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Boss Blues Driver Review – Is the BD-2 the best all round Pedal?
Introduction
Time for another classic review! Let’s take a look at a well-known and iconic pedal: the Boss Blues Driver BD-2! This is one of the most famous overdrive pedals in the guitar community. I’ve wanted to try one for a long time, and while browsing Facebook Marketplace I finally found one for a great price! The model I picked up is from 2012, but the BD-2 hasn’t really changed much over the years. The Boss Blues Driver has a huge following and countless players rave about it. However, I’m ashamed to admit that I had never actually played one until now! So I’ll genuinely be going into this review with fresh ears – let’s see how it turns out!
As with all our reviews, we’ll walk through the pedal, talk about its features and controls, listen to how it sounds, and then share my final thoughts. So let’s first start by going over what the Boss Blues Driver BD-2 is and the controls it offers. What exactly is the Blues Driver, and what does it do?
Boss Blues Driver
The Boss Blues Driver (BD-2) is the ultimate overdrive pedal for Blues, Rock, Jazz, and even Country! Its iconic blue and gold design is instantly recognisable to guitarists everywhere. With its fully analog circuit, the BD-2 is designed to act and respond just like a tube amp – providing natural, touch-sensitive dynamics that react beautifully to your picking and playing style. This allows you to fully control your gain structure and volume simply by adjusting your guitar’s volume knob.
As with most Boss pedals, the BD-2 Blues Driver features a straightforward layout that’s easy to learn and use. The standard version comes with just three controls, keeping things simple yet powerful. Let’s take a closer look at the controls on the Boss BD-2 Blues Driver:
- Level: This adjusts the output volume of the pedal, Rotating it counter clockwise will result in no signal.
- Tone: This adjust the tone of the signal. Rotating it all the way clockwise will emphasise the trebles and give a sharp or cutting sound. Whereas rotating it all the way to anticlockwise will cut the treble and create a softer more mellow sound.
- Gain: This will increase the amount of clipping. The further clockwise you rotate the knob the more distortion you will bring into the signal.
More on the Boss Blues Driver
The Boss Blues Driver is often used as an “always-on” pedal, helping players create their core sound and then using the guitar’s volume knob to adjust gain and clean up the tone. This approach allows guitarists to unlock a wide range of tonal options, all controlled directly from the guitar’s volume pot. Run the BD-2 into a clean amp with plenty of headroom, and you can move seamlessly from sparkling cleans to gritty overdrive – all with just one pedal and your guitar’s volume control!
The Boss Blues Driver follows the classic Boss compact pedal design that we all know and love. The input and output jacks are located on the sides, while the power input is mounted on the top. You can also lift the footswitch to insert a 9v battery if needed. And, as with all Boss compact pedals, the BD-2 comes with a reliable 5-year warranty. The Boss Blues Driver (BD-2) is widely available at most guitar and pedal shops, usually priced around £99.
The Sounds
The demo songs will showcase the different Boss Blues Driver gain settings, ranging from a light, bluesy crunch to a full-on distortion sound. Every tone you hear in the demo tracks comes from the guitar plugged directly into the Boss BD-2, then running into the Neural DSP Quad Cortex (Full Review Here) using my RD Custom Amp capture, which we featured in the article (Full Article Here). All gain settings on the Quad Cortex remained the same for both demo songs – the only variable was the Boss Blues Driver pedal itself.
After the demo songs, we’ll explore various tones you can achieve with the BD-2. Once again, the Boss Blues Driver will be run into the Quad Cortex to demonstrate how it interacts with an amp’s natural gain structure. You’ll quickly discover just how versatile this pedal is, with a huge array of sounds available at your fingertips!
What are my thoughts?
The Design
If you’ve ever owned or played through a compact Boss pedal, then you already know what the Boss Blues Driver looks and feels like! It follows the same tried-and-true compact design – same size, same weight, and the same familiar layout. With its legendary Boss build quality, you know you’re using a piece of gear that can handle just about anything.
As a huge fan of the color blue, I really love the look of this pedal. The blue and gold combination looks clean, stylish, and professional. Even better, the Boss BD-2 looks fantastic as it ages and starts to show some wear and relic – giving it even more character on a pedalboard.
Inside the box of the Boss Blues Driver you’ll find the manual, which is standard with any Boss pedal. However, what makes this one special is the inclusion of three full pages of example settings! These range from classic blues tones to full overdrive and even high-gain sounds. I really like this feature, and after trying several of the suggested settings, I can confirm – they sound great!
"It works perfectly for pushing a tube amp into richer saturation while keeping the master volume manageable."
The Sounds
What do I love most about the Boss Blues Driver? How naturally it reacts to your guitar’s volume knob! You can set the pedal fairly hot with both the volume and gain controls, then shape the overdrive simply by rolling your guitar’s volume up or down. The BD-2 is incredibly responsive – it can move from a thick, high-gain sound to an almost sparkling clean tone with ease. This makes it an ideal “always-on” pedal. Want to keep your rig simple? Pair a slightly driven amp with the Boss Blues Driver in front, and that’s really all you need!
The gain on the BD-2 is thick and meaty. When used with single-coil pickups, it adds fullness and body, while still retaining clarity. The tone control is also highly usable – it’s never too extreme at either end, but gives you enough flexibility to add sparkle, brightness, or warmth. Whether you place the BD-2 before or after another drive pedal, it opens up a huge range of options for gain stacking. Between the tone control, gain control, and the pedal’s ability to clean up beautifully, the Boss Blues Driver massively expands your tonal palette.
More on the Sounds
And it’s not just about gain! The Boss BD-2 also excels as a boost pedal. It has plenty of output to push your amp or other pedals. Simply turn the gain down to around 9 o’clock, raise the volume, and you’ll get a fantastic boost. It works perfectly for pushing a tube amp into richer saturation while keeping the master volume manageable. It can also serve as a strong solo boost – though personally, I feel using the Boss Blues Driver only for that role underuses its potential. Much like when people run a Klon purely as a boost, you’re missing out on its incredible drive tones, which deserve to be heard!
The Drawbacks
There’s actually more gain in the Boss BD-2 than you might expect! Can it deliver that transparent booster pedal sound we all like? Absolutely. But when you start turning up the gain control, you’ll quickly realize just how much drive this pedal can produce. As mentioned earlier, it stays highly responsive to your guitar’s volume knob, so you can easily dial it back. At around 12 o’clock on the gain control, the BD-2 already delivers a healthy amount of overdrive.
This isn’t really a critique – more of an awareness. Like most Boss pedals, the Boss Blues Driver is buffered. If you prefer true bypass pedals, or if you’re very particular about preserving your exact signal path, this is something to keep in mind. It’s also worth noting that if you plan to use the BD-2 with a fuzz pedal, it won’t always play nicely when placed before certain types of fuzz circuits.
"For the price, it’s a fun little amp to have lying around. You might use it a lot, or you might not"
Final Thoughts
We can’t talk about this pedal without mentioning the price! As with all Boss pedals, the BD-2 offers incredible value. When you consider the solid build quality, the 5-year warranty, and its wide availability, £99 is an absolute bargain. Designed for both beginners and professionals, the Boss Blues Driver is a pedal you can buy once and rely on for years – you simply won’t need to replace it.
Of course, you don’t have to buy the BD-2 brand new. There are plenty available on second-hand sites and marketplaces, often at excellent prices. You can easily pick up a Boss Blues Driver for a real bargain if you shop around. And because it’s a Boss pedal, you don’t have to worry about reliability – they’re practically bulletproof. In fact, I bought this one second-hand on Facebook Marketplace, and it’s been a killer purchase.
Conclusion
That wraps up our review of the Boss Blues Driver! I’ve absolutely loved using this pedal and I’m really glad I finally picked one up. In fact, it went straight onto my pedalboard the moment I tried it. Boss just knows how to make great-sounding pedals, and the BD-2 is no exception. I can’t wait to keep experimenting with it and see what other tones I can pull from it. At the moment, I’m running it before my LNS Screamer by JSA Pedals (Review Here), and the combination sounds amazing – so much scope for shaping gain and tone!
If you want to try the Boss BD-2 for yourself, you can pick one up below using our affiliate links. It’s a great way to support the site without any extra cost to you. Honestly, I think every guitarist should give the Boss Blues Driver a go. For me, it delivers the kind of gain sound most players are searching for but often struggle to find.
It’s also worth noting that Boss has released a Waza Craft version of the BD-2, which includes a selector switch to slightly alter the circuit. Maybe we should grab one and compare them side by side to see if the higher price tag is justified! Let us know if you’d like to see that review.
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Boss Blues Driver BD-2 Links:
- Boss Blues Driver (Thomann Affiliate)
- Boss Blues Driver (Andertons Affiliate)
- Andertons Affiliate Link
- Thomann Affiliate Link
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