Sky Blue Overdrive Reviews

[Eskimo_Joe]

Congrats to the winners of the Aqua Marine! I am totally jealous, but I already pulled the trigger on a Sky Blue and it arrived yesterday. I will do a full review soon, but I just wanted to say that it is:

1) Living up to the hype

2) Very versatile

3) Unlike any other BJF drive

4) Living up to the hype

and

5) Lots of fun to play

More to come.

[justonwo]

Ok, now I'm psyched.

[Eskimo_Joe]

Cool you guys, once you get the pedal, you'll have to let us know what you think!

[Eskimo_Joe]

I. Your gear

Nash strat w/ maple neck, fatback neck, one-piece body, Van Zandts
Victoria 35210 (tweed fender super with 2 ten inch Jensens and a Victoria Reverberato (reverb) through a BJF SBEQ

II. Your circumstances - here's where you tell where you played it, under what conditions, and for how long

Played it at moderate volume levels. Have had it for about 2 weeks give or take.

III. General thoughts - Here's where you can tell us you loved it/hated it, etc....whatever random thoughts you want to provide (i.e. your opinion)

This has probably been the most hyped BJF / MP pedal in a while and it lives up to the billing with one small twist. It is just as much of a distortion as it is an overdrive. It's kind of like it has two personalities (the pedal is named an overdrive, but one of the controls is called "distortion"). Both personalities, and all points in between provide a wide canvas of dirt.

I will say the first 10 minutues I played it, I didn't like it, because for whatever reason, I had the pre-conceived notion that it would be like a Baby Blue 2.0 version. It's not. It's a brand new thang all it's own. After figuring out what all the 4 knobs could do, I am digging it a lot.

IV. Evaluation of functionality - Here's where you provide feedback about each aspect of the pedal --- for instance, the drive, the nature, the volume....feedback about range, interactivity, dynamics, etc

The SBOD has four knobs -- Volume, Distortion, Z, and Texture.

Volume (left, upper hand corner of the layout) -- This is capable of being quite loud. With my amp at my normal playing level, I found myself using the SBOD volume at about 8 or 9 o'clock. Has much more volume behind it than the Baby Blue or the Honey Bee.

Distortion -- (right, upper hand corner) -- This is the key dial for me. Although the other two controls (Z and Texture) are interesting, the distortion control can take you from a very light overdrive (as light as a Honey Bee but different) to the a full fledged, no apologies distortion.

I wanted to get an idea of how distorted it was so I compared it to my Dyna Red (with both dimed) and the Sky Blue was every bit as distorted. In effect, you have everything from a light OD to some serious distortion on that one dial ---ALL of it USUABLE.

Z -- (bottom left hand corner)

To be completely honest, I'm still not sure if I can effectively describe what this control does. What I can tell you is that it is interactive with the other controls (meaning that if affects the sound more or less noticably depending on where the other controls are set). My favorite position for it is on the left hand side of the dial, usually about 9 o'clock to almost fill counter clockwise. This makes it feel more like an OD to me. The right hand side seems to feel more complementary to distortion.

Texture -- (bottom right hand corner)

This is another "only Bjorn could design this control" control. Again, I'm not sure that I can accurately describe what it's doing, but according to the manual, it appears to adjust midrange, but in fact adjusts compression. The manual also says it controls when and how much the circuit distorts. Going full clockwise seems to let the pedal breathe a bit more.

All in all, this is probably one of the most tweakable, if not the most tweakable BJF / MP pedal ever. Lots of stuff in here. Many shades of this and that to be found among the dials.

While I do like that aspect, I will confess I am not a guy who loves added complexity. I favor three-control pedals. That said, Bjorn hits it just right on this one. There's enough to keep you intrigued and satisfy your tonal needs, but not too much so that you get frustrated.

V Stacking - Did you stack it? With what? How'd it go?

The Sky Blue plays nice with other pedals. I messed around a little bit and found great combinations between the Sky Blue and the LGW, the Model R, and Sparkling Yellow, and the Dyna Red.

VI Comparisons to other BJF pedals / other popular pedals (how does it fit in with the rest of the line...is it different enough, etc)

I think the Sky Blue covers more ground than any other BJF overdrive. It also has a distinct tone from the others. If I had to say what it most closely resembles, I would say it has elements of the Sparkling Yellow and possibly of the LGW. I'm guessing others could have a different opinion though because of the variety of tones available.

VII What situations / kind of music can you see using the pedal for?

I think the Sky Blue is capable of lots of stuff, but best suited to ROCKIN'! It's part OD, part Distortion, but 100% rock in my opinion. This is not to say you couldn't blues or other applications, but I think this pedal was born to rock.

It's just my bias, but I think Marc Ford (ex-Black Crowes lead) would love this pedal.

VII Suggested improvements

The only improvement I could see is cosmetic...the white letting on a light blue background is pretty hard to read in dim light or if the lights overhead are shining directly on it. Not that big of a deal at all, just something I noticed along the way.

VIII Bottom line --- ...is it a keeper? What does it knock off your board?

I haven't sold a BJF or an MP yet, so yeah, it's a definite keeper. I think I'm probably using my Sparkling Yellow less since the Sky Blue arrived, but they're not mutually exclusive.


Hope that helps!

[DocRock]

Excellent, well-written review, EJ.

Kudos & thanks!!!

Doc

[bjf-crazy]

Well thanks for the review...between the dyna red and sky blue!!!!

[Craise]

Great Review!
I'm dyin to check one out!

[justonwo]

I suppose this is the right place for the AMWM. No?

The controls/labeling are slightly different, but I think the pedal is functionally the same as the SBOD.

Volume - It does what you think it would do.

T - I think this is analogous to the "Z" adjustment on the SBOD. Bjorn certainly has a knack for unique controls, and this one is no different. To me, this control is very similar to switching between single coils fully CCW to humbuckers fully CW. Adjusting the T control fully CCW with my Strat, you lose a bit of girth and volume that you must regain with the volume control. Once you adjust the signal level back up, however, what you notice is increased headroom and (of course) lower levels of overdrive. With the same guitar and the T control adjusted fully CW, your single coil guitar begins to behave a bit more like a humbucker. The signal strength increases, the level of overdrive increases, and you lose headroom. Being an overdrive fanatic, I tend to prefer settings closer to this side of the spectrum.

R - Another unique control that adjusts the "resonance" of the pickup. It behaves similar to a tone control with fully CW yielding brighter sounds and fully CCW giving quite a dark tone. I kept finding myself wanting to add more mids to the signal, but had some small amount of difficulty doing it with this control - too far CW and the signal sounded a bit thin, and too far CCW and the tone got quite dark and muffled. I found that I really had to play around with all four controls to dial in the mids content that I wanted. Not necessarily a criticism. More of a head's up that the controls aren't necessarily intuitive.

D - This is the distortion control, not surprisingly. There is quite a bit of versatility in the range of this control. On the low side, you have an HBOD-type overdrive. Dialing things up closer to noon and you start to move into heavy-overdrive/low-distortion. You start to hear compression around noon and just add more distortion on up to fully CW. The pedal is never overly compressed, and I find the entire range of distortion quite usable. The high end of the distortion is most similar, I think, the EGDM though I think it's a little smoother and brighter.

Overall, this is not the most intuitive pedal I've ever owned, though I didn't really expect it to be. I like Bjorn's fresh take on pedal controls. What you really get with the AMWM is a WHOLE LOT of overdrive and distortion character options, all of them full of complexity and usable. Donner told me in a private email that he felt this pedal could probably function as many people's ONLY drive pedal. I agree. There is plenty of range for that.

The pedal ate up my single coils and P-90s. Stacking it before the HBOD added some compression but really made the pedal sing.

[I am Incinerator]

It seems that people say this can get a little EGDM-ish.

I like the EGDM, but I was thinking about getting into different amps some day other than a Voxy inspired amp. Would the SBOD be a good canidate?

Luckily all my other BJF's are safe now