest!