2 * NPD

[Les Paul Lover]

Well, new to me anyway.

Scored a used Boss Super Overdrive SD1, and........ an Orange Kongpressor!!!!




I'm gonna be honest..... I'm gonna sell the SD1 straight away. How Boss have managed to sell so many of them is beyond me.
May be it works better on other amps than mine???

The kongpressor..... is pretty sweet. It does sweeten most clean sounds at least a little, or pretty significantly depending in settings. Quite a lot of boost available too - and totally silent. It's very well designed, even at max boost/volume, there isn't a hint of hum.


I've got a vintage Japanese guyatone sustainer that's shortly heading for eBay now. I've never really used compression, but the kongpressor is much sweeter, so I'll keep that one for the moment..... and try to decide if I want to incorporate it in my board or not.


Who uses a compressor here?
How / what purpose do you use them for?
It's pretty pointless with dirt.....
The kongpressor can be VERY nice with cleans...... but still undecided.

[Jondog]

Congrats! Been using an SD-1 lately as a boost and quite like it. It is basically a tubescreamer and that doesn’t suit everyone. I added an extra FET to the bypass switching because that is one of it’s shortcomings that some effect bleeds into the bypass signal. The mod fixes that very well. Been real interested in the congpressor. Not ready to buy one just yet.

[PBA]

I like the SD-1. It was actually the first pedal I ever owned back in the late 80s. They used to be more expensive the Ibanez Tube Screamers. I had the SD-1 and an Ibanez Flanger - both yellow!

To my ears the SD-1 works best with Strat type pickups. I don't like it with Humbuckers at all. Most folk use them much like a TS with volume high and gain low. If you do use the gain, you'll find it's grittier than a TS.

Like a lot of pedals, it takes a bit of tweaking to get it to work well with Oranges but I'd say have a bit more of a play before you sell it. For me, I still have one but don't use it much at all. I switched to Klon style ODs and find those work much better for me, with both Orange and other amps.

I'm not a big user of compression but the Kongpressor has always interested me. I'd be happier if it didn't have a silly name

[Les Paul Lover]

Congrats! Been using an SD-1 lately as a boost and quite like it. It is basically a tubescreamer and that doesn’t suit everyone. I added an extra FET to the bypass switching because that is one of it’s shortcomings that some effect bleeds into the bypass signal. The mod fixes that very well. Been real interested in the congpressor. Not ready to buy one just yet.

Didn't know it was a tube screamer type pedal. I had a TS808 a while back, I liked it quite a lot.

[Les Paul Lover]

I like the SD-1. It was actually the first pedal I ever owned back in the late 80s. They used to be more expensive the Ibanez Tube Screamers. I had the SD-1 and an Ibanez Flanger - both yellow!

To my ears the SD-1 works best with Strat type pickups. I don't like it with Humbuckers at all. Most folk use them much like a TS with volume high and gain low. If you do use the gain, you'll find it's grittier than a TS.

Like a lot of pedals, it takes a bit of tweaking to get it to work well with Oranges but I'd say have a bit more of a play before you sell it. For me, I still have one but don't use it much at all. I switched to Klon style ODs and find those work much better for me, with both Orange and other amps.

I'm not a big user of compression but the Kongpressor has always interested me. I'd be happier if it didn't have a silly name

I tried the volume high and gain low too. It's ok, I'll just move it on. I wanted to see what it was about, and got a killer deal for both the SD1 and the kongpressor together, I couldn't let that pass me by.

I prefer the Digitech Hardwire CM-2 tube overdrive I have, a sort of tube screamer derivative with flat EQ and individual bass and treble controls.
I'm also about to build a klon clone.....

The kongpressor is really sweet. A small detail I love, is that they've stuck one or more diode next to the blue LED. As the LED glass is way oversized, when you hit a chord, the LED glass picks up and amplifies the little Orange glow of the diodes - pretty neat!

It sounds really sweet, but is only really useful clean. One thing though, is that it sounds sweetest with the squash setting set higher..... and by then the dynamics of your playing are non existant. Pick soft or hard, the output is the same. That's normal, that's what compressor do. But that's where the dilemma is, I really like how it sounds..... but I like dynamics too!

That could be really useful when doing intricate picking, but not great if playing the AD15 on the edge of break up and relying on picking dynamics to play clean or dirty......

I'll have to play some more with it.

[Jondog]

Congrats! Been using an SD-1 lately as a boost and quite like it. It is basically a tubescreamer and that doesn’t suit everyone. I added an extra FET to the bypass switching because that is one of it’s shortcomings that some effect bleeds into the bypass signal. The mod fixes that very well. Been real interested in the congpressor. Not ready to buy one just yet.

Didn't know it was a tube screamer type pedal. I had a TS808 a while back, I liked it quite a lot.

Very similar with a few different components. It’s not a lot to mod it to the same circuit. Sd-1 has assymetrical clipping, TS has symetrical. I think different gain pot values and a few other component value tweaks.

[Les Paul Lover]

Congrats! Been using an SD-1 lately as a boost and quite like it. It is basically a tubescreamer and that doesn’t suit everyone. I added an extra FET to the bypass switching because that is one of it’s shortcomings that some effect bleeds into the bypass signal. The mod fixes that very well. Been real interested in the congpressor. Not ready to buy one just yet.

Didn't know it was a tube screamer type pedal. I had a TS808 a while back, I liked it quite a lot.

Very similar with a few different components. It’s not a lot to mod it to the same circuit. Sd-1 has assymetrical clipping, TS has symetrical. I think different gain pot values and a few other component value tweaks.

Thanks for that.

I pulled out my pedal board and the AD15 tonight, and did some comparison between the SD1, the danelectro coolcat overdrive, and the Digitech Hardwire CM-2 tube overdrive.

Got to say that sound wise, the coolcat edges it. It's got a great overdrive tone, but I hate the controls (at the back of the pedal) and I don't like the footswitch either. It's not always reliable. You can stomp on it and fail to switch it on quite easily. Probably one of the reason why it's so cheap. Different sound to the other 2 though, it has a lot more gain on tap, very smooth though.

The digitech comes close 2nd for me sound wise, and IMO, much better than the boss. Mind you, I believe the Digitech was twice the price of the boss when new, so you should expect that to a degree.

The boss SD1 did sound better through my AD15 than through my Rockerverb (the AD15 generally takes pedals better), but it'll still get sold. I much prefer the Digitech Hardwire CM-2 tube overdrive for what I do with it (not everybody will, that's fine.).

[Les Paul Lover]

Now, I also did another kongpressor test with my AD15 out.

Just as I was expecting, the kongpressor makes it impossible to set my AD15 on the edge of break up and hope for playing dynamics to make me sound clean or dirty.

It's not the kongpressor's fault, it's a compressor after all and it's what it's designed to do.

I'm not sure what to do there, because I really like what it does to clean sounds. It fattens things a little bit (just a touch, but that's a lovely touch ), and it does sound really sweet.

On a clean channel like the Rockerverb or R30, it's fine. On the RV50 dirty channel it's fine too. I'm thinking it may not be so favourable on the R30 dirty channel, but I'll have to try that to know.

Certainly, it sounds lovely on the AD15...... but I absolutely can't use it on that amp with the way I rely on my picking / strumming to stay below or above the edge of break up.

[Jondog]

The best thing about the SD-1 is they can be picked up fairly cheap used and modded to be better. Plus, I think Boss make the best enclosures on the market!

[Les Paul Lover]

The best thing about the SD-1 is they can be picked up fairly cheap used and modded to be better. Plus, I think Boss make the best enclosures on the market!

They sure are solid.
The old Digitech Hardwire boxes are similar and i really like them too.
Really solid, and easy to stomp on / off.