The One Control Silver Bee OD Limited BJFE Style Wave is a limited-edition low-gain overdrive pedal from the tonal palette of Swedish analog effects designer Bjorn Juhl, known as BJF or BJFe1. One Control describes it as a fresh spin around the low-gain overdrive race track: a pedal built for dynamic breakup, where the amount of overdrive is highly controllable by the player's hand rather than locked in by the knob settings1.
The concept comes straight from Juhl's very sought-after Honey Bee OD design. Like the Honey Bee, the Silver Bee offers hugely dynamic breakup, but Juhl conceived it to excel at capturing that "on the edge" sound, with shimmering treble just on the brink of distortion, reminiscent of classic American "silvery" combo amps1.
The Silver Bee OD Limited BJFE Style Wave is a limited edition and One Control's product page lists it as sold out1. The same circuit family continues in the Silver Bee 4K Mini, a shrunken version of the regular Silver Bee2.
An edge-of-breakup overdrive
The Silver Bee sits at the low-gain end of the overdrive spectrum, and its whole character is built around the edge of breakup. One Control's own description puts it this way1:
"Like the Honey Bee, Silver Bee offers hugely dynamic breakup, with the amount of overdrive highly controllable by the player's hand"1
In practice that means the pedal responds to how hard you pick: back off your attack and the sound cleans up, dig in and the drive comes forward. The treble is voiced to sit just on the brink of distortion, the quality Juhl was chasing when he designed it around the sound of classic American "silvery" combo amps1. Delicious Audio, covering the Silver Bee family, describes the pedal as voiced after those same amps, going from clean to dynamic overdrives with flat low end and airy top end2.
The controls: Volume, Drive and Bass
The pedal keeps the control set minimal, with three knobs1:
| Control | What it does |
|---|---|
| Volume | Adjusts overall signal volume1 |
| Drive | Adjusts the intensity of overdrive1 |
| Bass | Adjusts the low/mid frequencies of the output signal1 |
The Bass knob is the one that shapes the pedal's body: because it works on the low and mid frequencies of the output signal, it lets you thin the sound out for a tighter feel or fill it in when the amp or guitar is already lean1. With only three controls, there is no tone knob for the highs; the treble character is baked into the circuit's voicing.
How the Silver Bee differs from the Honey Bee OD
The Silver Bee's circuit draws directly from Juhl's Honey Bee OD design, but the voicing is where the two part ways1. One Control describes the difference like this:
"its new silver sibling has a tighter, more modern overall sound, flying along with sparkling highs, razor sharp edges, and sweet, subtly-distorted amp-like tones"1
Where the Honey Bee leans into a looser, amp-on-the-verge feel, the Silver Bee is the tighter and more modern of the two, with sharper edges and more sparkle up top1. Players who already know the Honey Bee can think of the Silver Bee as the same dynamic breakup engine re-voiced for a crisper, more contemporary response.
The Silver Bee line has also appeared in a smaller format. The Silver Bee 4K Mini, a version customized by BJF himself, is a shrunken version of the regular Silver Bee, and its VINTAGE switch position reproduces the earliest Honey Bee OD sound with slightly more sag and a shift in the low mid frequencies2. The full-size Silver Bee was announced at NAMM in January 20192.
Power, size and board fit
The Silver Bee OD Limited runs on 9V DC with a center negative plug and draws only 3.6 mA, light enough that it will sit comfortably on a shared pedalboard power supply1. It uses true-bypass switching, so the signal passes through untouched when the pedal is off1. The enclosure is aluminum, weighing 295g1.
The 9V DC center negative requirement means the pedal needs a standard negative-sleeve power supply, the same convention as most modern pedals. At 3.6 mA it draws very little, so it can share an isolated output or a daisy chain with other low-current analog pedals1.
Videos
Erik Holmbom
Distortion LTD
ano5656
Questions
Is the Silver Bee OD true bypass?
Yes. One Control lists the Silver Bee OD Limited BJFE Style Wave with true-bypass switching, so when the pedal is off your signal passes through without active circuitry in the way. It runs on 9V DC with a center negative plug and draws only 3.6 mA.
How is the Silver Bee different from the Honey Bee OD?
The Silver Bee draws from Bjorn Juhl's Honey Bee OD design but One Control describes it as a tighter, more modern overall sound, with sparkling highs and razor sharp edges where the Honey Bee is looser. Both share the same dynamic, hand-controllable breakup character.
How much current does the Silver Bee OD draw?
One Control lists the Silver Bee OD Limited BJFE Style Wave at 3.6 mA current consumption on 9V DC, center negative. That is a very light draw, so it will happily share a pedalboard power supply with other pedals.
Is the Silver Bee OD Limited still available?
No. The Silver Bee OD Limited BJFE Style Wave is a limited edition, and One Control's product page lists it as sold out. The Silver Bee circuit also lives on in the smaller Silver Bee 4K Mini format.
Sources (2)
- Silver Bee OD Limited BJFE Style Wave (OC-SVBODn-BJW), One Control USA
- One Control Silver Bee 4K Mini Overdrive, Delicious Audio, 2023-04-04
