The Power Driver is one of the few BOSS pedals that I bought new. No, it’s not because I was blown away by the pedal’s performance. I walked into a shop and saw it was being cleared out. It’s not often that I see a BOSS pedal being discounted, and I think I saved 45% off the regular price. I don’t remember the exact price because I bought it about two years ago.

My PW-2 has gathered a lot of dust since. While it sounded fine at the shop, I knew the real test would come at home. I plugged it into my big old solid state Traynor and used the manual’s setting for “Large Amplifier” (LEVEL: 11:00; FAT: full up; MUSCLE: 2:00; DRIVE: 2:00). Wow! Even with the amp volume down low, the Traynor sounded like a wall of amps.

Of course, I don’t use the Traynor very often. So I tried the PW-2 with my other amps. Oh dear. It sounded terrible with my Princeton tube amp. So I packed it away as other pedals demanded their turn in the spotlight.

When I got the POD, I gave the PW-2 another chance. Once again, the suggested settings (and personal variations) simply gave me a very cheap sound on most of the amp simulations. The only PW-2+simulation combination that was almost pleasing to my ears was with the Blackface.

Over a year later (a few days ago to be exact), I decided to give the PW-2 a final chance with POD. But this time, I got creative. The first thing I did was turn every control full off. Then I cranked the Level control full up.

How did I not notice that the PW-2 is one LOUD pedal? Most of the POD amp settings really benefited by the powerful boost. With the Level still full up, I turned my attention to the Drive control. Turning it up only a bit at a time did interesting things to the sound, “warming” up the sound. At this point, I found that both the Fat and Muscle controls also made noticeable changes upon the overall sound, if used in moderation. By this I mean that I didn’t go any further than 9:00 on any of the controls other than the fully cranked Level.

I was very pleasantly surprised by the overdriven sounds produced from the PW-2 and various POD amp simulations. It's rather odd that I essentially had to ignore the DRIVE control and concentrate on the LEVEL in order to get the best results from the POD, but that's the way the diodes crumbled in this case. No doubt the opposite holds true for a different kind of amp. Once again, this shows that sometimes one has to ignore the manual and experiment with a pedal to see if it's a worthwhile investment.

And if you still can’t get a sound you like, cut your losses and get rid of the pedal!