Tools, Tones and Toys for Guitarists
The Analog Man Beano Boost takes the classic Rangemaster treble booster and adds a very useful function — a switched input capacitor that widens the tonal range beyond the original’s treble boost. Because it’s a single-transistor germanium circuit, the choice of transistor does shape the tone and clipping character, especially at higher gain settings. That … Read more
The Earthquaker Devices Bows is a straight-up germanium Rangemaster with some modern tweaks. It uses an NPN transistor and has a switch to swap to a larger input capacitor for a full-range boost. The space above the transistor on this layout allows it to be mounted on its side (bent over 90 degrees), as OC transistors are … Read more
I followed a vaguely similar layout to the one pictured at the bottom of the post for the Pete Cornish TB-83 Treble Booster. This is a straight treble boost using a silicon transistor – it’s going to sound horrible into anything apart from a cranked valve amp, or maybe a valve based pedal. Given … Read more
The layout is for the Guild Brian May Box, which on the Guild schematic is marked as designed by Pete Cornish, but he has disputed this. There’s a massive write-up here on Fryer Guitars, including photos of inside Brian May’s Pete Cornish built pedal board, and inside a pretty vintage looking Pete Cornish treble boost, which … Read more
A bit of a classic – well one of the first guitar effects really, the Dallas Rangemaster. A nice simple one for a quick build using leftover tag board. In theory there is room to fit the output cap on the board too, but I liked the straight lines of the components. DALLAS RANGEMASTER TREBLE … Read more
While I was thinking of what could be made with tag board off-cuts, this popped into my head. The D*A*M Red Rooster Booster is probably my all-time favourite booster – I’ve only ever made one, and it was so good I stopped there (it was a point-to-point npn version with trimmer). This is a PNP … Read more
I’ve already done a point to point layout for the D*A*M Red Rooster Booster (which I love by the way), but as I’m on a run of D*A*M layouts today, I thought I might do this one too. Like the rest, this is not my layout; it’s a close copy of the D*A*M layout. If you want … Read more
A variation on the classic Rangemaster Treble Booster from D*A*M. The Red Rooster germanium booster uses a NPN transistor so it can run off a normal power supply, and features a capacitor blend on the input to sweep between treble boost and full range boost. This has a lot of boost on tap – it will crush … Read more
Here’s Jamie’s take on the classic Rangemaster circuit, with a NPN germanium transistor. There’s an added toggle to switch between full range and treble input caps. Probably a tight a squeeze in a 1590A but should be doable. There is also a 1590A specific PCB with board mounted pot and switch in the store now … Read more
Essentially a Rangemaster with a switch selecting the input cap (Hi/Lo) and another switch (Ge/Si) selecting between a germanium or silicon transistor. The bias pot helps to fine tune the bias (imagine that lol) differences between germanium and silicon modes. Other transistors can be used other than what’s specified. Something in the 100-120 hFE range … Read more