DS-1 Distortion

There was something different about this song. It started sort of quiet, then got really loud. But then it dropped back down to quiet, then got really loud again. Until this point, my limited experience with pop music as a youngster was with songs that basically kept to the same volume range, whether they were on the rock stations on the radio, or with punk rock cassette tapes in my Walkman. Then came Nirvana and “Smells Like Teen Spirit”.

It starts out with a relatively clean and normal guitar tone, then the drums come in and pour gasoline everywhere, propelling the song forward. And then, legend has it, frontman and guitarist Kurt Cobain stepped on a Boss DS-1 Distortion guitar pedal and lit the music world on fire.  

My name is Wright Seneres and this is Effect Pedal. This is a podcast and art project dedicated to guitar effect pedals. Trusty stompboxes that adorn the floor in front of millions of guitar players, whether in a bedroom full of big dreams, or on a stage in front of big crowds. In the universe, there are countless numbers of these pedals, creating an infinite number of sounds. I’m going to focus on some historically important ones for this project.

For the uninitiated, an effect pedal is usually a small box, usually made of metal, with electronic circuitry that modifies the signal coming from a musical instrument. In our case, the electric guitar. They’re made to be activated with a switch that you can step on, and often come with a few knobs you can use to further refine the effect. But beyond all that, effect pedals open up worlds of possibilities for guitar players.  

Tom Petty once described Kurt Cobain in this way: “And then Kurt came in like, you know, like a phoenix, you know? Like, he cut them down like wheat before the sickle, WHOO-EESH! You know? You are done.” Cutting down a wheat field of pretty boy glam rock. For me, their guitar tone was like a controlled burn from which new growth could come. That fire was once Bob Dylan going electric, that fire was once Jimi Hendrix actually lighting his guitar on fire, that fire was once Gene Simmons on stage, breathing fire, and that fire was once the Sex Pistols and the Stooges and the Ramones. 

Fittingly, the Boss DS-1 is bright orange, with black and silver knobs controlling tone, level, and distortion, and a black rubber footswitch. Born in 1978, the DS-1 was the first distortion pedal from Boss. Aesthetically, it’s virtually unchanged since 1978, and its form factor set the tone for the majority of the various different Boss pedals available since then, in a literal rainbow of colors. It’s iconic, which is one of the reasons why I wanted to make an art print from it. 

The DS-1 gave rise to the DS-2 Turbo Distortion in 1987 and the DS-1X in 2013, and more extreme versions like HM-2 Heavy Metal and the MT-1 Metal Zone. The DS-1 itself has gone through a couple of iterations. In any case, the DS-1 is still the choice for so many. The list of users is quite epic, even for an inexpensive stompbox like the DS-1. Prince is known to have used one on “Let’s Go Crazy” and more of his classic tracks. The widespread likes of Steve Vai, Joe Satriani, Robert Smith of the Cure, the late Glenn Frey from the Eagles, and John Frusciante from the Red Hot Chili Peppers were all known to have the DS-1 on their pedalboards at some point. 

Without getting into a deep technical discussion, a distortion effect takes a regular guitar signal and pushes it past its normal maximum level. In order to go past the max, the peaks and valleys of the signal wave get clipped off. Also, there are a number of overtones that fill up and saturate the space in between the clips. Turn your volume up to 10 – or 11, if yours goes to 11 – and that warm, messy, growling sound is what you’ll get. A distortion pedal achieves this effect without blowing your speakers.