Product: Build Your Own Clone Triboost
Price Paid: UNKNOWN
Submitted
10/20/2008
at
09:36am
by
Nick Name
Ease of Use
:
10
It is a simple pedal: 1 level pot, 1 rotary switch, 1 three way switch, 1 on-off switch. There's also a trim pot on the board.
Usable sounds are very easy to obtain.
It is easy and fun to build it. Instuctions are idiot proof.
Sound Quality
:
8
I play with an ash tele with p90 at neck and standard tele at bridge, and with a les paul special with two p90. My setup is guitar->booster->amp (I tested the pedal with an early '70 fender princeton reverb).
The unit is a little noisy if powered with a psa. Decently silent if powered with batteries. It is impossible to use the germanium setting when running the pedal with a psa, due to the enormous amount of hum. That portion of circuit is just as a rangemaster, and can operate only with battery.
The three main tones this unit can provide are good. Trying to describing them, I can say that the "clean boost" tone is warm, and darkens the sound a little. It is very balanced and lets you hear your guitar natural tone. It gives you the complete dynamics of the amp, so if you play hard you get a creamy-crunchy tone, especially on bass frequencies; if you play smooth, you get a clean and soft tone. Anyway, it is possible to adjust the gain amount operating on the internal trimpot.
Compared to the MXR MicroAmp, wich is the booster I currently use, this setting has a higher volume and a warmer tone. It lacks some definition on the highs but has a richer saturation on the basses.
On the "Linear boost" mode, the pedal has a bigger, fatter tone and distorts more easily. The volume level is the same as the clean boost mode, but the tone is darker.
On the "germanium mode" the volume level decreases a lot, tone becomes darker and more harmonics rich.
On the mid booster range, tone becomes quite fuzzy. On the treble booster mode all the bass frequencies are cut, and I can obtain a tone that has the out-of-phase pickups mood.
On the full range mode tone is chubby.
I can get some good sounds from this pedal. Generally, I like to play with a booster always turned on, just to reach the amp's sweet spot when I gig in small clubs. This is the reason why I don't like to run the pedal with batteries.
This pedal is more on the overdrive side than the Micro Amp, but I can slightly clean the tone operating on amp's eq.
I'd give it a 9 if it wasn't noisy with the psa.
Reliability
:
No Opinion
I've built myself this pedal, and I was happy to survive when I plugged it in the ac mains the first time... That's enough.
Customer Support
:
No Opinion
Overall Rating
:
9
I play jump blues, just guitar, booster if needed, and a good fender amp.
I like this pedal, but I think of it like a light organic overdrive, not as a booster. It is very peculiar and worths an attempt to build it.
I like the possibility to manage three good sounds in one pedal, but I think I won't gig with it until I find a noiseless psa.
I had a lot of fun building it, and now I know how pedals work, and plus I have a good pedal.
I reccomend it