After switching back to a more traditional rig in the past year (Tube amp with pedals) I finally decided that I needed an overdrive to give me more of a Fender Tweed sort of tone. The main thing I was looking for was something that would give the sound of a cranked up Fender for the more bluesier tones.

I currently use Fulltone OCD which I still use when I need a really fat lead tone, but I was missing the "in between" overdrive sound to use for rockabilly and country stuff where I didn't need a full-out saturated lead Marshall kind of sound, but more of a compressed cleaner sound with slight clipping, the way a Fender tube amp sounds when you crank it up nice and loud. Only, I needed this tone at a much quieter volume.

After trying lots of different tube screamers and various overdrives I finally decided that this Boss Bassman pedal really nailed what I was looking for. This pedal does an amazing job of emulating a real Fender amp where the output stage is starting to clip. The sound is a little compressed and gritty, so it works perfectly for blues tones, but also for rockabilly and country where you still need to hear the clean guitar sound along with the bite and compression of a cranked up amp. I'm happy with it so far. And, like the real bassman, the distortion can get harsh if you have the gain turned up too high. it sounds best when the gain is about 10 or 11 oclock.

It does a great Stevie Ray tone with a Strat. I've tried it with my new Tele (the one with the TV Jones Filitertrons) and this pedal does a great job of emulating some of the Brian Setzer sort of tones with that guitar.

So far I'm happy with it. It was suprised that there aren't more overdrive pedals out there that emulate this sound. It's a great sound to have on tap, and I didn't realize how much I would need it.

--Jim