You have my all time favorite Java Boost on there, cream knobs, VIOLET LED! I probably built that unit in 2002-3. I learned so much from the treble booster design. One of my very first mods if you will, I added the switch to give people three "versions". In that design, the high pass filter to keep things tight, the added gain to the midrange and top end for saturation and sustain...then apply that concept and tone shaping ideas to all other circuits and you design to solve problems and create solutions. It's a really eye opening circuit in my mind. You guys did a great job on the history and use of the pedal.
Cheers Robert! It was totally loving the Strat especially today - Mick here. Seems the good people of RUclips really like it too. See you in Anaheim sir!
My favourite Treble Booster by a country mile! I have #155 which I'd estimated had been built by you in the early 2000's... so I'm probably not far off. Thanks Mr Keeley!
I just got a Dallas Rangemaster from RelicBoxRus In Russia. Just what my strat wanted. So, watching these guys not only do we get great info, but a great Ld Gtr lesson at the same time. Thanks Guys
My first dirt pedal was a germanium treble boost I built with an old Philips AC126, I've built variations usaing BC108 and 109, high gain BC548/9, low gain 2n2222a, newer AC188, 2n3440, pretty much any transistor I can get my hands on I test on a rangemaster style cirtuit. I've done everything there is to it, 6 way input cap switch, variable bias, variable gain, tone control, loads of output clipping arrays, 18v, using 2 in series. using 2 in parallel, PNP into NPN, anything, really. Anyway, after all these years and many TSs, OCDs, Klones, etc, nothing gives me the same magic as the RM circuit. With the right bias and voicing it can even do the "TS into gainy amp for modern tight metal" better than the TS, tighter, stiffer and more natural sounding. Amazing circuit for pretty much anything with the right tweaks. Cheers from Brazil. Love your show guys.
Hello sir, in your expert opinion, what would be a good input cap value for a strat boosting a plexi style amp? Also can I pretty much use any high gain germanium transistor I have?
@@graxjpg RMs tend to work better with the HFE between 80 and 110, either germanium or silicon, so there's no need for a high gain device. For the input cap try using 10nF, it's pretty meaty, especially for a strat, but doesn't get muddy like 22n and beyond. I would try to use a 3 way switch with a pair of 10nF so you can wire them series/parallel/single cap to have 5n/20n/10n respectively. And remember to experiment, it's half the fun, cheers mate.
I stack my beano boost into either a tube screamer or my OCD and get wonderful results - like a focused fuzz tone that cuts through the band in a good way.
Treble Booster into a cranked amp is one of my all-time favorite sounds. Guys like Rory Gallagher, Brian May, Tony Iommi, Marc Bolan, and Billy Gibbons used treble boosters to get their signature tones.
All kidding aside, every time Mick turns up his strat, my ear says, " Oh! Yes! Yes, I know that sound!" Had NO idea it was treble boosters creating that sound I grew up with. Thank you! you two are just the bee's knees!
Just got my first ever treble booster - and rangemaster in one pedal, the Kasleder House of Blues. It’s a whole new thing versus the rest of my fairly silly (and more conventional) collection of low gain drives and boosts, and I’ve been doing lots of tweaking. Suddenly thought “I wonder if TPS has done a show on this.” And here we are. Bravo for the TPS back catalogue.
Legend has it, and you can follow up via an interview with him about this on this very website, Iommi let a stranger mod his Rangemaster when he was playing a small club before his Sabbath days. My assumption is that it was the output capacitor that was changed, as my Beano Boost at the "Low" setting sounds incredibly close to his tone to my ears. Plus if I'm not mistaken Mike Piera made his first Beano for Iommi to replace his old Rangemaster unit.
Just built my own treble booster. Both the first pedal I ever built and my first treble booster. It’s amazing. Sounds better than my tube screamer in my setup
Have you guys considered revisiting this episode? I would love to hear some treble boosters through less "expected" amps rather than a vox or marshall. Maybe a little more on the experimental side but I think alot of players would enjoy knowing e.g. if a rangemaster through a twin really just is an unbearable mess of treble or how they sound with a modern high-gain amp
Kris J. Jarvis Naga Viper totally rules. Got mine recently and it is nailing 70’s and 80’s Judas Priest tones for me like no one business thru my Marshall JVM 50 watt head.
I've been binge watching you guys staying at the beginning. Is it time for another treble booster review with more pedals that are currently in production?
Hey guys greetings from Ireland from a long time subscriber! Have you ever thought about doing videos on specific Artists' pedals. Would love to see you attempt a David Gilmour video! Think his main treble booster was a colorsound powerboostBit of Ram's head big muff, silicon fuzz, univibe, treble booster and maybe treble boosters? Saw him at Pompeii two years ago and I'm still shaking!!!!!!!!!!
We get asked this a lot; and to be honest it’s what pretty much every other RUclips channel does. Our problem with it is that you can’t ever really sound like a famous artist even if you have the //exact// gear. We would much rather inspire you to understand how tones come together at a more fundamental level. To use an adaptation of an old analogy, we’d rather teach you to cook than just give you a meal. Hope that makes sense. Never say never, but as I said (Mick here) it’s pretty much what all other channels try - and in my opinion , largely fail - to do. Thanks for watching!
hot dog water and you have nothing to gain by being a jerk!! He didn’t string any jokes it was just 1, and you spelled BASELESS wrong so why don’t you PISS OFF ALREADY???
Wow so amazing to see you use one of Dan’s pedals. He is indeed from Liverpool and he’s a legend! You guys should get hold of one of his amps, I’d love that!
Great episode guys! I'm so glad to finally see some treble booster love! A few years ago I was looking for a boost pedal in general, and by lucky happenstance, found the gain sound that had been in my head for years: Catalinbread Naga Viper (set for a tiny bit of gain, and 2/3rds into treble frequency boosting) into an EQD The Dunes (set a bit fatter than most tubescreamers) into a Fender Hot Rod Deville 410.
Couple of points there where I thought “this is a great way to find that microphonic preamp tube”! Great tones = loved it when you were hitting the Page.
Wicked episode that! Big fan of a treble booster, to this day the best tone I’ve ever had at a gig was running my single P90 tele type into a treble booster, into my orange tiny terror, which was gunned. Everything was there, warmth, power, cut, tone. Booster on all night, never stepped on anything. And even though it was loud, I had so much range on the volume pot that I was in total control. Don’t get many gigs (or sound engineers) where I can get away with it though! Mick, I thought you were gonna snap the level knob off the Java Boost!
Treble boosters...such a misnomer. Rock booster is more like it. Are they boosting treble really? Or more like a low pass filter? Maybe both? Its interesting that you guys went with the green and not blue speaker in the AC15. Thanks for another cool vid!
I would love to know the reasoning Dan and Mick wen with the Green as well...which is the better choice? For someone who plans to one day have ac30 with a blue back should they get a 15 with a blue or green? I've learned both amps are different beasts
Daniel Estrellado The greenbacks have a lower treble content than the blues, and overall have a “darker” tone to them compared to the alnico blues (to my ears of course!) Alnico Blues are fantastic but I think they thought it would be harsh to combine treble booster with that speaker? Brian May probably used Blues though so I may be talking out of my ass here but to me the greens are less harsh
Hey guys, great video as always. This show has become something I look forward to each week, so keep it up! Have you ever considered doing a video on speakers and/or cabinets? It seems to be something that gets overlooked a lot, but I would love to get your take on classic matchups such as greenbacks in a Marshall, Jensen-type speakers in Fender amps, and so on. It would be interesting to get your take on why some pairings traditionally work so well, as well as if there are any odd, non-traditional pairings that might produce good sounds you might not expect. Either way, looking forward to what's in store for 2018
Yes absolutely. The trouble is that there are soooooo many variables with speakers (amp, cab, Room, guitar etc...). If you flatten all those variables out to get some sort of meaningful comparison, it then becomes just academic and not in any way applicable in real life. So we’re trying to think of a format that would be genuinely useful. Thanks for watching!
Never bothered about boosters. I run a mostly clean amp and get my degrees of dirt with stacked drive pedals, so I do various arrangements of boosting with certain pedals boosting certain other pedals. However, one idea I came up with the other day while trying to find a way to retain treble when rolling off the guitar volume (without wiring mods), was to use an eq boosting treble at the beginning of my pedal chain -- The idea is essentially to create a signal as it would sound if I had brighter *pickups* rather than boosting treble too much within or after my pedal chain which tends to add more noise. So with the present setup, I can get a bright clean signal by rolling off my guitar volume and opening the guitar tone knob fully; then when I roll up the volume for more drive/dirt/fuzz, I just have to roll off the tone correspondingly to keep the distortion from being too brittle. I used to be one of those guys who always kept my guitar volume and tone at 10, just because I hate the muddy sound of a rolled off tone, and I hate the bit of high-end loss when rolling down the volume. It took me so long to come to the realization that if I just set my overall signal chain eq tone to be *overly bright*, then I can get all my desired tones from my guitar's controls.
Absolutely love my Java Booster! Cool fact about mine is that its got a hand written happy birthday signed by Mr. Keeley himself! Killer pedal that is often overlooked!
Fuzz into Beano is the Analgman Sunlion. I bought one long ago and it is FN awesome. Once you have that, with a Les Paul and a Marshall you are Mr. Badass. The fuzz is two transistors and the beano is one. So you have a fuzz with three transistors, which is a ___________ . Page used one.
Thanks for doing a show on treble boosters! After making myself a Klone, I put my Fiendmaster (a Rangemaster clone) on the shelf. Your show made me try out my Fiendmaster again and now my Klone is on the shelf (for now). I may prefer Klons for boosting my Strat, but there's something really special about the treble booster and humbucker combination.
My favourite piece of rock n roll footage was a Rory Gallagher gig. When solo time comes around he didn't a pedal, he swaggered over to his AC30 and turned up his treble booster by hand. I saw that video when I was about 9 and it stayed with me for some reason!
Hey, good on Jackie! I too have been playing since age 13, but that means only 46 years for me. I have several pedals that I bought based on discussions on TPS, and I too look forward to Fridays, as I’m a massive fan of the show. Before you mentioned Jackie, I was thinking as I watched this episode, that I have various interests and therefore various RUclips channels that I enjoy, but yours is probably the best combination of informative and enjoyable, because you are both so genuine in your love for everything guitar/amp/pedal, and you clearly enjoy each other while you do what you do. Keep it up, guys!
Like many I had an 'Aaahh...right, that's that sound' moment. These videos however, are starting to cost me a lot of money! (Have now dropped a wad of cash on one of those Java Boosts) That said, thanks to your videos I'm finally making better pedal decisions. Great episode as ever Gents.
Why just chill the germanium circuits when you can also chill beer on stage at the same time with a Austin Homebrew Supply Chillator Plate!! Gives a whole new meaning of tapping the pedal!
Some years ago I bought a BSM treble booster and about 6 months later I sold all my other pedals except the tuner. You guys should really try one, the quality is way up there \m/
So much Fuzz Face and Rangemaster variations available. How amazing that such primitive circuit designs still sets the standards when it comes to stellar rock sound. Thanks for the show!
@@ThatPedalShow you need a round two when this is all other. You must try the Knight audio technologies boosters built for brian may! They are custom made and sound amazing.
It's really important to remember that these were made with a lot of live music in mind in a band context for older, darker amps to excite the high end (to stand out in the mix). I really wish this was a demo that would include the pedal on and off in a band context. Of course a treble booster might not sound great by itself in all cases. The same reason we tend to prefer darker/scooped when playing alone (because it sounds bigger, thicker by itself), which is also the reason why that same sound gets lost in a mix.
Awesome as always guys. I didn't realize how much I didn't know about treb boosters! Seems like somewhat of a misnomer. Sort of like the great Mr. Leo F. calling the tremolo in his amps vibrato 🙃. I definitely learned a ton (as always!). Thanks guys, cheers from the States!! 🎸
I have the Black Country Tony Iommi boost and it is a fantastic pedal. It doesn’t feedback with my already distorted rig and really saturates my sound. On a clean channel it gets nice and dirty for blues tones. I will never take this off my board. Even my AX8 sounds great with it.
Hi guys. I just saw your treble booster show and it's fab. When you are considering to make a new item on Treble boosters please consider to try the Guitar Systems Treble Tool. It's their take on the Dallas Rangmasters with a bunch of mods. My big board has seen several updates over the years but the Treble Tool is always part off it. It is awesome when you use it with overdrives and distortions. I'm used to stack all sorts of them, just what the song needs. The same you stated as "the" way to use a Treble booster. Sometimes I use it for coloring the sound and sometimes to get through a dense mix in a solo. Your shows are very informative, especially on the technical side, keep up the good work.
I´ve been watching this magnificent channel (and the Gigrig-one too!) past two months every day. I`ve learned so much about everything. Or felt completely lost sometimes. Maybe this is a bit too much sometimes...Well, atleast I`m sure now, that I will be absolutely broke sooner or later. But happily I can say that I´ve learned lots of new words and expressions: "OH MAN!!!" "Ace!" "Mad!" "Killer!" "Nothing wrong about that!". And so on. Great stuff for my vocabulary :) I remember back in the day in the -80s, when I used to dream about great guitars and amps. Pedals were not so common - at least here in the middle of nowhere where I live (Finland, in a small north east town, where the nearest music shop is 230km away). You had to read magazines and investigate all the ads closely in order to gain knowledge about these things. Library was the main Place to hear LPs. First electric guitar was cheap Aria pro II and it took forever to have own amp. Usually you had to just play without it. At the age of 10-15 everything was so interesting and new. Years went By, decades changed and now I´m 47yr. I bought few months ago new quitar and amp and now I have some pedals too. I suck all the info like a mushroom or something sponge :) This is so great. Thanks for all the great content! This is a KILLER channel! You are just ACE! Cheers!
Gooooood morning from Ecuador, South America!! Looove the show!! Mick, please start bringing your new ES-335 ASAP, for us Semi-Hollow/Hollow lovers and tone searchers!
To keep those Germanium transistors cool you could add a peltier cooler. It's a small electric powered square. Gets hot on one side, cool on the other. Put a heatsink, with fan, on the hot side and put the cold side on the pedal housing. Might do the job.
Excellent as always! One of my fav signal chains is guitar into Homebrew Germania 44 (uses an OC44 transistor) treble/full-range booster into DeLisle Eighty-Sixed preamp/OD into Normal channel of an old Vox AC15 Twin. Double EF86 goodness at manageable levels, and the “roll off guitar vol for sparkly clean” thing works a treat.
As usual loved the video and learnt a good deal. Never thought I needed a treble booster with my single coils and P90’s but it’s all about your set up and how you blend everything. Great show.
Really excellent show guys. You'll have given a lot of players food for thought on this one. (Including Mick)!! For us old school guys (I'm 57), it's always been the way!
Tell ya, - where I discovered the real tonal possibilities of the TB was using the bass cut circuits on Jaguars and Jazzmasters; it's a specific and unique sound that I instantly took an interest in. It can lead you in to some unique and very usable tonal directions. Been pondering the Ge temp issue for some time, and did consider the coolant circulation in computer towers, but , even though those interests have done all possible to simplify and miniturize, they remain ungainly. What does and can work are medical chemical cold packs; in real heat, there are some condensation issues that you need to monitor, as H20 and electronics seldom mix. We can go to the moon(maybe), but we can't find a good Ge substitute.A few have come close, with Deep Tripp in Brazil doing a notably good job on their Hell Bender.
Just got my first treble booster (thank you, Reeves Electro) so I decided to go back and watch this one again. Great video that now makes even more sense since I can conduct my own experiments in parallel. Just when I was about to ask, “what about the tele?” …out comes Red! The one remaining Q to investigate is a TB into a pushed, clean Fender style amp.
@@ThatPedalShow with the pedal board tape you sell, which side goes on the pedals. Normal velcro doesn't do it for me so I will be ordering some pedal board tape. I have a large board that I use for everything including church stuff(check out a guitar player called david Hislop on RUclips)
Brilliant Show Guys, I have been waiting for a Treble Booster Special thank you so much. I am a big fan of Brian May and Tony Iommi , finally found a Keeley Germanium Vintage Ecstasy Treble Booster which sounds just awesome, I thank both of you so much for making me aware. Of the Keeley Products. Mick your Strat sounded so good with the Java Boost!!! Just as a side note, Laney have released a Tony Iommi Treble booster with a few extra features, it's their Black Country Customs, Custom Shop Product, I have one on lay-by $249AU, I thought Dan may be interested. Thank you again.
use a full ac30 all eq off on normal channel treble booster,red special replica an a sixpence. soo loud so wear earplugs. bm plays really loudly three ac30s are soo loud
+That Pedal Show are all the boosters 31db or more. fir people who dont know to get the brian may sound you a rs replica like i have, a good quality treble booster which i have but i want a better one)a full up vox ac30 on normal channel all eq off an use a sixpence.
joe threlfall, Hi Joel, there is a line of Brian May Treble Boosters out there and they sound awesome.. There is a demo on RUclips if you type in Brian May Treble Booster. I hope this helps.
@@jixxxxer17 it depends on what you want to “boost.” This isn’t a clean boost. It’s a very unique boost that has additional qualities that allow you to fine tune the frequencies you want to boost. I found you can get that 70s midrange boost that you hear in solos from the 70s (think Boston or UFO or Sabbath). If you want a clean boost check out the CAE Line Driver. My favourite boosts are the CAE, EP BOOSTER and NAGA VIPER.
(26.28 Mick)… Most of us have met somebody reasonably famous at one time or another. I bumped into met Rory Gallagher once in a London pub once lunchtime. He was such a nice bloke. He insisted on buying me a pint as we struck up conversation whilst trying to get a drink. I will never forget that 20 minutes in his company it was awesome!
I had actually requested a show on treble boosters through a few Instagram tags. So happy to see, coincidentally or not, that we were on the same page (no pun intended). Cheers, guys. Great show. As usual.
Another great boost is the MI Audio "Boost n Buff". Really good value, serves as an input buffer (switchable) at the start of your chain, can push into your drive pedals and/or your amp, has a gain and volume knob for a bit of internal crunch/compression or clean boost , plus a three way tone switch, treble/normal/fat.
Hey guys you got me turned around on the treble booster concept. I retired my tube screamers long ago because they felt so limited and picked up a keeley blues driver so I could have more EQ options. I recently bought a beano and thought it should go after the other boosters I have like the KOT, Keely blues driver & Kantana to limit the bass but thought it was too harsh. After your demo I tried the beano before the other gain pedals and got along with it much better but seeing the difference it made I put my kantana with the bass dialed down in front of the others and got a very nice treble boost without the harsher treble sound. By the way lovin your soulful playing Mick, thanks for yet another most interesting show.
Damn that Keeley sounds great on the strat. When he rolled that volume down I was immediately thinking, Bryan setzer. Put that on a big gretsch. You got something.
Water-cooled PCs are particularly useful in studio environments, where you don't want lots of fan noise, because they let you get away with running fans at much lower speeds.
I’m using a Mooer Pure Boost with the treble cranked and the gain just over half way. My only genuine treble booster is the one built in to my Vox VBM amp. I’ve gigged with that running into a cranked ‘67 Vox valve Pathfinder. That combination is a bit oversized to carry around for a one trick effect. It’s a hell of a trick though.
Hey Mick and Dan, I had a fun idea for an episode: you should each build a pedal (either from kit or design from scratch) and discuss the experience and then rate each others from build quality/sound quality/similarity to clone source, etc. I recently built a clone of a Maxon OD-820 and it was fun and sounds pretty good, but I don’t have an original to compare to, so I wonder how good kit or homemade stuff turns out!
Hi guys, what a great episode, loved this one! This is going to be a bit of a long comment, but I hope you read it and maybe consider what I am suggesting. You have some really great pedals on the show, some new, some old, mostly the more expensive in the pedal world, but sometimes cheaper ones too. What I haven't seen is you trying out any home-made ones. My son Ben is a musician, started as a drummer, but has moved onto bass and guitar. He is much more talented than I am, I try to play guitar but I'm not very good. Ben is a practical sort of a chap and has purchased a good few pedal kits that you build yourself, from a company called Fuzz Dogs Pedal Parts. They sell all manner of pedal kits and enclosures, across all pedal genres. Some of the stuff they sell is killer and its great fun building them yourself and then decorating the enclosures in your own designs. I think it would be really cool for you to make an episode where you both buy three pedal kits, wire them / build them yourselves, then play them on the show and see who has made the best ones. Many of us don't buy expensive pedals, either because we can't afford them, or we can't justify the outlay if we're not professional musicians, and building your own pedals is a way to get some really nice kit for not much outlay. You just need a bit of time and a little (not much) skill with a soldering iron. What do you think? BTW, I have two home-made treble boosters, one based on a Brian May Booster and one which is a treble booster and amp in a box combined, which is a magnificent beast.
Hi David, thanks for the comments and suggestion. Self builds are a lot of fun and maybe Dan and I could do a show on it some day. Neither of us are really interested in building pedals though for a couple of reasons. First, we know what it takes to do it properly and consistently, so just as I probably //could// do my own plumbing, accountancy etc etc etc, I’d rather get a professional to do it because it’ll be better, and I can spend my time doing stuff I actually want to do.... which is; Second, neither Dan nor I have any spare time. I get virtually no time to play the guitar as it is because if I’m not working, I’m either sleeping, eating, driving or trying to give my wife some time. Dan has kids which just compounds all of that. Which might all sound a bit grumpy. Maybe a show on this would enable us to explain it in a lighter context! Thank you for watching and for the suggestion!
You should try the buxom boost. I've been playing around with it for a few days and its pretty much any kind of boost that you can think of. The EQ is so powerful on that pedal
passive aggressive is a great name. my favorite that Im not sure anyone has built yet, a riff on the OCD but the SAD; seasonal affective drive/distortion
Once you've used a treble booster, you cant unhear it. It's like pulling off the blanket. Keeley Java and catalinbread Naga Viper are the the best ones I've used and still own.
I remember reading years ago that the classic Rangemaster type circuit works by increasing the gain as frequencies get higher, so that it also boosts high frequency harmonics more than it boosts the fundamental tone, which was supposedly part of the magic. Dunno whether it's true, but I've always loved the treble boost side (basically a Java Boost , I think) of my Keeley Time Machine. Btw - used my new NKT Sunface (ordered halfway through watching the Sunface ep) at a jam for the first time last night. Into a cleanish tweed amp with a tele - tone to die for, and lots of shades available using the tone and volume on the guitar. Thanks for all the inspiration guys :-)
First time I just let the bridge pickup on my Tele rip through a cranked valve amp, it clicked. The idea that once the frequencies start to compress you get this scorching tone that slightly rounds off at the top, is a beautiful thing. But, you need relinquish your fear to get there. That pickup will be spikey right till the moment it’s not.
Keeping your germanium transistor pedals cool is easy. Get a peltier cooler. The semi-complicated part is regulating the temperature drop, so not to get condensation and short out the circuit. But it can be (DIY) done.
imaseeker100 No the item getting (over) cooled drops under the dew point and you get condensation on the item. Think of a soda can when you take it out of the refrigerator and the sides get wet. The peltier heatsink is to dissipate the heat it produces. Fun fact: When I used a peltier cooler on my astronomical CCD camera I would get a 100 degree drop in temperature. They work great on cooling (low mass) electronics.
Tim from Canberra, Australia here. I always watch the show in high definition on my surround sound home theatre setup with large floor standing speakers so I can hear the nuances of your show. It’s only fair seeing as you take the time, money and effort to record it so well. What I heard this show in my opinion was that the cranked amp boosted by a treble booster sounded superior to the clean amp with Kingsley being boosted by a treble booster. It’s not that the Kingsley boosted was bad. It was still a good tone, but I felt in my opinion the amp cranked and boosted was better. Having learned from you, I would have loved you to have tried keeping the amp cranked and boosted but run it as wet/dry. In this case though to get it to work so that you don’t boost the higher headroom wet amp and get a spiky unusable tone, I would theorize you could run the treble booster in the same loop on the way to the dry amp but not in the signal path of the wet amp. The wet amp could then have the Kingsley so that when you run the treble boosted dry, the wet is not running clean. I wish I could draw a diagram here Guitar: G2 split two amps - loop 1 - rest of G2 loops Loop 1 = treble booster in the same loop on the way to a dry amp cranked up without signal returning to the G2 Rest of loops = Kingsley in loop 2 then other effects to wet amp (or even stereo wet amps for wet/dry/wet) In this way you wouldn’t be treble boosting the wet amp which would be higher headroom for cleaner reproduction of wet effects and not sound so spiky. I know you have done wet dry before but I would see the above as a better solution than to treble boosting the Kingsley which I felt didn’t sound as good as the treble boosted amp with working power section. This could be applied to running Fuzz as well and it’s a technique used by Tool and Other bands like Cog to run two amps one with Fuzz but the other without Fuzz but cranked up and overdriving naturally. There’s an idea for a Show!! Running one amp with Fuzz and the other amp overdriving but without Fuzz. I’d love to see you try that.
I've been waiting for this episode for so long! Wish there was the earthquaker bows on here and/or the Greer Moonshot compared, but it's always cool to find new brands. Also amen to that video description
Dan, can you please go into more detail about pulling the finish off your strat neck? I would love to get more info before doing anything to my guitar. Another great video, thanks guys.
I LOVE the sound of the Plosive! I've tried to find them, and they no longer exist anywhere. Now that I know it's silicon, I'll have to start looking for something like it. Thanks for the information guys!
That Pedal Show are there any similar treble boosters out there you could recommend as an alternative? Love the show by the way. Dan was great at Pedal Empire in December!
Would also be curious to hear some answers to this. Love the sound of that one specifically. I think the Catalinbread Naga Viper is Sillicon Based, so it might be similar?
Around 6:45 you say there is a switch vfor the output capacitor. it's the input capacitor that's important to the circuit. it cuts bass before boosting it ;)
![Because Everyone Needs A Treble Booster [Yes You Do]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/YAP7A6k1nq8/mqdefault.jpg)
![Because Everyone Needs A Treble Booster [Yes You Do]](/img/tr.png)
You have my all time favorite Java Boost on there, cream knobs, VIOLET LED! I probably built that unit in 2002-3. I learned so much from the treble booster design. One of my very first mods if you will, I added the switch to give people three "versions". In that design, the high pass filter to keep things tight, the added gain to the midrange and top end for saturation and sustain...then apply that concept and tone shaping ideas to all other circuits and you design to solve problems and create solutions. It's a really eye opening circuit in my mind. You guys did a great job on the history and use of the pedal.
Cheers Robert! It was totally loving the Strat especially today - Mick here. Seems the good people of RUclips really like it too. See you in Anaheim sir!
Hey Robert, just picked one of these up and it’s absolutely amazing! Thank you and well done.
Thank you very much Chris!!!
My favourite Treble Booster by a country mile! I have #155 which I'd estimated had been built by you in the early 2000's... so I'm probably not far off. Thanks Mr Keeley!
Sounds like Gallagher. Rory or the guy who splits watermelons, you be the judge.
I just got a Dallas Rangemaster from RelicBoxRus In Russia. Just what my strat wanted. So, watching these guys not only do we get great info, but a great Ld Gtr lesson at the same time. Thanks Guys
I love when you guys talk about specific gear used on specific recordings
My first dirt pedal was a germanium treble boost I built with an old Philips AC126, I've built variations usaing BC108 and 109, high gain BC548/9, low gain 2n2222a, newer AC188, 2n3440, pretty much any transistor I can get my hands on I test on a rangemaster style cirtuit. I've done everything there is to it, 6 way input cap switch, variable bias, variable gain, tone control, loads of output clipping arrays, 18v, using 2 in series. using 2 in parallel, PNP into NPN, anything, really.
Anyway, after all these years and many TSs, OCDs, Klones, etc, nothing gives me the same magic as the RM circuit. With the right bias and voicing it can even do the "TS into gainy amp for modern tight metal" better than the TS, tighter, stiffer and more natural sounding. Amazing circuit for pretty much anything with the right tweaks.
Cheers from Brazil. Love your show guys.
Peter Marriott mmmmm
Hello sir, in your expert opinion, what would be a good input cap value for a strat boosting a plexi style amp? Also can I pretty much use any high gain germanium transistor I have?
@@graxjpg RMs tend to work better with the HFE between 80 and 110, either germanium or silicon, so there's no need for a high gain device.
For the input cap try using 10nF, it's pretty meaty, especially for a strat, but doesn't get muddy like 22n and beyond.
I would try to use a 3 way switch with a pair of 10nF so you can wire them series/parallel/single cap to have 5n/20n/10n respectively. And remember to experiment, it's half the fun, cheers mate.
@@Octopus502 great, you’ve given me everything I need to start tinkering! Thanks so much
Was/is there a particular transistor you like?
I stack my beano boost into either a tube screamer or my OCD and get wonderful results - like a focused fuzz tone that cuts through the band in a good way.
Treble Booster into a cranked amp is one of my all-time favorite sounds. Guys like Rory Gallagher, Brian May, Tony Iommi, Marc Bolan, and Billy Gibbons used treble boosters to get their signature tones.
Ronnie Wood while with the Faces too!
IMO the best kind of pedal to have as a "always on"
This is the way I feel at least my TB with OC44 needs to be run. And no wide open guitar settings. So many flavors.
All kidding aside, every time Mick turns up his strat, my ear says, " Oh! Yes! Yes, I know that sound!" Had NO idea it was treble boosters creating that sound I grew up with. Thank you! you two are just the bee's knees!
That’s awesome. To be fair, I didn’t either. Needless to say I have one now! :0)
Just got my first ever treble booster - and rangemaster in one pedal, the Kasleder House of Blues. It’s a whole new thing versus the rest of my fairly silly (and more conventional) collection of low gain drives and boosts, and I’ve been doing lots of tweaking. Suddenly thought “I wonder if TPS has done a show on this.” And here we are. Bravo for the TPS back catalogue.
Legend has it, and you can follow up via an interview with him about this on this very website, Iommi let a stranger mod his Rangemaster when he was playing a small club before his Sabbath days. My assumption is that it was the output capacitor that was changed, as my Beano Boost at the "Low" setting sounds incredibly close to his tone to my ears. Plus if I'm not mistaken Mike Piera made his first Beano for Iommi to replace his old Rangemaster unit.
May have been the output cap. But very well could have been the input cap. Both control the range of frequencies getting in or out.
Just built my own treble booster. Both the first pedal I ever built and my first treble booster. It’s amazing. Sounds better than my tube screamer in my setup
Have you guys considered revisiting this episode? I would love to hear some treble boosters through less "expected" amps rather than a vox or marshall. Maybe a little more on the experimental side but I think alot of players would enjoy knowing e.g. if a rangemaster through a twin really just is an unbearable mess of treble or how they sound with a modern high-gain amp
This time with a Caitlinbread Naga Viper would be cool
"Shut up, I haven't played the Keeley!" I literally laughed out loud
The Catalinbread Naga Viper is one of my Top 3 pedal purchases. It will never leave my board unless it dies or they bring out a better version.
Kris J. Jarvis Naga Viper totally rules. Got mine recently and it is nailing 70’s and 80’s Judas Priest tones for me like no one business thru my Marshall JVM 50 watt head.
I've been binge watching you guys staying at the beginning. Is it time for another treble booster review with more pedals that are currently in production?
Hey guys greetings from Ireland from a long time subscriber! Have you ever thought about doing videos on specific Artists' pedals. Would love to see you attempt a David Gilmour video! Think his main treble booster was a colorsound powerboostBit of Ram's head big muff, silicon fuzz, univibe, treble booster and maybe treble boosters? Saw him at Pompeii two years ago and I'm still shaking!!!!!!!!!!
We get asked this a lot; and to be honest it’s what pretty much every other RUclips channel does. Our problem with it is that you can’t ever really sound like a famous artist even if you have the //exact// gear. We would much rather inspire you to understand how tones come together at a more fundamental level. To use an adaptation of an old analogy, we’d rather teach you to cook than just give you a meal. Hope that makes sense. Never say never, but as I said (Mick here) it’s pretty much what all other channels try - and in my opinion , largely fail - to do. Thanks for watching!
Cheers Mick, I thought that was the case anyways. Love the channel as always! Great playing from you guys as always!
Couldn't agree more! Greetings!
I was there too. Awesome gig. One for Dan maybe? Listen to Fat Old Sun for some fine telecaster weaponization.
Totally something I had never thought of. I was in the “spikey” camp. Not any more. Well done guys!
Yay!
@@ThatPedalShow hey loving your pedal board tape advice. I got some for my birthday back in may. Great stuff for my crazy sized board.
Mick is in the dark about treble boosters, so Dan is here to brighten things up...
Yeh feckin bet
Well said sir, well said.
Don't talk bad about Mick.... You're gonna be in treble!
@@powdermnky007 you have nothing to gain by stringing together all these bassless dad jokes
hot dog water and you have nothing to gain by being a jerk!! He didn’t string any jokes it was just 1, and you spelled BASELESS wrong so why don’t you PISS OFF ALREADY???
Wow so amazing to see you use one of Dan’s pedals. He is indeed from Liverpool and he’s a legend! You guys should get hold of one of his amps, I’d love that!
Great episode guys! I'm so glad to finally see some treble booster love! A few years ago I was looking for a boost pedal in general, and by lucky happenstance, found the gain sound that had been in my head for years: Catalinbread Naga Viper (set for a tiny bit of gain, and 2/3rds into treble frequency boosting) into an EQD The Dunes (set a bit fatter than most tubescreamers) into a Fender Hot Rod Deville 410.
Funny how these are some of the best tones on that pedal show for the last 2 years - 1987x + AC15 + treble boosters... none better :)))
There’s definitely something about that simplicity for sure!
Couple of points there where I thought “this is a great way to find that microphonic preamp tube”! Great tones = loved it when you were hitting the Page.
Wicked episode that! Big fan of a treble booster, to this day the best tone I’ve ever had at a gig was running my single P90 tele type into a treble booster, into my orange tiny terror, which was gunned. Everything was there, warmth, power, cut, tone. Booster on all night, never stepped on anything. And even though it was loud, I had so much range on the volume pot that I was in total control. Don’t get many gigs (or sound engineers) where I can get away with it though!
Mick, I thought you were gonna snap the level knob off the Java Boost!
Treble boosters...such a misnomer. Rock booster is more like it. Are they boosting treble really? Or more like a low pass filter? Maybe both? Its interesting that you guys went with the green and not blue speaker in the AC15. Thanks for another cool vid!
I would love to know the reasoning Dan and Mick wen with the Green as well...which is the better choice? For someone who plans to one day have ac30 with a blue back should they get a 15 with a blue or green? I've learned both amps are different beasts
Daniel Estrellado The greenbacks have a lower treble content than the blues, and overall have a “darker” tone to them compared to the alnico blues (to my ears of course!)
Alnico Blues are fantastic but I think they thought it would be harsh to combine treble booster with that speaker? Brian May probably used Blues though so I may be talking out of my ass here but to me the greens are less harsh
Technically wouldn’t a treble booster be a high pass filter, one that lets the higher frequencies through and blocks the low frequencies?
Just when I'm looking at building a treble booster clone you come out with this video. Awesome and thank you.
Hey guys, great video as always. This show has become something I look forward to each week, so keep it up!
Have you ever considered doing a video on speakers and/or cabinets? It seems to be something that gets overlooked a lot, but I would love to get your take on classic matchups such as greenbacks in a Marshall, Jensen-type speakers in Fender amps, and so on. It would be interesting to get your take on why some pairings traditionally work so well, as well as if there are any odd, non-traditional pairings that might produce good sounds you might not expect. Either way, looking forward to what's in store for 2018
Yes absolutely. The trouble is that there are soooooo many variables with speakers (amp, cab, Room, guitar etc...). If you flatten all those variables out to get some sort of meaningful comparison, it then becomes just academic and not in any way applicable in real life. So we’re trying to think of a format that would be genuinely useful. Thanks for watching!
Never bothered about boosters. I run a mostly clean amp and get my degrees of dirt with stacked drive pedals, so I do various arrangements of boosting with certain pedals boosting certain other pedals. However, one idea I came up with the other day while trying to find a way to retain treble when rolling off the guitar volume (without wiring mods), was to use an eq boosting treble at the beginning of my pedal chain -- The idea is essentially to create a signal as it would sound if I had brighter *pickups* rather than boosting treble too much within or after my pedal chain which tends to add more noise. So with the present setup, I can get a bright clean signal by rolling off my guitar volume and opening the guitar tone knob fully; then when I roll up the volume for more drive/dirt/fuzz, I just have to roll off the tone correspondingly to keep the distortion from being too brittle. I used to be one of those guys who always kept my guitar volume and tone at 10, just because I hate the muddy sound of a rolled off tone, and I hate the bit of high-end loss when rolling down the volume. It took me so long to come to the realization that if I just set my overall signal chain eq tone to be *overly bright*, then I can get all my desired tones from my guitar's controls.
Absolutely love my Java Booster! Cool fact about mine is that its got a hand written happy birthday signed by Mr. Keeley himself! Killer pedal that is often overlooked!
Some of the best playing and tone I've heard on youtube at 22:30 from Mick
Fuzz into Beano is the Analgman Sunlion. I bought one long ago and it is FN awesome. Once you have that, with a Les Paul and a Marshall you are Mr. Badass. The fuzz is two transistors and the beano is one. So you have a fuzz with three transistors, which is a ___________ . Page used one.
Thanks for doing a show on treble boosters! After making myself a Klone, I put my Fiendmaster (a Rangemaster clone) on the shelf. Your show made me try out my Fiendmaster again and now my Klone is on the shelf (for now).
I may prefer Klons for boosting my Strat, but there's something really special about the treble booster and humbucker combination.
My favourite piece of rock n roll footage was a Rory Gallagher gig. When solo time comes around he didn't a pedal, he swaggered over to his AC30 and turned up his treble booster by hand. I saw that video when I was about 9 and it stayed with me for some reason!
Nice to see Dan Whitelock-Jones getting some well deserved recognition!
Hey, good on Jackie! I too have been playing since age 13, but that means only 46 years for me. I have several pedals that I bought based on discussions on TPS, and I too look forward to Fridays, as I’m a massive fan of the show. Before you mentioned Jackie, I was thinking as I watched this episode, that I have various interests and therefore various RUclips channels that I enjoy, but yours is probably the best combination of informative and enjoyable, because you are both so genuine in your love for everything guitar/amp/pedal, and you clearly enjoy each other while you do what you do. Keep it up, guys!
Thank you Steve, very kind of you to say. We’re glad you’re getting something useful out of the show. :0)
Like many I had an 'Aaahh...right, that's that sound' moment. These videos however, are starting to cost me a lot of money! (Have now dropped a wad of cash on one of those Java Boosts) That said, thanks to your videos I'm finally making better pedal decisions. Great episode as ever Gents.
Why just chill the germanium circuits when you can also chill beer on stage at the same time with a Austin Homebrew Supply Chillator Plate!! Gives a whole new meaning of tapping the pedal!
Some years ago I bought a BSM treble booster and about 6 months later I sold all my other pedals except the tuner. You guys should really try one, the quality is way up there \m/
What does BSM stand for Elric ?
So much Fuzz Face and Rangemaster variations available. How amazing that such primitive circuit designs still sets the standards when it comes to stellar rock sound. Thanks for the show!
Good grief! Now, I've got to get a Treble Booster. You guys are killing my GAS budget. ;)
The Catalinbread Naga Viper is a really cool treble booster. I like it quite a bit. Would absolutely recommend.
+Mike Fenton think we need a round 2
Always room for more Mick and Dan
Was thinking of getting the Naga - i just got a Vox AC30.
My favourite pedal, that.
@@ThatPedalShow you need a round two when this is all other. You must try the Knight audio technologies boosters built for brian may! They are custom made and sound amazing.
It's really important to remember that these were made with a lot of live music in mind in a band context for older, darker amps to excite the high end (to stand out in the mix). I really wish this was a demo that would include the pedal on and off in a band context. Of course a treble booster might not sound great by itself in all cases.
The same reason we tend to prefer darker/scooped when playing alone (because it sounds bigger, thicker by itself), which is also the reason why that same sound gets lost in a mix.
Awesome as always guys. I didn't realize how much I didn't know about treb boosters! Seems like somewhat of a misnomer. Sort of like the great Mr. Leo F. calling the tremolo in his amps vibrato 🙃. I definitely learned a ton (as always!). Thanks guys, cheers from the States!! 🎸
Cheers Drew. I was largely in the same boat! Mick here. :0)
I’ve learnt so much since I’ve started watching this show, Love it dudes!!!!
Me too - Mick here!
Yes!!!! This is EXACTLY the topic Iv'e been thinking about lately!!!!!
I have the Black Country Tony Iommi boost and it is a fantastic pedal. It doesn’t feedback with my already distorted rig and really saturates my sound. On a clean channel it gets nice and dirty for blues tones. I will never take this off my board. Even my AX8 sounds great with it.
Hi guys. I just saw your treble booster show and it's fab. When you are considering to make a new item on Treble boosters please consider to try the Guitar Systems Treble Tool. It's their take on the Dallas Rangmasters with a bunch of mods. My big board has seen several updates over the years but the Treble Tool is always part off it. It is awesome when you use it with overdrives and distortions. I'm used to stack all sorts of them, just what the song needs. The same you stated as "the" way to use a Treble booster. Sometimes I use it for coloring the sound and sometimes to get through a dense mix in a solo. Your shows are very informative, especially on the technical side, keep up the good work.
I´ve been watching this magnificent channel (and the Gigrig-one too!) past two months every day. I`ve learned so much about everything. Or felt completely lost sometimes. Maybe this is a bit too much sometimes...Well, atleast I`m sure now, that I will be absolutely broke sooner or later. But happily I can say that I´ve learned lots of new words and expressions: "OH MAN!!!" "Ace!" "Mad!" "Killer!" "Nothing wrong about that!". And so on. Great stuff for my vocabulary :) I remember back in the day in the -80s, when I used to dream about great guitars and amps. Pedals were not so common - at least here in the middle of nowhere where I live (Finland, in a small north east town, where the nearest music shop is 230km away). You had to read magazines and investigate all the ads closely in order to gain knowledge about these things. Library was the main Place to hear LPs. First electric guitar was cheap Aria pro II and it took forever to have own amp. Usually you had to just play without it. At the age of 10-15 everything was so interesting and new. Years went By, decades changed and now I´m 47yr. I bought few months ago new quitar and amp and now I have some pedals too. I suck all the info like a mushroom or something sponge :) This is so great. Thanks for all the great content! This is a KILLER channel! You are just ACE! Cheers!
Gooooood morning from Ecuador, South America!! Looove the show!! Mick, please start bringing your new ES-335 ASAP, for us Semi-Hollow/Hollow lovers and tone searchers!
To keep those Germanium transistors cool you could add a peltier cooler. It's a small electric powered square. Gets hot on one side, cool on the other. Put a heatsink, with fan, on the hot side and put the cold side on the pedal housing. Might do the job.
22:30 HEY GUYS! the strat and the keeley got along well! and i think that sound would really stand out in a band mix too.
Absolutely!
Excellent as always!
One of my fav signal chains is guitar into Homebrew Germania 44 (uses an OC44 transistor) treble/full-range booster into DeLisle Eighty-Sixed preamp/OD into Normal channel of an old Vox AC15 Twin. Double EF86 goodness at manageable levels, and the “roll off guitar vol for sparkly clean” thing works a treat.
Oooof. Yes, that’s gonna work!
Just got my first treble booster, a Bigfoot - Trouble Booster. Love it! Makes my amp (Carvin X100b-50w combo) sound absolutely massive.
As usual loved the video and learnt a good deal. Never thought I needed a treble booster with my single coils and P90’s but it’s all about your set up and how you blend everything. Great show.
+Jonathan Bailey cheers J :)
Really excellent show guys. You'll have given a lot of players food for thought on this one. (Including Mick)!! For us old school guys (I'm 57), it's always been the way!
I gave this video a thumbs up in the first 30 seconds when Dan played those killing riffs!
My Java is from 2006; bought it new. Like the weather, I enjoy the changes.
Tell ya, - where I discovered the real tonal possibilities of the TB was using the bass cut circuits on Jaguars and Jazzmasters; it's a specific and unique sound that I instantly took an interest in.
It can lead you in to some unique and very usable tonal directions.
Been pondering the Ge temp issue for some time, and did consider the coolant circulation in computer towers, but , even though those interests have done all possible to simplify and miniturize, they remain ungainly.
What does and can work are medical chemical cold packs; in real heat, there are some condensation issues that you need to monitor, as H20 and electronics seldom mix.
We can go to the moon(maybe), but we can't find a good Ge substitute.A few have come close, with Deep Tripp in Brazil doing a notably good job on their Hell Bender.
The "Balancing Dynamics" episode is extremely relevant to this episode. Good topic, even though ive never used a treble booster.
Just got my first treble booster (thank you, Reeves Electro) so I decided to go back and watch this one again. Great video that now makes even more sense since I can conduct my own experiments in parallel. Just when I was about to ask, “what about the tele?” …out comes Red! The one remaining Q to investigate is a TB into a pushed, clean Fender style amp.
Brilliant job covering the overlooked Treble Booster.
Holy face melting Batman! That was treble overload!
I love waking up to a new TPS video! And that intro jam was rad 🤟🏼
I know Dan of DWJ, have been in his house to try out amps he's built, and he fixed my wah once. Super nice, talented guy.
Dan’s ace!
@@ThatPedalShow with the pedal board tape you sell, which side goes on the pedals. Normal velcro doesn't do it for me so I will be ordering some pedal board tape. I have a large board that I use for everything including church stuff(check out a guitar player called david Hislop on RUclips)
Yngwie!! Yes I know I'm late but I get to see Yngwie live on Thursday and I'm percolating for it!!
28:41
Your entry for the "Tone Face of the Year" Award!
Thanks guys... I have 3 pedals I was trying to decide how to use them and this video just helped me figure it out :-)
Thank you !
I love a Cadbury’s Boost, me, I’s really do’s!!! Awesome show again! Some amazing tones!
Brilliant Show Guys, I have been waiting for a Treble Booster Special thank you so much. I am a big fan of Brian May and Tony Iommi , finally found a Keeley Germanium Vintage Ecstasy Treble Booster which sounds just awesome, I thank both of you so much for making me aware. Of the Keeley Products. Mick your Strat sounded so good with the Java Boost!!!
Just as a side note, Laney have released a Tony Iommi Treble booster with a few extra features, it's their Black Country Customs, Custom Shop Product, I have one on lay-by $249AU, I thought Dan may be interested. Thank you again.
Thanks for all that John. The Java was pretty cool with the Strat, right? Wonder if Mr Keeley might make some more one day. :0)
use a full ac30 all eq off on normal channel treble booster,red special replica an a sixpence. soo loud so wear earplugs. bm plays really loudly three ac30s are soo loud
+That Pedal Show are all the boosters 31db or more. fir people who dont know to get the brian may sound you a rs replica like i have, a good quality treble booster which i have but i want a better one)a full up vox ac30 on normal channel all eq off an use a sixpence.
joe threlfall, Hi Joel, there is a line of Brian May Treble Boosters out there and they sound awesome.. There is a demo on RUclips if you type in Brian May Treble Booster. I hope this helps.
thank goodness you guys included the beano boost, thats the one i wanted to hear
I’m a BIG fan of the Catalinbread Naga Viper
is this viper a good choice for a pedal booster ? thanks i'm trying to figure out which one to get. Peace !
@@jixxxxer17 it depends on what you want to “boost.” This isn’t a clean boost. It’s a very unique boost that has additional qualities that allow you to fine tune the frequencies you want to boost. I found you can get that 70s midrange boost that you hear in solos from the 70s (think Boston or UFO or Sabbath). If you want a clean boost check out the CAE Line Driver. My favourite boosts are the CAE, EP BOOSTER and NAGA VIPER.
@@angbernardo Thanks !
(26.28 Mick)… Most of us have met somebody reasonably famous at one time or another. I bumped into met Rory Gallagher once in a London pub once lunchtime. He was such a nice bloke. He insisted on buying me a pint as we struck up conversation whilst trying to get a drink. I will never forget that 20 minutes in his company it was awesome!
+Jonathan Bailey wow! Heard a bunch of stories about Rory where he was really lovely, that’s so ace
Rory's the best player I've ever heard. It saddens me that I was too young to never see him live...
+Mister Knight Owl brian got his tone from Rory. brian has said he feels he owes rory a great deal. the red special is a guitar like no other
Never was a big Queen fan, but yes Him and Rory pretty much created the 70's classic rock sound with those Vox amps and treble boosters...
Yeah man. Rory sure was a helluva guitarist and his guitar tone was killer. Especially live.
I had actually requested a show on treble boosters through a few Instagram tags. So happy to see, coincidentally or not, that we were on the same page (no pun intended). Cheers, guys. Great show. As usual.
+jasonlmusic cheers J ;)
Another great boost is the MI Audio "Boost n Buff". Really good value, serves as an input buffer (switchable) at the start of your chain, can push into your drive pedals and/or your amp, has a gain and volume knob for a bit of internal crunch/compression or clean boost , plus a three way tone switch, treble/normal/fat.
Hey guys you got me turned around on the treble booster concept. I retired my tube screamers long ago because they felt so limited and picked up a keeley blues driver so I could have more EQ options. I recently bought a beano and thought it should go after the other boosters I have like the KOT, Keely blues driver & Kantana to limit the bass but thought it was too harsh. After your demo I tried the beano before the other gain pedals and got along with it much better but seeing the difference it made I put my kantana with the bass dialed down in front of the others and got a very nice treble boost without the harsher treble sound. By the way lovin your soulful playing Mick, thanks for yet another most interesting show.
Nice one Greg! Thank you for the kind words, and we’re glad the show helped unlock some good noises for you. Thanks for watching!
Damn that Keeley sounds great on the strat. When he rolled that volume down I was immediately thinking, Bryan setzer. Put that on a big gretsch. You got something.
Water-cooled PCs are particularly useful in studio environments, where you don't want lots of fan noise, because they let you get away with running fans at much lower speeds.
I’m using a Mooer Pure Boost with the treble cranked and the gain just over half way. My only genuine treble booster is the one built in to my Vox VBM amp. I’ve gigged with that running into a cranked ‘67 Vox valve Pathfinder. That combination is a bit oversized to carry around for a one trick effect.
It’s a hell of a trick though.
You need a Roland af100 for this guys. It's 2 fuzzes and a treble boost in one big solid box. Cool piece of gear from the 70s
Hey Mick and Dan, I had a fun idea for an episode: you should each build a pedal (either from kit or design from scratch) and discuss the experience and then rate each others from build quality/sound quality/similarity to clone source, etc.
I recently built a clone of a Maxon OD-820 and it was fun and sounds pretty good, but I don’t have an original to compare to, so I wonder how good kit or homemade stuff turns out!
I have inside information that the 820 is a reverse engineered Klon.
Hi guys, what a great episode, loved this one! This is going to be a bit of a long comment, but I hope you read it and maybe consider what I am suggesting. You have some really great pedals on the show, some new, some old, mostly the more expensive in the pedal world, but sometimes cheaper ones too. What I haven't seen is you trying out any home-made ones. My son Ben is a musician, started as a drummer, but has moved onto bass and guitar. He is much more talented than I am, I try to play guitar but I'm not very good. Ben is a practical sort of a chap and has purchased a good few pedal kits that you build yourself, from a company called Fuzz Dogs Pedal Parts. They sell all manner of pedal kits and enclosures, across all pedal genres. Some of the stuff they sell is killer and its great fun building them yourself and then decorating the enclosures in your own designs. I think it would be really cool for you to make an episode where you both buy three pedal kits, wire them / build them yourselves, then play them on the show and see who has made the best ones. Many of us don't buy expensive pedals, either because we can't afford them, or we can't justify the outlay if we're not professional musicians, and building your own pedals is a way to get some really nice kit for not much outlay. You just need a bit of time and a little (not much) skill with a soldering iron. What do you think? BTW, I have two home-made treble boosters, one based on a Brian May Booster and one which is a treble booster and amp in a box combined, which is a magnificent beast.
Hi David, thanks for the comments and suggestion. Self builds are a lot of fun and maybe Dan and I could do a show on it some day. Neither of us are really interested in building pedals though for a couple of reasons. First, we know what it takes to do it properly and consistently, so just as I probably //could// do my own plumbing, accountancy etc etc etc, I’d rather get a professional to do it because it’ll be better, and I can spend my time doing stuff I actually want to do.... which is; Second, neither Dan nor I have any spare time. I get virtually no time to play the guitar as it is because if I’m not working, I’m either sleeping, eating, driving or trying to give my wife some time. Dan has kids which just compounds all of that. Which might all sound a bit grumpy.
Maybe a show on this would enable us to explain it in a lighter context! Thank you for watching and for the suggestion!
Thanks for the reply, what about someone building some kits for you, then you trying them out on the show? Would that be a good second best idea?
You should try the buxom boost. I've been playing around with it for a few days and its pretty much any kind of boost that you can think of. The EQ is so powerful on that pedal
Just ordered my DWJ Treble Booster thanks to this video. Can’t wait till it gets here.
passive aggressive is a great name. my favorite that Im not sure anyone has built yet, a riff on the OCD but the SAD; seasonal affective drive/distortion
Once you've used a treble booster, you cant unhear it. It's like pulling off the blanket. Keeley Java and catalinbread Naga Viper are the the best ones I've used and still own.
This is super-timely for me, thanks!
I remember reading years ago that the classic Rangemaster type circuit works by increasing the gain as frequencies get higher, so that it also boosts high frequency harmonics more than it boosts the fundamental tone, which was supposedly part of the magic. Dunno whether it's true, but I've always loved the treble boost side (basically a Java Boost , I think) of my Keeley Time Machine.
Btw - used my new NKT Sunface (ordered halfway through watching the Sunface ep) at a jam for the first time last night. Into a cleanish tweed amp with a tele - tone to die for, and lots of shades available using the tone and volume on the guitar. Thanks for all the inspiration guys :-)
Hooray for the Sun Face - glad it was doing good things for you!
As for the harmonics thing, makes total sense to us. Thanks for the input!
Man that strat sound.. with all of them! So good! I’m wondering what the best current production treble booster is? Naga Viper?
R2R Electric
Fulltone ranger and KAT Brian May treble boosters
First time I just let the bridge pickup on my Tele rip through a cranked valve amp, it clicked. The idea that once the frequencies start to compress you get this scorching tone that slightly rounds off at the top, is a beautiful thing. But, you need relinquish your fear to get there. That pickup will be spikey right till the moment it’s not.
Keeping your germanium transistor pedals cool is easy. Get a peltier cooler. The semi-complicated part is regulating the temperature drop, so not to get condensation and short out the circuit. But it can be (DIY) done.
bigger heat sink?
imaseeker100 No the item getting (over) cooled drops under the dew point and you get condensation on the item. Think of a soda can when you take it out of the refrigerator and the sides get wet. The peltier heatsink is to dissipate the heat it produces.
Fun fact: When I used a peltier cooler on my astronomical CCD camera I would get a 100 degree drop in temperature. They work great on cooling (low mass) electronics.
Tim from Canberra, Australia here. I always watch the show in high definition on my surround sound home theatre setup with large floor standing speakers so I can hear the nuances of your show. It’s only fair seeing as you take the time, money and effort to record it so well.
What I heard this show in my opinion was that the cranked amp boosted by a treble booster sounded superior to the clean amp with Kingsley being boosted by a treble booster. It’s not that the Kingsley boosted was bad. It was still a good tone, but I felt in my opinion the amp cranked and boosted was better. Having learned from you, I would have loved you to have tried keeping the amp cranked and boosted but run it as wet/dry. In this case though to get it to work so that you don’t boost the higher headroom wet amp and get a spiky unusable tone, I would theorize you could run the treble booster in the same loop on the way to the dry amp but not in the signal path of the wet amp. The wet amp could then have the Kingsley so that when you run the treble boosted dry, the wet is not running clean. I wish I could draw a diagram here
Guitar:
G2 split two amps
- loop 1
- rest of G2 loops
Loop 1 = treble booster in the same loop on the way to a dry amp cranked up without signal returning to the G2
Rest of loops = Kingsley in loop 2 then other effects to wet amp (or even stereo wet amps for wet/dry/wet)
In this way you wouldn’t be treble boosting the wet amp which would be higher headroom for cleaner reproduction of wet effects and not sound so spiky.
I know you have done wet dry before but I would see the above as a better solution than to treble boosting the Kingsley which I felt didn’t sound as good as the treble boosted amp with working power section.
This could be applied to running Fuzz as well and it’s a technique used by Tool and Other bands like Cog to run two amps one with Fuzz but the other without Fuzz but cranked up and overdriving naturally. There’s an idea for a Show!! Running one amp with Fuzz and the other amp overdriving but without Fuzz. I’d love to see you try that.
I've been waiting for this episode for so long! Wish there was the earthquaker bows on here and/or the Greer Moonshot compared, but it's always cool to find new brands. Also amen to that video description
Thank you, guys. This video was so useful. I have just gotten the Java Boost, and I had trouble with how it should be used.
"On the 4th day God created Treble Boost"...fuckin classic!
Dan, can you please go into more detail about pulling the finish off your strat neck? I would love to get more info before doing anything to my guitar. Another great video, thanks guys.
I LOVE the sound of the Plosive! I've tried to find them, and they no longer exist anywhere. Now that I know it's silicon, I'll have to start looking for something like it.
Thanks for the information guys!
+Alex Johnston plosive is amazing, such a great sound :)
That Pedal Show are there any similar treble boosters out there you could recommend as an alternative?
Love the show by the way.
Dan was great at Pedal Empire in December!
Would also be curious to hear some answers to this. Love the sound of that one specifically. I think the Catalinbread Naga Viper is Sillicon Based, so it might be similar?
Around 6:45 you say there is a switch vfor the output capacitor. it's the input capacitor that's important to the circuit. it cuts bass before boosting it ;)
I have a brian may type treble booster pushing into a modded germanium fuzz face. it sound killer!!
The Fulltone Ranger shits all over every other TB I've ever tried. Absolutely love it. Always on 🤟
I kind of agree, did you try Brian May's treble boosters? KAT or Fryer's?
What others did you try ? And how so ?
"I can't even say human being, can I?" Lol
As the Les Paul sounded in the beginning, you don´t need any pedal!
Great review of the DWJ Treble booster!
Hello!