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Opinions on Bad Monkey & Blues Driver


Blues Junior

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Blues Driver is more transparent and has a grittier drive. The Bad Monkey has a smoother sound but a more prominent mid-hump. The Bad Monkey works well for direct recording since it has the mixer out. My Blues Driver gets along better with my Champ. The Bad Monkey is almost too warm and I've got to turn up the treble all the way and the bass pretty high to compensate.
Neither compares well to my DGTM which has a transparent and sweet sounding overdrive.

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I tried the bad monkey a few months ago at GC. It sounded pretty good after trying all the other digitech distortions and overdrives. I do agree however it does have that almost too warm tone to it. For $40 its not bad. The boss BD2 is probably the best overdrive (IMHO) that boss makes... that's not really saying much though. Seems to me it has more of a range of tones than the bad moneky.

Depending on your amp, give the ibanez ts7, and rocktron austin gold a look too. In the $50 price range those are my two favorites.

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It's one of the ugliest things I've ever seen, but I have to say that the Bad Monkey sounds extremely good. Definitely on the warm side- I also bump up the treble and bass quite a bit to get the right tone- but that's why those controls are there. Those separate bass and treble controls set it apart completely from the TS line and most other TS types. It's a hell of a deal, and I use mine quite a bit.

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Haven't tried a Bad Monkey, but the BD-2 belongs in the OD/Distortion Pedals that Sound like Ass thread. I got a DOD Flashback Fuzz recently for $40 new, and it almost sounds decent. It definitely sounds better than anything DOD put out in the '80s thru mid '90s. It's probably a variation on the Bad Monkey: gain, high, low, output. I also run an eq'd boost before the Fuzz, like the poster below does with his Bad Monkey.

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I bought a Bad Monkey several months ago, after auditioning a bunch of pedals: Blues Driver, Sparkle Drive, Screamin' Blues, TS-9, and SD-1. I thought the BD-2 was the worst of the lot. The Sparkle Drive had a really good OD sound, but the clean boost was way less than impressive, and blending them together just sounded goofy. The Bad Monkey OD sounds VERY close to the Sparkle Drive. It can get very "buttery", but still has enough top end to cut through if you need to.

I also own an SD-1 and a TS-7 (as well as several others), but the Bad Monkey is the pedal thay stays on my pedalboard. It also cleans up fairly well when you back off the guitar volume. When I need more gain I run a clean boost in front of the Monkey. That gives me tons of sustain without sounding like bees in a coffee can.

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