Need education on booster pedals

[antichef]

I recently picked up an old non-master-volume big bottle amp, and thanks to suggestions in another thread (props to Greg) it appears that using a booster pedal is a path to nice tone at small-venue levels (I'm lucky to get into any venues), and for recording without police visitation.

I have a simple J201 jfet booster that looks like it was built from a kit. Sounds great to me, but has some practical limitations like the indicator light not really working, and, thanks to my clumsy soldering skills, durability concerns.

There's a GC in town that has a really good pedal inventory, and I'll probably take the amp in there and try a bunch out, but I always found that I do well to learn as much as I can prior to such an event.

Anyone care to enlighten me on these pedals? JFET vs MOSFET vs other stuff? eq? Parametric eq? Should *I* just order a kit, like the stratoblaster? Thanks in advance.

[Greg_L]

Do you want any dirt, or just straight clean boost? The Fulldrive you have is supposed to do a flavorless clean boost. Do you not like it?

[antichef]

The full drive boost only works when the overdrive is engaged, and mine doesn't seem to work at all - it's a fairly old pedal. I also have a black cat tremolo pedal that works as a clean boost with the trem controls all the way down. It works as advertised - just making the mundane clean sound of the amp louder - not really what I want. The jfet booster is having the desired effect, except that the lows are mushy (link to mp3 in that other thread), but I don't know whether that's because it's dirty itself or whether it's just pushing the amp harder

[Greg_L]

The full drive boost only works when the overdrive is engaged, and mine doesn't seem to work at all - it's a fairly old pedal. I also have a black cat tremolo pedal that works as a clean boost with the trem controls all the way down. It works as advertised - just making the mundane clean sound of the amp louder - not really what I want. The jfet booster is having the desired effect, except that the lows are mushy (link to mp3 in that other thread), but I don't know whether that's because it's dirty itself or whether it's just pushing the amp harder

Well I'm no electrician or a pedal guy, so maybe someone else will chime in. Lt Bob has like ten thousand pedals. He can probably get you squared away.

I do know this though - those old Marshalls are plenty happy with simple common overdrives like the BOSS SD-1 or a good ol Tube Screamer. The Maxon OD is a popular one too. Any one of those 3 will hit your preamp section harder resulting in more overdrive without massive volume or thin sound. Put the dirt on 0, level all the way up, and bam. An EQ pedal with level adjustments can also hit the front harder. I have an MXR 10-band that I run in the loop, but if I put it out front it can slam the front end really hard. All of those pedals essentially result in the same sound though - overdriven Marshall. They'll get you in the 70's-80's higher-gain sound ballpark. If you want some different flavors and textures, one of those highfalutin boutique type pedals might be the right choice for you.

[ocnor]

The jfet booster is having the desired effect, except that the lows are mushy (link to mp3 in that other thread), but I don't know whether that's because it's dirty itself or whether it's just pushing the amp harder

If you turn the amp's gain down really low and it's still mushy then it's the pedal.

[antichef]

whoops - somehow edited and deleted this post - I was humming and hawing. the spongy low end must be the pedal, Ocnor, it occurs at low volume, and the pedal is even called the "Sponge Box" - I should have known. I also have some Ibanez TS-10 tube screamers.

[antichef]

my TS-10s are not working - very thin sound and small boost. I set them to the side - I'll have to try a "real" tube screamer at some point. The JFet boost (the sponge box) is adding a full 10 dB, the "clean" boost from the trem pedal is adding 7-8, the fulldrive is adding 5-6 when I set it to "comp-cut", with the boost it's 7-8, but dirty and compressed, not what I'm looking for.

BTW, when I put the amp volume on 4/6 (channel 1 / 2) where I think it sounds awesome by itself, I measured 129.8 dB C-weighted for a bar chord.

[Greg_L]

Lol. Awesome. That's loud. On the plus side, it probably won't get much louder than that. It'll just get more overdriven.

[ocnor]

not what I'm looking for.

What type of sound are you shooting for?

[antichef]

What type of sound are you shooting for?

old Marshall sound. More specifically, the natural sound of the amp I'm using, which is a 1971 JMP 50 watt (the confusingly named 1987 circuit), but at lower volumes (edit: preferably without the use of an attenuator).

For the lows, I like the sound of Thin Lizzy on the Johnny the Fox album (not in love with the songs, but love the sound), particularly jailbreak. With the amp up loud (and the eq and respective channels set properly), it pretty much sounds just right to me (except it must be said, at ~130 dB, I'm not listening with the same precision that I would at lower levels). Maybe greenbacks would help - I'm using 75 watt celestions now, and perhaps the greenbacks would soften things up a little and let me get the sound at a lower vol. I have V30s, but haven't tried them yet.

For the mids and highs, I like what I'm getting with the 10db somewhat dirty boost, but the low end loses its balls with this pedal. Without the pedal at bedroom levels, the sound is a nice, but kind of boring clean, and yet the low end is strong.