Worthy anger

Alrighty! Let's start the mid-year with a good appraisal.

Seen above in white, is the BOSS-JHS collaboration featuring the Blues Driver & Angry Charlie respectively. There are several modes on offer including stand-alone applications of either modules. Of course, we look forward to hear how the cascading modules fare & they did not disappoint. The Driver-into-Charlie arrangement was the raunchier voicing. In fact's it's a grizzly distortion affair with some fuzzy overtones in  the mix. The Charlie-into-Driver arrangement is a more tamed affair in terms of the top end response, basically what one would hear when cascading a distortion unit to a mild drive affair but there's more grit to be heard here because the Blues Driver per se isn't a true Tube Screamer type of voicing in action, it's leaning towards the Bluesbreaker side rather obviously. Things get very pleasant in parallel mode, capable of manifesting a very smooth drive tone for legato runs. I only hear good tones coming from this mode with my home set-up probably due to the fact that I'm using my preferred gear. 

Because I have a take-no-prisoner attitude when it comes to drive responses, seen above, the inclusion of Seymour Duncan's Killing Floor booster unit bringing everything up to a rather extreme setting. After some tries, placing the booster before the AD yielded a more musical response rather having it after the AD. At the latter setting, things get muffled once volume is turned up. 

Driven anger

If you don't already know, the Angry Driver is a 2-in-1 unit featuring BOSS' Blues Driver & JHS' Angry Charlie. The former is something I sold off a while back & the latter is something I tried at the stores but didn't buy. As it is, I wouldn't buy any of those pedals (again) because as stand alone units, they are not what I look forward to hear but putting them together is a different story. 

The JB-2 lets you employ the pedals individually as well as stacking them up in some modes. I don't see myself using the individual pedal mode but putting them together yields some practical tones. On that note, the combo modes aren't for those looking for subtle drive responses. Current favourite- the B-J mode where the milder BD successfully blends into the raunchier AC to create a boosted amp drive type experience. The parallel mode features some pleasant top end owing much to the tapped output. My only gripe- the concentric control knobs. It's be much appreciated if the colours are differentiated somewhat to help us in times of haste. 

Angry driver

Collaboration. That's right, two companies from two walks of life got together to give us the Angry Driver. As seen above, it's a fusion of BOSS' Blues Driver & JHS' Angry Charlie. The former is a restrained-type distortion unit, much associated with the Bluesbreaker tonal palette while the latter is a furious distortion which does not cross into the heavy metal threshold. This pedal lets the user access each pedal individually & when boredom kicks in, you can put both into action simultaneously. 

Looking at the design per se, we see so much respect there. The pedal retains its BOSS outline; there's nothing JHS about it while the label says JHS. If you are big on keeping your ego in check, you would want your brand name there but let's just call it the Japanese virtue of retaining sublime identity. 

JHS founder, Josh Scott, was a BOSS geek to begin with so this collaboration is a natural segue for him. By the way, should these pedals be available here, would it come under the BOSS or JHS distributorship? Are we expecting two different prices? FYI BOSS is overseeing the production of this unit.