Boss BD-2 Blues Driver

Set everything at a little before 12 O'Clock, and have at it!

I trashed my 'potato bug' Tube Screamer for one of these. I play a Strat thru a silver-faced Fender Deluxe Reverb. For a punchy, crisp, warm blues tone to complement a Buddy Guy, Otis Rush, Magic Sam style, this is the one. Responds nicely to pick attack and guitar volume settings. Not one trace of generic Stevie Ray tone in here like the Tube Screamer somehow adds to anything played through it. Essential to beef up a fender-on-fender tone without the annoying thin-ness of the Tube Screamer.

Seems quite reliable. I like metal housings.

Beefy metal housing, easy battery access, straightforward design. Good sound.
This box has become an essential element of my tone recipe. Again, for the fender-on-fender player who is not interested in a stevie ray tone, this box deserves a good look.
This box has also held its own vs an Expandora Pedal and a Fulltone drive unit, and a RealTube unit as well that I've tried.
My overall rating is in relation to other overdrive pedals, not this pedal vs a vintage Tweed Bassman amplifier.

This thing is as simple and as complicated to use as you would ever want. (why does DOD insist on using stupid names like 'stupid' and 'butt'?) Boss keep it just how the majority of people like it, level, tone and gain. Beautiful.

I tried this unit in series with other stomp boxes that were supposed to be the best (ie tech 21 XXL and Bixonic expandora) and every time I stepped on one of them I found myself wanting to jump back on the BD-2. It sounded warmer, clearer, it had a better frequency response and it responded to my playing nuances better. It is a rhythym players dream. Any tone you want, this has it. The gain control is very dynamic.

I cannot really comment on long term reliability but I can say that after being a recent convert to the BOSS family (I started with the TR-2 tremolo) any other pedals I buy from now on will be BOSS.

I never expect I will heave to go down this road. Stomp boxes dont get any tougher.

I have just undergone an extensive search through at least 15 distortion/overdrive pedals ranging from the sublime to the ridiculous and this was by far the best. It has it all in the one box. If you want the dynamic playability of say Johhny Greenwood of Radiohead or the crowd-pleasing rhythym of Swervedriver, get this pedal.

Easy- 3 knobs. No stupid names for them (like DOD pedals), just level, tone, and drive.

I love this thing. The only effects I use are this and a Crybaby, and it's all I need. There's not a bad sound in it. You can change the amount of distortion just by changing how hard you dig in with your pick. The reason I'm only giving it a 9 is I'v found one pedal that's better- The Mesa Boogie V-Twin. too bad it costs 3 times as much.

You couldn't break it if you tried. I'd definately gig without a backup.

Never needed them.

I wouldn't buy it again, because: 1. it will never break, and 2. If I ever buy another overdrive/distortion pedal, it will be the V-Twin. If it got stolen and I didn't have $300, I guess I'd get another one. I would definately buy other Boss pedals if I need more effects.

Very simple to operate (like all Boss units). No goofy names for the controls, just Level, Tone and Drive

I dunno. After reading all the (mostly) glowing reviews here I decided to give the BD-2 a try but I was somewhat disappointed. The salesman I spoke with assured me that this unit blows the Ibanez TS-9 away, but try as I might I couldn't get a sound out of it that I liked. It seemed very trebly and brittle even with the tone control rolled back. At higher gain levels, it began sounding fuzzy. Not what you'd expect from a bluesy tube amp. I used it on both channels of my Marshall Valvestate with no luck. I suspect, however, that if you're willing to fiddle with it for long enough, you can coax some pretty sweet sounds out of it. But for all the hype from the salesman, I wasn't very impressed. The TS-9 blew the BD-2 away.

My dog uses Boss pedals as chew toys. I just borrow them from her once in a while when I feel like playing. I suspect the roaches would be able to live in these things after nuclear holocaust.

Never need to deal with them.

I returned the pedal because I liked the Tube Screamer so much more. However, this pedal is definetly worth a look given that so many people are raving about it. Overall, it gets a seven for effort.

Look, three knobs (level, tone, and gain), one switch, that's it! It doesn't matter where you leave the settings, you will get a kick ass tone.

O.K., I love this pedal. I have a Jackson Preformer PS-4 with humbuckers running through a Fender Champion 110 25 watt transitor amp. I thought my clean tone was good before... now it kicks ass! I use the pedal primarily as a booster pedal. It smooths out and fattens up your sound. I like it best with the gain turned up to 9:46 (ha ha, the tone turned up to 9:00 and the level up to 12:00. Obviously setting will vary due to your own set up but this gives me a little crunch when I hit it hard. I is great as a straight distortion pedal or tube anp simulator but it also brings alot of variety to my other effects. It gives my RAT distortion a much more tuby feel. It boosts up my wah signal. It is very quiet. I love it.

Yes, no questions asked. Because I bought this pedal, I do not have to go out and get a more expensive amp to get a great tone.

You can't get much simpler than this, except in maybe an MXR unit.

For the type of pedal, it's incredibly quiet, IMHO, but... I think it sounds great with my Strat. It'll handle the highs of the bridge pu, and the meaty lows of the neck. It retains the classic Strat neck pu tone that many other distortion I have found take away.

It's a Boss. But, I've not had it long, so I can't say from experience with this peticular one.

I don't ever forsee this happening, but a 5 year warrantee is nice to have in the back of your mind...

What can I say, I think it's a beautiful pedal. Although it is not something for all people. I'd say you have to have blues influence to appreciate the thing.

Three knobs: Tone, Gain, and Level.

It's only noisy when close to the amp, other than that it would depend more on your pu(eg hum cancelation...) All settings do not sound great on all guitars, for example, I tested this unit with a tele, it fattened her up and gave her some real nice gain sounds and dirty ones too. However, when plugging it in using my strat, it wasn't as effective. In other words, had I tested this pedal using a strat, I probably wouldn't have purchased it, It's a good thing I own a tele though. I'l rate this for a tele:

Yes, I owned boss pedals before and have never experience a problem.

I suppose

As mentioned above, for my tele, this pedal sounds fantastic. I give that rythme early stones growl, I love that stlye so I dig this pedal.

As many have stated, this is one of the finest distortion boxes you can find. The manual explains the basics and gives a few sample settings, but you really don't need it. Three knobs (level,tone,gain) so it doesn't get much simpler than that.

With the gain cranked you can expect a bit of noise, but no shock there. As far as the sound goes, it is superb acroos the board. Everything from a warm fuzz to an attacking overdriven growl. With active pick-ups you might want a noise gate, but that's totally dependent on the sound you are looking for. This effect can cover a wide range of musical styles, although it may not suit you if heavy metal or grunge are your cup of tea. I have been using it in combination with the Contour setting on my amp and the sustain is endless. It gives that warm, tube distortion that translates into an incredibly "fat" sound. If this pedal doesn't sound good with your amp, buy a new amp...

It's a BOSS! Built like a tank with an attitude, so I see no need for a backup.

Never called them, but it would be nice if they spruced up the Web page.

I would definitely buy this pedal again! IMHO this is as good as distortion gets. As stated above, it may not be suited for heavy metal, but in all other categories it flat out excels.

Three knobs - Level, Gain, and Tone, and one on/off switch. It's the easiest-to-use thing I own

This little box is perfect for what I do. I use it to boost the gain and volume of my Marshall Valvestate for soloing. The tone is fat, smooth, and sustaining when combined with the Drive channel of my Marshall, and it works beautifully on all three pickups (Strat with Texas Specials). There is a tiny bit of noise, but that is to be expected from an overdrive pedal.

Boss pedals are absolutely indestructible. This one is no exception.

Never needed help with this bad boy.

Absolutely perfect. Worth every penny.

I fell in love with this unit the minute I plugged it into my Mesa Boogie .50 Caliber.I hardly tweeked it kept most of the controls dead center and got a great blues/southern rock tone from my 79 Fender Strat.I hardly refer to manuals at the best of times but haning read it I guess its as clear as a manual should be.

not particularly noisy unless your pickups are unshielded or your amps earthing is screwed up. I find this more silent than the Boss Od 2 and the Sans Amp 9 (original) which has to be gated heavily when I plug into a mixing board. What I really love about the BD 2 is that you can back off your guitars volume pot to about 7 or 8 to get that semi clean rhythm/ lead sound and then kick the volume to full for that "rip out solo sound ".The controls respond excellently.

I,ve used the BD 2 on quite a few gigs now and its been extremely dependable I'd like to get one more for backup just incase I loose it.I'd also like to explore the possibility of using 2 BD 2's on different settings.

Ive never had a problem with Boss / Roland products so Ive never had to call them ( my trustworthy GP 8 still gives me a killer chorus sound in the studio.

I ddefinitelty buy one again, actually I wish Boss had made the BD 2 earlier so I wouldn't have wasted money buying the assortment of overdrive/ distortion pedals that I have. I play the blues and this really helps me dig and 'squeeze out the tone from my guitar(s)."Blues guitarists this pedal is a must."

This is one of the easiest pedals to use. There are three knobs (level, tone, and gain) and two jacks (input and output). That's it. At any setting, this pedal gives you a great tone. Adjusting the knobs merely changes the color of the tone. With the gain up high, and a high tone, you get ripping leads, and with a medium to low tone and almost no gain, you get a fat, deep, crunchy blues tone for rhythms. The manual is quite helpful; it gives you a few useful settings, but some of the coolest ones aren't in there. You need to play with the knobs for the sound that you like.

The sound on this pedal is outstanding! No matter how you adjust it, you always get a great tone. When you combine the different colors and sounds you can get from adjusting your pickups and your amp with this pedal, you can attain anything from a screaming yet full Hendrix tone to a mellow, lightly crunchy, deep, tubey BB King sound. You can also play with the volume knob on your guitar in accordance with the level knob to get different amounts of "gruffiness."

It's a Boss. These things could be dropped off a building and still work.

Never needed 'em, so I couldn't tell ya!

If you like rhythm and blues, mellow crunchy tones, full sounds, or flexibility in tone, this is the BEST pedal out there! GET IT! You can get a bassy, fat rhythm sound, with little distortion, or you can get a wailing lead sound with great sustain (or anything in between).

Three knobs -- Very easy

Does exactly what it is advertised to do. Has a ton of gain available if needed! Does everything from slight crunch distortion a Marshall Stack, although I am feeding it with a compressor, which increases the distortion and sustain. Great for a basic Rock and Roll Guitar sound, but best when used for subtle overdrive, leaving the heavy distortion for pedal designed for heavy distortion. As advertised, all picking nuance is preserved, even at higher gain settings.

BOSS says it all

Being a customer rep at Boss must be a very relaxing job.

It's a Strat player "gotta have". Works very well with my explorer as well, if a limiter is used as a pre. A metal player with a light touch might be disappointed though.

The pedal is easy to use. Three knobs, one for output level, another for tone and one for gain. The manual is simple to understand and recommends a few settings for you to try.

Firstly , the level control has lots of guts. To get the effect level to match the clean signal level the knob has to be put at about 11 o'clock. If you put it any more clock wise you get quite a large signal boost. I reackon that if you even had the gain at zero (ie no distortion) you'd overdrive a valve preamp into distortion easily. Secondly, the tone control is very treblely. I found it painful to have it set past 12 o'clock. I think the pedal must of been designed by an old rocker who had spent too much time in front of 200W stacks. Personally , I found I had to have the tone control turned to 10 o'clock or less to get warmth out of the effect. Lastly, the gain control has a nice wide width of effect. at 11 o'clock it gives an edge of disortion to chords and to the more agressively picked lead solos. If it is turned much past 12 o'clock it makes the guitar wail with a very bluesy feel. Also the sustain significantly increases so there must be some compression in there somwhere. The tone produced when I use the neck pick up (S. Duncan vintage staggered) of my strat when the pedal was set with tone at about 10 oclock and gain at 2 o'clock was magical. It sounded like I was playing through a stack of melting marshalls. And I only have a 20 watt transistor amp!! Overall, the effect is really amazing. So long as you don't have the gain turned up full, you keep the quality of your tone. ie you keep the unique sound quality of the neck, middle or bridge pickups. At intermediate gain settings, You control the level of distortion by how hard you treat the strings. Gentle picking gives clean tone, harder picking increases the distortion. The higher the gain setting, the earlier the distortion sets in for a given strength of picking. The unit certainly gives out a valve sound.

It's you typical boss contruction. I've only had the effect for a couple of weeks so I can't comment on it's long term reliablity.

Never had to use them.

I compared this pedal with an ibenz tube screamer (TS-5) and I thought the boss was much better. The tube screamer sounded weak with little warmth by comparison with the boss. Since buying the effect, I wish I had tried the Mesa V valve foot preamp (it has 2 x 12AX7s) but it is a lot more expensive ( ca AUD$ 600-700 vs AUD$ 200 for the boss). But that's not to say I'm unhappy with the effect. I think its great stuff as it lets the tone of guitar come through unlike many distortion devices. I think it boosts the high frequencies a bit too much but turning down the tone control on the unit solves that.

It overall very very easy to use.

The sound is perfect except that it is hard to find a very smooth but still distorted sound

Every time I pluged it into my guitar it worked so I haven't seen any problems with it yet.

I never had a problem with this pedal

This pedal works for me on any song my band plays

I haven't got it that long, but I assume it will be the same quality as other Boss pedals, and that's pretty good

It's a great overdrive/distortion unit. It's a bit like the old yellow OD-1 overdrive for low settings of drive, more like a distortion unit for higher settings. It doesn't lose as much bass as the OD-1, with a neck pickup and a low drive setting you can get a very warm, full tone, with just a hint of overdrive/distortion if you pluck lightly, then hit the strings hard and you get a nice crunch. Very responsive. The best overdrive pedal I've had so far.