The Boss DS-1 is a rite of passage for most guitarists. It’s the pedal that sits in that perfect sweet spot between being affordable, available everywhere, and making a massive difference to your sound the very first time you stomp on it. I’m genuinely not exaggerating when I say that probably 60% of the people reading this bought a DS-1 as their first pedal — or at least within the first handful of pedals they ever owned.
But the DS-1 is also a victim of its own success. Because it’s our first pedal, we’re usually not as, shall we say, refined with how we use the controls. Who knew that putting everything on 10 wasn’t the secret to perfect tone? So we end up carrying this idea that the DS-1 is a blunt instrument: fun, loud, chaotic, but not exactly subtle. As we improve as players, we start chasing more boutique tools to shape our sound, and the humble orange box gets shoved aside.
But in the immortal, unavoidable words of Taylor Swift: “It’s me, hi, I’m the problem, it’s me.”
The DS-1 was never the issue.
The tone control is a perfect example. I remembered it as being mush at one end, fizzy at the other, with a tiny sliver of sweetness in between. But sitting down with it again, there’s actually a lot of colour in the sweep — almost like it shifts where the midrange sits in the EQ. Sure, the top of the dial can be a little spiky, but there’s far more nuance than most of us gave it credit for back in our teenage bedroom-rock days.
The gain control is the real surprise, though. We often treat the DS-1 as the “Kurt Cobain pedal” and assume it only does that one saturated grunge tone. But there is so much light and shade through the whole range. On a Strat neck pickup, low gain almost acts like a treble-boosted push — bright, dynamic, and touch-sensitive. Around a third of the way up, you get a gritty breakup that responds beautifully when you dig in. And yes, cranked all the way, you get that classic saturated roar, but even then it’s more “amp on the edge” than people remember.
Of course, this design dates back to the late ’70s, and it’s not flawless. The noise floor is noticeably higher than modern distortion pedals, especially at higher gain. The old-school side-mounted jacks aren’t exactly pedalboard-friendly either, now that most new pedals are going top-mounted. But for something you can pick up used any day of the week for a very reasonable price, the DS-1 still holds up shockingly well.
It deserves its place in the pedal history books — and honestly, it might just deserve another spot on your board.
The Affordaboard 800 is the latest in a long line of pedals aiming to capture the magic of one of the most iconic amps ever made. If there’s a single circuit that has inspired the most “amp-in-a-box” efforts over the years, the JCM800 has to be right up there. I’m not going to pretend I’ve done the hard maths, but it certainly feels like every second drive pedal released in the last two decades has tried to bottle that unmistakable roar. And for good reason — the JCM800 defined an era. It became the sound of hard rock and cemented Marshall’s reputation as the go-to brand for big, authoritative tone.
Now, let’s not talk about some of Marshall’s more questionable modern decisions… that’s a discussion for another day.
The issue with many older “Marshall-in-a-box” pedals is how one-dimensional they can be. They often fixate on the high-gain side of the amp, giving you that saturated, mid-pushed crunch but not much else. The less refined ones also tend to rely heavily on compression and sheer saturation, which can sound fun in isolation but leaves you buried in a live mix.
The Affordaboard 800 takes a different, far more refined approach. Rather than jumping straight to the high-gain party, the focus here is on the pushed clean tones and low-gain growl that made early Marshall tones so expressive.
Across the gain sweep, the dynamics stay impressively intact. At lower settings you get that classic jangly, slightly gritty Marshall push that responds beautifully to pick attack. Increase the gain and it transitions into a muscular crunch — proper classic rock territory. Max it out and you’re right into hot-rodded NWOBHM tones, with shades of Maiden and Priest baked right in. It’s the sort of gain that feels big but never messy.
The tone control is dialled in exceptionally well. Lower settings give you a satisfyingly thick low-end that supports the gain without becoming flabby, while higher settings introduce a crisp top-end that cuts without ever getting shrill. That balance is harder to nail than people think, and Affordaboard have absolutely found the sweet spot.
At around £80, the 800 is extremely easy on the wallet — especially considering it’s handmade in the UK. The enclosures are printed in the UK too, meaning the pedal supports two small British businesses in one go. For a boutique-leaning, hand-built pedal, that’s a seriously impressive price point.
Affordaboard launched with the Supersonic and the Filthy Rat, and both of those came out swinging. The 800 keeps that momentum going, and based on the trajectory so far, it doesn’t look like the brand plans on slowing down any time soon. They’re very much one to watch.
Saturday, November 1, 2025
Digitech Grunge – Teenage Dreams and Distorted Realities
I’ve been on a bit of a nostalgia kick lately with the old Digitech pedals — it all started when I plugged in the Screamin’ Blues. I’ve covered the Bad Monkey before (I was a fan before the wild frenzy our Josh Scott whipped up), but I’ve always had a soft spot for this entire series. They might have been marketed as budget-friendly stompboxes, but the two-band EQ they all share makes them far more useful than a lot of the single-tone-knob pedals they were clearly inspired by.
After revisiting the Screamin’ Blues and then the Hot Head, I realised I was slowly rebuilding the collection I had in my younger years — and honestly, it felt great. Even though I didn’t rate the Hot Head quite as highly as the others, I still found it an improvement over the pedal that clearly inspired it. So, I decided to complete the set and track down the two I’d never properly owned: the Grunge and the Death Metal.
The Hunt for the Forgotten One
Now, I’ve never been a fan of Reverb (the site, not the effect). I know myself too well — I’ve got an addictive personality and a weakness for a bargain — so I stick to eBay. It’s a little more of a free-for-all, but that usually means better deals if you’re patient.
I started my search not long after uploading my last video, with some gentle encouragement from the premiere chat (you lot are a bad influence). Straight away, I noticed something odd: the Death Metal had suddenly become weirdly expensive. £60 and up, routinely. I vaguely remembered Ola Englund doing a video on it, and let’s face it — he probably has about as much sway in the metal community as Josh Scott does in the rest of the pedal world.
The Grunge, though? Totally forgotten. No hype, no inflated prices. Just sitting there, gathering digital dust, waiting for a nostalgic fool like me to come along. I found one boxed, at a good price, and pulled the trigger.
Loud, Grunge, and… Confused
The Grunge follows the same format as the rest of the Digitech budget-yet-refined-classics line — four knobs, solid enclosure, familiar layout. But instead of the usual Level, Gain, Low, and High, we’ve got Loud and Grunge. How very late-’90s.
I couldn’t help but feel a strange sense of déjà vu when I saw those control names. They reminded me of the BB Blaster, one of those cheap, plasticky practice amps that haunted bedrooms everywhere back in the day. The ones with “edgy” control labels like Beef, Tweak, and Enjoy. The controls were names were a perfect metaphor for the amp itself; confusing and difficult to work, with no real payoff. Those amps littered bedrooms across the nation and were often the perfect partner to a not-quite-branded Strat copy. Those amps were probably responsible for putting more people off realising their rock and roll dreams than any other piece of musical equipment out there. Now this reminiscence might seem like an odd tangent, but dear reader let me tell you, this is what we call foreshadowing....
When I Was a Teenage Dirtbag…
I actually remember this pedal vividly from my early gig-going years. There was a local band of Nirvana-wannabes — flannel shirts, unwashed hair in their eyes, the whole lot — and their singer/guitarist had one of these lilac Digitech Grunge boxes strewn haphazardly on the stage in front of him (pedalboards weren't rock and roll, clearly - Kurt didn't have one). Back then, my ear wasn’t exactly refined; louder and angrier was better. I remember seeing him stomp on that thing and feeling like the heavens had opened.
Fast forward a couple of decades, and I plug mine in for the first time…
Well. Let’s just say nostalgia can be a liar.
Tone? What Tone?
I'm not going to sugar coat things here, this pedal sucks. It’s absolutely drenched in compression from the word go, with a wall of noise that only gets worse as you push the gain. The EQ section — normally the saving grace of this series — does its best to help, but there’s only so much it can do.
Pulling the Highs back cuts the clarity completely, leaving you with a nasal, almost transistor-radio tone. Pushing it up doesn't yield harsh, fizzy tones but it doesn't exactly fix it either. The Lows are equally unruly: dial them back, and the sound collapses into thin, cardboard mush; push them up, and you get this overblown thump that sounds like your speakers are about to file for early retirement. It is the first pedal I have demo'd that has actually pushed hard against the limiter I use. I have it in the chain exactly for this reason as not to experience horrible digital distortion when recording, but the bass on this almost managed that even with the limiter on. Yes, the bass control is entirely too much!
The Grunge doesn’t really have sweet spots — it has less awful spots. The other Digitech drives, like the Screamin’ Blues and Bad Monkey, feel responsive and musical. The Grunge feels like the controls are clinging on for dear life, trying (and failing) to rein in chaos.
But… I Don’t Regret It
Here’s the thing, though: I don’t regret picking it up for a second. It might be a sonic disaster, but it’s my sonic disaster. It reminds me of those early years discovering local bands, figuring out tones, and getting properly obsessed with guitar gear for the first time.
It’s not a pedal I’ll be plugging in again any time soon — unless I’m doing a demo on “how not to EQ a distortion pedal” — but it’s found a permanent place in my collection as a little nostalgic relic. A reminder of how far I’ve come since those early days of chasing noise for noise’s sake.
Sometimes a bad pedal can still be a good memory.
Final Thoughts
The Digitech Grunge might have been designed to capture the spirit of the ‘90s — loud, brash, and unapologetically messy — but it ends up more “BB Blaster practice amp” than “Bleach-era Nirvana.”
Still, for those of us who grew up during that era, it’s hard not to feel a bit sentimental about it. It’s a product of its time — and that time just happened to be one of experimentation, distortion, and questionable tone decisions.
If you find one cheap and you’re feeling nostalgic, go for it. Just don’t expect to be blown away. Unless, of course, you accidentally leave the Lows turned up too high.
Saturday, October 18, 2025
Digitech Hot Head – Reunited with an Old Flame
I’ve been on a bit of a Digitech kick lately — probably triggered by the renewed attention Josh Scott gave the Bad Monkey a few years back. That video seemed to single-handedly pull the old Digitech drives out of obscurity, and it reminded me just how much fun those pedals were.
A couple of weeks ago, I revisited the Screamin’ Blues — a pedal that’s often described as a BD-2 with a two-band EQ. Well, I enjoyed it. I enjoyed it a lot. It nails those classic Blues Driver tones and then goes even further, reaching into territory that even the Boss can’t quite manage. More than that though, it stirred up something even more powerful than great tone: nostalgia.
Back in my formative guitar years, I bought three of these Digitech pedals — the Bad Monkey, Screamin’ Blues, and one more mysterious third pedal. Over time, I convinced myself I’d outgrown them. They got shelved, forgotten and one got traded away in the endless cycle of gear acquisition. But after finishing the Screamin’ Blues demo, I realised how wrong I’d been to underestimate them. I jumped straight onto eBay to see if I could reunite the trio. A few bids later, the orange box — the Hot Head — was on its way to me.
There’s a little twist to that story, but we’ll come back to that later.
Orange Means Distortion
The Hot Head is Digitech’s orange overdrive, and let’s be honest — when we see an orange drive pedal, our minds immediately jump to one thing: the Boss DS-1. Much like green being the official colour of a mid-hump overdrive - It’s the benchmark, the reference point, the orange distortion pedal. Whether the Hot Head is based directly on the DS-1 circuit or not, I can’t say for sure, but it definitely shares some DNA. And, like the Screamin’ Blues compared to the BD-2, it also fixes a few of the shortcomings.
The DS-1 has been the first “real” pedal for countless players. It’s cheap, it’s everywhere, and when you stomp on it for the first time, it makes a very noticeable difference to your tone. But by today’s standards, it’s not exactly a refined circuit. The tone control, in particular, is famously limited — turn it one way, and you get mush; turn it the other, and it’s fizzy bees in a tin can. There’s a narrow sweet spot in the middle, and that’s about it.
The Hot Head solves that problem neatly with a two-band EQ. The bass control gives you proper tonal flexibility — roll it back for a nasal, almost megaphone-like drive tone, or crank it up for thick, fuzzy bottom-end saturation. The treble control acts more like a global tone knob, but even when rolled right back, it doesn’t get overly dull or woolly. It’s a massive improvement over the single, uninspiring DS-1 tone control.
Gain for Days
The gain range on the Hot Head is excellent — from a gritty, pushed-clean edge all the way to a full, raging distortion. To be fair, the DS-1 can do this too, and it often gets unfairly dismissed as a one-trick pony. There’s actually a lot of subtlety hiding in that circuit if you take the time to explore it.
Now, I’ll be honest — when I was shooting the demo for this one, I wasn’t quite feeling it at first. I’ve never been a huge distortion guy. I tend to prefer more natural, amp-like overdrive tones. That compressed mid-range of most distortion sounds don’t quite hit the same as they did when I was a spotty teenager, plugged into a practice amp alone in my room. Hey, I call that some personal growth 😂
But when I listened back to the recording… I started to get it. There’s something really satisfying about the tone of this pedal. It’s aggressive without being brittle, and it has a lively, responsive feel that keeps it fun to play. I genuinely think the Hot Head might be one of those hidden classics forgotten to the sands of time.
A Strange Twist of Fate
Right, so about that little behind-the-scenes story I mentioned earlier.
When I first started my channel, I actually had a Hot Head. It was one of the pedals I used to keep the weekly demos flowing, but back then, Digitech pedals were completely out of favour and worth next to nothing. I ended up trading it away to fund something new — which seemed like a great idea at the time.
That old Hot Head had a distinctive little chip in the paint, just above the controls on the top-left corner. Small, barely noticeable, but quite unique in its own way.
Fast forward to a couple of weeks ago, when I jumped on eBay to find the cheapest Hot Head I could. I threw in a few bids without thinking too much about it, and one of them won. After the listing ended, I took a closer look at the photos… and there it was. That exact same chip, in the exact same place.
Surely not?
When it arrived, I pulled it out of the box and inspected it. Now, I can’t say with absolute certainty that it’s the same pedal — but it looks identical. I’m pretty convinced I’ve been reunited with my original Hot Head after all these years. A proper full-circle moment.
Now, of course, I’m on the lookout for the rest of the series. I have no real logical reason to for this, but who doesn't like a collection, eh?
Final Thoughts
I’m not going to tell you the Hot Head is a forgotten masterpiece that deserves a place alongside a Klon or a King of Tone. But it is a solid, versatile drive pedal and a very worthy alternative to the DS-1 for anyone chasing those classic distortion tones.
If I had to rank the Digitech drives I’ve covered so far, it would probably go:
Screamin’ Blues > Bad Monkey > Hot Head.
That’s not to say the Hot Head is bad — not at all. The other two just edge it for me personally. But who knows? Maybe you’ll plug one in and find your own bit of 2000s magic inside that bright orange box.
Tone City Model M V1 – Rediscovering a Forgotten Gem
Around five or so years ago, the Tone City Golden Plexi was making waves. It started popping up on budget boards everywhere, gaining a reputation as the “must-have” mini pedal of the moment. Naturally, I had to try one. To be honest, though, I walked away a little underwhelmed. It wasn’t bad, but the gain knob seemed to start off too dirty and just got dirtier from there, without much room for subtlety. Add in a touch of background noise, and the whole thing just didn’t click for me. It found its way onto the “to sell” pile pretty quickly.
Fast-forward a few years, and I spotted that Tone City had updated the formula with the Model M. This new version promised dual gain controls and even included a built-in boost. That sounded like exactly what the Golden Plexi had been missing, so I snapped one up on the used market at a decent price. When it arrived, I plugged it in for a quick test drive… and felt the same shrug I’d experienced with the Golden Plexi. So, into the cupboard it went, gathering dust among the forgotten toys.
Then came a late “spring clean” in September. I unearthed the Model M, plugged it back in, and — well — I must have been having a bad day the first time, because this time the pedal absolutely sang. What came out of my amp was the gritty, dynamic, amp-like drive tone I’d been chasing all those years ago. There was this beautiful fuzzy edge, a responsiveness to my playing, and suddenly it clicked. I was wrong about this pedal, plain and simple.
The Gain Section – Crunch vs High Gain
One of the most interesting features of the Model M is the dual gain setup. Instead of one generic gain control, you get two: Crunch and High Gain. A little toggle switch decides which mode you’re in, and the corresponding knob becomes active.
In Crunch mode, you can roll the gain almost all the way back, giving you that slightly pushed-clean tone with just a hint of grit. Dial it up, and you’ll find classic British-style crunch that works beautifully for blues, classic rock, and anything that needs an “amp just starting to sweat” vibe.
Flick over to High Gain mode, and things get rowdy. This setting picks up roughly where Crunch leaves off, delivering a more saturated, aggressive tone. It’s not modern metal levels of gain, but it’s got that modded JCM800-at-full-tilt energy. Think classic hard rock, early heavy metal, and fat, roaring leads.
If there’s a small downside, it’s that the mode switch is a toggle rather than a footswitch. You can’t switch between Crunch and High Gain mid-song without bending down. That said, the pedal has a trick up its sleeve that makes up for it.
The Built-In Boost
The second footswitch on the Model M engages the Boost mode. This is a simple one-knob affair that always runs before the drive section. It’s not designed to give you an independent clean boost or EQ tweak; its job is singular — push the amp circuit harder.
The boost itself is pretty transparent, but as you turn it up, it slams into the drive section with more intensity, essentially giving you a “second channel.” It’s like going from crunchy rhythm to searing lead at the tap of a switch. For all intents and purposes, the pedal becomes a two-channel Plexi-in-a-box.
Would it be more versatile if you could choose to run the boost after the drive, adding volume instead of gain? Probably. But honestly, that’s not the spirit of this pedal. The Model M is all about unapologetically British, amp-style drive, and the boost being pre-gain plays into that beautifully. It’s Nigel Tufnel territory — when you need that extra push over the cliff, the boost takes you straight to eleven.
Tone and Noise
If there’s one part of the pedal that doesn’t quite keep up, it’s the tone control. At the lowest setting, things can get a bit woolly before it starts to clear up. From there, though, it does a solid job, never getting too piercing at the top end and keeping things smooth.
The other slight nit-pick is noise. Push the gain hard, and you’ll notice a bit of background hiss — which, to be fair, is par for the course with mid-heavy British-voiced drives. According to Tone City’s website, the Model M V2 addresses some of these issues, which makes me think this V1 review might just be the first chapter in a two-part story.
A story of redemption
The Tone City Model M V1 is a great example of a pedal that deserves a second chance. On first impression, it might not blow you away, but give it time and it can reveal itself as a dynamic, amp-like drive with real character. Between the dual gain modes and the built-in boost, it offers plenty of flexibility for players looking for that classic British roar without the volume of a half-stack.
Sure, it’s not perfect — the toggle switch instead of a footswitch limits on-the-fly versatility, and the tone knob could be a little more refined. But overall, this is a pedal that captures the magic of cranked British amps in a compact, affordable format.
If the V1 was this good once I gave it another shot, I can only imagine how much further Tone City took it with the V2. Maybe that’s a story for another day.
The V1 doesn't exist anymore, but the V2 is available and for sale here (affiliate link): https://thmn.to/thoprod/540179?offid=1&affid=2735
