Thoughts on some midrangey boost pedals?

  • Thread starter Thread starter thebigcheese
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boston
tom scholz

The early Boston tone was driven by Marshall amps cranked wide open. Of course, Tom also used a number of other devices, many of which were homemade (including the "Doubler" which later became the "Stereo Chorus") or modified, to get his tone and effects. Once he got the tone, he had to record it and then be able to reproduce it live.

Onstage, Scholz controls his effects from a pedal board, which, along with individual on/off switches for each effect, also features the "kitchen sink" - a switch that turns everything on ("for those times when they start picking up bottles"). The guitar is first fed into a homemade preamp which has an active high-end boost, to allow Tom to get away with using all his other inline effects without overpowering noise. "Most of those devices are designed to take much larger input signals than even the most powerful guitars put out," Scholz explains. "If you kick up the signal in front by 3 or 4dB, and start boosting the high-end at around 2kHz around 6dB per octave, you can get the signal-to-noise ratio down to a usable level."

"After the preamp," he continues, "I have a 6-band MXR Graphic Equalizer that runs on batteries- which in itself is noisier than hell, but sounds all right after it's preamped. I have a wah-wah pedal, but I often use the MXR to simulate the wah-wah sound."
 
I've been looking around the interwebs for info on Scholz's tone setup. He sometimes used a wah and coordinated its position with the note he was playing, but such subtle movements are tough to coordinate. I wonder if one of those stationary wah pedals like the Dunlop Q Zone would do the trick? Or just engaging a wah and finding the right midrange point to leave it. But cranking just a couple of the midrange sliders on a good EQ would get a similar result.

I love my MXR 10-band. I don't increase the volume on it because it drives my amp's preamp too hard so I haven't experienced much noise from it. But yeah the different power supply is a pain.
 
Tadpui said:
I've been looking around the interwebs for info on Scholz's tone setup. He sometimes used a wah and coordinated its position with the note he was playing, but such subtle movements are tough to coordinate. I wonder if one of those stationary wah pedals like the Dunlop Q Zone would do the trick? Or just engaging a wah and finding the right midrange point to leave it. But cranking just a couple of the midrange sliders on a good EQ would get a similar result.

I love my MXR 10-band. I don't increase the volume on it because it drives my amp's preamp too hard so I haven't experienced much noise from it. But yeah the different power supply is a pain.
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I have toyed with the idea of BYOC's fixed filter or maybe MXR's 6-band EQ, since that runs on 9v. BYOC also has a ParaEQ that would cost me a little more, but at least it would be true bypass. On the other hand, my OD2 from them pops a little bit when I engage it, so as long as the pedal's quiet when off, I guess it doesn't have to be true bypass. The 6-band doesn't have a volume slider, though, but I guess adding mids would give me a bit of a boost anyway. On the other hand, I do have a Voodoo Labs Pedal Power thingy, so I can get one of those cables to run 18v to the 10-band. I've kinda wanted an EQ anyway to give me some flexibility, so that might be the ticket. I'll have to experiment a little more.
 
Nah Gonzo, I just took a long time before I hit the "submit" button :)
 
Try a xotic BB pre. It's a boost/OD pedal. I use it as a boost and it's got a nice two band EQ to help out too. Not 100% transparent, but it gives a nice warm sound that can also cut through on solos. I use it with Orange amps a lot and really like how they compliment each other.
 
Tadpui said:
I love my MXR 10-band. I don't increase the volume on it because it drives my amp's preamp too hard so I haven't experienced much noise from it. But yeah the different power supply is a pain.
Click to expand...

Alright, so I tried out the OCD and the Full-Drive 2 today and wasn't very impressed--I'm sure they're good pedals, but they didn't give me anything my OD2 doesn't already. So I picked up the MXR with an adapter cable for my Voodoo Labs thingy (not such a pain after all) and I think it may be the ticket. Doesn't change my tone, doesn't add any noise when it's off and doesn't add any noise while on with everything at unity, so I don't mind it not being true bypass. And then I can turn up some faders and use it as a boost that can be perfectly tailored to what I want. There is a bit of noise doing it that way, but not really any worse than an overdrive pedal and it's only for solos anyway. Cool. Thanks!
 
I was noticing that, although I could get some boost and more midrange by putting it where you would normally put a boost pedal (in front of the amp), I didn't really get much more cut and certainly didn't get any more volume. However, if I put the pedal in the FX loop, I don't get any extra distortion, but I do get extra volume and a lot more cut. I'll kinda miss having the extra sustain, but the sound I actually wanted in the first place is only possible in the loop. I suppose I can always get a super clean boost to put in front of the amp later if I want some extra distortion, too, but it'll be kind of a pain to switch both on at once. Oh well.
 
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