BJFE / BearFoot fx Guitar Effects Community

I think part of the 'magic' of the Honey Bee is that it is a bit of an odd duck, theres not really anyhthing else like it... - and while you COULD add more distortion and change the EQ response and compression etc, you would have a different pedal (and yes lets leave the circuit design and pedal building to Bjorn )

the Honey Bee did go thru a couple changes at the beginning.... in fact it was born of Bjorn wanting something 'special' for the 2002 Stockholm show and me wanting a Guitar version of the BlueBerry Bass OD - the 3BOD has a similar dynamic distortion that is found in Tube Bass amps , (you can control the distortion with your finger pressure when set correctly) and it sounds really nice on guitar too but its usually too dark for real guitar use ----
The first couple HBs were a bit too dark and needed to break up a bit easier (weaker guitar pickups) , so BJ took some of the bass out revealing the treble and the dynamic distortion better.......

I guess it could have been called the BlueBerry OD but there already was a BBOD at the time
I had been working on wood finishes and suggested a Cherry Sunburst FlameTop box as eye candy for the show --- and BJ mentioned he preferred Honey Burst LesPaul finishes , and that evolved to the Honey B ee show name and paintjob and 2 where made and that could have easily been the end of it ~~~~ but slowly a few more were made and ~~~~~

well who knows what the next research pedal to reach full regular production will be - the HB, EGDM,RRB,BPB,SBEQ and LGW were all one offs that 'got out of hand'

in fact BJFE was Bjorn Juhl Amplifier(Forstarker in swedish) Electronics service business, the first pedals were made to demonstrate the effect of different distortions on his amps at a guitar show ---- the pedal building thing kind of got out of hand too

Cool info, Donner!

I always wondered what the "F" in BJFE stood for, kind of guessed it might have related to the Fregattvagen (please excuse any spelling error) of BJ's address.

Teahead wrote:Cool info, Donner!

I always wondered what the "F" in BJFE stood for, kind of guessed it might have related to the Fregattvagen (please excuse any spelling error) of BJ's address.

yeah thats true -- but he didnt live there when BJFE was bjorn uh born

Cool, love the history / background info.!!!

(Nice to know where SYOD came from, too.......LOL)

Doc

DocRock wrote:Cool, love the history / background info.!!!

(Nice to know where SYOD came from, too.......LOL)

Doc

Yeah eventually if he gets time BJ wants to add the creation stories for the whole line, some are pretty interesting .....

I think that would make for great reading. Fun to know how some of what I believe to be the greatest pedal designs EVER came to be in the first place!

Doc

Donner,

Thanks for the history and for the "upkeep" on the site. I know its a lot to do and may not seem so, but to many of us, all this information is invaluable.

I was thinking earlier tonight, on a long drive back home having started reading this thread yesterday, that there were indeed times when I thought a new battery or just a little harder stomp on the Honey Bee might eek out just a little more. Then I realized, it is what it is. Perhaps we should just call it a "drive" and not an "overdrive" as I think that more aptly describes its "nature".

If you use it to before a great sounding pedal, it will make it sound "more". If you stack it after one of your favorites, it will make it sound sweeter. If you use it alone, its an old Supro, nothing more, nothing less.


cork

One thing Ive learned with the HB is that WHAT you put into it has a huge effect on what you get out of it...

very much like blowing up a balloon - the more you put into it the bigger and more translucent it gets - denser and clearer at the same time...

it really is much more interesting with a P90 or a PAF Humbucker