Boss DS-1W Waza Craft Distortion Pedal Reviews
It’s tough to improve on the classics — especially when you’ve got a back catalog as renowned as BOSS’ color-coded stompboxes! Nevertheless, whenever a new Waza Craft pedal makes its way through Sweetwater’s doors, we can’t help but be blown away by the BOSS team’s ability to enhance, refine, and reimagine some of their most renowned pedals. Speaking of legendary, the DS-1W is a bold new take on the world's most famous orange stompbox, a pedal found on countless records — spanning Kurt Cobain’s grunge-rock fury to Prince’s funky flair. The stomp’s all-analog circuitry has been revised, sporting a 2-stage gain circuit, and you’ll also notice that this 3-knob wonder now has a 2-way switch built into it. What does it do? In standard mode, the DS-1W is classic DS-1, full of sharp attack and a smooth, saturated sustain; flip to the custom mode to unlock a more midrange-focused voice that fills out your tone’s bottom end while kicking up the output. From alt-rock attitude to heavy hard rock to just about anything else, the DS-1W is the ultimate take on arguably the most iconic BOSS pedal in history.
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Highest Rated Reviews
Favorite color is orange
My favorite color is orange. This could be a terrible even inoperable item upon delivery and I'd still look at it and say yes, I've supported the ever endearing orange. More of this orange please manufacturers of greater guitar goods.
Also this pedal is dope having each distortion available is really useful as a tool to hear my irritation in life amplified. It's not as heavy as what I thought it'd be but for my Princeton this makes some sweet jangly slippyknotty sounds emanate from my 12" eminence driver. Thanks Sweetwater on both accounts; the Princeton and this dope AF orange pedal.
My Favorite Pedal...Again!
This is my first Waza Craft. I love how the standard mode sounds more refined than my old DS-1. And I really enjoy the boost in the Custom mode.
Quite a lot of range in one pedal
Great sounding distortion on standard mode, regular ds1 sound.
custom mode turns this into more of a blues driver and gives the mids a massive boost. tone is responsive yet subtle. level is spot on and the distortion is very linear from bottom to top. even full bore it let's my guitar sing. extremely responsive to softer attack on my jazzmaster.
Amazing Pedal!
I love this pedal. It is so versatile and sounds great. The tone knob amazing and can get you so many different tones that are very useable. Priced correctly and so happy I bought it.
The BOSS DS-1w is better than ever!
I haven't owned a Boss DS-1 since I was a teenager. I somehow abandoned this pedal as I got older. Let's just say I've cheated myself for all these years. I just love the sustain it adds and how active the tone circuit is. It is now my favorite distortion pedal especially with the custom switch which adds more midrange and low-end thickness with a slight volume boost. This makes the Boss DS-1w more versatile than ever.
WAZA Baby!
It's basically an overdrive and distortion pedal in one. The punchy mid-lows are perfect for really giving your cabinet that extra "warm" kick without sacrificing the nice crisp high end of the original DS-1. Very quiet and powerful. I switch a lot between clean and metal tones, so I keep my volume set at 12:00 (equal to clean volume) with a mild compressor/sustainer (CS-3) in front of it. In "C" mode I have the tone set at 10:30 and the distortion at about 9:30. That's plenty heavy with lots left to go. Combined with just a little amp drive (edge) and you're in hard-rock heaven! Took me a while to figure out, in "C" mode, less is more... much more! BOSS nailed it ya'll, I love the tones I'm getting with DS-1WAZA! :)
Meh, don't offer anything the basic DS-1 does
I was completely unimpressed with this pedal, glad I got it on sale. Frankly, I prefer my plain ol' DS-1, it sounds better to me. This is a backup to the backup pedal board kind of pedal to me.
