Booster for bass

[mnordbye]

I'm looking for a clean booster for bass guitar, which will be placed last in the pedal chain, before the amp, and it will act as a clean volume booster. Any good projects around?

I'm also planning to equip it with two simple bass and treble controls. Any good add-on-circuits?

Magnus Nordbye

[LMJS]

Have you looked at this simple one?

http://www.fortunecity.com/tinpan/humperdinck/223/basb.gif

Jack Orman had a design for a mini booster for Bass, too.

[mnordbye]

Sorry, but the link didn't work.

I love the mini booster for guitar, i might try that, but i believe that it adds to much grit for the application i'm using it for. Gonna try it though.

Magnus Nordbye

[StephenGiles]

You could try a parametric eq, I use Craig Anderton's on the bass output of my Roland R5 drumbox - which incidentally is a superb unit I 've had since 1990.

[LMJS]

Try this link:

http://seanm.ca/stomp/bassbooster.html

Or:

http://www.geofex.com/FX_images/apolobst.gif

Or:

http://analogguru.an.ohost.de/193/schematics/Goya_BoomBox.gif

Or:

For Distortion
http://www.geocities.com/diygescorp/bassdist.gif
http://www.geocities.com/diygescorp/bassdistlayout.gif

Or:
http://www.geofex.com/FX_images/orngbst.gif

Or:
http://www.generalguitargadgets.com/richardo/perfboard/hog.gif

That Hog's Foot might do it for you.

[Gus]

If you want clean a IC like a TL07x based circuit might be the best.

http://sound.westhost.com/dwopa2.htm

[mnordbye]

Thanks for all the great links!

Think i will try a clean as possible volume booster, followed by a baxandall tone control. What do you think?

Magnus Nordbye

[gigimarga]

In this case you can try a Colorsound Overdrive/Power Booster...it's powerful and it has a Baxendall control in

[jstack]

I'm a bass player as well and I was going through the same thing you did... I ended up building pretty much everything and LOVING the fat boost.
So much that I use it in a bunch of different ways now. I love the grit it gives when you crank the gain, and also the clean fatness it can give you with low gain. I have like 4 of them boxed up, I use them for everything.

http://www.generalguitargadgets.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=69&Itemid=26

Thats a link to the project on GGG.

Good luck with whatever you go with!

[mnordbye]

I'm a bass player as well and I was going through the same thing you did... I ended up building pretty much everything and LOVING the fat boost.
So much that I use it in a bunch of different ways now. I love the grit it gives when you crank the gain, and also the clean fatness it can give you with low gain. I have like 4 of them boxed up, I use them for everything.

http://www.generalguitargadgets.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=69&Itemid=26

Thats a link to the project on GGG.

Good luck with whatever you go with!

Hmm, det Fat Boostered look very interesting. I'll definately try it! How clean is it with the gain all the way down?

Magnus Nordbye

[sfx1999]

Many guitar boosters can be converted for bass also. Generally you would just raise the coupling capacitors. So for this you could replace the 0.1 uF capacitors with 1 uF ones.

You could also use the AMZ Mini-Booster, and change C1 and C3 to 1 uF.

[MikeH]

Many guitar boosters can be converted for bass also. Generally you would just raise the coupling capacitors. So for this you could replace the 0.1 uF capacitors with 1 uF ones.

You could also use the AMZ Mini-Booster, and change C1 and C3 to 1 uF.

+1 on this.  Pretty much any booster with a larger input cap can be used for bass.

[jstack]

The fat boostered can be a straight boost with no grit if thats what you want.
Once you hear the way it clips you're not going to want that though 
It sounds GORGEOUS and pushes tubes jjuuussstttt right.

[Ben N]

Simplest thing would be to sandwich your Bax between a couple of non-inverting op-amp stages, like a TL072, with moderate gain in each. Similar to a Boss FA-1, but without the FET switching & buffers, and non-inverting. This looks a bit like a Coloursound Overdriver, but will be a lot cleaner. Choose FET or BJT input opamps to taste.

[mnordbye]

Thanks for all the suggestions!

I think i will try the LPB replica, and see if it works well with bass, then add a bass and treble tone control after it.

Any suggestions for a simple bass and treble control i could add on after the booster?

Magnus Nordbye

[Ben N]

I think you'll find that conventional tone controls tend not to go with one-stage boosters for the same reason that vintage guitar amplifiers have second stages--too much signal loss in the passive tone controls. If you are going the LPB route, consider a second LPB as a recovery stage after your tone stack. Then you would have the freedom to put in pretty much any tone stack that you wanted. For a start, twiddle about with Duncan's tone stack calculator.

[mnordbye]

I think you'll find that conventional tone controls tend not to go with one-stage boosters for the same reason that vintage guitar amplifiers have second stages--too much signal loss in the passive tone controls. If you are going the LPB route, consider a second LPB as a recovery stage after your tone stack. Then you would have the freedom to put in pretty much any tone stack that you wanted. For a start, twiddle about with Duncan's tone stack calculator.

Definately. I need a booster stage in front of the tone stage.. Duncans calculator is great too!

Magnus Nordbye