aNaLoG.MaN Pedals now in the Comparinator

Categories: Blog

As promised, there are now 3 new pedals added to the Comparinator, compliments of Analog Man. The 3 pedals he sent to me are:

  • A Boss Blues Driver (BD-2) with the “Super” mod
  • A Boss SD-1 with the “Silver” mod and a symmetrical/asymmetrical clipping mod.
  • An Ibanez TS9DX with the “Classic” mod.

For those of you not familiar with Analog Man, first of all, where have you been for the past 10 years? It’s hard for me to pinpoint when I first heard about him, but I’m pretty sure it was back in my days at Penn State, browsing the effects and amp forums instead of studying for class.

Analog Man is kind of like the old BASF commercial with a twist. They do make their own pedals, but they also makes a lot of the pedals you buy, better. I can say with 100% honesty that I noticed a difference immediately between the BD-2 and the SD-1 that were sent to me, compared to the original pedals.

A stock SD-1 sounded so bad to me that I didn’t even include it in the shootout. The bass was way too thin and the resultant sound was very nasal. The AnalogMan modded SD-1 restored that low end giving it a much fuller sound. It’s still not my favorite pedal but a vast improvement over the stock SD-1.

Likewise a stock Boss Blues Driver was too brittle on the high-end for my tastes, and the AnalogMan modded BD-2 tamed that brittleness quite nicely. When you get the distortion at it’s highest, the midrange tends to get lost a bit, but on the Partial Gain settings in my tests, it was downright pleasant.

I had never played a TS9DX before, and I don’t know what the stock version sounds like but the modded version sounds great. The Mode switch seems to add in levels of low-end making the pedal fatter and fatter. Of course you lose a little bit of articulation when you’ve got a really thick tone, but having 4 different modes allows you to pick the setting that suits your fancy. I like this pedal a lot.

Check out all 3 of them in the Comparinator.

3 Comments

  1. Beth Says:
    August 8th, 2009 at 6:50 pm

    Forgot to mention – The TS808 was also a close second, particularly on full drive, but seemed to lack some edge on the lower drive settings.

  2. Beth Says:
    August 8th, 2009 at 6:26 pm

    Anthony … I’ve been enjoying your lessons – learning some new tricks … As to these pedals, I own the two you like – the Ibanez TS9DX and the Boss Blues Driver … the one I use all the time live is the TS9DX (I have a mesa boogie nomad 55 amp, which rocks) … I play blues a lot in Oklahoma & Texas. The guys around here use the Boss Blues Driver a LOT. It has a nice harmonic overtone when set right (that does not show up in your demos) … but the TS9DX just kicks *** – it’s the best blues pedal currently on the market … I typically just use the classic setting, with the level and gain set around half way, slightly more or less, and I find with this pedal that you get the best tone if you roll the tone down to slightly less than 1/2 way on a partial gain setting – as you roll the drive up, roll the tone up, and back off on the level. I used the comparinator to compare the TS9DX to every other pedal you have demoed – other than the TS9DX, the only other two I would recommend are the Digitech Hardwire CM2 Tube Overdrive and the Fulltone Fulldrive 2 Mosfet. The Boss Blues Driver is a close second, but really has a different application, as I mentioned. The Marshall Bluesbreaker is good for clean or partial gain settings, but one you turn up the drive/distortion, it gets way too muddy. All the rest of the pedals demoed sound like crap, far too muddy, or thin, or cheap sounding distortion. I have the original TS9DX and am not noticing much of a difference with the modified one you demo … perhaps more presence in the modified one. But I would not play blues without having my TS9DX on stage. And thanks for the lessons and for the gear reviews. ps–I’ve got Lindy Fralin pickups in my Am. Strat (57 re-issue) – the Texas Blues pickups in the neck & middle – & the p-90 single slot replica in my bridge — I find strat bridge pick-ups are far too brittle usually, and you mentioned having to raise yours to get more bass response, so put the p-90 replica in that slot to add drive for rock covers and to boost volume on leads while maintaining a nice full tone … and the Texas Blues pick-ups in the neck and bridge are perfect for blues – really amazing sound!

    Anthony Stauffer reply on August 9th, 2009 8:06 pm:

    Hi Beth,
    Thanks for the extensive feedback and recommendations!

    Anthony