NPDs - Boss IR-2 & Waza Blues Driver

[Wattage]

Trying to sort out something more reasonable travel gigs. Love my Headrush but I don't trust it, to many flakey things happen to feel confident and it is a lot to drag around being weight and fragility.

I know there will generally be a reasonable backline to use and I can just throw a small board in front and I am good but I am always anxious about it so I looked at a few different things. I trust BOSS stuff to be pretty indestructible so that won me over in the end. The Blues Driver wasn't critical but I like it and the Waza wasn't so much more so I splurged, replacing an Outlaw Tumbleweed. The game changer though is the IR-2 Amp & Cabs pedal. I have only scratched the surface, haven't edited or changed any stock settings but it sounds great. The Crunch setting is really all I need and I can set up Chan 1 as Rhythm and Chan 2 for Lead like I do with my Orange and it just works perfectly. I might add in some of the IRs I like but I honestly don't know if I need to.

Pedal sized, easy to power and transport with very useable sounds, pretty happy.

 

[Mincer]

Sounds like a win/win! What's different with the Waza BD than the normal one?

 

[Wattage]

Sounds like a win/win! What's different with the Waza BD than the normal one?

MIJ, better components, little lower noise floor and the Mod switch which has a smoother tone curve/Phat mod

 

[Mincer]

MIJ, better components, little lower noise floor and the Mod switch which has a smoother tone curve/Phat mod

Gotcha...I was wondering how those things translate to the sound. Worth it?

 

[Chistopher]

Bit of advice on the IR-2, the stock IRs aren't the best, but don't go out spending all your money on IRs trying to fix them.

Pick one you think you are going to use a lot, experiment with it, find one you like, then come back for the other ones as you need them

 

[Wattage]

I have some Emi and Celestion IRs that I use already, I might try them but I like the 2x12 G12-65 IR that matches with the Crunch setting.

I use Celestion Creamback IRs mostly. I use the 65 & 75 IRs since I run 2 -1x12 cabs with those in them.

 

[Wattage]

Gotcha...I was wondering how those things translate to the sound. Worth it?

I mean I guess so? Never owned a Blues Driver before but it still has the original BD circuit if you want it.

I was very happy with it, I had a pretty wide range of useability

 

[Bill Dennis]

The boss stuff is very good. I chose to go with a tonex pedal as I felt it had more flexibility / capability for future growth

 

[Wattage]

The Tonex was definitely on the short list. I used to use a Boss Amp Factory and to me this was the current day equivalent, felt right at home using it so it was the natural choice.

The Tonex definitely gives you a lot of options

 

[GuitarStv]

Gotcha...I was wondering how those things translate to the sound. Worth it?

The custom voicing of the BD-2 has a little more bass/less cutting treble) and a tad less gain which can occasionally be useful if you're going for a smoother sound. Not night and day though and honestly, I find myself using the standard circuit more often. The noise might be slightly lower on the waza version, and the buffer is supposed to be a bit better but if you weren't comparing them head to head (which I ended up doing with my old BD-2) you would never notice it. All the regular BD-2 stuff is still there though and sounds great - huge gain range (everything from slightest edge of clean breakup to full on fuzzy melt-down), huge volume boost available if you need it, pretty natural sound (no huge mid boost like a TS or OD).

The waza version is nice and offers a few small refinements but I would probably be just as happy with the stock BD-2.

 

[Chistopher]

Yeah, that's one lackluster part of the Waza series as a whole, the mini switch doesn't tend to do that much