Madbean Pedals Blue Steel

WE ARE EXTREMELY EXCITED TO ANNOUNCE THE 'NEW FOR 2025' COLLABORATION WITH MADBEAN PEDALS! Fantastic DIY pedal projects, now available as full or partial Small Bear kits!

Our Partial Kits include the PCB/PCB Set and all parts needed for the project, except you supply your own enclosure and knobs. 

Our Full Kit includes the PCB/PCB Set, all the parts, a drilled enclosure and knobs. 

You can always check out the MadBean Forum for more info-- a great resource! MadBean Pedals Forum

Overview

The Blue Steel is a faithful adaption of the Boss BD-2 overdrive. The BD-2 very much stands apart from its contemporaries by the use of differential pairs, dual-gang drive control and a gyrator for tone shaping. It produces a very unique timbre as compared to the same old IC-based overdrives that are a dime a dozen these days.

Unlike some other BD-2 projects, the Blue Steel incorporates all the original circuit elements including the input and output buffers. The flip-flop bypass circuitry has been left out for true bypass operation. It also adds a switch to select different amounts of low end (being that a lack of lows is a frequent complaint with the BD-2). Lastly, I have noted the changes needed to mod it to the Keeley specs. I recommend giving these a try. I liked how mine turned out!

Controls

• VOL, TONE, DRIVE: As is typical with overdrives (in terms of function).
• SUBS: This switch offers three levels of low end frequencies: Down (thin), Middle (stock), and Up (fat). The compression amount also varies somewhat in each setting.

Blue Steel Build Guide

Blue Steel Schematic