AI is everywhere at the moment, and apparently that now includes telling guitarists where to put the knobs on their Boss DS-1. So, when I was on holiday recently, I came across a a slew of guitar pedal settings shared on Facebook page that I was suggested for me. It had all the hallmarks of just being pumped out by AI with the eerily generic, yet professional look to it. The post that really caught my eye was based around the Boss DS-1. At first glance, some of them looked… questionable. So naturally, I did the only sensible thing: I dialled every single one in to see whether they were actually any good.
The results were a little more surprising than I expected.
The first setting was called “Tight Rock Rhythm”, promising sharp attack and a focused riff tone. The settings were pretty conservative, with everything hovering around noon. And you know what? It wasn't actually bad. It was a perfectly usable DS-1 rhythm tone. Granted, it was essentially setting everything at noon, so it wasn't going to sound terrible, but first impressions are good. So far, AI was winning.
Next up was “Fat Lead”, supposedly designed to give you less bite and more body for smoother solos. Again, the settings were hardly revolutionary, but the resulting tone was actually pretty decent.
Two settings in and I was beginning to wonder whether I'd massively underestimated our robot overlords.
Then came “Bleach Grit”, apparently inspired by Kurt Cobain. The problem was that the settings were almost identical to the first tone. I figured, trying the same setting again isn't going to yield different results, so why not stick it into a driven amp?
It wasn't terrible, but needing to rely on a driven amp to make a supposedly specific DS-1 setting work was… let's say, less than convincing. Especially when I am pretty familiar with the DS-1 and I know you can get Kurt tones out of it when you know how to set it properly...
And then we got to the big one: “Vai Saturated Lead”.
The tone control was pulled all the way back. Anyone who's used a DS-1 knows just how sensitive that control is, so I was expecting an incredibly woolly mess. What I got was… not particularly saturated.
It certainly didn't sound like the high-gain tone the settings claimed to be targeting. In fact, calling it saturated felt rather generous. Finally, we had “Satriani Lead”. The settings looked suspiciously similar to the previous one, apart from the level being absolutely maxed out.
Unsurprisingly, it wasn't exactly a convincing recreation of Joe Satriani's tone.
So, after putting all five through their paces, my verdict was pretty simple: the generic settings weren't necessarily terrible, but the artist-specific ones were definitely not even close. I think this is myth busted: AI creates slop tones.
For now, if you want great pedal settings, I reckon we're better off sticking with the humans.
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