Mark uses the Boss DS-1 more as a boost than a distortion. He has the tone and distortion knobs turned all the way down, and the level knob turned all the way up. From there, he uses the volume knob on his guitar to control how much signal feeds into the pedal, since more volume leads to a more distorted sound.
Mark often leaves it on for the entire duration of a gig and just uses the guitar’s volume knob to control it. This makes it one of his most important pedals, alongside his wah, his DynaComp and the Holy Grail reverb – as Mark said himself:
I think the biggest factor is the COMBINATION of the always-on wah, DS1, dynacomp, flats and the holy grail. The core of my sound is how all those effects gel together. The phaser and chorus aren’t used that much, and the delay is for specific things. Although I definitely prefer the fender deluxe, you can get pretty close with almost any amp. My backstage amp is a lil ZT lunchbox and I think it sounds great.
Mark Speer on Reddit
Mark has a silver tape on the pedal covering the Boss logo. For whatever reason, the tape has the words “..ECT OFF” (likely “Project Off”) written on the left, and an Arabic word on the right that roughly translates to “Project” as well.
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