Who makes a good sillicon-based Treble Booster?

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Who makes a good sillicon-based Treble Booster?

Post by stevejamsecono » Mon May 20, 2019 12:43 pm

I've become fascinated with the Plosive May Booster from videos I've found on it, but the company is defunct and finding examples seems really tough, so it's made me wonder who else does sillicon-based versions of the Rangemaster. I know Catalinbread does the Naga Viper so this is an option but do we know anyone else who does one? I know it sounds silly but those pedals aren't to my taste visually and I'd prefer something a bit less.. uh.. goofy looking.

Any ideas?
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Re: Who makes a good sillicon-based Treble Booster?

Post by spiffy chap » Mon May 20, 2019 6:32 pm

Pigeon FX makes one I think and Pigdog Vulture is a high priced, but very excellent repro.

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Re: Who makes a good sillicon-based Treble Booster?

Post by countertext » Mon May 20, 2019 9:27 pm

Look up Acorn Amps in Atlanta. They’ve made a few different treble boosters in the last couple years. Their stuff is good.

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Re: Who makes a good sillicon-based Treble Booster?

Post by Shadoweclipse13 » Tue May 21, 2019 2:00 am

If you like the sound of the Catalinbread Naga Viper, but not the graphics, I'd like to mention that they made an earlier version that looked a little different:
Image

If you still don't like that, I found a schematic on Tagboard for them:
Image

I thought Greer Amps made one, but I couldn't find it. I must've been mistaken. A quick look on Prymaxe didn't show many treble boosters at all. I did find one from Throbak called the Strange Master which has both germanium AND silicon, on a toggle switch. Throbak seems to make really nice stuff.
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Re: Who makes a good sillicon-based Treble Booster?

Post by JVG » Tue May 21, 2019 2:31 am

Analogman will generally build/mod their pedals to customer specs - I reckon they would make you a silicon Beano Boost on request. I had them make me a custom Sun Face. They are usually pretty quick to respond to emails too.

It's interesting that there aren't more silicon options out there. After all, silicon fuzz boxes are just as common as germanium.

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Re: Who makes a good sillicon-based Treble Booster?

Post by MechaBulletBill » Tue May 21, 2019 2:56 am

fuzzdog does a kit. they're really easy to build. if you can change a pickup, you can build a simple pedal imo

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Re: Who makes a good sillicon-based Treble Booster?

Post by Shadoweclipse13 » Tue May 21, 2019 12:33 pm

JVG wrote: It's interesting that there aren't more silicon options out there. After all, silicon fuzz boxes are just as common as germanium.
I was reading that the Rangemaster was silicon later in their production life. Wonder how true that is.
Last edited by Shadoweclipse13 on Tue May 21, 2019 2:36 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Who makes a good sillicon-based Treble Booster?

Post by JVG » Tue May 21, 2019 1:08 pm

Oh wow, I hadn't heard that. It wouldn't surprise me, as it seems that germanium was generally considered inferior to silicon by the early 70s.

Treble boosters are amazing little things (I know you love them too, Shadow!). I got the bug and ended up with several, (including some well known ones, though no actual Rangemasters). The best one, by a considerable margin, is a cheapie I bought from a home-builder on eBay!

Cheers!
J.

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Re: Who makes a good sillicon-based Treble Booster?

Post by Shadoweclipse13 » Tue May 21, 2019 2:37 pm

JVG wrote:
Tue May 21, 2019 1:08 pm
Oh wow, I hadn't heard that. It wouldn't surprise me, as it seems that germanium was generally considered inferior to silicon by the early 70s.

Treble boosters are amazing little things (I know you love them too, Shadow!). I got the bug and ended up with several, (including some well known ones, though no actual Rangemasters). The best one, by a considerable margin, is a cheapie I bought from a home-builder on eBay!

Cheers!
J.
Interesting! Do you know if it's based on a Rangemaster or a complete homebrew? And yeah I definitely do! One of these days I'll get around to recording, and try to get a sample of my favorite gain tone.
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Re: Who makes a good sillicon-based Treble Booster?

Post by nanamour » Tue May 21, 2019 2:56 pm

MechaBulletBill wrote:
Tue May 21, 2019 2:56 am
fuzzdog does a kit. they're really easy to build. if you can change a pickup, you can build a simple pedal imo
This! A Rangemaster would be a great way to wade into the molten solder waters of pedal building...as an added benefit, you could always build it with a 3 pin socket and try swapping around different transistors until you find something that suits the sound in your head.

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Re: Who makes a good sillicon-based Treble Booster?

Post by JVG » Wed May 22, 2019 1:05 am

Shadoweclipse13 wrote:
Tue May 21, 2019 2:37 pm
Interesting! Do you know if it's based on a Rangemaster or a complete homebrew?
No idea, to be honest - it was sold as "germanium" without any other detail. There could be bunch of bananas inside there for all I know, but it sounds amazing!
The guy was selling on eBay under the name Hubcap John. I also bought a fuzz face replica off him, which was fine, but not in the same ballpark as the treble booster. I noticed some time later that he got a pedal on That Pedal Show, which surprised me a bit but was nice to see.

Sorry for the tangent everyone.... treble boosters turn me on!
J

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Re: Who makes a good sillicon-based Treble Booster?

Post by stevejamsecono » Wed May 22, 2019 8:15 am

This is all great! Thanks for all the recs, folks.

Yeah, I'm considering going homebrew route on this one just because it seems like no one really makes *exactly* what I'm after. I might order the May Booster kit from GGG and see if I can add a tone switch or something to it to make it a bit more versatile.

Also, still really sad that Plosive is no more because on the TPS Treble Booster show that one sounded far and away the best to my ears.
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Re: Who makes a good sillicon-based Treble Booster?

Post by somanytoys » Wed May 22, 2019 8:22 am

Shadoweclipse13 wrote:
Tue May 21, 2019 12:33 pm
I was reading that the Rangemaster was silicon later in their production life. Wonder how true that is.
I'm pretty sure that I had read the same thing, about pretty much all of the treble boosters, fuzzes, etc. went to silicon sometime in the '70's. It wasn't until much later somewhat recently, ~2000) that the germanium fever picked back up on a more widespread level.

There probably are some out there, like the Naga Viper, but I think that germanium is the hot selling thing, so there's probably more of those. I have quite a few treble boosters, but all of mine are germanium. I'm not as big a fan of the silicon sound, there's just a difference, although I can appreciate that it is much more stable.

There are lots of Si fuzzes and ODs available, I have the Throback OD/Boost, which has both Si and Ge, and it's great. I'd think whatever Throback's version of the treble booster is would be great as well.
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It's a boost booster, to boost your boost - it makes your tone much muchier.

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Re: Who makes a good sillicon-based Treble Booster?

Post by fuzzjunkie » Thu May 23, 2019 7:56 am

The old Electro Harmonix Screaming Tree was a silicon transistor Treble Booster.

I don’t like them near as much as a Range Master, but they will cut through a mix. Bright and harsh sounding on their own. Probably better through a Marshall style amp than a Fender. EHx has reissued them at least once, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the newer ones are opAmp based.

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Re: Who makes a good sillicon-based Treble Booster?

Post by MechaBulletBill » Thu May 23, 2019 8:54 am

I always think rangemaster-types and similar sounds great as full range boosters (with an extra control), especially into tweedy/marhsally amps set very crunchy. but I don't have an amp that would work with one.

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