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.
