BJF – Honeybee Overdrive

[Note] – this post also includes information on the Bearfoot Honeybee and a Hot Rodded Honeybee a’la the Honeybee De’luxe [Note]

Here it is, the one we’ve been waiting for – It’s the BJF Honeybee Overdrive, widely recognized as one of the best sounding “low-gainers” around. I built one up and found it great as a “slightly-dirtier-than-a-dirty-booster” booster into a tube amp on the verge of breakup. It gives a great dynamic response to your playing, I stuck a compressor in front of it and still enjoyed the feel. All together a top, top pedal, a recommended buy or build!

Here is BJF’s own description:

“This very mild overdrive was inspired by an old Supro amp, there is special kind of warm mild overdrive that you can’t find from any other amp (or pedal what so ever). Works very well with other pedals or distorting amp giving this fat and warm overdrive character. The pedal is also super dynamic, from clean to overdrive just by using different touch of your hand.”

For those who are unfamiliar with the Honeybee and how it sounds here is a demo video for you;

Sounds nice doesn’t it 🙂

Well the boys over at freestompboxes reversed it and came up with a schematic and PCB layout. Check out Madbean’s brilliant file here; http://www.madbeanpedals.com/projects/YellowShark/docs/YellowShark.pdf for the schematic and PCB as well as a few notes.

An interesting design, the way it controls the high end content of the signal with those feedback loops along with the filter at the end of the circuit and the Jfet, I like it.

Here is a vero layout by IvIark on the freestomp forums –

Now, onto the Bearfoot Honeybee, there is a slight variation in the circuit, this being C5 (on the madbean scheme) is 220n and is in series with a 4k7 resistor.

Now, finally the Hot Rodded Honeybee (a’la the Honeybee De’luxe) that was cobbled together from the Model-H, the Blueberry and Honeybee schematics. Here is the scheme;

And here is a vero layout for it;

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