Help me build a treble booster!

I'm looking to build a treble booster. Anyone have any good schematics that they are satisfied with? I've never actually built a pedal, but I have done a lot of soldering and the like, and someone told me boosters are a good place to get started. Are there any particular DIY projects that are beginner/intermediate level that are decent?

The classic Dallas Rangemaster is a great first build for a treble booster. It is about as simple as it gets. In fact, the originals didn't even have PCBs--the components were just soldered to the input and ouptut jack terminals.

There are lots of schematics on the web and General Guitar Gadgets has a good Rangemaster project:

http://www.generalguitargadgets.com/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=137&Itemid=151

You also may want to consider a kit for your first project. BYOC has a great Tribooster which does the Rangemaster but also includes linear and clean boost modes:

http://buildyourownclone.com/tri.html

Good luck

here is a link to aron's stompbox page. They did a beginers project for I think Guy Smily's NPN Booster. Go check it out.

Beginer project forum for NPN Booster

Thanks guys!

Does this look like a good one?

Any suggestions as to where to get the parts and what brand to get?

Looks very interesting. You have a couple of choices for parts:

www.mouser.com: they have every part known to man and a phone-book sized catalog to prove it. If you are just starting out building pedals, mouser can be kind of intimidating because they have so many variations on parts. For example, your circuit calls for 500k linear pot. You know how many variations there are on that one part alone? I've placed a lots of orders with Mouser and have had several occasions where I ordered the wrong part. Don't get me wrong--mouser is super fast and stocks just about everything there is to buy. Just be sure to read the datasheets for each component carefully before you buy.

www.smallbearelec.com: small shop, but they specialize in components for stompboxes and amps. Much easier to find what you are looking for and they are fast and friendly folks.

Regarding the specific parts, everything there should be easily available with the possible exception of the OC76/AC128 transistor. Small Bear has a variety of NOS germanium transistors to choose from:

http://www.smallbearelec.com/Categories.bok?category=Germanium+Transistors&searchpath=7f00000110b5e07b5b5ba91&start=1&total=16

A couple of other things to think about:

- What are you going to use for a PCB? Is there a layout available for it? Can you etch your own PCBs? You have some options:

- Find existing layout artwork and etch your own pcbs using lovely toxic chemicals.

- Do it on veroboard/stripboard: no etching required, you just need to either create or find a veroboard layout.

- Find a treble booster for which there are commercial outfits selling boards. General Guitar Gadgets and RunOffGroove both sell PCBs for a variety of circuits.

Hope that helps.

That is quite a bit of insight! Thanks man for taking the time to type that all out for me! I really appreciate it. I'm sure I will have more questions reguarding parts and such. What do you reccomend in way of a PCB and 500k linear taper pot?

Rory Gallagher didn't use an orange booster

rangemaster or hawk II

I'd really recommend for you first build you the BYOC TriBoost. It has the exact Rangemaster circuit + two very useful other boost modes. All the parts and PCB ready to go with a decent build guide. You learn all the basic stuff you need to know without getting frustrated at all the things that can go wrong in sourcing parts and etching boards.

As a compromise, you could get the Rangemaster PCB from GeneralGuitarGadgets and buy the parts from Small Bear.

After you get addicted to the smell of solder, the rest of your life won't matter. Its all about building and hacking pedals. 24x7 if you can get away with it. Sure, the family will eventually move out, and you'll stop taking showers. Job? That wasn't important dammit, you need to make more stompboxes...you know like 12 LFOs in phaser, or a distortion box actually generates radar emission. You could do it you know, that microwave oven in the kitchen. Take it apart and hardwire the element staight into the 220v mains. No wait, that idea didn't work too well. Perhaps its time to re-house every Boss pedal in a multi-tiered steel structure but I can't start that because the NOS battery covers are still on order and adding 12 BMP tonestacks to a TS808 clone is just going to need more boost pumping into the first gain stage. Actually, far more interesting is the concept of a distortion pedal with 27 JFET gain stages, each baised way below the "approved"4.5 volts. Add a 7 band graphic equalizer on the front end, and one on the back. Tone of God I'm pretty sure. Or was that Tone of Dog? Always worry about dyslexia kicking in. Hold on, someone's knocking at the door...

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Some idiot at the door yammering on about repossing the house. I screamed at him in a foreign accent "I have bird flu you Bastard! I have SARS! Stay away or you die!" and he left. So anyway, did you know about effect of magnets on the forward biasing of germanium transistors? I'm building a rig that counter rotates two sets of rare-earth magnets around an AC127. I had to hook it up to an old model airplane radio control/servo thing because it generates prodigious amounts of heat when it starts to oscillate and I have to actually operate it from another room. I'm not sure if the fact that my hair is falling out in giant chunks is attributable to this new design or a latent effect of the older Microwave disaster. Where was I? Oh yes. The transistors only last for about 12 seconds before complete meltdown, but those 12 seconds, dude, pure tonal bliss.

Hey do you know why they invented the RangeMaster? Not because it could make any amp sound better--it could only make those fiendishly dark British amps sound better. The brits made really dark amps back in the day. Hardly anyone could afford to buy Fender amps across the pond so they had Dark Tone ™. Thus and verily, the Rangemaster was specifially invented to "fix" the tonal deficiency in early British Tube Amps. Very clever chaps those. Nine parts and the were done. So simple it didn't even need a turret board. "I say Nigel, why don't we just lash it all together on the output jack lugs! We'll save 3p a unit!" "Smashing idea Iain! You're a bloody genius! Let's see, 3p time 10 units a fortnight...I do say Iain, that's enough for us to pop round to West End and score a bit of crumpet. Bloody marvelous!"

And so it goes, a casual decision by some engineer working what he most likely thought was a fad or trifle, well his name will live on forever it it hadn't already been lost to the years. We don't even know if those judicious lads scored their bit of crumpet. So it goes. Next week, I'll tell you how I make highly accurate electrolytic capacitors out of condom, some corn syrup and a pipe cleaner.

But I digress. What was the original question?

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!