Germanium Treble Boost – It’s 1965 again

Description

It’s 1965 – Dallas Musical Ltd. released the Rangemaster Treble Booster – an effect that would go on to shape music history. A simple circuit consisting of eight components helped Rory Gallagher, Brian May and many others to shape their sound. It’s all about the Germanium Transistor OC44, which can no longer be found today or only at absurd prices. Accordingly, people are now constantly searching for THE sound. I was able to get hold of a batch of Russian transistors from the 1970s that come very close to the specifications of the OC44. With slight adjustments to the remaining seven components, the Ruhrpott Guitars Treble Boost was created.

To make the pedal ‘suitable for everyday use’, a voltage converter is built in, which converts the now standard voltage of 9 volts, centre negative (classic pedalboard power supply) into the -9 volts (positive ground) required for the transistor to work its magic. This means that the pedal can be easily integrated into a current setup.

What I haven’t changed is the input behaviour – the pedal would like to ‘see’ the guitar directly and doesn’t get along with buffers (or pedals that contain a buffer). This would change the basic sound too much. It is therefore best used as the first effect in the chain.

And classically, it sounds best when the amp (or a distortion pedal, e.g. our Germanium Drive) is already slightly to moderately distorted. With a clean amp, the highs can quickly become too much, it’ll just sound thin and fizzy. However hooked into a distorting amp (or pedal), the bass range is nicely cleaned up and you get a clearly defined sound that cuts through the band structure wonderfully.

The pedal is completely handwired on the basis of a perforated strip circuit board. The transistors are selected and the operating voltage (BIAS) is specially tuned in each pedal.

The controls are:

• Set – sets the overall boost/level
• Internal trim pot – the internal trim pot is set carefully to bias the Germanium transistor to sound best. Changing it may result in bad sounds or even damaging the pedal!

Our pedals are build to order. If the pedal is not in stock, the current lead time is 7-14 days.