Drunk Beaver Unleashes First 10 Unit 'Pedal Drop' - the Kherson Drive - based on a rare Ukrainian SD-1 Clone

As if my good friend Vitalii Bobrov of Drunk Beaver wasn’t already the most prolific pedal builder out there. He has now taken on further special limited run projects or ’Pedal Drops’ as he calls them - which will feature just 10 unique pedals rapidly released in a single batch.

The first run - the Kherson Drive - is based on the Sound JS DS-5 - a rare Ukrainian clone of the Boss SD-1 - which indeed was manufactured for a short period (90’s) in Kherson, Ukraine. Of course Vitalii always throws his own spin on things and extends the feature set to include two really cool Mods - a Fat EQ Mod which beefs up the Low-End frequencies, and an Op-Amp Mod - where you get to choose a Classic (NOS RC4559) or Modern (OPA2134) variety of tone generator.

The whole point of these ’Pedal Drops’ is that they’re somewhat fast and furious - based on rapid prototyping and a super quick release schedule. The same run never to be repeated twice supposedly! If you know Vitalii as well as I do - you will know that there is very little risk here - as his builds are really solid - and universally great sounding.

Because of the rapid timescale - there won’t be any particularly detailed documentation and rarely a demo of what the pedal sounds like before you buy it - so you have to take something of a leap of faith here. Of course KHDK do their mystery surprise releases where you’ve no idea of what you’re getting - here at least you’re on pretty solid ground - as the provenance of the pedal will always be clearly stated.

I’m quite a fan of Boss gain pedals in general - and I think it would be cool to have this modded variety of SD-1 in the collection too - I already have several SD-1’s, including the Robert Keeley Modded variety which is a favourite of mine - there’s no reasons to think this Kherson might not become a favourite too!

It kind of catches me at the wrong end of the month though - as I’ve had to make some very significant investments in these last few days - so alas I will likely miss out on one of these.

It essentially has the Fatness of a Keeley Modded SD-1 (Fat EQ) with an extra Op-Amp selection if I’m being overly literal and deconstructive here!

These are available right now on the Drunk Beaver Reverb.com store for $150- and I fear they won’t be around for too long! Every cent, penny and euro of this pedal’s sale goes to supporting Ukraine’s Armed Forces in helping them to stave off belligerent tyranny and oppression - help free Ukraine!

There are no demos of this pedal as mentioned - and alas I cannot even find any demos of the Sound JS SD-5 variety either - the only proper Sound JS demo I can find on YouTube is for the HM-5 (based on HM-2!).

Any SD-1 fans among you looking for a twist in the tale?