Guardians of the analog
Papi Fuego
- Build Rating
Welcome back friends to the boss appreciation celebration
. This week Im going back to the late 90s for a true modern classic and one of the pedals that helped kickstart commercial pedal modding, the boutique transparent overdrive market and a mainstay on many pedalboards to this very day. That's right, the BD-2 blues driver. As Ms. Frizzle would say, seatbelts everyone!I never had a stock bd-2, I've played my share of modded blues drivers and owned the Keeley super phat mod but this is my first outing on a regular old bd-2. Chuck did quite a write up on it so I won't get too techy, but it's essentially a discrete opamp fender in a box type pedal. The EQ section looks like a fender and the gain texture is more gritty like a tube amp vs the standard fair opamp low gain overdrive. It's a brighter voiced pedal so if you have a dark rig you might like that but it's easy to dial the treble out. The gain range is pretty wide and the dynamics kare where this pedal really shine. Much like a tube amp or a good fuzz face, this pedal is very sensitive to pick attack and volume knob changes. This is also a fantastic alternative to the congested mid focused low drain drives, and is also great as a boost or stacked with a TS style.
Build wise it was really straightforward and the included subs switch is nice for going between different guitars. On my strat I like to add a little more bass to fill it out a little more in the bottom end. Went with smd j201s since I don't want to pay and roll the dice on thru hole jfets. Also shout-out to @StompBoxParts for having the webs best selection of dual gang potentiometers, always coming in clutch
. Matte black enclosure with UV print. For the artwork I went with Davos aka the Steel Serpent. David has held the title of the immortal iron fist at times and a rival of Danny Rand.If you are looking for a good alternative to basic soft clipping opamp drive you should definitely check out a blues driver. There are lots of available mods, it's a simple build and it's a classic for a reason.
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