Boss Power Driver - We Hardly Knew You

[@michaelcrouse246]

You’re looking at this all wrong, if a Waza PW-2 comes out then you need to do a video on the Boss PN-2, then the Space Station, etc… Use this power for good, please don’t do the Flashback Fuzz.

[@jacobpittman1996]

Thank you, 90’s teen man; I feel heard!

[@psilocyborg4775]

Boss pedals are so versatile. You can create music with them and use them as a self defence weapon also

[@jonwold]

Thanks for sharing these great vids. I like everything about them. Format, sound, lighting, playing, humor. Stay awesome.

[@YourAverageStrummer]

Aaaaaand there's another thing from Boss I NEED on my board!

[@scramblesthedeathdealer]

So glad I got one of these as a teenager, still have the box, too!

[@Stratguy83]

He has the box!

[@jpizzleforizzle]

​@@Stratguy83I came here for this

[@officialironman]

Drunk Beaver has recently released the Seattle Driver which is a modern take on the venerable Power Driver.

[@vinnegamthevulture6255]

This is the sound i been looking for!

[@blueslawyer]

Incredible content as always!

[@StompboxBreakdown]

Thank you so much!!

[@Noisekvlt]

Hyped to see you do a video on this! I picked one up a couple weeks back and love it, though only for certain things. With a subtle octave down in front of it you get a MAAAAASSIVE tone. Love that it’s like a HM-2 x Muff in one.

[@StompboxBreakdown]

Ooohhhhh good call. I can see how that would be pretty bonkers.

[@vorpalblades]

This doesn't chainsaw.

[@HerbieBancock]

Very thankful to say that I am nothing like you and have no idea what a balantro is.

[@BlueBarrier782]

The Drunk Beaver version is a really cool take on this.

[@KRAZEEIZATION]

I bought one in 2009 mint in the box! The XT-2 Xtortion came out at the same time in 1996. Fat and Muscle is like something DOD would do!

[@PowerInOne22]

make a vid on the power driver! :)

[@wesmitchem825]

The power driver rules I got one a few months ago and it's my favorite boss drive by far

[@thor_kb]

Drunk Beaver had a couple of clones of the PW-2 over the years. Currently they are offering the Seattle Driver.

[@Margilio5150]

That intro song started like something R.E.M. would do in 1994 😎

[@StompboxBreakdown]

Heck yeah

[@Thebadguitaristcast]

I’m a huge fan of this pedal. I typically keep some kind of big muff on my board and the power driver knocked them all off for several years. I just took it off my board after picking up an Octa Psi. There just wasn’t room for both.

[@deanallen927]

Very interesting, I didn't think so when it was new (of course). The first jam sounded like Neil Young and Crazy Horse to me, so I was wondering for a second if it was an early example of copying amp innards, a precursor to the "amp in a box" thing, maybe some hot rodded Tweed deluxe ideas in it (possibly the absence of diodes?). It doesn't sound dated to me though. Great video, fun stuff as always.

[@StompboxBreakdown]

Ooh, I can hear the Neil Young bit, kind of wish I had leaned into that and loosened it up a bit. It's definitely got that "Tweed used not for its original intended purposes" sound that I see a lot of modern alt/stoner metal acts using.

[@markdwighttadina7655]

Opinion : Power Driver is basically in between an OD-1 and DS-1 (or basically if the color knob of OS-2 is at 12 o'clock)

[@Andyanddiana467]

No joke, I think the Edge had one if these in his big rack rig/pedal switcher set up some years back

[@pierremandon2323]

I'm glad this pedal is getting attention. I use one in a stoner doom band, it's earned a long term place on my board. I mainly use it paired with the gain channel of my rockerverb, it makes it soo much fatter, it Blends beautifully. I like it on its own, but I think it's a pedal that can really be used to boost any gain stage, if you want to get some really meaty but not muddy sound. It can easily get in HM2 Chainsaw zone, the EQ works the same. it's just gonna sound a bit more "fuzzy" than an HM2. However, I've heard people claim that this is Boss's Big Muff, I personally don't hear it.

[@deanallen927]

I bet it would make a great Rock-n-Roll lead pedal if you're doing '70s Brit inspired Zep/Bad Co. type stuff with a Marshall or modern AC30.

[@vorpalblades]

Nah, this doesn't chainsaw.

[@pierremandon2323]

@@vorpalblades ok. Except it does ^^

[@astrodadmusic]

The tones while twisting the muscle knob were pure anarchy. Hey, you should form a punk band called The Muscle Knob. I’d go to that show. Anyway, thanks for another great vid! Cheers!

[@zrobertez]

Wow yes I have been addicted to Balatro and vampire survivors

[@Thebadguitaristcast]

I’m a huge fan of this pedal. I typically keep don’t kind of big muff on my board and the power driver knocked them all off for several years. I just took it off my board after picking up an Octa Psi. There just wasn’t room for both.

[@vicferrari89]

No, in talking with my good friend, a Boss CEO, PW means "Please (Don't) Worship" but shorten it, its PW. One could say its a metaphor for "free yourself".

[@judehanley9980]

Had it. Hated it. Don't miss it.

[@scramblesthedeathdealer]

Your loss, I kinda want a second, for backup.

[@kwyatt261]

Hey Jude

[@nathanbrown3872]

The comments section is the worst of humanity.

[@alexcloud1252]

sounds to me like a fuzz face meets metal muff. probably not what boss was going for, but kinda neat. if EQD or OBN put out this same circuit and just gave it an aggressive name and some interesting artwork, i think people would appreciate it much differently.

[@StompboxBreakdown]

Truer words have never been typed

[@Guitar_Ted]

Okay, this sounded really familiar and then I made the connection. It is very similar to a Pettyjohn Rail fuzz. That effect also does not use clipping diodes and can get into that square wave, buzz saw sound like this pedal does. The big difference with the Pettyjohn is that you can tame it down with its stepped knob to be a distortion, or a "heavy overdrive". The thing gates out at maximum and that makes it have this "noise suppressor" effect which works well in high volume settings. I have this pedal on my board but I use it as a distortion at a lower setting. You might actually like it.

[@StompboxBreakdown]

Ooh, that's really cool. Very interested in a dirt pedal that gets into tone generation type of stuff.

[@LeviBulger]

Tons of pedals don't rely on using diodes for gain.

[@fanoboss]

super rare pedal !

[@tommj4365]

There's a good easy mod for this. Remove the circuit board and clip the 2nd pin off the 4th transistor. Instantly you'll hear an improvement in sound quality, smoother and more "realistic" to my ears anyways

[@ParanormalArson]

Dirt Monger Instruments has a modern version that's really dope. He gave it a four-band EQ, so it's a fair bit more flexible than the original.

[@YMF1891]

Nice

[@mundainmonstre2372]

Ive had the PW2 in my setup since 2000 and I love it to death. I wish Boss would re-release em. It can go from kinda subtle-ish(turn down you guitar volume knob almost all the way) to rip your friggen face off. It also plays really well with dynamics - and still rip your face off.

[@Vildhjuggah]

idk why but the waza power driver was funny as hell

[@Vildhjuggah]

oh and "we paid for the whole knob lets use the whole knob" lolol

[@StompboxBreakdown]

Thank you!! I was proud of those lines :)

[@LordEmostab]

I have one of these in the original box with about 20 minutes of use on it. Never was able to get a sound that wasn’t horrible out of it. Maybe I’ll get it out again and mess with it.

[@highernoon]

I read in a few places that it is Boss' Big Muff, sounds at least in the ball park (and obviously different tone shaping options).

[@StompboxBreakdown]

It *can* get Muff-y, with the mids pulled back and the bass let loose, but it's a very different pedal, from a circuit perspective. Muff has clipping diodes and no opamp, PW-2's main engine is the opamp and has no clipping diodes.

[@jonathanwapner6262]

But the OpAmp Big Muffs don't have clipping diodes, right? ​@StompboxBreakdown

[@LeviBulger]

​@@StompboxBreakdownThe clipping diodes don't really mean much. The main difference is that the muff is using a quad of high gain transistors and Boss has the Op Amp.

[@LeviBulger]

​@@jonathanwapner6262yeah that version is very similar to the pw2

[@ChrisChocol]

when ya turned up drive. tufff

[@michaelfowler3187]

Power driver gonna power drive couldn't have said it better myself. I don't think boss typically takes risks in the market so I have to assume they felt pretty confident about trying this or had minimal design overhead if it was based on something established in that "genre" or target demographic. I think David Spade's character in Black Sheep threatens to use a power driver 'that's right a power driver' on some bad guys that roll by. Maybe it was pile driver but all I know is it was gonna hurt and it was gonna be 90s

[@mutabor74]

🤘🤓👍

[@LeStraTele]

Ibanez Soundtank pedals would be a great episode. They made lots of different ones. they are out there for cheap.

[@vorpalblades]

Soundtanks were great.

[@PuttinOnTheRiffs]

These are well over $100 on reverb now. Who’s paying this!?

[@nicholasrella6904]

I've never tried one. Sounds like it could be useful for stacking with other pedals. Not too crazy about the stand alone sound. I would have to try it myself to really form an opinion.

[@Thr3-Words]

Frankly, that sounds like 2025 to me, because indie bands are searching for whatever doesn’t sound like the twenties

[@StompboxBreakdown]

Everything old is new again

[@AllofJudea]

Were they trying to get that DOD 90s thing with the knob names? Also, your shirt needs Patrick Bateman holding the axe

[@thebrokenorder]

Will it chug? 🙃

[@mykhedelic6471]

Damn, that's a ball breaker, both girl and boy balls. Pedal Warning,: not safe for ovaries or testes! Guard yoself. Mad with Power!

[@mookmook5715]

It doesn't do the Swiss Army thing.. more like a lone sword of thunder.

[@al271987]

I had one back in probably the late 2000s, and while I was (and still can be) very much a 90’s power chords type of player, this pedal didn’t work with my amp at the time, no matter what I did there was a squidgy, fizzy top end that just sounded so gross to me. I had always heard it was Boss trying to make their version of a Big Muff but the fact that there’s no clipping diodes means that’s just a false internet rumor. I have a better rig now so I would be willing to try one again if it were cheap, so… (checks Reverb)… looks like I will probably not be trying one again anytime soon.

[@Rowe4900candymachine]

Balatro jumpscare.

[@URTH-yb5xh]

Had it It was meh Don’t miss it Some maniacs thought it was a Muff Good demo Mitch Hedberg reference funny Those bands you mentioned mostly uggghhh

[@MeatyController]

Sounds really compressed, like a Rock version of the Metal Zone lol

[@chaocraticysmix1205]

I have the Boss and Behringer pedals. They are very similar. No idea why the Behringer would be so expensive. Sounds good on bass, but I haven't found good use for it on guitar. I guess I'll hang on to them both to pay off my mortgage in a couple of decades.

[@StompboxBreakdown]

That's the smart move right there. Do you have the XT-2 as well?

[@chaocraticysmix1205]

@StompboxBreakdown good question. I actually have 5 XT-2's, it's a fetish, don't ask... But as with the pw2, the xt2 also never seems to fit in any song, no matter how hard I want it to. That's why a couple of years ago I made a song especially for that pedal (it's on my other channel, search for xt2x4)

[@StompboxBreakdown]

Very cool, subscribed and currently listening to you absolutely RIP. IT. UP.

[@yrmthr]

I had one of these for about 20 years and just sold it. Only used it a few times and could never get a sound I liked

[@StompboxBreakdown]

If I wasn't a pedal hoarder, I'd probably try to sell or trade mine. It's definitely very rough and unrefined, though I kinda like the way it works with a real live tube amp in a band mix for *certain* types of leads and riffs.

[@yrmthr]

@StompboxBreakdown I picked mine up on vacation in a little vintage shop in backwoods N Carolina. Never saw one ever again and knew it was kind of a collectors piece due to scarcity l, so I held on to it. It's just a midrange mess. For a noise/post rock/garage band sound, it might work but it's more or less a novelty pedal at this point

[@FrankMcGinnis]

Totally unrelated to the pedal... why are you wearing my friend Steve's (Boneshaker MMXII) Catskill Mountains hat?? Are you from the area?

[@StompboxBreakdown]

He gave it to me :) Steve and I are buddies.

[@FrankMcGinnis]

@StompboxBreakdown it's a teeny tiny world!

[@waynegram8907]

I'm confused the Boss Power Driver has the same Op amp as the Boss Blues Driver, Boss DS-1 with NO clipping diodes? but has a parametric recording console EQ circuit to get those 90's alternative rock tones?

[@StompboxBreakdown]

That series of pedals used a discrete opamp, where instead of a chip, like most pedals use for gain, where you get 2 amplification circuits, the amplification is done with (usually) transistors. The benefit is that it operates completely independently of what would normally be paired with it, and it can be built specifically for the pedal itself. Small differences, but enough where Boss implemented it that way a bunch of times. The DS-1 uses a regular opamp, the DS-2 is discrete opamp (I believe). And yeah, where most pedals have either a filter knob or a baxandall type eq stack, this uses a "Gyrator" type tone stack to offer boosts/cuts at specific frequencies.

[@waynegram8907]

@@StompboxBreakdown The Gyrator Tone Stack is turning a capacitor into an inductor . I'm guessing other pedals that used the Gyrator tone stack was the DOD Bad Monkey, DOD Grunge, Boss HM2. I'm guessing the Boss Power Driver uses a 2 band Gyrator tone stack and NOT a 3 band Gyrator tone stack. They are using capacitors instead of using inductors to create a Gyrator Tone stack circuit. It seems that a Gyrator EQ is like using a recording console EQ to get those 90's alternative rock tones.

[@allanflippin2453]

Mr. Beatdown, Well, that was random! :D I have a question about the "fat" knob. Does it seem like the low end boost happens ahead of the distortion circuit? Cranking the "fat" seems to have a bigger result on the sound than just increasing bass.

[@StompboxBreakdown]

It certainly was! Yeah, the fat and muscle affect the signal directly heading into the opamp. So it's not just shaping the sound, but affecting the distortion we get from the opamp.

[@danieltravis5082]

Oh my god I hate this pedal for guitar 😂 For bass it's interesting for textures though

[@Crabfather]

It's certainly a consistent pedal. It sounds.. not awesome at any combination of settings.

[@monovision566]

The starting tone is so boxy and flubby. Hard to judge the pedal in some ways.

[@KixxKvldera]

What a horrendous pedal. I hate it. The SD-1 is so much better! The '90s was a time of horribly depressing music about being on drugs or coming down off drugs. That is why I defected from Rock and Pop and listened to Country instead from about 1994 - 1997!

[@vorpalblades]

Lot of country songs about drinking and drugs.

[@KixxKvldera]

@@vorpalblades Not any of the ones I listened to. Anyway, at least Country Music was upbeat :D