A Different Blues Driver Mod!

I've previously built a few versions of the Galaxie mod of the Boss Blues Drive BD-2 pedal. The most common of which is the version I'd sold as a part of Steggo's ongoing support of Ukraine's defense. There are other versions of the circuit out there, and I'd at one point (in the sadly far too distant past) gotten a request for the Keeley modded version of the pedal. A quick search of the internet showed that one of my favorite sources of all information pedal, the Tone Geek, had a write-up detailing his version of the Keeley mod (as it was used by John Mayer). I thought this was a great start, but decided to see if I could take things just one or two steps further. So here's Steggo's take on the Tone Geek's take on the Keeley mod of the Blues Driver. 

Final Photos of Pedals for Ukraine Riabininohadros!

I went ahead and posted the final promo photos of the Riabininohadros (Blues Driver Galaxie Mod) for the upcoming Pedals for Ukraine auction. Steggo decided to get in on the action, and I wanted to experiment with some better "on location" shooting for Steggo pedals in general so this became the test case!

Blues Driver with a Ukrainian Dinosaur - Redux!

A couple of weeks ago I posted a pedal I'd just finished which I'd intended to use as a donation for Pedals for Ukraine. Unfortunately once I got the enclosure back, I realized that there was a typo, and the there were some issues with the dinosaur - the contrast wasn't as good as I'd hoped. So, I resolved to revamp the artwork and give it another go. The enclosures finally came in today, so I got cracking!

Boss Blues Driver with a Ukrainian Dinosaur - For a Good Cause!

When Russia began its illegal and pointless invasion of Ukraine in February, I posted a "yellow and blue" pedal I'd recently finished - my first Boss Blues Driver - in solidarity with the Ukrainian people. Later on I donated Ukrainian Army BMP serial number 2 to the Pedals for Ukraine charity auction on Instagram. That pedal did very well, raising $260 for relief efforts. I ultimately plan to build more of those, but I wanted to do something a little different for a second Pedals for Ukraine donation. Something more dino related, so I hit the web looking not only for dinosaurs native to Ukraine, but I also wanted to come up with a fun pedal to put into said enclosure! Given my first "blue and yellow" pedal was a Boss Blues Driver, I thought that may be a good place to start.

A Galaxie Far Far Away? Modding the Boss BD-2

A few months ago I posted my first build of the Aion Sapphire clone of the Boss BD-2 Blues Driver overdrive pedal. At the time I mentioned that the board supported the Galaxie modification by Machine Head Pedals, and I planned to complete a second build of that version. It took a bit longer than expected (as I was working on other projects), but here it is, and from what I can tell so far, it is amazing!

It's Not Only a Boss Clone - It's a Yellow and Blue Pedal

Generally I like to try and compartmentalize my hobbies away from politics. Honestly, I try to compartmentalize a lot of things because in today's world it is far too easy for politics to pervade all topics, all the time, with the maximum possible emphasis. I'm also a graduate / fan of Ohio State University, so to feature the colors yellow (or maize) and blue is a big step in even the worst of times. That being said, the crisis in the Ukraine is as abominable as it is appalling. I sincerely hope the international community finds the political and strategic will to take meaningful action to first return the situation to status quo ante and then continue sanctions against Putin and his oligarchs to weaken their power structure and ability to cause further harm. Therefore in support of the people of the Ukraine, I'm making it a point today to feature a blue and yellow pedal. I wish I could take more meaningful action.

As I'd mentioned in a previous blog entry, I'd been having trouble with one of my Boss pedals, and this is the culprit. AionFX's Sapphire is one of the new Boss pedals released toward the end of last year. Overall I've always had great success with AionFX pedals, with very few not working immediately (and those that didn't work have generally been easy to debug). This one caused me some issues. The first pedal fired up okay (well, at least the light came on), but while I got sound in bypass mode, I got nothing in active mode. I audio probed back to Q4 which seemed to have an issue. Unfortunately in trying to de-solder Q4, the trace broke pretty much ruining the board - so this is take two! The BD-2 is still in production, so stock units can be had for reasonable prices (~$115 new), but building is always cheaper (assuming you don't have to build it twice, but even then...). However, the AionFX project also supports one of the most common modifications of the BD-2 pedal - the Galaxie mod which replaces a lot of the passive components and givens the pedal a different sound and character. I'm planning on building one of those too now that I've got the stock version working!