Blueberry BOD Alternatives

[Funkdified]

This is inaccurate and leaves the wrong impression it seems... I disagreed with One Control making chinese mass produced versions of BearFoot Made in American bjf collaborations ... I continue making what we collaborated on before he was let go... and will continue innovating and updating our line up.

Thank you for clarifying. This was a copy/paste from Bjorn's post on the gear page forums.

 

[BearfootDonner]

Thank you for clarifying. This was a copy/paste from Bjorn's post on the gear page forums.

Yeah I actually responded to that on TGP when it happened and got a week ban, hes not down with reality at the moment ... oh well onward and upward ... I found my old Donner account here from when I was bass addicted in the early aughts... my last post was in 2008 about ~~~~ the 3BOD ! I lucked into finding a girlfrined that plays stand up ... but Im commercial now so Im BearFootDonner.

 

[RudyTardy]

For anyone interested, Donner just posted the 3rd batch.

Bearfoot FX Queen Bee 3rd PREORDER 2020 Gurple | BearFoot FX / Donnerbox | Reverb

I just ordered one. My Blackberry was eaten by the USPS (never arrived) and Reverb isn't doing anything for me.

 

[Dave Hill]

Yeah I actually responded to that on TGP when it happened and got a week ban, hes not down with reality at the moment ... oh well onward and upward ... I found my old Donner account here from when I was bass addicted in the early aughts... my last post was in 2008 about ~~~~ the 3BOD ! I lucked into finding a girlfrined that plays stand up ... but Im commercial now so Im BearFootDonner.

So, is the Queen Bee identical to the BJFE Futura (BBBOD + treble control)?
Or is it a Bearfoot BBBOD with treble control?
To my ear, there is a slight mid hump in the BF BBBOD compared to the original.

 

[BearfootDonner]

So, is the Queen Bee identical to the BJFE Futura (BBBOD + treble control)?
Or is it a Bearfoot BBBOD with treble control?
To my ear, there is a slight mid hump in the BF BBBOD compared to the original.

Yeah the Futura was the proto for the Queen/ 4knob 3BOD - I sold the Futuras back when I was also BJFe US dealer .... then we split before we did the 4 knob 3BOD I wanted ... The BearFoot is a little more 'forward' ... and there is always parts variance from piece to piece, so two from the same batch will even have slight variations ... Im sure there is variation between a BearFoot and others ... (I also wanted to do a Blackberry Bass Fuzz, and I see that name has been recycled... )

 

[bass4more]

For what it's worth, the One Control Blackberry is awesome. It's my new favorite OD, and I have or have had many (e.g., modded Pork Loin, Pork & Pickle, Barbershop, Fifth Gear, YYZ, Oxford, Jam Lucydreamer, Grizzly).

 

[RudyTardy]

For what it's worth, the One Control Blackberry is awesome. It's my new favorite OD, and I have or have had many (e.g., modded Pork Loin, Pork & Pickle, Barbershop, Fifth Gear, YYZ, Oxford, Jam Lucydreamer, Grizzly).

No wonder the post office stole mine

 

[bass4more]

No wonder the post office stole mine

That sucks, Rudy. But fingers crossed. I just had a package show up that shipped four months ago, so there's hope.

 

[RudyTardy]

That sucks, Rudy. But fingers crossed. I just had a package show up that shipped four months ago, so there's hope.

Thanks man! Wow four months that’s insane. I preordered a Queen Bee from Donner so if the Blackberry ever gets here it will be a fun comparison. I love my Fifth Gear and my buddy’s Pork & Pickle is pretty damn good as well, they just don’t have the same timbre as the Blueberry breed. Very glad to hear the Blackberry is hitting the spot. I’ll surely order another one if Reverb reimburses me.

 

[BearfootDonner]

Thanks man! Wow four months that’s insane. I preordered a Queen Bee from Donner so if the Blackberry ever gets here it will be a fun comparison. I love my Fifth Gear and my buddy’s Pork & Pickle is pretty damn good as well, they just don’t have the same timbre as the Blueberry breed. Very glad to hear the Blackberry is hitting the spot. I’ll surely order another one if Reverb reimburses me.

Oh Man, I havent heard of the Pork and Pickle in forever, I had one of those once and it sounded cool ... isnt it like a bass fuzz sortof ???

 

[RudyTardy]

Oh Man, I havent heard of the Pork and Pickle in forever, I had one of those once and it sounded cool ... isnt it like a bass fuzz sortof ???

Yeah you must be thinking of the original Russian Pickle. Way Huge ended up making a combo of the Pork Loin OD and the Russian Pickle Fuzz. It's a fantastic pedal in a smaller housing with a switch to choose OD or Fuzz.

 

[BearfootDonner]

Yeah you must be thinking of the original Russian Pickle. Way Huge ended up making a combo of the Pork Loin OD and the Russian Pickle Fuzz. It's a fantastic pedal in a smaller housing with a switch to choose OD or Fuzz.

Doh..I was thinking of the Prunes n Custard. .think it was Hot Cakes bass pedal or something...

 

[StayLow]

For what it's worth, the One Control Blackberry is awesome. It's my new favorite OD, and I have or have had many (e.g., modded Pork Loin, Pork & Pickle, Barbershop, Fifth Gear, YYZ, Oxford, Jam Lucydreamer, Grizzly).

What characteristics are you finding so appealing?

 

[johnk_10]

i ordered a Bearfoot Queen Bee (3rd batch preorder) the other day. hopefully it won't be too long before its built and i receive it since i'm looking forward to comparing it to my 3BOD.

 

[tommyeadg]

For what it's worth, the One Control Blackberry is awesome. It's my new favorite OD, and I have or have had many (e.g., modded Pork Loin, Pork & Pickle, Barbershop, Fifth Gear, YYZ, Oxford, Jam Lucydreamer, Grizzly).

I also have a Blackberry on it’s way! Together with a OC Pale Blue Compressor.

 

[bass4more]

What characteristics are you finding so appealing?

I really like the mid control and the weight it gives my tone without getting muddied up. I will clarify my previous post to say that, while the Blackberry is my new favorite OD, I don't mean to suggest that it blows away the other OD pedals that I listed above (all of which I also like). It's not as versatile as, say, the Grizzly, the P&P or even the YYZ. It's more similar to the Barbershop and the Fifth Gear in terms of being more of a pure OD pedal, but I prefer the Blackberry to those two (though it is somewhat of subtle difference).

 

[Bjorn Juhl]

Hi there

Here goes:

I left Bearfoot because Donner refused paying me royalities for use of my designs.
I have since upgraded all designs that Bearfoot has access to as proprietory information and then made sure all BJF models got new circuit elements that are better than before and not included in the propriety circuit files I had to abadon upon leaving Bearfoot.

Blackberry Bass Overdrive is made like the first two Blue Berry Bass overdrives the exact circuit of which Bearfoot never have had access to and in addition to that other circuit elements designed after I left Bearfoot.

The Blue Berry Futura is a new design made recently. Back when Bearfoot sold BJF pedals there were a couple of BJF Blue Berry Futuras made and these were designed to specifically be different from what was avaialble from e.g Mad Professor and Bearfoot.
It can be noted the the Mad Professor Blueberry Bass OD has has a whole lot of gain and it got that because MP and main salesguy at the time felt BJF Blue Berry Bass Overdrive was sort of a gentleman’s overdrive and the Bearfoot version was really Honey Bee minus one filter

However the current BJF Blueberry Futura was designed about a year after I had left Bearfoot and I deviced an elegant way of controlling treble.

Bear mind Honey Bee OD was not intended to be guitar version of 3BOD but the design objectives were drastically different as BJF Blue Berry Bass Overdrive was designed with the benevolent aid of two bassists without whose help the circuit would not have seen the day.
whereas Honey Bee was designed with the aid of a guitarist friend more than a year later. There are circuit similarities while they are unintentional.

That said know bassist that have used Honey Bee on bass.

What I aimed for with the current Futura design and yes like all manufacturers I would change the circuit if I felt it would be an upgrade and with bass and possibly using amplifiers with tweater speakers the exact treble would be critical especially when it comes to overtones produced.
This was evident allready upon the design of the first two Blueberry Bassoverdrives ever made ( When making Blackberry I had access to one of those two the number 1.

About the Bearfoot collaboration:
The idea was like with Mad Professor that the company would have a name that had a strong connection to my person hence the ”bear” part. The foot part I was told implied the feet of the sales guy who also brought parts around to painter and assembly personell or it would be the bare foot women that were supposed to assemble the pedals
Sort of a nod to the housewfies that assemble the handmade Mad Professor pedals.


At your service
Bjorn Juhl
Proprietor
BJF Electronics
Sweden
Analog engineer at One Control
I also currently design for a variety of companies
Moody-Sounds kits
Olsson Amplification
Ekblad Amplification
Vuorensaku Guitars
Lundgren Pick Ups

To be noted I no longer work with Mad Professor Amplificaton but they will continue to produce the 42 products I designed for them


” What It Is” Steven Bruton
” The Truth is unbelievable"

 

[tommyeadg]

Hi there

Here goes:

I left Bearfoot because Donner refused paying me royalities for use of my designs.
I have since upgraded all designs that Bearfoot has access to as proprietory information and then made sure all BJF models got new circuit elements that are better than before and not included in the propriety circuit files I had to abadon upon leaving Bearfoot.

Blackberry Bass Overdrive is made like the first two Blue Berry Bass overdrives the exact circuit of which Bearfoot never have had access to and in addition to that other circuit elements designed after I left Bearfoot.

The Blue Berry Futura is a new design made recently. Back when Bearfoot sold BJF pedals there were a couple of BJF Blue Berry Futuras made and these were designed to specifically be different from what was avaialble from e.g Mad Professor and Bearfoot.
It can be noted the the Mad Professor Blueberry Bass OD has has a whole lot of gain and it got that because MP and main salesguy at the time felt BJF Blue Berry Bass Overdrive was sort of a gentleman’s overdrive and the Bearfoot version was really Honey Bee minus one filter

However the current BJF Blueberry Futura was designed about a year after I had left Bearfoot and I deviced an elegant way of controlling treble.

Bear mind Honey Bee OD was not intended to be guitar version of 3BOD but the design objectives were drastically different as BJF Blue Berry Bass Overdrive was designed with the benevolent aid of two bassists without whose help the circuit would not have seen the day.
whereas Honey Bee was designed with the aid of a guitarist friend more than a year later. There are circuit similarities while they are unintentional.

That said know bassist that have used Honey Bee on bass.

What I aimed for with the current Futura design and yes like all manufacturers I would change the circuit if I felt it would be an upgrade and with bass and possibly using amplifiers with tweater speakers the exact treble would be critical especially when it comes to overtones produced.
This was evident allready upon the design of the first two Blueberry Bassoverdrives ever made ( When making Blackberry I had access to one of those two the number 1.

About the Bearfoot collaboration:
The idea was like with Mad Professor that the company would have a name that had a strong connection to my person hence the ”bear” part. The foot part I was told implied the feet of the sales guy who also brought parts around to painter and assembly personell or it would be the bare foot women that were supposed to assemble the pedals
Sort of a nod to the housewfies that assemble the handmade Mad Professor pedals.


At your service
Bjorn Juhl
Proprietor
BJF Electronics
Sweden
Analog engineer at One Control
I also currently design for a variety of companies
Moody-Sounds kits
Olsson Amplification
Ekblad Amplification
Vuorensaku Guitars
Lundgren Pick Ups

To be noted I no longer work with Mad Professor Amplificaton but they will continue to produce the 42 products I designed for them


” What It Is” Steven Bruton
” The Truth is unbelievable"

Welcome to Talkbass Bjorn! And thanks for clearing this up. Very sad to hear that the cooperation between you and BF went south in such a bad way.

I’m still very very happy with my Futura, it is by far the nicest, juiciest, stealthiest overdrive i ever had the pleasure of playing.

 

[Funkdified]

@Bjorn Juhl
Welcome! I have a futura on the way. It is held up in customs right now.

Are the one control pedal versions the same as your hand built? Would love to try out the BlackBerry too.

 

[Bjorn Juhl]

Hi There

Thank you for the warm welcome.

Well actually I designed the Blackberry to be the best I can I can imagine at this point but release was delayed so I made some of those handmade exactly like the production model.
Of course that gets be a bit complicated since I can use much more eleborate solutions in small format using SMD techniques.

So the main purpose for the BJF handmade Blackberry is temporary and I would say the mass produced version is just as good-only people asked for it.
I will add to that, that it took about a year at schoolbench learning smd techniques and what changes and what parts can be used-something that created many fun stories but it has enabled me to do things other manufacturers I have worked with have said to be impossible.
I personally find it amazing fun

So for now I hand make BJF Blueberry original and Futura and Blackberry. The current BJF Futura came about after the production of Blackberry was set or the Blackberry might have gotten a treble control aswell.

I say for now because I am gearing up to design more bass gear and also to gain understanding of what makes a great bass sound. This is partly because as a musician I am getting more aware of bass sounds and with benevolent help of bassist friends I am learning more about what
makes a great bass sound and there would be lots of them. However the president of One Control plays bass so I get to have my wild ideas made-if they are good enough.

I made a bass pedal board and ran that through the array of bass amps I have collected aswell as through PA in order to define eaxctly what user interface would be desirable-the result of that was partly that I had to set up my bass better and also a clear path to making more elaborate bass gear.

Personally I have prior to this arranged basslines for a record. But I am taking this very seriously and defined personally I like P-basses and so I bought a Squire-yes later I wondered why I didn’t buy a Fender
because the action left a bit to be desired but with some tools I could adjust neck angle and feel of the Squire more akin to old Fender P-basses I set up as a 16 year old. However I think I might need better strings and that will take some finding out what a good set of bass strings are
I am studying though and have set out to learn something new every day.


So I joined this forum in order to learn more about desirable bass sounds, desirable userinterface on gear and a bunch of other things like what is a good string?
Arguably my design outlook would be vintage because that is what I know and like

OK so it was about 20 years since two bassists came with their guitarists to ask if I would make them something. I have learnt lots through the years but making more bassoriented gear is perhaps long overdue



At your service
Bjorn Juhl
Proprietor
BJF Electronics
Sweden
Analog engineer at One Control
I also currently design for a variety of companies
Moody-Sounds kits
Olsson Amplification
Ekblad Amplification
Vuorensaku Guitars
Lundgren Pick Ups

To be noted I no longer work with Mad Professor Amplificaton but they will continue to produce the 42 products I designed for them