e-flat
Silver Supporting Member
- Messages
- 1,731
The Honey Bee is one of my all-time favorite overdrives, and I've owned several Bearfoot versions as well as a BJFE original. I love to swap & try new drives, but the Honey Bee is such a natural fit for me that I always end up coming back to it.
In my quest to find great ODs to stack with it I've come across many. In fact, there aren't many pedals I've found that DON'T stack well with a Honey Bee. Especially as the last drive in the stack, the HBOD just smooths and glues everything together.
After all these years, I finally got the chance to stack two Honey Bees together and I'm really sold on the combo. I wondered if the two running in series might be too much of a good thing, but it turns out that this isn't the case at all. Even with the knobs set identically on both units I don't get any perceivable frequency build up or unnatural EQ exaggeration. The way the gain cascades is really something... the stack maintains great midrange clarity, sustains nicely, and by adjusting the Nature knobs it can get as thick or thin as you like.
Whats kind of cool is that I have one HBOD that is from the original run that Bearfoot did, and a newer HBOD that is from 2015. The early one is a bit smoother in its breakup and has a really warm bottom end... The more recent one seems to have a touch more drive and a little more "rasp" in the high end clipping. This is probably just due to minor variations in part values, but it provides a nice subtle variety that also means that the newer (raspier) HBOD ---> older (smoother) HBOD sounds incredible.
This experience has led me to the conclusion that Bearfoot should release a Double Bee Overdrive
Anyone else run a two HBOD setup?
In my quest to find great ODs to stack with it I've come across many. In fact, there aren't many pedals I've found that DON'T stack well with a Honey Bee. Especially as the last drive in the stack, the HBOD just smooths and glues everything together.
After all these years, I finally got the chance to stack two Honey Bees together and I'm really sold on the combo. I wondered if the two running in series might be too much of a good thing, but it turns out that this isn't the case at all. Even with the knobs set identically on both units I don't get any perceivable frequency build up or unnatural EQ exaggeration. The way the gain cascades is really something... the stack maintains great midrange clarity, sustains nicely, and by adjusting the Nature knobs it can get as thick or thin as you like.
Whats kind of cool is that I have one HBOD that is from the original run that Bearfoot did, and a newer HBOD that is from 2015. The early one is a bit smoother in its breakup and has a really warm bottom end... The more recent one seems to have a touch more drive and a little more "rasp" in the high end clipping. This is probably just due to minor variations in part values, but it provides a nice subtle variety that also means that the newer (raspier) HBOD ---> older (smoother) HBOD sounds incredible.
This experience has led me to the conclusion that Bearfoot should release a Double Bee Overdrive
Anyone else run a two HBOD setup?