Boss BD2 Blues Driver alternatives?!

[Renegadrian]

A guy asked me to build him one to try...too much effort, too many trannies...(put lazy icon here...)

So what can be decent substitutes? MI Audio Blues Pro? Eternity? Son of Screamer? OCD???

[rousejeremy]

Pretty much everything you listed sounds better. Let him try a Son of Screamer and really push the true bypass option.

[frank_p]

Pretty much everything you listed sounds better. Let him try a Son of Screamer and really push the true bypass option.

hmm..  I wanted one for a while...  What do you don't like about it Jeremy ?

[Renegadrian]

I read different and opposed opinions on the BD-2 - some say the name is misleading as it has too much gain...some videos on youtube are good enough, altough you can realize it's not your classic "blues" OD - The guy also wants to try a modded SD-1 I got, I figure it would sound better for his needs (light blues/jazz) - else a SoS, maybe "Keeley-zed" to get that extra push.
I never built Eternity or Blues Pro, but I really liked both PGS demos on youtube...So I put them on the list...but yeah a SoS is good enough as first choice...Thanks Jeremy!

[bwanasonic]

For DIY, I think it's much more fun to make something that's not available commercially. Tim Escobedo's Tripple, or the Runoffgroove stuff (Fetzer, etc). The Tripple gets a nice range, from sane to insane. The Fetzer is great to push a small tube amp with. Depending on what setup your friend uses, you might want to think of a pair of simple boost / clipping or compressor pedals. If he uses a tube amp that's already skirting the edge of distortion, a booster and a compressor might make a more organic transition into overdrive. On the widely commercially available side, though it's not usually associated with "Blues" OD, I'm a big fan of the RAT for it's overall versatility. You can get some convincing blues / jazz sounds out of it if you remember to keep the distortion knob turned down, and your TUBE amp turned UP.

[rousejeremy]

Pretty much everything you listed sounds better. Let him try a Son of Screamer and really push the true bypass option.

hmm..  I wanted one for a while...  What do you don't like about it Jeremy ?

It just has this brittle "bossiness" to it I can't get around. I modded mine with some of Wamplers recommendations and it was much better. Different cap on the tone control.

Different clipping and some cap changes

I ended up selling it. Just my opinion of course.

[HOTTUBES]

i really liked the Eternity , but it was just a bit too bright for me ....

Does he want an Overdrive or Distortion circuit ?

[frank_p]

Pretty much everything you listed sounds better. Let him try a Son of Screamer and really push the true bypass option.

hmm..  I wanted one for a while...  What do you don't like about it Jeremy ?

It just has this brittle "bossiness" to it I can't get around. I modded mine with some of Wamplers recommendations and it was much better. Different cap on the tone control.

It reminded me the sound of a lot of other JFET designs when I heard the various reviews on youtube.  I call it ''tearing trough a phone-book sound''.

What about this ?



Somebody like it ?

[markeebee]

Bit late to the party, but I'd recommend Ice-9's Bluesman Jfet srpp overdrive.  Lots of nice mildly driven amp-like tones.

http://www.diystompboxes.com/smfforum/index.php?topic=91136.0