What We Think
The Boss BD2 pedal has made a massive impact on numerous great players thanks to its sweet, transparent, tubey overdrive.
This pedal has an array of functions and possibilities it’s great for pushing your amp into saturation, which is ideal for blues and rock players! Although this pedal has no problem going full on distortion using a clean channel which generate a rich tone full of body but with lots of clarity for chords with plenty of notes.
As you probably know, Boss has a reputation for building pedals that will last! You can throw it, kick it and juggle. It’s really up to you. But it won’t break.
These pedals will endure the brutal rock and roll touring life; the proof is that this pedal is on dozens of musicians boards across many genres. Boss just proving that durability and affordability can go side by side.
Rimmers Music Bury
Released in 1995, the Boss BD-2 Blues Driver is a relative latecomer to the Boss overdrive family but with its clever design features, earns its place at the table on merit. Circuit-wise, the BD-2 is an evolution of the OD-2 circuit and was the starting point for the OD-3 (the OD-2 was a radically different circuit than the original OD-1). The circuit stands itself apart from other Boss overdrives with a couple of neat design features. The main one is the ‘fixed tone stack’ network after the first op-amp, and this is what gives the Blues driver its distinctive character and tone; this basically copies old silverface amps and boosts the mids and bass while limiting the treble. This allows it to be one of the few pedals that doesn't sound muddy or muted when the tone control is rolled down. The other is very simple but remarkably effective, having a boost stage with an op-amp that won’t clip gives the transparency and dynamic response that the Blues Driver is famous for.
The BD-2 has a flat to slightly scooped mid-range and sounds similar to silverface amp breakup but can get fuzzier at higher gain settings. The OD-3 doesn't have quite as much gain available as the BD-2 but does share a fairly flat midrange with a decent amount of bass. It can be as smooth or crunchy, depending on how you set it. With only slight similarities, the BD-2 and OD-3 are different enough to warrant owning both.
