Ben Carlin's Electric Love collaborates with Brian Wampler on the Aquatone Overdrive / Distortion - a very special evolution of the BD-2 Blues Driver

Oct 23, 202308:00 by

Stefan Karlsson

Blues Driver Style OverdriveBoostBoost and OverdriveDistortionDriveDual-DriveElectric LoveOverdriveWampler+-

Before I jump into talking about this fantastic pedal it’s good to do a little background on Ben Carlin’s essentially ’Electric Love’ sort of Foundation - a pedal business specifically set up to raise money for cancer research.

Both Ben’s Wife and Daughter have had serious and significant cancer scares in the past few years - which were overcome through wonderfully attentive service and effective treatments delivered by a variety of healthcare professionals - who brought both those family members to full recovery.

In part to contribute towards those essential life-saving activities, and particularly the research side of Cancer - and as a sort of thank you to all those that helped the Carlin family on that road to recovery. Ben set up ’Electric Love’ to essentially pay things forward. Its initial offering was a trio of Fuzz, Overdrive and Delay pedals - all simple 3-knob designs made originally in 30 sets of 3.

Where Brian Wampler became so impressed by said initiative that he offered to get involved in a collaboration - where the end result to that endeavour is this brilliant extended and improved Blues Driver essentially - which bears the name ’Aquatone’.

Controls - Gain, Gain Structure : ↑ Distortion / Overdrive ↓, Volume, Bass, Mids (Active), Treble.

As far as I’m aware this is the first proper 3-Band EQ take on the Blues Driver - where I’m a huge fan of that circuit - as the below visual attests to. In fact my favourite ever overdrive as readers will know is the Keeley Freak Fuzz Modded BD-2 - pictured 3rd in line below - where I own most of those variants featured - inspired by, derived from and near tonal match pedals. The one that is still eluding me so far is the Soul Power El Diablo Modded take on the format (from Japan).

I could not be more excited to be getting my hands on a refined 3-Band EQ Blues Driver with Overdrive / Distortion switch - where Brian has gone all out to solve a number of pre-existing challenges with the pedal - while retaining its brilliant dynamics - and guitar volume cleanup in particular. So many people love that pedal - as you can go from clean to full throated distortion with barely a flick of the wrist on your guitar volume knob.

I actually like the overloaded bass response of the pedal - which Robert Keeley kind of amplified in his mods - which are typically my favourite takes to-date.

The Aquatone is such a smart take on the Blues Driver - making the most of the Overdrive and Distortion voicings of the pedal and giving you full granular control over the frequency profile - including Active Mids EQ.

Brian promises that everything you loved about the original is fully intact - just much more adaptable and controllable than ever before. And you can elevate the pedal beyond the original's textures and tones and also temper it to a higher degree - quite a magnificent achievement really - and will hopefully bring this circuit - and this evolved pedal in particular to a wider audience.

I properly love enhanced and extended Blues Drivers - in fact I left out the BYOC Crown Jewel which is another pedal that covers that soundstage beautifully - but did not really fit into that visual format. I'm less keen on the other omission - TC Electronic's Cinders - which is essentially just a cheap standard 3-knob knock off of the circuit. I typically don't see the point of exact clones - unless they are bringing something extra like say Decibelics' full THT Golden Horse Mini Klone. I love seeing evolved takes though - in particular where the new pedals deliver a lot more than the original inspirations.

All my favoured BD-2 style pedals in the above visual offer a little more than the original - some offer quite a lot more - and these are for sure my favourite versions - some are closer to the core sound than others, while some require a little more due diligence on the dial-in.

Obviously we've very recently had the Andy Timmons Signature Keeley Super AT Mod - which I like a lot - but didn't prefer it over my favourite Freak Fuzz Mod. I'm fully expecting the Electric Love Aquatone to be my new favourite for this genre! That's not to say the originals aren't brilliant too!

I tried to get in on the original 80 or so edition run of the Aquatone - but Ben had not then made a provision for UK shipping - so I alas missed out on that - we did though have a great correspondence via Reverb.com Messages.

And the good news is that he fully intends to make more - and the Reverb.com Page is Open for Pre-orders once more - with an expected shipping date of late November / early December. Ben is still very much a one-man-band in this regard and assembles all those pedals himself - so we need to give him time to catch up. I think I was the first one on the new batch of preorders - now supporting shipping to more destinations (shipping to UK is $30). Still for that same fantastic price of $199. And all the profits from the sale of said pedals go to the BCRF (Breast Cancer Research Foundation) whose ribbon logo featured on the first batch of 3-knob pedals mentioned above - Fuzz, Overdrive and Delay.

There are so many of us for whom the BD-2 Blues Driver is the best classic overdrive out there - and this Brian Wampler Aquatone collaboration makes that circuit even more adaptable, versatile, and potent. I'm so looking forward to getting my hands on one of these!

Are any of you as excited as me by the prospect of a 2-Gain-Stage 3-Band EQ Blues Driver?

Props also to Claudia @sketchypedals for her fantastic Aquatone 8-bit style enclosure design.

The big surprise here really is why no-one did this sooner! A sure-fire hit and all for a good cause too!