Transparent Guitar Tones!!

Transparent Guitar Tones!

The BD-2 Phat Mod is "the" Overdrive Pedal with Full Range sound.

For tone-purists, this is it! It's not simply a distortion pedal but rather a tone tool that adds to your guitar tone, supplying really nice lows, crystal clear high frequency, great picking response and detail. For those wanting to set their amp on fire but not change the tone of their system, this is the pedal.

The BD-2 is not the same as a TS9 pedal. It has a more FULL-RANGE sound and is much more TRANSPARENT. When cranked it offers a grittier/more-edgy tone.

***After Keeley's mods it’s a remarkable tube-amp enhancer/simulator!***

The BD-2 is very DYNAMIC and works wonders with the volume control on your guitar. You can control all the drive you want by setting the BD-2 Gain high and using your volume control to instantly dial in the rest!

This is not a "fuzz" pedal, (although a stock one might appear to be at times!) but has the best characteristics of a fuzz pedal. Smoother and more realistic sounding on top of all that!

Perfect for Hendrix to Country! How can Robert say that?!?! This pedal has a HUGE RANGE OF TONE!!! Customers tell me on a daily basis, it's the sound they've been looking for for years; it sounds like their rig without the "distortion-pedal-carpet" over their amplifier.

This is the pedal if you are looking for the cranked Fender Super amplifier sound.

One of the best parts is that it has tremendous volume output. It can be used as a CLEAN BOOST with no problem and drive your amp into natural sounding overdrive.

TECH/MODS SPECS

Starting in December of 2001 Keeley started to toy around with the Blues Driver. What he liked was the amount of gain that the pedal had and the complication they engineered into a fuzz tone pedal. BOSS worked hard to come up with a complex tone. What could he do? Just little things...but, after a while he found that several of his changes were adding up to a wonderful improvement in the tone! Cool! What he does is change many capacitors and resistors to fine tune the sound. He changes the input capacitor to allow more of the natural bass from your guitar through. That helps with the weak bass problem. He changes the value of capacitor on the Tone control to make it not so thin sounding when turned up. It evens out the response of the control. He change the value from 0.018uF to 0.033uF, then switches in a 0.068uF cap for the Phat switch. He then changes 6 electrolytic capacitors capacitors for increased smoothness and a little higher quality sound. Lastly, the old 2nd order harmonic increase trick!!! He changes diodes to make the clipped signal a little more asymmetrical. Guitar players love even ordered harmonics. They sound best!

All-in-all the pedal sounds much better than before. There is a definite increase in the sweetness or saturation of the clipped signal. It has more sustain. It is a lot less fuzzy or cranky sounding and much more tube-like in tone. Best of all with the ceramic caps changed to silver mica, there is a drop in the background noise level. The improvement in tone is unmistakable.

Boss BD-2 Blues Driver Mods

This is not all-inclusive in what can be done to the Blues Driver. It is meant to give an idea of where the tone can be improved or changed. All of the changes are subtle but when packaged together offer a nice improvement.

D3 Change this 1SS133 to a different (1N4002) diode for asymmetrical clipping. This adds second order harmonics. This adds to the tube type sound.

D7 D8 D9 and D10 Change 2 of of these diodes from 1SS133 to a single 1N4002. More second order harmonic distortion. Although the change is slight, it can be perceived. Keeley actually takes out one of the two pairs and replaces it with a single 1N4001.

C1, C7, C6, C12, C13, and C15 Change this electrolytic capacitor to a 10uF tantalum. Tantalum capacitors sound better than electrolytic capacitors. Keeley likes these anywhere there is signal coupling at this high a value. Tantalum capacitors are easy to find in this range.

C14 Increase input coupling capacitor value to 0.1uF for increased bass response from your guitar.

C100 Here is where Keeley can affect the tone control. He prefers a little more lower-midrange and bass frequencies through the tone section. You can increase the lower frequencies by increasing the capacitor value to 0.033uF. Install a switch to add a 0.068uF cap in parallel with this value for the Phat Mode!