Marshall BB-2 Bluesbreaker II

It has 4 knobs: Mode(Boost and Blues), Drive, Tone and Volume, it's pretty ease to configure the pedal, just turn the knobs and see what happens!

I was a little worried about the way it would sound: what a mistake! The pedal is awesome, I can get from bluesy tones from hard rock crunch sounds, it can go from Eric Clapton to Van Halen very easily, and that's not all, the Boost mode is pretty good too, it adds a lot of gain in the signal, very good to use on tube amplifiers. I Use a Yamaha Pacifica(Strat like), a Meteoro Thor Plus and a Jim Dunlop Cry Baby GCB95, it sounds perfect with my equipment.

I totally depend on it beacause it's my main distortion unit, and I'm happy with that, and it's very well-built, built like a tank, it's kind of heavy, very good.

I play a lot of styles of music, from jazz to heavy rock, I'm a professional musician for 10 years and I was looking for an overdrive pedal that could give me extra gain, and I found it on this unit, I'm very satisfied with its tone.

The usage of this unit is very easy and self-explanatory. Actually I didn't buy this pedal because of it's Drive-Sound. I was only interested in the boost mode. In this mode there is only one (!) poti to deal with ... that's what I call simple! I got good results after a few seconds. But take care! When the volume-poti is cranked up to levels beyond 2 o'clock, a crunched amp will tend to feedback easily!!!

I compared the boost of the BB2 with other boosts (like the Daniel D by Reussenzehn etc.) and now I think that one gets a lot of value for a relatively small amount of money. If you know how to work with your guitar's volume poti and your technique-level is post-beginner, you will get nice boost effects with the BB2. Ideal for harder rocking parts or striking sololines. I use this unit with Les Pauls, Strats and a Telecaster and can use all guitars without changing the setting of the BB2 ... surprising, ha?

It looks very stable and trustworthy. But the base plate is the very weak part of the pedal! I bought a Warwick stageboard with velcro fastener to fix the pedals on the board. A few days after I arranged my pedals on the board, the BB2 fell off the board. The rubber material of the base plate showed reactivity with the glue of the velcro and began to resolve into a sticky, kind of liquid material!!! Uaarghh!!! Therefore I can only give 5 points here.

I contacted the german Marshall distributor via mail and they answered immediately, apologized and sent me a new base plate. Very friendly! Good service!

I use this pedal in the boost modus only, mainly to boost sololines or hard rocking bridges. The last 2 years I've been playing rock/pop etc. although I've already played a lot of different styles (crossover -> jazz) during the last 22 years *uff*. This pedal meets all of my demands with a very interessting price-quality ratio. I would actually prefer a valve driven booster for a bit more warmth and dynamics but as longs as this pedal survives our touring, I don't consider buying a new / another booster.

Incredibly esay to use. Four knobs: Boost/Blues, drive, Tone, Volume. Manual offers some suggestions and they are pretty good starting points. However, your ears must be your guide. Once you dial your tone in you probably will not mess with it too much.

Very good boost and Blues sounds are possible with this pedal - I actually belive it is a bit better than my original Tube Screamer I bought many years ago (and still have). No Noise with my setup which is: Fender Princeton Reverb from 1964 - a tone monster in its' own right! I am playing three guitars through it: 2006 Les Paul Standard with Burstbuckers, 1981 Dean Elite with Super Distortion pickups (WOW X 3), and a 2006 Squier Telecaster Blonde with original pickups.

The pedal has true bypass -excellent. When you crank the drive past 3 o'clock -watch out! You will fall in love and want to play and play and play.......

Built out of some serious heavy metal with solid construction - no cheap plastic on this one. This pedal will be around long after I'm pushing up flowers!!

I don't gig any more but I know I could depend on this 100% if I did.

Marshall made - no need to call them at this time.

Compared to other distortions like the Bad Monkey this pedal will blow it away. Same for the Tube Screamer. I have been playing since I was 15 and I am now 53 - you do the math. I have a sense that until you play for awhile you really do not get a feel for the "right" tone. Me, I play old rock classics like Badfinger, Stones, Skynrd, Chuck Berry, and am starting to get seriously into the basic Blues sounds - music that comes from the soul.

This pedal drives my Fender Princeton into pure heaven. For those of you starting out, do yourself a favor LISTEN carefully to what the great music makers sound like. Billy Gibbons, Jimi Hendrix, George Harrison, Chuck Berry, Johnny Johnson, Robin Trower, Mick Ronson and so on. Do these guys play music that is noise? Don't think so.

Try one out for yourself. Like I said before - LISTEN!

The pedal is pretty straight forward to use, and for anybody that's used to operating various guitar effects pedals then they could use this one in their sleep. It has 4 robust large chrome knobs, with the first being a 2-click option between 'boost' or 'blues'. The blues option is the overdrive part of the pedal, and the next 3 knobs operate the amount of drive preferred, next the tone, and finally the overall volume when the pedal is in operation. When in 'boost' mode then both the tone and drive are totally bi-passed, and all you then have to play with is the volume. There's a small manual provided with it, but just looking at the knobs basically is self-explanitory.
As for ease of use, no problem in well-lit conditions, but if you needed to reset the pedal during a live performance on a darkened stage, then you'd struggle to really assess the correct position required. Each knob has a very fine black half-stripe on it, and there are NO markings on the surround underneath them (with the excpetion of the first one, boost/blues). Not very practical for musicians that require different settings from this pedal for various songs. It's more practical to use this pedal where you have just 'one' preffered setting that you need, and then to simply stomp it on or off.

The sound quality of the drive part of this unit I personally didn't like. It gave a very basic bluesy distortion, and I'm a hard rock player. But the reason I bought this pedal is that I tried out the exact same one that a friend of mine had, and found the boost section to be exactly what I needed. I'm using a JCM800 Marshall amp, and even when the gain is cranked up to full, in small club settings where you need a sensibly low volume on stage, then the amp didn't have enough drive. I knew that I needed to use an effect to warm the valves up further and create a greater drive, yet other pedals that I had tried ended up masking the sound too much with their own characteristics. Yet the bi-pass facilities of the Bluesbreaker mean that when the pedal is in boost mode then the tone of the amp is not altered in the slightest. And the whole reason I fell in love with the JCM800 was because of it's huge tone. I now set the Bluesbreaker permanently on boost mode, and leave it in operation for an entire gig. I only play rhythm guitar and only have one basic sound that I use, and that's a big full-bodied classic early 80's crunch rock sound. I can now achieve that sound at low volume levels via the Bluesbreaker pedal. I don't use it in an FX loop, and instead just link the pedal directly between my guitar and my amp. I still have the gain set on full, and yet the final sound is never too fizzy, compressed, or overly-processed in any way. It sounds totally natural as if I was playing through the amp with the master volume turned up to deafening levels. The pedal doesn't sound noisy in the slightest, although of course the entire guitar does become a lot more active sounding with this amount of gain. I'm using Mighty Mite Motherbucker pick-ups on a good quality Les Paul copy, and the bridge pick-up has a 21.5k output. So my whole sound is very organic, with a strong pick-up output and a big Marshall tone, yet I'm able to control it so I can keep that big gain sound at a sensible volume with the Bluesbreaker in operation.

You couldn't wish for a more sturdy design. It's a big solid metal pedal that looks almost indestructible. It's heavy duty chasis and solid chrome knobs make it incredibly road-worthy, and I so far I've had no problems with this unit at all (and honestly can never see me having any problems with it in the future either). I never feel the need to take a back-up, and always feel very confident with it when on stage.

Never needed any customer support with this unit. There's not much that can go wrong with, nor could I even envisage anything going wrong with it.

For the heavy rock crunch-rhythm sound that I need, then the Bluesbreaker does the job for me. But only because of my own personal set-up and limited requirements. The fact that I have my amp's gain cranked up to full, plus I'm using a very high output pick-up, then the boost mode on this unit is perfect for my own purposes. But as a standard distortion unit then it doesn't seem to pack a hell of a lot of punch for a player that that loves heavy rock. Yet the pedal is named Bluesbreaker, and for a blues player then this could be a great unit to drive a valve amp with.

Drive, tone, volume knobs + mode selector knob ("Boost" or "Blues"). Footswitch. LED power indicator + 9V variable amp DC input. The variable amp power supply is great because you can use any 9V adapter that fits.

Unfortunately, the tone knob only works in Blues mode. Bummer.

BEWARE: If the pedal is on and you switch from Blues mode to Boost mode, your signal output may jump significantly louder. You can destroy eardrums that way if someone's head is near the amp. BE CAREFUL. You should always turn down the volume knob BEFORE switching from Blues to Boost.

S/S/H hollowbody strat > EQ > Bluesbreaker II > EQ > Epiphone Valve Jr. Combo

I use this setup for practice and recording at home, and it friggin' ROCKS. Put the Valve Jr. volume at about 2 o'clock and ease up the volume of the Bluesbreaker II to the desired level, and I can sit for hours playing everything from the dirtiest low-down Chicago blues to Hendrix to '70s rock to psychedelic surf (although that sounds better with more effects) to Link Wray to Radiohead to Sonic Youth to whatever. Not the soul-crushing Metallica Thing-That-Should-Not-Be, or Sepultura or Cannibal Corpse or whatever kind of deal -- but you already knew that.

The pedal introduces some noise, but it's insignificant, and it has genuine bypass so when it's off it's really off. The pedal has a somewhat bright Boost tone which you can't control because the tone knob only works in Blues mode (!?!?). At first I thought the pedal was whimpy because in Blues mode I turned everything up all the way and didn't get a screeching ultra-distorted massive harmonic sh*t-fit the way I do with my ProCo Rat. However, this pedal has some great sustain, and I can tear up with the feedback and tremolo. It really does make my Valve Jr. sound a bit like a Marshall!

My opinion about overdrive pedals: these pedals are meant to overdrive the POWER tube(s) on your amp, NOT the preamp tube(s) -- although they can do that too. Preamp tube distortion is often sold as the "tube sound." But it isn't! It's POWER TUBE DISTORTION that produces all the classic distorted guitar sounds. So if you aren't turning your all-tube 100-watt mega-amp up past 1 on the master because it's too loud, you aren't getting power tube saturation. That's why I use a 5-watt amp and crank it up all the way. It's still massive loud, but it's also sweet and saturated. Your overdrive pedal clips the input to the power tube(s) as a means of exciting the rich dynamics inherent in power tube saturation, and it boosts the signal level. The result is a sound that is almost clean, but still highly distorted. A liquid bell. Transfixing.

Metal case and controls. Seems extremely sturdy. I busk with it as my only effect pedal and it has never let me down.

Playing for 24 years, many of that in bands. I play all kinds of music from punk to jazz. I would descibe my preferred style as indy pop psychedelic raga country blues surf -- Hendrix, Link Wray, The Mermen, Jefferson Airplane, Sonic Youth, Country Joe and the Fish, Grateful Dead, Kaleidoscope, early Floyd, Spacemen 3, Chrome, Velvet Underground, etc. I make music that makes people think you've broken your guitar and/or amplifier. The Bluesbreaker II has been great for this (LOL!). HOWEVER keep in mind that I use an EQ before and an EQ after the BBII, so I have complete control over the frequency response of my tone. If it were lost/stolen I'd probably try a different pedal but that's just me being curious about trying new stuff.

Plug it in, set it to clean boost, drop the tone control a bit if you play a cheap made in China strat like me - sounds great. You could tweak it but it would just sound different - not necessarily better. I tend not to use the 'blues' mode. Not that it's bad -just don't need it.

I just love it with my cheap strat. I'm predominantly a Les Paul player which I plug straight into a JCM2000 combo with uprated tubes and GH12-30 speakers. Don't need anymore than that.

Bought the cheap strat on a whim, rewired the tone control so it works on the bridge, stuck in some decent pots and a paper in oil cap because it sounded ice picky on the clean channel and - disaster. Sounded worse. Thought about buying a Fender amp (never considered that before...) Tried it with my modded TS 7 - too boxy sounding. Tried it with my Roger Mayer Voodoo thingy - too wussy. Dug around in my box of junk and found this old Marshall pedal I hadn't used for years - I loan it to my bass player so he can get a dirty sound on Heartbreaker - instant result. It soups up the clean channel a treat for clean Hendrix/SRV - hit the bad channel and this thing whoops. Hot, smooth, bright, sweet, hollow, woody, sustain, gain, legato, controlled feedback. Luxury. OK there's a bit of fizz if you go nuts but it's a Marshall - you need that to cut through a band. It certainly isn't transparent in clean boost mode but what it adds is great - very musical and quite like, well, a hot-rodded, cranked Marshall. Geee....

Had it for 5 years. Used it for a while, chucked in the bottom of my gear box, dug it out 2 years later and the battery was still OK and it worked fine. Loaned it to my bass player who kicked it round the stage for a while. Still works fine.

I used to have JCM800 that was old and a bit unreliable and I live quite near Marshall. I'd take it in, they'd fix it up, check it through, same day and charge me almost nothing.

Plus I got to chat with Jim Marshall who is a legend, he signed some posters for me to auction and hung out as long as I wanted. His knowledge of and enthusiasm for Jimi is endless which makes him cool in my book.

I play a lot of Zeppelin with my Les Paul and I don't use this pedal -I run straight into the amp. I suppose I could if I wanted to heat it up even more but the Page sound isn't about gain particularly.

For giggles I play Hendrixy stuff on my POS strat and this pedal makes it sound like the best strat ever. Well OK it doesn't but it makes it sound about a zillion times better than it actually is.

Also it's cheap, dosn't suck tone and has a wide range of adjustabilty. I've paid a lot more for pedals and got an awful lot less. I'm not a total Marshall freak - there have been days when I would have traded my amp in for anything else - but this pedal does it totally for me.

Very easy to get a good sound, both for the Boost or Blues modes, for single-coils or humbuckers..

I've tried it with Strat US and LP with 498/490 pickups on a Marshall VS100H + 4x12 and on a Vox AC30. On both amps and with both guitars, I obtained awesome results: a rich, creamy and gutsy distortion sound for the Blues, better than everything I have heard before.
My favorite killer setting for Strat US: Drive 1 o'clock, Tone 11 o'clock, Volume 11 o'clock, to feed the clean channel.
Oh yeah, I forgot: it works very well in a chain with other ODs or a wha.

I depend on it.

Never tried.

Much better than the Shredmaster (which eats all high-end frequencies). Much better than the DS1, Big Muff US and Double Muff, waaaay too harsh and fake...
The Boost mode is incredibly musical. It not just adds volume, but also this little "sparkle", or "touch" needed to put the amp just on fire. On this, it is definitely better than my old vintage TS-9.

Simply said, I have sold all the mentionned disto boxes, to only keep the BB2, the MXR Dime and MT2. The BB2 being from far my favorite. I play pop, rock, hard rock and metal.

Why? The harmonics, the musicality, the respect of the instrument, the heat.. WELL DONE MARSHALL.

My best buy from the last 10 years (just before the POD XT Live). I did not expect so much quality from this little box. I love it more than the OD1 and OD2 on the Marshall. Yes, a fantastic value for a few bucks.

Two modes, Boost and Blues. Boost disengages the tone and gain controls, while Blues engages them. Massive difference in volume between the two modes. That can be good or bad depending on what you're looking for. For me, it doesn't make that big of a diff just yet. Traded my old MXR Distortion+ for this pedal and haven't played a gig with it yet, just through my son's practice amp. Next Friday will be the true test, I'll post another review after that.

I first tested all the Marshall pedals through a Marshall practice amp at the store. The Bluesbreaker seemed to fit what I needed the most. I wasn't blown away by it, but thought it had potential. Brought it home and tried it through my son's Behringer GM108 which isn't a great amp by any means, but it allowed me to play with the pedal a bit more. I haven't tried it through any of my practice amps or any of my stage amps yet, and I'm chomping at the bit to do so. It sounded pretty "ehhhh.." through my boy's amp, but, again, I see potential. If this thing is supposed to mimic a JTM45 combo, it must be a JTM45 turned to ten with tubes about ready to explode, because there's actually a LOT of gain with this pedal. No problem, I spent some time and dialed in a fairly adequate sound in Blues mode. I'm excited to try the Boost mode with my stage rig (various geetars through a '65 Bandmaster head, Peavey 4x10 cab and various other effects) and see how it sounds, because I kind of have begun to like the Boost mode's sound, which is gnarly and ratty, I can't wait to slam the front end of the Bandmaster with it. Don't let anyone tell you it's a clean boost with no tonal change, this thing has it's own voice. It does color your sound, but not in a bad way. As far as it's "passive bypass" abilities, I haven't noticed any tonal change in the signal path, I think it's got a good thing going on that point. I do have an old Marshall Shredmaster pedal which I absolutely love, it's my favorite pedal, so it's not fair to compare the BB-2 to the Shredmaster, whoch is such a versatile, wonderful-sounding stomp box.
Sooooo....overall, the BB-2 isn't too bad a pedal. I didn't feel my heart race at any time with it just yet, I'll let you know in a little over a week how it sounded bashing an old tube amp in the face.

It's a hell of a lot more solid than some of the plastic gizmos on the market today, it probably will be tough as nails.

I'm still playing, nobody seems to be able to get me to quit, don't try, ladies, I'll just divorce ya(had to learn that the hard way, huh, woman?). I mainly play what's considered to be classic stuff these days, but I listen to everything. That said, I prefer old-school tones: AC/DC-style overdrive, maybe a bit crunchier; just good old distorted tube amp tones, basically. My Shredmaster can give you the gamut, but the Blusbreaker seems to be designed to start with more gain than the Shred. Either way you slice it, I WILL dial this sucker in. In a year or so, I could(hopefully) post a drooling report. As for now, I know that this isn't a pedal that is a "woody staight out of the box." I love dirt boxes, I currently own my Shred as well as a Tube Screamer, DS-1(el poopo) and Dano T-Bone(yurg). I traded my old Dist. + for this, and I really liked the MXR. I've also owned an old Univox Superfuzz and I had a TS808 back when they were brand new, I can still remember looking at it in an old Schmitt's Music Center back in '80-'81 and thinking "Tube Screamer, that sounds cool, I gotta get that!" May the muse of crunch bless you all on your quest for the coolest, snarkiest dirt tones! Turn it up loud and make 'em pay!!!

Ok this baby of mine, The Marshall BluesBreakerII. When I took it out of it's box there was a small piece of paper that you can't really call a manual. But hey it was there. In this manual it didn't really say anything you can't figure out yourself, ex. how to change battery, suggestions on how to align the buttons etc.
I can tell you that information is literally useless! This thng is so simpel to use that you could get a good sound from it you were deaf, dumb and blind (yeah i know Pinball wizard;) ).
The suggestions to settings weren't very helpfull either as they are just three of a thousand, but hey they do sound good.
Deffinitly a ten'er

Currentley i play this through a marshall mg15dfx with a boss turbo distortion unit and an Epi Les Paul(very wierd setup).
but i've also tried it through tons of other marshalls all of them were valve driven; i played it trough fender amps and the likes, with countless different guitars. Per example the B.B King Lucielle(gibsons) and a "true" les paul, and for one reason or another this pedal does something special to them all. It really, REALLY creates the illusion of a pure valve driven marshall Blues Breaker, it makes my poor little epiphone feel as loved as a Gibson. This has the best sound in the world! Also it is very versitale, it doesn't just do blues i can go from pop to heavy(classic heavy, maybe not slipknot).
If you gain the amp and fire this unit up you cant tell if its pedal meant to play heavy.
I mean you can go from U2 on the boos t channel(just the volume knob on this one, creates the illusion of overheated valves; very cool indeed!) to B.B king on a clean amp and blues channel on the pedal to AC/DC with the drive all the way up and a neck pickup!
Best pedal ive tried! (and it's also very cheap)

This pedal is built like i tank! what else can i say. ill die before it! No Gig without it!

Havent have to deal with them and i doubt i ever will.

Well this thing can do anything as i said preveously. I play alot of Led Zeppelin Ac/Dc Cream and other late 60's 70's bands. This does it all, especially Cream, This is where it really shines, after all it is a blues pedal and if it couldn't play blues inspired music what good is it right? Been playing for little over two years now and i've had this thing for about a year. If it was stolen i would chase the fucker who stole it down and hit him with it, then go out and by another one to pair up with my first, that's how much i love it;)...couldn't really think of anything i hate bout it thiugh i wish it had an external swithch to alter between the two modes... but i guess that would end up kinna messy as the volume doesnt work alike.
I keep the settings as following: Blues mode; Drive 8; Tone 8; volume 7.
these may seem high out of ten but i tend to alter on the tone on my guitar. It also makes my guitar come a little more inote life you know?
Well Thats it!

Very easy - only downside is that it can be difficult to see the (black on silver) marks on the controls.

Put this up against more expensive pedals and this doesn't quite sound up to it, but when you bear in mind the cost this is excellent value for money. I tend to use the blues rather than the boost mode and this gives a fairly decent warm creamy overdriven sound when used with my American Telecaster through a Marshall Valvestate.

I have had this 18 months or so with no problems. It hsa been gigged but not without a backup.

Never dealt with the company.

Suits my style of music which is blues and soft rock. If lost I would probably get something a little more upmarket.