Need education on booster pedals

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antichef

antichef

pornk rock
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.
 
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?
 
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
 
antichef said:
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
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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.
 
antichef said:
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
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If you turn the amp's gain down really low and it's still mushy then it's the pedal.
 
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.
 
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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.
 
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 said:
What type of sound are you shooting for?
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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.
 
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Greg_L said:
I think you'd be in hog heaven with some Greenbacks or 65's.
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After your post about that I went straight to craigslist - there was an ad from november from someone who wanted to sell or trade 4 green backs - I emailed him, but got no response - they're prolly gone. He said he would have traded for 65s (but didn't mention 75s)
 
And you know what, in retrospect, even at military volume, the lows I was getting weren't perfect - they were a little more compressed and crunchy (not the right word - sort of a smoother motorcycle sounding distortion) than I would like - I'll have to work on that. Maybe it's not *all* the pedal's fault. I'll try the pedal with the JCM-800 and see if it has the same effect.

And, dear readers, I'd love to hear about your favorite simple boost pedal, if you have one. Or maybe I'm just complicating things.
 
antichef said:
After your post about that I went straight to craigslist - there was an ad from november from someone who wanted to sell or trade 4 green backs - I emailed him, but got no response - they're prolly gone. He said he would have traded for 65s (but didn't mention 75s)
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As far as I know, Greenbacks and/or G12-65's were the Marshall speakers that pretty much everyone played through back when your amp was still the current model. I think the 65's were nicknamed Creambacks, or maybe Blackbacks, can't remember. Anyway, that sound you're looking for will probably come through with either of those speakers. I put Greenbacks in my cab (X-patterned with 75's) and bam, there it was. I love it. Hint of vintage, hint of modern, and the speakers have the same sensitivity ratings (97-98 db), so they play nice together. One doesn't overpower the other. A Vintage 30 or G12H-30 are 100 db speakers. They will stomp out a 96-98 db speaker like a Greenback or 75.

Check this place out:
Warehouse Guitar Speakers | Warehouse Guitar Speakers

They make knockoffs of famous speakers and they get great reviews. They have a "Green Beret" and an ET-65 which are replacements for the Celestion models. 69 bucks. I know personally that the Green Berets sound good. I've never heard the ET-65's, but the sound clips sound great.
 
I don't have any OD pedals but I do use a Boss GE7 eq to push the front end. Freq sliders in the middle and level slider at 3/4. Puts a crispy edge on things - like a live wire - but it's not distortion per se. I think if you're trying to get a Marshall sound at bedroom levels out of a Marshall amp you're doomed to failure. Marshalls just don't do quiet at all well. Their strength - their tone - comes at the cost of brutal loudness. I've heard that the little micro stacks do a fair job and someone (Munch?) had a Black Diamond or some such thing with a direct out that sounded pretty Marshally. You really need a 5 or 10 watt amp that makes natural crunch at a livable level. Messing about with a for real Marshall amp is just tail-chasing.
 
I'm with you on the necessity to turn up - but with the sponge pedal I guess I came a lot closer than I thought I would - here's an mp3:

first without the pedal, then with - this was a bedroom level

If I had another pedal that sounded just like this, I'd be happy - this one's homemade by someone else, and the indicator light never worked properly, and now I've de-soldered and re-soldered it some and I worry about it.

But if I had a pedal that resulted in similar mids and highs, but cleaner more punchy lows, I'd be doing backflips.
 
I'll check out the yellow jackets. I've actually now got some KT77s on the way - if they're "less compressed" maybe that'll help.
 
Cool. I'm thinking about some KT77's myself. Put up some clips when you get em.
 
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