Any fans of the Ibanez SD-9 ??

[stephen sawall]

I picked up a Maxon Sonic Distortion SD-9 on Friday. I have a Boss DS-1 here. I am going to do a side by side.

The serial number looks like about 25 years old. It looks like no one ever used it. New condition.

 

[griff10672]

I picked up a Maxon Sonic Distortion SD-9 on Friday. I have a Boss DS-1 here. I am going to do a side by side.

The serial number looks like about 25 years old. It looks like no one ever used it. New condition.

cool ...... let me know what you think .... I'm always looking for new circuits to do ..... I totally forgot about this one .

 

[DanTravis62]

cool ...... let me know what you think .... I'm always looking for new circuits to do ..... I totally forgot about this one .

the SD-9 is a really interesting pedal. It takes some seriously wild settings to wrangle good tones out of it, but they are there.

If you mess around with it, the biggest gripe people have is having to set the EQ in outlandish ways. Bass and Treble or even a full tone stack would make it so much better.

Also, the range in the gain goes from zero to murder way too quickly, and you lose out on a ton of usable settings.

It might be a good idea to have a switch or something to have two different gain/distortion/fizz "levels"

 

[griff10672]

the SD-9 is a really interesting pedal. It takes some seriously wild settings to wrangle good tones out of it, but they are there.

If you mess around with it, the biggest gripe people have is having to set the EQ in outlandish ways. Bass and Treble or even a full tone stack would make it so much better.

Also, the range in the gain goes from zero to murder way too quickly, and you lose out on a ton of usable settings.

It might be a good idea to have a switch or something to have two different gain/distortion/fizz "levels"

interesting ..... I'm gazing at the schematic right now .... there is a whole slew of things I could do to this thing ...

I've been considering adding two separate gain structures and a footswitch for them to a lot of circuits ....

Like I did to the Japetus .... I can do that to pretty much any overdrive out there ..

anyone think it would be practical to have a 2 channel SD-1 .... or a 808 ... or a Klon for that matter ... I think it would shine there ... a Klon with two footswitchable gain settings ...

 

[DanTravis62]

interesting ..... I'm gazing at the schematic right now .... there is a whole slew of things I could do to this thing ...

I've been considering adding two separate gain structures and a footswitch for them to a lot of circuits ....

Like I did to the Japetus .... I can do that to pretty much any overdrive out there ..

anyone think it would be practical to have a 2 channel SD-1 .... or a 808 ... or a Klon for that matter ... I think it would shine there ... a Klon with two footswitchable gain settings ...

Yeah the klon would be a good one - people either run it with almost no gain (which, then the vaunted chip isnt in the circuit) or with all the gain, with no inbetween

The SD9 is one of those pedals that's askin for it though. It's got so much potential but feels like such a miss because its so clunky.

 

[JohnnyGtar]

TWA SH9. Scott got together with the man who designed the original and they tweaked it. It's badass.

 

[griff10672]

TWA SH9. Scott got together with the man who designed the original and they tweaked it. It's badass.

yup .... that sounds pretty dam good !

 

[GuitarVacation]

The SD-9 has been my cheat code for the thick dark liquid fusion type thing. The trick is the tone knob has to be all the way down.

It can go up a smidge but anything approaching 9 o'clock starts letting a bit of the ice pick fizz in.

Scott Henderson, Michael Landau, and Tim Miller all used the good old Maxon SD-9 for a long time. Henderson and Landau both have their own boutique versions now. I haven't tried either.

The latest Ibanez version posted earlier in this thread is the one I'm currently using. Switch on left adds a gain stage, gobs of distortion switched on. Switch on the right adds a pronounced mid boost.

I don't use either switch activated, but I like this version because there is a lot more volume above unity available. Some of the old Maxon's were too quiet and had to be used the the volume wide open.

 

[stephen sawall]

cool ...... let me know what you think .... I'm always looking for new circuits to do ..... I totally forgot about this one .

So far I like it. Dan's description is accurate. I am comparing it with other pedals currently. After that I will give a full opinion.

 

[GuitarVacation]

I recently got a Way Huge small box Geisha Drive. It's Jeorge Tripp's tweaks on the SD-9.

Great sounding SD-9 variant. I think what JT did with the range of the tone knob will make the Geisha much more usable for the vast majority of folks.

Unfortunately for me, I really rely on that bottom 0-10% of the tone knob range to get the high end roll off I desire from the SD-9.

The Geisha, with the tone knob all the way down was different enough where it didn't quite get the high end roll off right for me.

I use the SD-9 with the bridge pickup, rolling the tone off on the bridge PU a good bit. Obviously I'm super picky with the way I dial things in for what I go for, so even though the Geisha doesn't do my thing, it's still a great version of the SD-9.

Just wanted to throw my most recent SD-9 adventure in since such a good discussion of the circuit is going on.

 

[blackba]

I used to have an Ibanez SD-9, worked well for alternative I was playing in the 90s, but I sold it after hearing a recording of my band. Haven't really felt the need to revisit. Like a beefed up Tubescreamer.

These days I am into pedals with tubes.

 

[stephen sawall]

I like it but haven't decided if I am keeping it. You can get some fuzztortion with the gain max. But really the usable range of the gain and tone is bellow 11 o'clock. It could use more output. Basically the same as everyone else says.

 

[griff10672]

I like it but haven't decided if I am keeping it. You can get some fuzztortion with the gain max. But really the usable range of the gain and tone is bellow 11 o'clock. It could use more output. Basically the same as everyone else says.

appreciate the feedback ..... I'm still on the fence about doing one .... I mean ... I guess I could really hot rod the crap out of it ... but then it's a totally different pedal ..

 

[GuitarVacation]

I was thinking about what could be done with the SD-9 circuit that would be useful to the folks I'm familiar with that are known as long time SD-9 users.

There's making the tone knob have a more useful range, but that's been done, and really one resistor could accomplish that (remember the Alfa Drive aka a lightly modded Joyo OCD clone LOL).

Then you have Scott Henderson and Mike Landau who both have their tweaked expensive boutique versions. That's down to preference, and particularly with Landau's I've seen a lot of those get dumped off because it strayed too far from what most like about the SD-9.

The most useful mod I can think of may not be practical from a builder's POV, or may not be attractive to the mass market.

I'd love to have an SD-9 that had two foot switches. Each footswitch would have its own gain and tone knob. Or maybe a more practical execution is one of the footswitches goes to a second tone knob setting with an adjustable gain boost?

It's pretty close to having to SD-9s in one box LOL. Seems stupid, but doing that with a Bluesbreaker circuit worked out pretty well for one fella haha.

The only other thing I can think of may not be doable. The SD-9 dialed in dark is pretty smooth and compressed. That's a good thing a lot of the time, but it would be cool to have an ability to add a little more dynamic feel to it. Diode switches can be subtle, so I don't know if having mosfet clipping or germanium diodes on a switch would have a pronounced enough effect.

Probably not enough juice for the squeeze. I replaced my SD-9 after years on the board with a Jetter Pedal X. Similar EQ properties, way better tone knob range, fat and compressed, but the compression feels more like a tube amp, kind of a fluid feel. Dynamic compression is an oxymoron LOL, but I guess way to put it is the amount of compression changes with your playing dynamics.

From what I understand the Pedal X is multiple mosfet gain stages, not your typical Op amp>diode framework. It's voiced very nicely, and does the liquid thing a little better than the good old SD-9 for me.

Don't know if my "one guy" take is useful at all. You'd probably create a version that's cooler and more marketable without my crazy ideas haha.

 

[stephen sawall]

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