BBE Boosta Grande

Very simple to use, 1 knob, 1 footswitch.

For what this pedal is made to do, it does an excellent job. Completely transparent clean boost. My setup is Am strat->Marshall DSL100 with the Boosta grande in the effects loop. I bought this pedal to give me the volume boost i needed to switch from rhythm levels to lead levels, but without altering my tone. It achieves this easily. It has heaps of boost to spare, i leave the knob at about 12 o'clock, and that is plenty for me.
I should add that when using this pedal with your amps distortion channel, it should be used in the effects loop. If you use it in front of your amp, you will simply saturate your distortion more, will little to no volume increase.
My only gripe with the pedal (hence the 9) is that when switching it on there is a noticeable "pop", which of course during a gig is no prob as this noise is drowned out by the rest of the band, but at home by yourself it can be a little annoying.

I have gigged and rehearsed with it for around 3 months now and it hasn't missed a beat. I suppose time will tell, but i cant see it breaking any time soon. Don't use a backup cos i not made of money. I give it an 8 because i do not like the look of the plastic battery cover, it could be broken easily. This is not an issue for me as i use a DC brick to power my pedals, but it may be a concern to others.

Never dealt with them.

This pedal is useful for any style of music where you need a volume boost to play leads. I play in an experimental/rock/funky sorta original band, and it serves me very well. For the money (very well priced I think) this is an awesome pedal, which does just what the box says it will do. If it were stolen, i would not hesitate to buy it again.

Mmmmmmmmm One Knob, what do you want it to do? Either Boost your lead to cut the mix, or boost your clean to balance your board!

Outstanding! The boost is transparent, no additional color, trble, etc.

No problem expected. I've own another BBE product and have had no problems.
Just wish it wasn't made in China. Just for that reason I'm only giving it an 8

N/A

What a great pedal! My set up runs like this: Korg tuner, Zen Drive, Keeley Compressor, Boosta Grande, Hoochie Mama, (what a sweet OD), AD9 Delay, Marshall Vibe ... into either my '69 Dual Showman or 30 watt Fargen Blackbird.
Using the Boosta Grande as a clean boost,(leaving it on), I can then balance the overall output volume, then by kicking it off when lighting up the Hoochie Mama, I get the OD sound when needed yet my overall level is balanced.
Running the Boosta at max, the volume is level with my OD fully kicked in, then I just work the volume on my Strat.
Also one other nice note: The bright blue light is a plus when engaged. Just a great flexible pedal no matter how you use it. For me it's staying on the board!

If you know how to use it you'll achieve exactly what you're looking for.

To get a VOLUME boost it should be placed after any other pedals (distortion for example), if using the amp's distortion it should go into the amp's effect loop. To get a GAIN boost you should place it before the desired effect and it'll make it sound more robust and you'll get some great sustain. Whichever way you decide to use it won't color your sound at all.

Would not go on a gig without it.

Never dealt with them.

I play in a classic rock band which requires a lot of soloing and this pedal let's me cut through the mix in a heartbeat. Paid about $80.00 and it's worth every penny.

It doesnt get much easier than this. One knob controls clean gain from an addtional +2db to + 20db. One input/one output. An on/off switch. Any questions so far??

I have it running through the effects loop of what I consider to be an under-powered amp. It adds a bit of "fullness" to the amp's eq which I like. More importantly it provides exactly what I hoped for...lots and lots and lots of clean, clear volume. It doesnt mess with my pickups tone at all. No noise at all even at the peaked gain. Nice super bright blue LED effect-on light. Noiseless heavy duty on/off switch. Metal casing. Comes w/a 9v adaptor or runs 300 hours on a 9v battery. Only weak spot could be the battery door which is a little flimsy.

Comes with a 5 year warranty. No worries here.

No experience w/BBE but they have been around a long time. They never responded to an email I sent them but some companies prefer a phone call.

An excellent device. C'mon all this for around $80.00 new?? Its a bargin. Its like BBE's ad says, "Boutique doesnt mean expensive". Ive been a loyal Boss user for decades but Im admittedly tired of their stuff. I intend to check out some of the other BBE products as a result of how good this is.

Very easy to use! Set the knob for the amount of boost and you're done! It even comes with a free power cord! Nice.

Sounds great if you put it in the right place. Some of the other reviewers have said that it has to go through an effects loop for it to actually boost your volume. WRONG!!! I have a Fender '65 Deluxe Reverb Re-Issue that doesn't have an effects loop and it works great! I plug my Fender American Strat into a Digitech Bad Monkey (killer O/D Pedal!) then into a Digitech Chorus Factory (another killer pedal!) then into the Boosta Grande, and finally into a BBE Sonic Stomp! It doesn't matter if I have my other effects on or off, when I need a volume boost for solos I just step on the footswitch and BANG! Instant volume boost without any coloring of my sound. And with this amp anything that colors your sound is really amplified!

I've only had it a few months but it seems very well built and should last a long time from what I can tell.

Haven't needed them yet. I've heard good things though so that's a plus.

I play a lot of different styles and have been banging away on guitar for about 35 years! Yikes! If it came up missing, I would buy one as soon as I could get to a music store! It does exactly what it's supposed to do, IF YOU USE IT CORRECTLY! If you put it in front of a distortion box for example you'll only get a gain boost, not a volume boost! I like it, I like it a lot!!!

Well, it has an input, output, LED light, one volume knob and on/off switch...in my opinion, it was ridiculously easy to get a good sound out of it. I bought a demo model from guitar center, so I didn't get a manual, and I don't forsee any upgrades needed for this pedal. Overall, I think that this pedal is built very well!

I bought this pedal simply to match the output of my Fender Deluxe Player's Stratocaster to my Epiphone Les Paul Standard, as I didn't really feel like turning around and re-adjusting my amp every time I change guitars onstage. I'm using this to balance the output between single coils and humbuckers. My effects are a Boss Tuner>BBE Boosta Grande>Dunlop Crybaby 535Q Wah>Electro-Harmonix Small Clone Chorus>Boss Noise Suppressor>Line 6 DL4>Ernie Ball Passive Volume Pedal>Mesa/Boogie Nomad 100 (12AX7 & EL34)>Mesa/Boogie Traditional Rectifier 4x12.

The pedal is never noisy when I click it on or off, and gives me all the clean volume boost I need, which is exactly what I bought it for. It doesn't color my sound at all, and as far as I can tell, it has true bypass.

I can and do depend on this pedal, and while playing gigs I do use it without a backup.

I've never delat with the company, so I can't offer any opinions on their customer service.

I don't see any need to have this pedal upgraded.

I've played mostly hard rock, blues, gospel and reggae for about four years. It matches what I do very well, and I would buy it again if it were stolen. I love that it has an LED light to tell me when it's on, and it's about the average price for an overdrive/boost pedal. Overall, I like it.

To the guy that give a 5 and disappointed - here's what you need to do:

if you want more VOLUME on the distortion channel you have to put this boost pedal in the effect loop of your amp,
here is the rule - if you want more GAIN from a distorion the booster need to be before the distotion - if you want more VOLUME it need to be after the distorion!! simple as that..
if you don't have effect loop in your amp you cannot do it - use a distorion pedal and put the booster after it. or get an amp with effect loop and then use the distorion channel.
offcourse that in your case you'll gey more GAIN !!!

but don't say that a product is not good because you don't know how to use it properly...
hope it helps.

Couldn't be much easier--one knob!

I am very disappointed in this pedal. After reading glowing reviews here and generally hearing favorable comments about this boost pedal, I thought I'd FINALLY find a pedal that simply increases the volume, nothing more nothing less. Well, it does that on the clean channel, so for that channel, it gets a 10. However, on the gain channel, even with the gain only at 9 to 10:00 or so, it really adds very little if any volume. What it does add is GAIN, and plenty of it. This was not what I was looking for, but that's all this pedal really does. So on the amp's gain channel, it gets a big fat ZERO.

I'm surprised to see so many comments below that it's great for soloing on the gain channel. All it really does is send your guitar into higher gain territory with lots of (undesirable) feedback.

VERY disappointed! Thankfully I got it from Musicians Friend, so I'll get my eighty bucks back.

Seems very solid; 5 year warranty.

No idea. BBE does have a good repuation though.

Well, it didn't do what it says it'll do (or only halfway does, ie on the clean channel) so I can't give it a very good rating here. It states it provides up to 20db of CLEAN boost; not to my ears it doesn't. :(

Does anyone know of a pedal that is simply nothing more than bumping up the volume of the lead channel so that your solos will jump out more? I haven't been able to find anything, and I usually like to keep my guitar volume max'd or nearly max'd so that's not an option.

Very easy to use, plug it and activate when desire.

I bought this unit(Barcus Berri BB Boosta Grande) for adding a little boost on my overdrive channel who mainly is my rytmh channel(Marshall JCM 600).
The sound is amazing.
This unit when activate allow me to play solo like Scorpions, Kiss, Van Halen,Cheap Trick, Streetheart, New England... and so on.
When I deactivate it, I still maintain my cool Marshall tone.
It is a true-bypass pedal.

Been playing Rock since 1978, and with the help of some guitar amplifiers forums and harmony central, I have made a great, great choice.
At first I was going for a mod, but you just need to boost the signal with the BB Grande Booster.
My main guitar is Epiphone with GIBSON 57 pickups, and 57+ for the bridge.
It sounds great with the new pickups, before it sounded ok, but now along the Marshall JCM 600 and the BB Booster, i'm in heaven.
Also got a slap back echo.

Marshall and Gibson is a winning duo for rock.

One knob and the true-bypass switch. Battery and AC adaptor included.

It's a clean boost that's perfect for raising your volume to solo levels. It doesn't add any color, though pushing the amp (and the speaker) harder will make your overall sound a bit fatter.

I haven't really read the reviews below, but I've got a couple things that might be worth mentioning. You may get strange results depending on what you use this with... I once set my rig with the Boosta Grande, a Tubeworks Real Tube, and a BBE Crusher. No pedals on, the boost was fine. With the Crusher on, the boost was fine. With the Real Tube on, HOLY CRAP! It was WAY too loud! Yeah, I bet some of you are thinking that there's no such thing as too loud, but it was two or three times louder than the other two scenarios. That's just no good, especially since the Real Tube was my light crunch sound, and the Crusher was for the high gain solos. I use it now with a BBE Green Screamer and the Crusher (the BBE stuff is really fantastic - if I was famous, I'd endorse them), and it's perfect. I think that since the Real Tube uses a *ahem* tube, it pushed too much power into the amp. Test out this pedal with other 12AX7 (or in my case, 12AU7) pedals before you commit.

Another possible snag is that it doesn't really boost a solid state amp if you're using other overdrive/distortion pedals with it. At rehearsal, my Peavey Ranger 212 (modded to sound like a heavenly Twin Reverb) had a problem, and I had to borrow my friend's Roland Blues Cube. Great sound, but the Boosta wouldn't boosta-nough. Clean it was fine, but nothin' doin' with my other pedals. I guess this thing wants a tube amp. Fine by me - all of my amps are blessed with tubes.

Regularly, this is a 10 (hey, it's simple, but it does what you want it to). I'll mark it a 9 because of the above issues, but those could have just been anomalies.

I've stomped on BBE stuff for months, and these things hold up like champs.

I once had a problem with an AC adaptor - very friendly and fast service.

I play alternative, prog, classic rock, and what I sometimes pretend is jazz. This thing is perfect for any style that makes use of guitar solos. Remember, this thing loves tubes!