Pedal Emulation: Blues Driver

J

JDR3009

Inspired
In a very out of character move for me, I’m experimenting with some lower gain sounds and with pedal-led sounds for something a little different. I’ve always been curious about the Boss Blues Driver but never owned a real one. I think I saw somewhere that it’s basically a Marshall Bluesbreaker pedal but repackaged and released under a new name, but I don’t know for sure.

Do we have any pedal in the Axe FX that gives the same basic vibe as a Blues Driver, or uses the same basic circuitry? I know a little bit about a little bit when it comes to the Axe FX, but drive pedals are a blind spot for me (it’s generally just dropping a Tubescreamer in front of whatever amp I’m using for a lead sound and that’s about it, so this is a rather different application)

TIA!
 
JDR3009 said:
In a very out of character move for me, I’m experimenting with some lower gain sounds and with pedal-led sounds for something a little different. I’ve always been curious about the Boss Blues Driver but never owned a real one. I think I saw somewhere that it’s basically a Marshall Bluesbreaker pedal but repackaged and released under a new name, but I don’t know for sure.

Do we have any pedal in the Axe FX that gives the same basic vibe as a Blues Driver, or uses the same basic circuitry? I know a little bit about a little bit when it comes to the Axe FX, but drive pedals are a blind spot for me (it’s generally just dropping a Tubescreamer in front of whatever amp I’m using for a lead sound and that’s about it, so this is a rather different application)

TIA!
Click to expand...
https://wiki.fractalaudio.com/wiki/index.php?title=Yeks_Guide_to_the_Fractal_Audio_Drive_Models
 
There is an explicit mention of the Boss. Just maybe not what you want to hear.

“Fractal Audio‘s corresponding model is the Blues OD. So to be clear: the Blues OD is NOT a model of the BOSS Blues Driver pedal, as often assumed.”
 
I think you’re either misunderstanding my question or I’m not expressing it clearly enough.. I’m not asking if we have a Blues Driver. I know we don’t.

I am asking if we have anything that is similar in topology, like how people were using the FET boost to emulate a Klon before we got a Klon model and how both the BB Pre and Blues OD ‘reference’ a Bluesbreaker.
 
There is nothing in the Axe Fx III that sounds or behaves quite like a Boss BD-2. If you like lower gain Fender bluesy sounds, worth picking one up to try. A long while back I spent time trying to match my BD-2 (with Keeley style mods) with Axe FX II Drive models. Couldn’t be done, and I’m not sure it could with the Axe FX III.
 
No, the Blues Driver is not a Bluesbreaker. The BD-2 is it's own thing. You can think of it as a Fender-style tone stack with the bass cranked in front of a few clipping stages that all start "working" at the same point, followed by a serious bass cut and the tone control.

I also got curious about trying a BD-2 in the Fractal (I "accidentally" sold my real one a little while ago). It's been requested before, but Yek and others commented in those threads that the 3-knob Tube Driver can have a similar vibe....which I haven't tried. But, that's mostly because I'm already almost exclusively using tweed models turned way up. So, it seems redundant.

FWIW, it's probably the one pedal I would buy without hesitation if I had to use a clean amp for some reason. I'd compare it with an OD-3 and a couple other things....but I do like it a lot better than the other normal "always on, all your gain into a clean amp" pedals that I've tried/owned.
 
Many people use a BD2 as a cheap and similar substitution for the expensive tube driver pedals.

It’s like if a bd2 sounds like a tube driver, you could use the tube driver models and get a similar tone to the blues driver by that same logic
 
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