This is based on the old Rangemaster booster, but it's got three switchable input capacitors. The original used a 5 nF, but I always thought that was a little too thin. This one is switchable between a 10 nF, 22 nF and 47 nF. By the way, those red input capacitors are really nice German WIMA caps. So satisfying to be able to build these right and still keep them affordable.

These pedals run off a standard Boss-style power adapter and feature true bypass switching.

These kinds of treble boosters were used to change the frequencies where your amp clipped, back when amps like the JTM-45 and AC-30 tended to be a little flabby-sounding, due to their designs being geared around a more full-range style of reproduction. Most Fender amps are still designed that way. Later Vox would add, "Top Boost" and Marshall would reduce the value of their cathode bypass capacitor to shift the point where the amp clips. I call it the, “Choke Point” of an amp. When you introduce a peak, that louder part of the signal usually becomes the new, “Choke Point” and it changes the overall voice of your guitar/amp in what I think are very pleasant ways. So these are designed for that kind of thing, just in case this is unfamiliar territory. I don’t really do high-gain amps, so I don’t know how this would work with one, but I suspect it wouldn’t be all that useful.

So the 10 nF setting (the, "toppy-est") gets you into that kind of Brian May thing to my ears. Or at least that's what I was shooting for. The 22 nF setting has a nice biting midrange sound going on that will get most amps into something I always call the, “Basic AC/DC” sound. Finally, the 47 nF was my attempt at the old Tony Iommi Rangemaster sound. Not a full-range boost, but very close. That’s a crazy spiral of madness, finding that Iommi sound. I actually had the Troika line built as a testbed for the Brian May and Tony Iommi experiments. Because, to my ears, a P-90 sounds a lot like Brian May’s Tri-Sonics and of course the early Tony Iommi sound was all about P-90s into a modded Rangemaster that was later thrown in the trash by a roadie...without anyone ever knowing what the microfarad value of the, “magic” input capacitor was.

The, "Secret Sauce" here is a Tesla NPN germanium transistor. The original Rangemasters used PNP transistors, so they had to run on battery power only or use a finicky adapter. This will run on a standard Boss adapter. There's actually no provision for battery power in these pedals. So be aware of that.

These transistors break up and add some grit to the signal. Like a light overdrive. It's actually my favorite effect because it voices the guitar/amp and adds a very cool germanium breakup at the same time.

These particular transistors are very low-noise and have an extremely pleasant tone. They aren't great at reproducing high frequencies, which probably seems a bit anti-intuitive. These transistors were made for AM radios back in the day. The problem with a lot of treble boosters is that they turn the extreme high end into kind of a harsh thing. Which is why the original OC-44 or other similar Mullard/Valvo transistors are so popular among Rangemaster builders, since they’re not great at wide-bandwidth reproduction. These Tesla transistors boost the upper mids that you want (well, that I want) boosted, but then run out of steam before they get to the extreme upper range that makes your head hurt (well, makes MY head hurt, anyway). They're the perfect treble booster transistor, IMO. This pedal has a very nice Mill Max socket, though, so you can experiment with whatever NPN transistor you like. Still, I think you’re going to love these gold-pin Czechoslovakian Telsa 104NU71 transistors. They’re pretty much magic. They seem to have been manufactured in Bratislava between 1961 and 1973, according to everything I’ve found. Amazing for this application.

Some people kick these kinds of boosters in for a solo boost, which is a good use for 'em. Brian May used to just leave his on all the time. It was a key part of his sound. These also sound great stacked with other fuzz, overdrive and distortion effects. I think they sound amazing into a Fuzz Face, but I've also had really cool experiences using one to drive an Expandora.

The road to getting this ready for the market was longer than I expected. The original Rangemaster turret board testbed I built was finished on July 2, 2015. I figured I'd have these rolling out by the fall. Of 2015. So sometimes it takes me a while to get the Special Sauce just right.

My road was paved with a lot of stupid mistakes. The biasing was too low in the early ones. I was shooting for 4.5v because normally with transistors you go for half of supply voltage, but they always sounded bad. These things want 7 volts. Which is nuts, but that's what they want. It took me ages to discover that around 7 volts is what the originals had.

Then I tried a capacitor blend circuit for a continuously variable voicing, which seems to be the common logic these days, but it sounds terrible to me. I finally discovered that the Q is narrower using a circuit with a single capacitor. The, 'peakiness' of the circuit disappears with a blend control and the, ‘magic’ of the sound goes with it, to my ears at least.

Originally I was trying PNP transistors with a power regulator to change the positive ground to negative ground, so these could run off a standard adapter. For some reason that never sounds right. Or I've never made it sound right, at least.

So then in the quest to run this on standard power, I moved on to germanium NPN transistors, but I killed a lot of time trying to find the right transistors. It's very easy to make these boosters sound harsh. The right transistor is essential.

And so on and so on...trying different input capacitor values trying to get a sound similar to Brian May's or Tony Iommi's. Chasing the idea around in circles that Iommi's boost wasn't completely full-range, which I'm almost sure it wasn't.

Anyway...the idea came quite some way from the original homemade turret board in the summer of 2015.

After a year and a half of building things and testing things and having PCBs made and not being happy with the PCBs and generally burning through time and money, it's surprisingly gratifying to be so happy with the result. Although, to be fair, it's not a complicated thing. Lotta people have built nice treble boosters of their own without all the time and nonsense that went into these...but I'm still really happy that they sound the way they do.

There is no provision for battery power. I just want to repeat that to make sure it's clear. These are DC-only operation, but they don't need any kind of finicky power adapters like most germanium pedals. Which is handy. The enclosure has a durable powder coated finish, so hopefully they'll keep looking (and sounding) great for a long time.

Hopefully you'll enjoy this design as much as I do. Because I love it. If I had to own just one pedal, this would be it.