DEMO Cobalt Drive (Boss BD-2 Blues Driver)

[MichaelW]

Build Rating

5.00 star(s)

Continuing my survey of the Boss Overdrive Pedals, I finished this one late last night.

This seems to be a polarizing pedal, lots of love and lots of hate for it seems like.

This is my first experience with a Blues Driver and I really like it a lot! It's definitely not suitable for every genre but the fizzy-low gain thing is really pretty cool sounding to me.

I think it really excels in the lower gain, edge of breakup type sounds as it gets pretty wooly and fizzy at higher gain settings. Goosing it with the Haunting Mids pedal can tighten up the transient spikes and thicken up the sound a bit.

It's definitely a much busier pedal in terms of components than Uber Drive (Boss SD-1).
I didn't have all the values I needed in 1/8 watt resistors so I decided to build it all out in 1/4 watts. Makes for a very busy looking board.
I used MMBFJ201's for the JFETS mounted on @Robert 's adapter boards, which are the smallest footprint adapters I've been able to find.

I know that there are ton of mods for this pedal but since I don't know what I don't know, I built it stock. Aside from the 1/4 watt resistors everything was built according to the BOM.

Tight fit for the jacks with the Dual Gang A250 so I had to dig into my stash of Lumberg jacks to make it work. The input jack clears by a public hair, literally.
But it WORKS hahaha!

I ordered the enclosure from StompBox parts, this is their "Brunken Blue" color. Looks really cool! I didn't have anything in "Blue-ish" so this is fitting.

I recorded a short demo of how the pedal sounds this morning. Also compared it to the SD-1 to hear the difference.
At the end of the demo, I kicked in my Haunting Mids on the Cobalt to show how it effects the pedal with a bit of a mid boost.

Since I noodled on some Jerry Garcia tunes on my Uber Drive demo, I thought I'd continue the trend with a Dead tune on this demo

 

[steviejr92]

Sheesh all those caps look so tidy in there!
Great build! Love the demo!

 

[Route14]

Honestly this build sounds a bit better than the original. I think Boss changed something over time but I had a really early model and it was super thin and bright sounding. It had that ice picky thing people talk about. However, all the clones I've built, while they definitely sound like a BD-2, sound better than the originals I've played. My thought was maybe the better components was the difference but I'm not sure.

 

[chip]

Nice. My Cobalt Drive is one of my favorite pedals.

I've always felt like "Blues Driver" was a terrible name for the BD-2. It's so much more versatile than that. To me, anyway.

 

[Guardians of the analog]

The blues driver is a cool circuit that is really versatile and overlooked today and I don't know why. Good job Michael.

 

[Locrian99]

Build looks awesome. I got my full board out the other day (which I rarely do since I have to out it up or inevitably my 2 year old has fun with the switches etc.) my blue Steele the mvp version of this is on there. Forgot how much I liked this pedal. Was originally planning on sinking around with the mystery meat and Aphrodite I played the blues driver all night. Really is a great sounding pedal, I did the keeley mods on mine as listed in the mbp build docs though I’m curious to build a stock one as well as check out chucks various mods.

You make a good point though about the mods. Which I had said something similar on another site when someone was trying to mod a pedal he’d never played before. You might just like it stock.

 

[Barry]

Awesome job, personally I like a Blues Driver pushing 808 types!

 

[jimilee]

Continuing my survey of the Boss Overdrive Pedals, I finished this one late last night.

This seems to be a polarizing pedal, lots of love and lots of hate for it seems like.

This is my first experience with a Blues Driver and I really like it a lot! It's definitely not suitable for every genre but the fizzy-low gain thing is really pretty cool sounding to me.

I think it really excels in the lower gain, edge of breakup type sounds as it gets pretty wooly and fizzy at higher gain settings. Goosing it with the Haunting Mids pedal can tighten up the transient spikes and thicken up the sound a bit.

It's definitely a much busier pedal in terms of components than Uber Drive (Boss SD-1).
I didn't have all the values I needed in 1/8 watt resistors so I decided to build it all out in 1/4 watts. Makes for a very busy looking board.
I used MMBFJ201's for the JFETS mounted on @Robert 's adapter boards, which are the smallest footprint adapters I've been able to find.

I know that there are ton of mods for this pedal but since I don't know what I don't know, I built it stock. Aside from the 1/4 watt resistors everything was built according to the BOM.

Tight fit for the jacks with the Dual Gang A250 so I had to dig into my stash of Lumberg jacks to make it work. The input jack clears by a public hair, literally.
But it WORKS hahaha!

I ordered the enclosure from StompBox parts, this is their "Brunken Blue" color. Looks really cool! I didn't have anything in "Blue-ish" so this is fitting.

I recorded a short demo of how the pedal sounds this morning. Also compared it to the SD-1 to hear the difference.
At the end of the demo, I kicked in my Haunting Mids on the Cobalt to show how it effects the pedal with a bit of a mid boost.

Since I noodled on some Jerry Garcia tunes on my Uber Drive demo, I thought I'd continue the trend with a Dead tune on this demo

View attachment 43319

View attachment 43320

I really dig it. Tell me about your recording setup with Picture in Picture. What software did you use for that?

 

[Harry Klippton]

This is my first experience with a Blues Driver and I really like it a lot! It's definitely not suitable for every genre but the fizzy-low gain thing is really pretty cool sounding to me.

I didn't get to watch your clip yet but fizzy low gain lines up with my experience with the BD2. now I've often been accused of liking boxy, honky, and fizzy sounds but something about fizzy AND low gain didn't really appeal to me. So I don't dislike the BD2 but I also don't feel very compelled to use it

Edit: boxy

 

[MichaelW]

I really dig it. Tell me about your recording setup with Picture in Picture. What software did you use for that?

heh, it's pretty simple actually, I use a GoPro Hero 10 for the main camera. After experimenting with some various second cameras I ended up returning them all and I just my iPhone on a stand to capture the pedals.

For these pedal demo's I just use iMovie to create the PIP. I typically use Adobe Premier Rush for my SUAPYG demo's but my version of Adobe doesn't work with .mov files, which is what the iPhone records in. There's some limitations with iMovie but it's sufficient for these demos.

 

[eh là bas ma]

fizzy low gain lines up with my experience with the BD2

I never noticed any fizziness in both my BD-2 builds. I built them following recommandations from pcb designers like Lectric Fx and Aion. I also had a good look at premierguitar.com article from B. Wampler. Most interesting mods allow to get rid of the "fizz" quite easily, choice of JFET is probably most decisive, along with clipping diodes choice. Lectric fx kindly gives us a clear warning about J201 being fizzy in this circuit.

I humbly share the experience and feeling with many players and builders, reporting that BD-2, like DS-1, are very good circuit designs with wrong values or wrong parts, and it ruins the tone. Once you spent a few hours experimenting with values, it can become your favorite stompbox. I had a similar experience with DS-1, so the idea of building a stock BD-2 didn't even crossed my mind.


I am very happy with 2SK117 and these diodes, according to premierguitar article :

Aion's board is especially great because there is an interesting bass control, which is really welcome if you like to get the best possible sounds from this circuit.

more info here :

https://aionfx.com/app/files/docs/sapphire_documentation.pdf

https://lectric-fx.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Bloozehound.pdf

Boss BD-2 Mods

The Boss Blues Driver is one of those pedals that everybody has owned or at least played through once. I’d venture to say it’s nearly as popular as the

www.premierguitar.com

That's too bad that none of this is mentionned in PPCB build docs...

 

[Harry Klippton]

I never noticed any fizziness in both my BD-2 builds. I built them following recommandations from pcb designers like Lectric Fx and Aion. I also had a good look at premierguitar.com article from B. Wampler. Most interesting mods allow to get rid of the "fizz" quite easily, choice of JFET is probably most decisive, along with clipping diodes choice. Lectric fx kindly gives us a clear warning about J201 being fizzy in this circuit.

I humbly share the experience and feeling with many players and builders, reporting that BD-2, like DS-1, are very good circuit designs with wrong values or wrong parts, and it ruins the tone. Once you spent a few hours experimenting with values, it can become your favorite stompbox. I had a similar experience with DS-1, so the idea of building a stock BD-2 didn't even crossed my mind.


I am very happy with 2SK117 and these diodes, according to premierguitar article :
View attachment 43387
Aion's board is especially great because there is an interesting bass control, which is really welcome if you like to get the best possible sounds from this circuit.

more info here :

https://aionfx.com/app/files/docs/sapphire_documentation.pdf

https://lectric-fx.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Bloozehound.pdf

Boss BD-2 Mods

The Boss Blues Driver is one of those pedals that everybody has owned or at least played through once. I’d venture to say it’s nearly as popular as the

www.premierguitar.com

That's too bad that none of this is mentionned in PPCB build docs...

I didn't build one. I have a boss unit