Boss SD-1

We were out for the afternoon and happened to be passing the local Guitar Center so I stopped in to look in the used effects case.
They had three Boss SD-1s- one for $39 (aren't they only $50 new?), one for $29 and another for $14.97.

I asked what the deal was with the cheapest one. It looked fine. It had slightly more dings and scuffs than the other two though still appeared to be in very good condition. He said it was on the pedal display for many years and had a lot of use. The woman at the register added that it "didn't turn off".

Sure enough, the bypass didn't bypass. The pedal was always in the signal path. I opened the battery compartment to manually manipulate the switch and it was no better. The guy asked "do you repair pedals?"

I can't not buy broken cheap things! Besides the opportunity to get a cheap thing, there's the challenge of the repair and I guess I feel an urge to "rescue" broken gear.

I got home, got out my DMM, a battery and a patch cable. I opened the pedal to check out the buffered bypass and noticed that the pedal worked.

The insulation between the PCB and the steel base plate of the pedal was missing! The circuit was shorting to the base plate. I put a piece of packaging tape on the base plate, screwed it back on and the pedal is fine.

Know any cool SD-1 mods?

Here's a quick and easy "mod" (for Fender guys)- plug a guitar with humbuckers into the SD-1 and the SD-1 into a Marshall amp.

Don, I modded one as per a Monte Allums kit, and everytime I loan it to a guitar player friend to try it out, It's hard to get back! Really great overdrive sounds.

Thanks Bill!

Which Monte Allums kit? He has four of them for this pedal!

Don, I did the GT mod which actually uses 2 legs of a metal can transistor in one of the clipping circuits. The Burr Brown opamp does quiet things down, and he has included a switchable gain boost. I never decided if I like the boost on, and the gain down, or the boost off, and the gain up better, both sound great.

I used the SD-1 at a rehearsal last night with my Princeton Reverb clone and Strat. It sounded good!