Hi There,
Time for history reply
The Blue Berry Bass Overdrive was designed at my workshop at Kronobergsgatan but as an isolated event long before and the relation it has to Honey Bee is purely coincidental.
There were two bassists at my workshop that had asked if I’d not make a pedal for them too as they came with their guitarists and they were most instrumental in the design saying things like get rid of that overtone and they showed me a whole lot about the way a professional bassist plays the bass
At first I made only two for the bassists that helped and I thought it wouldn’t be a great sale so I asked Engineer Martensson to find a colour I could use for a one off design and Martensson brushed a box and used a Mahoghany tint that however looked more like mashed Blueberries hence the name
Through the years I made a little over 30 of them. Actually after some 20 units they originall Mahoghany tint was gone ( partly because this tint was used on other models) but at any rate I thought I had ran out of blueberries
I have had two tries before to have it massproduced but MP wanted more gain like distortion box and it wasn’t remotely close
Then I tried having it made with Bearfoot
Allthough I had royalty per sold unit I was never told how many were made
and another thing is that it got mixed up with the files of Honey Bee
About Honey Bee and how the circuit came about and who came up with the name and why:
There was this red Supro I had in for repair and it has a peculiar sound though it does not sound like a Honey Bee it just happened to be at the shop at the time of story below it did not work when it came so I had to more or less rebuild it and remove some custom previous wirings et.c and it also has a Mojo Speaker very similar to the one I sent a picture of but smaller and it has had it's transformers changed and aswell as many components like capacitors that had dried. But amp was silent because transformers were blown
When rebuilt it I put in much larger irons et.c which is why it hasn't broken down over the years and it also gave it a bit more lower end but it's still somewhat honky but in an oldschool way that you have heard many times before.
It so happened that as I was about to put something together to be an anniversary model, the second year of production and an old friend a Swedish guitarist came with an amp he had bought at e-bay and it had died and he wanted it repaired actually netz transfomer was blown so that had to be ordered and so
allthough the amp was silently sitting at my workbench the owner of the amp lent me his thoughts as I hit a wall of what I wanted to do for The Great Scandinavian Guitar and Drum show 2002 and so I asked Grönis aka Suprodude,the owner of the amp, what he thought I should build and do and he said ” make something like this little amp-something similar to the too small amps that were playing as punkrockers and that were inherited by jazzplayers -the kind that just lack a bit of treble and distort only when you strike down hard like Johnny Ramone. So this was loosly to be a sound from when we were young and angry.
So I started and Grönis told to remove this and that frequency because it sounded like a distortionbox funnily the circuit eventually appraoched something I had made for two bassists that had visited my workshop but that’s a totally different story though they had similar things to say about frequencies
Anyway the circuit now had to little treble and so I added a filter to lift it somewhat and then it had too little output but it got to be that way for the first unit and it was really just a showpiece nothing I planned on adding to line and so I eventually added some amplification at output to bring level up
The #2and #3 were given a trimmer that was only ever used on those two units. This trimmer allowed default at one end and one could increase upper midrange, but all Honey Bee’ made to date have had the default setting like the very first one.
Hoeny Bee was designed using a mint green Flying V with pick ups made outof spare pick up parts and a Marshall Valvestate ( that was also in for repair and was repaired but not picked up)
For this showpiece again I asked Engineer Mårtensson for an odd colour that could be used for just one pedal and he brought brought out a yellow tint that I and Eva that were present at the shop thought was too light so Engineer Mårtensson put extra layers on until it turned what I and Eva and Engineer Mårtensson all thought looked like honey and so the name was given by us three in agreeing it was fitting for the look of the box that now had so many layers of yellow that it looked like honey.
This all went down at my workshop then at Kronobergsgatan at a corner of Tord’s Musik.
Anyway the guitarshow went well and I had something new to show a vintage show which was fun but I made a total of four units and forgot about it-just like I did with Blue Berry because production was not set up or planned for either model
I forgot how many times my wife has told me that I had said it’d only be one and then there were many
There’s more...
Here are a posts I made long time ago at TGP. Today they somehow seem relevant. Today I am no longer desigener at MP amplification but I was at the time of the posts below
Please note that Sweet Honey Overdrive is a Mad Professor product and SHOD and other brands below are only mentioned because they were in the orginal posts
There was lots of discussion and people metioned Screwdriver and BOSS Dynamic Overdrive-I’ll see if I can find a better post I have made but I thought this one might be interesting to you
Anyway blast from the past
Well, to answer the direct question on difference on Honey Bee versus Sweet Honey I'd say I thought I'd make something similar but address what I had gotten feedback on from Honeybee users that they felt lacking in the design such as could there be more gain, tighter response, less sag something more inviting to leadplaying with strats and that would feel less like playing a hollowbody.
Oh and I also wanted to make the MP SHOD so that it'd be able to predrive the channel 2 of MP101 into extreme gain
I'd say you can use a similar dynamic range from both while feel and texture will differ
Right as I said above these are golden times there are many choices and I don't think just anybody has any particurlar use for playing dynamics that's a question of playingstyle and preference and besides there are some fine other pedals such as the Screwdriver wich I don't think sounds remotely the same as a Honey Bee but it's a cool low gainer and I know those who'd greatly prefer that and I can think of many more given just a bit of information
Ahum and then it was that price dimension wasn't it? Oh well
Yes that's certainly true buy what you can afford and forgett silly marketing.
I'm just thinking if it's just low gain then there are many choices in many price ranges
Please do find out the name of that BOSS I want one for my collection!
Well, firstly I am the designer of the MP Amplification circuits, so in a way it'd be my take on the honey bee which I designed for BJF Electronics- somehow that strikes me as funny ......
Right, it's a very valid question you ask and I shall try to give the best answer I can.
There was a prototype made for the MP SHOD and a couple of units made for research on this forum these units were named Flametop OD's and in the section bjfediscussion you'll find both reviews and comparisions to BJF Honey Bee and also many of my notes as research went on at my workshop and my own reflections.
Perhaps someone would do the honours and post links to relevant threads?
Thanks before hand
Anyway here goes.
Neither circuitwise or cosmetically or soundwise are the Honey Bee OD and the Sweet Honey OD the same.
Here's a thing I wrote to Bart of Discofreq
Well I had a crew test that for me today:
To begin with they don't have the same controls and are not made with similar parts as it's one thing to make a few hundreds and quite another to have something like a few thousands made
Soundwise the new pedal - name is under discussion as we speak- has a tighter bass and generally a more aggressive sound- sort of like a younger more eager and cockier if you will brother.
This is also how the testcrew described the differences and maybe I'd say more of a rock sound.
However this model can be set with its middle control to sound pretty close to a Honey Bee.
It's funny you know the Honey Bee is a model I made as an anniversarymodel only to be made in four units.
Oh well
Indeed I had in mind to design something for MP pedals that could compete with BJF Electronics best sellingmodel and this was asked for by MP amplification.
This much to take the heat of my handmade production.
However there's more since there would also be a need for a pedal that could predrive the MP101 high gain channel with low output pick ups and since I could test this model with with five different guitars and five different amps at any outputlevel I'd see fit and that my ear would like to hear I saw no point in not exploring the possibilities and examine what would make differences in amplifier designs and guitar designs.
In many ways this new model had a different coming than the Honey Bee.
To be honest I felt and heard the Xcotic BB Preamp do the most convincing and useful pumping of the MP101 lead channel and thought getting this type of molding into a sound would have to be a second cause for this new model.
The Heavy Metal to country crew told the MP SHOD was perfect on the MP101 channel 1 while the Xcotic BBpreamp was a match for MP101 channel 2 and I would have to agree.
Right if there now could be a model that could make something of the sounds of the Honey Bee and yet also mold with both channels on MP101 amplifier aswell as work with the rest of the test equipment.......
add to this that this new model would preferably work with typical backlines.
I realize there will be a connection between these models and some intended and some by confusion.
It's the way things go as people refer to something they can relate to.
Further on likeness and differences this new model has like the Honey Bee a dynamically controlled range of distortion. It is likely that this new model may have a colour similar to that of the BJF Honey Bee;
However this model sounds different and behaves differently enough for the testcrew to say that both have their uses being different valid sounds.
I might add that to the testcrew also a BJF 3BOD was presented and to that the remarks went towards the 3BOD being more a similar pedal but with different filtering to the Honey Bee and yes the 3BOD was made for bass and Honey Bee for guitar and those are more similar circuitwise allthough they came about at seperate points with different objectives.
As a sidenote at NAMM I understand quite a few that tried this new model had no idea there ever were any BJF pedals or any sort of products from BJF Electronics- a company they had never heard of while they knew about MP amplification.
It might show that BJF Honey Bee and that's a model made in 501 units, while being my best selling model still would be mostly known to an inner sphere and so BJF pedals might just be vapourware only existing on the internet.
This new pedal has three controls one for Volume and one for drive and one for distortion in a guitar register= in this case upper midrange so this control at the same time controls distortion and frequency content.
I found this control to be a most useful tool when changing guitars and amplifiers, speakers.
Let's say that if you can set one of the most used sounds from the Honey Bee on the new pedal you can also go from there to a more aggressive sound.
One thing that many HB user enjoy is how it makes almost a fuzz sound on the low strings, sagging while this new model stays potent while yet dynamically controlled.
For the SHOD I felt I'd like to make a tighter sound and so it would pump channel 1 of MP101 in the prefered way.......
I think an analoghy might be that if the Honey bee would sound like a small amp with a small powersupply and worn down speaker this new model sounds like larger amp with ample powersupply and more modern speakers.
With this new design I focused more on how sound travels between gear than getting a specific sound and function.
Ah, you know ones I asked 10 Honey Bee owners to help me describe the sound and I got replies like : 'Golden'
I wish I could give a precise answer to this new product while it will take time to compress this into something like it's simply this way
I think most would say the MP SHOD and the BJFE HBOD are not the same pedal but two pedals that could thrive on the same pedalboard or system.
I think perhaps the most used sound Honey Bee can be set closely on the SHOD.
It was my object to make design a circuit that would do some of the things that the Honey Bee does but also a pedal that would deal with wishes of what the Honey Bee could do like more distortion, more treble, tigher sound, more rock 'n'roll
Some have commented that when the Honey Bee would be used as an overdrive to an allready distorted sound, dynamics would be squashed and there'
s a particurlar fast sound ........Oh yes I got the SHOD to do that by also tuning response to ten guitars.
Circuitwise I can not really comment on SHOD as it is an MP pedal.
I can say this though that as a design SHOD started with a colour that ones Harri showed me and a format of three controls and then a dynamic behaviour to distortion and prefered EQ both adjustable from something close to Honey Bee to something rawer and more aggressive and in contrast to Honey Bee the SHOD was designed with an array of guitars and amplifiers at levels from wisper to earshattering, whereas the Honey Bee was designed on a somewhat constant level with a testguitar a Flying V.
SHOD would not have been thought of without the presence of Honey Bee while I might say the SHOD is a more competent pedal while Honey Bee a more specific pedal.
Some members on this board that have played both the Honey Bee and the SHOD /Flametop were much into advocating that these two have little in common- nah it wouldn't be much fun making the same thing in a new box again would it?
However yes I'd say the SHOD is the MP take on Honey Bee and yes I figured there would be some discussion on this subject.
I am also sure that the diehard Honeybee fans won't use anythingelse than a Honey bee while I'd think the SHOD could easily open doors to a new audience.
Also as Blueberry alternative there is also this
Juicy Blue Dynamic Bass Overdrive
Anyway I have up until now produced many Honey Bees so many that anyone who wants one can get one and for my hand made series I will be making more Blueberries along with all kinds of models for a change but really both are very old models and I can think of much better designs
Have fun
BJ
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
