Booster Recomendations

[Dylfish]

Hi Guys, i wanna put a booster in my fx loop and was wondering on any suggestions on a booster to build? i just wanna keep it pretty clean, but able to dirty it up a little bit if needed. thanks

[Zben3129]

Maybe the microamp? I have heard good things, but I never use boosters myself (or atleast haven't yet)

Also, I think the sparkledrive is a good boost from what I hear


Zach

[Dylfish]

cheers zach

[Jered]

  From your description I think this should do nicely.
http://www.muzique.com/schem/mosfet.htm

[yeeshkul]

I've tried Fulltone Fat-boost which is basicaly AMZ. I sounded too bassy for Les Paul/VOX, so i stick with the Rangemaster clone. I am gonna test the AC booster right now, will report. RG's Jekyll has a nice booster by the way. It quite depends on your amp though.

[m-theory]

Based upon your description of what you're looking for, you might consider trying a peppermill.  It's a ROG "overdrive," but it doesn't have much gain, and you can dial that back.  I've found it to be a very nice sounding boost.  I also like the mosfet and fat boostered an awful lot. 

[Ben N]

Not enough information. First of all, what kind of amp do you have? At what level does your fx loop run? Are you looking for distortion from the booster itself or from saturating the amp? Why do you want the booster in the loop, and not in front of the amp? Can you get the lead tone you want just by turning the amp up?

All this stuff matters. If your fx loop is at line level, there is a good chance that it will overdrive any of the 9 volt boosters mentioned above so that you will will not get any kind of useful clean. This has been talked to death here before, and I think the consensus is that if your amp already sounds good and can give you the kind of gain you are looking for, the better option for inside the loop is not a boost, but a switchable passive cut--just a pot with a bypass switch. Set your amp for your lead setting, then punch in your cut to clean it up. If you want to think of it as a boost you can wire in an LED that is on when the pot is bypassed--voila!

Or, you could put any of the boosters/overdrives mentioned above where they are intended to work, between your guitar and your amp. For boost that adds a little of its own grit on the top, think of the AMZ Minibooster, or maybe something like the Peppermill.

If you really, really have your heart set on an actual boost in your fx loop (presumably because your amp just will not distort even when the vol/gain is on "10" :/), and you want that boost to be mostly clean, you have to make sure it has enough headroom to handle the signal coming out of your fx send. Perhaps something like a Microamp running at 24v, like a Barber Launchpad?

[shredgd]

I personally suggest the LPB2. Easy to build, very equilibrated.

Giulio

[rnfr]

i think Ben makes a lot of valid points.  personally i wouldn't put a booster in the effects loop, but in front of the preamp so you can drive it harder if you want. i would reserve an FX loop for modulation/delay type effects.

[MikeH]

My 2 favorites are the AMZ Mosfet and the SHO (pretty similar actually).  Although, my answer to this question is always this: 

Boosters have so few components and are very cheap, and easy to build.  Why not build 5 or 10 circuits and just box up the one that works best for your rig and what you want?  And I can't think of any boosters that use odd parts that can't be used in another build, so reusing/recycling the parts from the one you don't box up will be no problem.  Or break out your breadboard, but that's a little tougher to use for back to back A-B comparisons.

[earthtonesaudio]

I love this:

not a boost, but a switchable passive cut--just a pot with a bypass switch. Set your amp for your lead setting, then punch in your cut to clean it up. If you want to think of it as a boost you can wire in an LED that is on when the pot is bypassed--voila!

...And there are a few commercial manufacturers that make exactly such a product.  The trick is marketing it without letting on that it's a volume cut.  Grr!  Guitarist want MORE LOUDER!

[jaysg]

I just finished the BYOC TriBoost.  If you're not familiar with it, the board combines the AMZ MosFet Boost, EH LPB1, and a Rangemaster. 

I'm still pondering whether or not I like what's been done to the AMZ Boost....you lose the 10M input Z, which I needed for my acoustic, and it setup for max gain instead of allowing some attenuation.   I'm also confused by the biasing requirement.  I guess the 100K/62K nominal divider isn't always perfect.  I tried to bias it on a scope for least distortion and highest output.   With increasing input, the output does not track a pure sine wave in.  The duty cycle starts to move 60:40.

I think I'm going to build an AMZ boost on perfboard.   Hairyandy has a vero layout somewhere on the net, for this & a Rangemaster on the same board.  "Bi-Polar Boost"

[Dylfish]

Not enough information. First of all, what kind of amp do you have? At what level does your fx loop run? Are you looking for distortion from the booster itself or from saturating the amp? Why do you want the booster in the loop, and not in front of the amp? Can you get the lead tone you want just by turning the amp up?

All this stuff matters. If your fx loop is at line level, there is a good chance that it will overdrive any of the 9 volt boosters mentioned above so that you will will not get any kind of useful clean. This has been talked to death here before, and I think the consensus is that if your amp already sounds good and can give you the kind of gain you are looking for, the better option for inside the loop is not a boost, but a switchable passive cut--just a pot with a bypass switch. Set your amp for your lead setting, then punch in your cut to clean it up. If you want to think of it as a boost you can wire in an LED that is on when the pot is bypassed--voila!

Or, you could put any of the boosters/overdrives mentioned above where they are intended to work, beyeh
tween your guitar and your amp. For boost that adds a little of its own grit on the top, think of the AMZ Minibooster, or maybe something like the Peppermill.

If you really, really have your heart set on an actual boost in your fx loop (presumably because your amp just will not distort even when the vol/gain is on "10" :/), and you want that boost to be mostly clean, you have to make sure it has enough headroom to handle the signal coming out of your fx send. Perhaps something like a Microamp running at 24v, like a Barber Launchpad?

Yeah you make alot of points, i was at work when i did the post so its a little rushed

my amp is a marshall Jcm tsl601 combo and im not sure what level its running at to be honest. ill have a look when i get home.

i wanted to to dirty up my clean sounds a little so its "blues clean" , and i wanted it in the fx loop so i could still control it from my marshall swicthes. i've also got this thing about no pedals infront of the amp. even tho they can be true bypass i dont like them infront for some reason.

[earthtonesaudio]

In that case you probably want the booster to do a couple things:
1. Be able to take line-level input signals without distorting in a bad way
2. be capable of all the distortion you want to generate

1. is because the FX loop is probably (but check the amp specs to be sure) line-level, which means low impedance and might mean a couple of volts peak-to-peak.  Some boosters might not like this type of input signal and will clip in a bad-sounding way.

2. is if you're not running the amp with the master volume cranked all the way already.  Most FX loops come after the preamp but before the power amp, so the only way a "clean" booster can make any grit or distortion is if it maxes out the headroom in the next stage (i.e. your power amp).  If your master volume is already cranked, you can potentially use a clean booster to push it into saturation, but you might still like the options offered by a booster with "gain" and "volume" controls.

I recommend the Minibooster (muzique.com), or the Omega (runoffgroove.com), or some of the others that have already been suggested like the peppermill, SHO, rangemaster, etc.

[DougH]

I agree that a minibooster is probably a good idea here. High Zin and those mu-amps don't have any headroom at 9v anyway, even with a guitar signal. There shouldn't be any ill-effects to the sound from driving it a little with a hot signal.

[Ben N]

OK, now I get where you are coming from. I once did something like this--warm up the too-clean preamp in a hybrid amp by putting a Vox tube fx loop buffer in the fx loop. It worked pretty well, but was subtle, but that is probably because I wasn't looking for any boost. (Still sounded way better than the drive channel.)

Perhaps take a look at some of the tube-based projects, like the Real McTube or Valvecaster. You may have to tweak them some to handle the hotter signal, but that should not be that hard, just a matter of lowering gain, maybe using a lower gain tube, or even just padding down the input. You can also focus on pushing the EL34s a little harder, but you may not want the increase in volume.

Edit: Or what Doug said.

[DougH]

Or maybe not. If he wants "blues clean" a vanilla minibooster being fed a hot signal may be too much. But you can always stick a resistor between the lower drain to the cap going to the upper gate to tame it down if you need to.

[Ben N]

Take a look at this:

It was intended as an all-tube buffered effects loop, but, like the Vox unit I used, it could serve your purpose as well.

Of course a high voltage tube project may be more than you had in mind...

[newfish]

Two things spring to mind immediately...

Beginner's project (on this very site) is a criminally under-rated piece of kit... A quick, easy and *useful* build that makes things go 'one louder'.

...or a Rangemaster with selectable input caps - in case you want a bit more bottom end.

I'm recommending these two as that's all I've used so far - undoubtedly there's equal argument for the AMZ or LPB etc... 

Best of luck...

Ian.

[Dylfish]

thanks for the responses guys! sorry for the lack of earlier detail