One Control Honey Bee OD 4K Mini Standard

The One Control Honey Bee OD 4K Mini Standard is a mini low-gain overdrive pedal built around Bjorn Juhl's Honey Bee circuit, released for the 20th anniversary of the original BJFe Honeybee Overdrive¹. In its essence it is an amp-in-a-box, recreating the warm and syrupy tone of a vintage Supro amp, and it is the first Honey Bee to come in mini form¹. Juhl, the designer behind BJFE and known for Mad Professor, built the original BJF Honey Bee with the sound of a crunchy Supro amp as his guiding light².

The Mini Standard belongs to One Control's BJFE in Your Hand series, which the maker says is approved by BJFE founder BJF himself and mirrors the BJFE appearance and tone in every detail, using high-grade carbon film resistors and metal film capacitors³.

A low-gain Supro-style amp-in-a-box

The Honey Bee line began with Juhl's Supro-amp-inspired BJFe Honey Bee⁴. Over the years the circuit went through several revisions, each documented by Delicious Audio alongside Juhl's own notes⁵:

The 6dB gain increase in Revision 4 gives the Drive control more range than the original circuit had⁵. One Control announced the revamped Honey Bee Overdrive in December 2017, bringing this revised circuit to a standard-size pedal⁶; the 4K Mini Standard followed as the mini version¹.

Because it works as an amp-in-the-box pedal, the HBOD 4K Mini can be connected directly to the power amp input of any amplifier, letting the pedal supply the preamp character itself¹. The full-size One Control Honey Bee covers the same circuit in a larger box.

The controls: Volume, Drive and the Vintage/Modern switch

The Mini Standard has three knobs plus a Vintage/Modern voice toggle. On the full-size pedal the toggle sits on top of the case; the mini version moves that switch to the side of the pedal¹.

The control set differs slightly from the full-size Honey Bee Overdrive, which uses a Nature control rather than a Treble knob. Premier Guitar's reviewer described the Nature control as an EQ-type control, and found "useful variations in vintage and modern mode" on the pedal². Aion FX's technical analysis notes that the One Control Honey Bee combines a bass-cut mode with the Nature settings under the single name of "vintage/modern"⁷.

Vintage versus Modern

The two voices on the switch map directly onto the circuit's history¹⁵:

• Vintage: the mild and classic overdrive of the original Honey Bee circuit, with its unique high-frequency response⁵.
• Modern: the current version, slightly higher in gain and with a wider low-end response, combining Revisions 2, 3 and 4¹⁵.

When Modern mode is selected, the Nature control's range becomes wider, according to One Control's original press release for the pedal⁸.

The Honey Bee OD 4K Mini Custom

Alongside the Mini Standard, One Control created a Custom version in a limited-edition crimson red color¹. Tonally it brings additional gain and push in the low-mid spectrum for a thicker tone, and it keeps the Vintage/Modern switch, so both the original and modern Honey Bee sounds are available, each with the higher gain¹.

Power and size

The Mini Standard runs on 9V DC with a negative tip and a 2.1mm barrel plug, drawing only 3mA¹. That current draw is low enough that it shares comfortably with other pedals on a multi-output supply.

The Mini Standard is the first Honey Bee OD released in a mini version¹, so it takes up less pedalboard space than the earlier full-size Honey Bee Overdrive while keeping the same circuit family.

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