Coming hot on the heels of my recent Blues Driver rundown we have here another superb candidate for the ’Adjacent’ category. Of course ’Adjacent’ meaning in the ballpark of - not exact replication - often just synergetic happenstance. And the Buzzing Bugs BB04 is actually a unique overdrive circuit which did not really set out to replicate those dual genres - but whose profile just happens to fall into Blues Breaker and Blues Driver territory!
Controls - Volume, Gain, Tone, Body (Phat).
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February can often seem a rather odd month after the hustle and bustle of NAMM Show January - where a lot of new stuff always gets announced - while increasingly outside the NAMM schedule - but certainly in and around it! Projects delayed from the previous year often get released in January, but this year those kind of seem to be more spaced out - with some not feted to happen until March / April. February always seems slow compared to January, and that sometimes extends into March too before ...
I’ve long been a fan of Mad Professor’s gain pedals - which of course mostly owe a lot to Björn Juhl - bar the Simble Overdrive (Dumble) by Lassi Ukkonen. Which by coincidence happened to be my very first Mad Professor pedal several years ago - and in fact my very first Dumble style overdrive - of which I have several now.
So the Simble was my first Mad Professor - and the Custom Stone Grey Distortion the most recent - alongside the 20th Anniversary Royal Blue Overdrive. The Royal Blue came...
So 2024 is off to a pretty spirted start! I treaded myself to 2 pedals right at the tail end of the year - the Poly VERBS puts in an appearance in this month’s selection - while the Reeves Electro BHS-D is running a touch late and will be part of the February selection instead.
This time of the year has to be mostly about NAMM - while I feel that a lot of builders kind of took away from NAMM and launched / showcased their new release in advance!
I’ve still to make it to NAMM - timing’s ...
This rundown has been a long time in the making - having been iterated many times over, and changed as recently as this last Tuesday - when Keeley brought out its Muse Driver - Super AT Mod replacement!
Readers will know that I’ve cited the Keeley Freak Fuzz Modded BD-2 Blues Driver as my favourite all-time overdrive pedal, and be extension - the Blues Driver circuit and variations of it are my own very favourite gain tones. Some gravitate towards Tube Screamer, others Blues Breaker, Timmy ...
Wow - what can I say! The original N5 MGAT-1 was already my favourite distortion of all time - so I initially thought that this was going to be a sort of sideways step from that with more specificity to reach certain key classic era Marshall tones more easily and more precisely - and it certainly does that. While Mr Wu has kind of blown me away again - as this is incredibly a further improvement over the already exceptional MGAT-1.
The MGAT-1 Golden Era seems a little bit more poised and ...
Interestingly I’ve featured 2 Blues Driver derived overdrives in very short succession - and both are excellent, while this Homework Series Blues is the closest pedal out there to my much loved and favourite Overdrive Pedal of all time - the Robert Keeley Freak Fuzz Modified Boss BD-2 Blues Driver. That comes with the Phat Mod too, but its main point of distinction is 2 Germanium Transistors mounted on the pedal’s facia, which deliver a fantastic Fuzz voicing also.
I’m not sure how much the...
I’m of course delighted by the prospect of another cool take on my favourite overdrive format - Boss’s BD-2 Blues Driver. While I would imagine those that bought the fairly recent limited edition Super AT Mod might be a little miffed - as this Muse Driver is in essence an improvement of that circuit - with an extra 2-way toggle switch - following the format of the very recent Noble Screamer runaway success - where there is also another overdrive in that format which has been leaked, and is due ...
I’ve waxed lyrical for a long time about the potency of the Daily Driver - where I originally acquired it based on how close it came to the tone and timbre of the Pete Cornish CC-1. The CC-1 can replicate / reproduce the tones of the TS808, Timmy, Klon and Blues Breaker with ease - and this new Boost addition makes it even more versatile.
The original had those 4 key corner knobs - and a single toggle switch for More Hi-Cut / None / Some Hi-Cut. Those 5 controls gave the pedal an incredible...
The Old Blue Overdrive is a unique Bluesy circuit not based on any other, but giving you excellent coverage of the classic blues tones - including both Breaker and Driver. It has a similarly potent gain cleanup via guitar volume knob as the Blues Driver - and the combination of +/- gain structure voicing switch and Treble and Thickness controls give you a fantastic extended-range degree of output-shaping.
The [-] Vintage voicing mode is probably best for the subtler end of Blues Breaker ...