New chick on the block wants the news on boost pedals

[Melanie K]

Hi all,
What a lovely group of hands on musicians you are!
Great site!

I have some electronics experience re-wiring my guitar and some circuit stuff so I'm ready for this crazy pedal building thing.

First up a boost pedal to drive into my RAT which is set to only very mild gain. I want the boost to kick it into a louder dirtier sound but not over the top sonic mayhem!

So I need some advice on what all the popular ones do tonaly and dynamicly and what knobs they have etc..

What I'm basically asking is:
If you have built one (or more!), please describe it for me.

I can find many schematics but not so many descriptions.

Appreciation in advance for anyone that can help this eager newbie.

Cheers!!!

[vdm]

hi melanie!

firstly welcome to the board, and i hope you get as much out of it as the rest of us do. i also think you're the first female member ever!  ( dont hold me to that - i could be and probably am wrong)

anywho - as for a boost pedal like that, i think the best place to start is the booster pedal in the beginners section. it has a full walkthrough of the build and heaps of people have built and discussed there problems and solutions there too.

i wish you luck on your build, and hope you have a great time.

trent

[Phorhas]

Jack Orman's boosters are great, and so is the rangemaster.

Jack have descriptions on his site and the do sound good. for the rangemaster, R.G has a geart PDF file on it.

Jack's site:
http://www.muzique.com/
R.G's Site:
http://www.geofex.com/

If you want more booster schematics, E-mail me

have fun building

[smoguzbenjamin]

Hey, welcome.

Boosters are relatively simple, but the idea behind them is the basics of many distortions. If you're looking for some fendery magic, go to //www.runoffgroove.com and look for the fetzer valve. It's a little more tricky, since it uses a FET (Field Effect Transistor) instead of a 'normal' BJT. But it does add that tubey sound, so that might be nice.

As Trent said the booster in the beginner's forum is also a great place to start - it got me going about a year ago! I don't use it anymore though, since I needed a little more power in my boosting and built something a little more beefy.

Jack orman's Boost is also great, I think there's also a couple more at //www.generalguitargadgets.com, so take a look around and see what you can find! There's plenty of people here to help so if you get stuck don't hesitate to ask questions.

If you add a volume control to your booster, you could set that to jerk your RAT into sonic mayhem OR a little more distortion, whatever suits you at the time. Beware though, pushing a booster into a pedal like the Boss MetalZone wil create noise, and lots of it, so be careful with that unless you have a good noisegate

Happy building!

[Marcos - Munky]

Welcome to the forum, Melanie. There was another girl here called Kate, she has lots of schematics, but she disappeared from here. You can try the LPB booster. I use it to give more distortion to my Whisker Biscuit. The Rangemaster is another cool booster to try too. One thing that you can try is build Jack Orman's Muffmaster, but using a 2N7000 as the transistor. You will get a great and loud clean booster, that can add more distortion to your RAT and get louder sound if you use it between your guitar and your RAT. You need to use a LED between the Gate and the Source to protect the 2N7000.

[smoguzbenjamin]

Yeah, I fry MOSFETs all the time because I forget that LED :mrgreen:

[petemoore]

Every Booster I've tried, performs it's intended function, hence the statement "they're all good"
 First order of business would probably to get something working...something well documented, every possible bug attended to...like the Beginners section NPN Boost...an excellent booster.
 As much as we like our projects to fire right up, it's the ones that Don't work, and require diagnoses to rectify from which we learn the most valuable lessons about how they work and don't work.
 Higher parts count doesn't necessarily mean 'better', for a first try, simple should be the format...this means easy to get low parts count, Probably not Ge...[wh/if you make your Ge booster and have found your 'dinosaur egg' transistor for it...please use a cheep PNP like 3906 to test the circuit...better than letting the smoke out of your hard to find Ge].

[gez]

I think Pete's right, try something simple to get started.  Do you have a breadboard?  It's the best way to evaluate circuits (and try out mods to the ones you do like).

[smoguzbenjamin]

Oh yeah, absolutely! I have a breadboard and it's worth every cent I paid for it. It cost 30 euros but man am I glad i have it!

[Fret Wire]

I agree with what Pete said, which is why I recommend the Micro Amp.
http://www.generalguitargadgets.com/v2/index.php?option=displaypage&Itemid=120&op=page&SubMenu=

First, it's an excellent booster, adds presence and sparkle to your tone without coloring it. It will also drive your amp into overdrive if you want it. The Micro amp and the booster in the beginner's section are all around boosters, they will always have a use in your setup. Whether it's for kicking in some extra dirt, or a volume boost for solo's. The Rangemaster is a treble booster that works best in an already overdriven tube amp. A true classic that sounds good, but has some limited application.

I recommend that specific project also because it's an easy build, paint by numbers if you will. The wiring, where most beginner's make mistakes, is completely laid out for you. You can also print out the layout so you have it right next to you as you work. No biasing transistors or matching of components is needed. Buy the right parts, solder them in correctly, and you'll have a pedal. You can order the pcb board right from that site, order the switch right here from Aron, and the rest of the components from Small Bear, where you will be shopping alot if you build more pedals.
http://www.smallbearelec.com/

GGG's pcb board will fit easily into a Hammond 1590b sized box (MXR size). Putting it all together in a box is work enough without building a complicated circuit on top of it.

Where I differ on my opinion from most, is that a perfboard layout can be harder for a beginner. It's often said that the beginner learns how the ckt works by using perf. I think it's partly true, but not for beginner's. When it's your first pedal, you're not marveling at how the ckt works, you're sweating bullets and praying it works! A well laid out project also makes it easy for others to help you if you have trouble.

It's a nice confidence booster when your first project goes well. You don't want to take on too much or overwhelm yourself. Don't build anything that needs tweaking, biasing, or extra adjustments for your first project.

Take a look at the Micro Amp link, and see if it looks like you could follow it. Between the GGG layout, and this forum's help, it'll be an easy project.

Welcome and enjoy!

[Hal]

HOLY CRAP ITS A GIRL!!!!

"huh?  Whats a girl?"

THAT OVER THERE!!!!!

check out www.generalguitargadgets.com

they're pretty beginner-oriented.

[phillip]

Welcome Melanie!  Check out my RangeMaster project page.  I think that the RangeMaster is a good booster.  It will boost the treble range very well and will even overdrive some tube amps...usually British amps like Marshalls and Vox.  It won't overdrive Fender tube amps (like my '94 Twin), but it will make them even more trebly.

My RangeMaster page also includes a modified version of the circuit that I call the RangeBlaster.  The RangeBlaster is converted to negative ground and uses a NPN Germanium transistor so that it will play nicely with modern pedals and their well regulated power supplies (Boss, Ibanez, etc.).  It also has a temperature stabilizing diode for the Germanium transistor and a reverse polarity protection diode just in case...  If NPN Germanium transistors can't be located, all these mods can also be easily applied to the PNP circuit.

http://fuzzcentral.tripod.com/rangemaster.html

Phillip

[bwanasonic]

check out the Fetzer Valve at :

http://www.runoffgroove.com/fetzervalve.html


It's a really useful all around pedal and about as simple as they come.  I just tried mine into my Rat, and it worked great for kicking it up a notch.  It's great by itself into a tube amp set  on the edge of breakup. The AMZ Mosfet boost is another great utility pedal.  The Fetzer adds a bit of treble/brightness, while the AMZ MosFet is more neutral, with very little coloring.  They are both really elegantly simple and great to have around, so build both!

Kerry M

PS. The Fetzer schematic at runoffgroove omits a noise filtering capacitor on the power supply that you need if you plan on using a 9v adaptor. If you decide to build it, just ask here or search the archives for the info.

[Peter Snowberg]

Welcome to the forums Melanie.

As Pete said they're all good devices. One of the largest differentiators between the variety of booster circuits is the input impedance.

The lower the input impedance, the more highs are trimmed from the signal. Some circuits keep the impedance at a moderate level while some try to raise the impedance as high as they can. The higher the impedance, the more thermal noise the circuit will pick up from the resistors that set the bias of the first transistor. There is a good tradeoff point between high impedance and a good noise level, for me with the parts I use I would say that tradeoff is in the 2.2-4.7 meg area for the input.

Some circuits have a moderate input impedance which limits the highs, but a smaller input cap to limit the lows. The big difference between a treble booster and a generic booster is the size of that input cap.

Most boosts are fairly small circuits and you can't ever have too many of them. If you want some dirt on top of your signal, using multiple devices gives you lots of flexibility in tone shaping. If you have a BTJ boost (like Aron's beginner's project), a MOSFET boost (see Jack Orman's and Joe Davisson's sites), and a JFET boost (like the R.O.G. Fetzer valve mentioned above), you can get lots of variety. Just change the gain level and circuit order.

[Melanie K]

Wow, thanks for all the replys and warm welcomes.

A lot of info there for me to research.

I have a good friend who is a wizz with circuits who has encouraged me so I'm not put of by mildly complex schematics.

I guess I'm after something which will boost volume as well as a bit of treble/high mids. I would want to be able to adjust these levels but probably only once to set it right, so internal trim pots would do it.
I dont want to loose any low end though and am cautious about exessive noise as Peter warned of (my jazzmaster is noisy enough!).

Does the micro amp boost hi's?

The Rangemaster sounds good but I will be using a generic 9v adaptor, which phillip mentioned was an issue?

The Fetzer Valve sounds great, does it distort itself or just boost?

This forum rocks, thanks again.

I've also been reading up on tremolo's and will be buying parts for the EA trem this week. Wish me luck!

[zener]

Wow, before I wonder if there's a lady in this forum. Not anymore .

Welcome aboard, Melanie. Nice to know there's a rose among the thorns :mrgreen: We're nice thorns anyway :mrgreen:  

Feel comfy as you wander through this addicting hobby. This is one of the nicest forum out there.

Oh well, everything booster has been said quite well. Just want to welcome you. Good luck for your projects. Feel free to ask anything but always remember to see FAQ first. You questions might have been answered there.

[Torchy]

Melanie ... check your pm's  

[Doug_H]

I;lkuj

[Ansil]

welcome melanie.  i second the lpb1 as i have used it for years with great sucess. i enjoy putting in a darlington in there instead of the stanadard npn.  works great. for me.  personaly i like to also put a 1mfd cap for input and output helps make it a little tame than the orginal version.

also side note for all those who apparently forgoten about our own dear Kate, although its been awhile since i talked to her myself.

[Hal]

girls on this message board get soo much attention  :twisted:  :twisted:  :twisted:

I should tell girls i know about this...this thread seamed like the ultimate "damsil in distress" sorta situation...with the valiant guitar-effect builders comming to the rescue...

ok im crazy.