"Clean" boost pedal

Started by ArmOnFire, September 23, 2009, 09:25:16 AM

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ArmOnFire

I would like to get feedback on people who have made a clean boost pedal.
Schematics and reviews would be awesome.
Thanks,
Dan

Ripthorn

This topic comes up quite often and the first question is always "what do you define as 'clean'"?  I personally love the sparkleboost, but it goes from super clean to a little bit of grit.  What are you hoping to accomplish?  If you simply want more volume, you could just build a simple opamp gain stage with a high supply voltage.
Exact science is not an exact science - Nikola Tesla in The Prestige
https://scientificguitarist.wixsite.com/home

gutsofgold

microamp - my favorite for simple, straight forward boost into a tube amp. helps the amp break up sooner and doesn't alter the tone too much
LPB-1 - fairly flat response with a touch of mids, punchy. love this on high gain/loud amps
SHO - adds a good amount of "sheen", too high end-y for me

petemoore

  Yupp...got some here !
 They distort...whatever comes after them that distorts with a boosted signal input.
 This distortion is often wrongly attributed to a 'clean boost' as being not so clean.  
 The distortion the boost helps generate [down the signal chain] is associated with the boost being on, hence the boost itself, seems logical but the boost circuit itself may not be adding signifigant distortion.
 Expecation that a 'boost' will make the guitar sound louder through an amp which is near it's output limit may not be satisfied by adding a booster.
 Mosfet Boost...'clean', very strong boost.
 A fairly simple and not too expensive experiment involves circuit boards and maybe some offboard parts involving a couple or few boosters. Jfet, Bipolar, Mosfet, Opamp...they all boost and can be pretty clean, I had a few ''wrapper boxes'' [with controls, bypass switching, jacks etc.], and a respectable pile of circuit boards to try out and tweek in them.
 At it's most literal definition, 'clean' sound of guitar strings is a less intresting sound than clean-ish, all electronic/electro-mechanical sound is ''distorted''.
 
Convention creates following, following creates convention.

The French connection

It has been discussed ad nauseam...

Search Clean boost.

Welcome by the way!

Dan

I know, but the pedal i built does not boost...it just increases volume!
My picture files:
http://www.aronnelson.com/gallery/main.php/v/French+connection/
http://s193.photobucket.com/albums/z4/letournd/Pedal/

slideman82

As I always said... build the Fetzer!
Hey! Turk-&-J.D.! And J.D.!

MikeH

Really great info from Mark Hammer regarding "clean" boosts in this post:

http://www.diystompboxes.com/smfforum/index.php?topic=73666.0
"Sounds like a Fab Metal to me." -DougH

station

I just built a dual channel boost pedal called the Sparkle Punch. Mosfet Boost on one side. Tube boost on the other. When you mix them together, you can get some dirt. I really like it driving a low wattage tube amp. This demo is pretty poor: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FW0qqbDlemA, I'll try to get a good one up soon, but you get the idea.