BOSSBd-2 Blues Driver Guitar Effects Pedal

There are so many overdrive pedals on the market these days that it can seem like a minefield. Thankfully, you can't go very far wrong with the classics. After years of trying various drive pedals, I think I've finally found the right one. My tonal preference has always been for natural valve breakup, something which requires an amplifier to be cranked up to deafening volumes. Most of the pedals I've used have sounded far too "synthetic" and clinical to me. The BD-2 manages to avoid this and produce a very "amp like" drive tone... Its surprisingly transparent, and has plenty of gain available. It can easily handle anything from blues, to hard rock although I would look elsewhere if you play metal.A common complaint about the BD-2 is that it can sound "fizzy" at higher gain settings. Compared with some pedals such as the Ibanez Tube Screamer this is true, but to my ears at least, this is closer to how a cranked amp naturally sounds. It could perhaps do with a little more bottom end, but a slight adjustment your amp settings compensates for this should you feel the need to. But it certainly doesn't suck out bass and boost mids like a Tube Screamer or SD-1 might, its an altogether fuller tone, and works very well as a standalone drive, as well as a clean boost. As any good pedal should, it responds beautifully to your picking and volume level, and cleans up completely with the guitar's volume rolled off.Boss are known to produce very reliable, and tough pedals. There are thousands of 30+ year old Boss pedals, still being used all over the world... They're built like tanks. Though I've only owned this pedal for a short time, I see no reason to think that reliability will be an issue.

I can't compare this to the non-Waza version since haven't tried that one.For reference: I'm using this with various guitars and pickups, going into the clean channel of a valve amp I'm very familiar with.First, the tone and musicality of this pedal is remarkable - in a very good way - ranging from almost creamy to super biting, as you change the settings. There is a huge range of gain. At low levels it can act as a tone enhancing boost. Right though to smooth searing blues lead.The volume had all the range you could need, so great for a solo volume increase if that's useful for you.At reasonable gain levels there's no discernible added noise or hum, and the dynamic sensitivity of this creature is so responsive to touch, finger or plectrum intensity, and guitar volume knob that I spent hours with the pedal set to on, and just vibing out using my guitar controls and pickups and having a magical vibe out.Yet to really explore the custom setting switch tones, but initially, that introduces another spectrum of slightly different options.I am over the moon with this pedal and highly encourage you to try it if looking for this type of pedal. I've owned the closely competing green pedal by another brand, which is also phenomenal, so I don't see it as better or worse, just different. This one suits my preferences better, but that's entirely subjective.A final word: I'm finding this great as both a viable extra amp channel, as well as something I can keep on whilst using the clean channel (set to really clean) and breaking up the sound purely by rotating the guitar's volume knob.

Solid both in terms of sound and reliability. I've had one for about 4 years and it has never left my board, it's a great blues overdrive kind of pedal and pretty versatile, too. If I need to play a solo it's usually the pedal of choice because even maxed out the melodies still come out the other end of it in one piece, albeit heavily overdriven and when set to low gain it's very subtle and responds quite well to dynamics. If I need some fuzz I'll use my Big Muff but I've found that putting the BD-2 through the Big Muff actually sounds really, really good in an insanely ridiculous but still functionally usable kind of way.They're not for everyone, that's the same for any pedal, to be honest. There is a modified version but really you're better off getting another pedal than one of those because if you didn't like the BD-2 you probably won't like that either, it just doesn't sound different enough. There are loads of really good budget blues/tube overdrive pedals out there, we're spoiled for choice these days.

Great product does what it says on the tin

Very good overdrive pedal. I bought it because it seems to be one of the best loved distortion/overdrive pedals for blues/rock/heavy rock (along with the more expensive Ibanez Tube Screamer and a couple of other pedals). The Boss BD2 produces a much better overdrive sound than my amps' built-in distortion options, especially with my hollow electric guitar, but also with my Les Paul. Tweak controls are great and allow for plenty of different distorted sounds, and you can also use it as a volume boost pedal for the amp and/or other pedals, which is very handy. Build quality is also great as with all Boss pedals. It's a no frills, simple and effective distortion pedal, great for blues, rock and heavy rock/punk rock sounds.

This is a great pedal for customising if you want to get that 'Boutique' pedal sound. Out of the box the tone is crisp and fat, but you can take this pedal beyond the next level by upgrading it with some of the well documented mods out on the internet.I personally recommend Monte Allum's H20 Plus mod. It turns the BD-2 into a fat,biting monster with thick and creamy tones. but with real chord clarity, even on extended jazz patterns.If you are not frightened of a soldering iron, and want that fat Robben Ford sound on a budget, then this pedal is the perfect starting point!