Burlap and Blues, The Blues Blog

I found myself in the hands of an Analogman DS-1 recently. I purchased this at a great deal as a backup to my Keeley mod DS-1. The stock DS-1 from Boss is a harsh, grainy and cheap distortion, and the modification of these pedals has amazed me. These pedals tend to be built like a tank and they are very difficult to destroy, usually it takes an act of nuclear annihilation to destroy one of them.

I decided for the review to use my standard set-up for playing with my Keeley to see how this pedal reacts to my Ibanez Jem. The amplifier is a 'rectifier' clone.

http://burlapandblues.com/bluesblog/analogman/clean.mp3

For the next clip I added the analog man with a gain of about 50%.

http://burlapandblues.com/bluesblog/analogman/analogmanlow.mp3

I enjoy the harmonic overtones that are created by this pedal. The overtones are more pronounced than a stock DS-1, which as I said before tends to be very grainy. The sustain that is produced is pleasant.

The next clip I turned the gain all the way up on the analog man

http://burlapandblues.com/bluesblog/analogman/analoghigh.mp3

The grainyness of the distortion is seen once the gain hits about 75%. The pedal does give a good creamy distortion and is overall, not as noisy as a stock DS-1, but not as smooth as the Keeley modded DS-1. The sustain of the Analogman is a tiny bit better than a Keeley mod, but both are significantly better than stock (which is to be expected).

The Analogman overall did very well in this test. Tomorrow's review includes a neat trick I saw with this pedal online!