Boost pedal

[semi-hollowbody]

barber launch pad
mi audio boost n buff
no kidding but a boss blues driver 2 is an excellent boost,,,crank the volume and cut the drive...

 

[memoryman81]

I use the catlinbread Serrano Picoso. It's tiny and transparent. I've got a lot of pedals in my chain so I use it up front to work more like a buffer with great results.

 

[jroot]

Gotta get my vote in for the Beano Boost from Analog.Man
I stack other pedals with it for leads and use it on cleaner parts by itself
It really gives a great push and cuts with the band well

 

[playthecray]

The boost side of my Jester is always on. It's fantastic.

 

[bluesjuke]

+1 on the Jester Boost side.
Plugged in to mine right now.
The harmonic content already there it enhances and brings it's own too,.

 

[JoeyHarley]

Just last week i went boost shopping and testing, so hopefully i can share some knoweledge

the most important thing i found is, there's no such thing as a "clean" boost. by increasing the signal level you are going to overdrive the input of your amp (especially if it's a tube amp).

2nd most...boosts with an eq are KEY. think about it, you have your amp dialed in exactly the way you want it. then you boost it, and the shape of your eq is going to be different...especially if it's a treble or mid specific boost. having an eq on your boost allows you to reset that curve a touch to get it back the way you want it. in my testing, even full spectrum boosts like the lpb and the microamp made me want to roll the treble back a bit.

as to the ones i tried...

Xotic EP, AC, RC
Keeley JavaBoost
one called "Uno Mos"
Greer Amplification "Silkworm" boost? might have been a prototype or one off, was in a plain aluminum enclosure with no graphics
one with a picture of an airplane climbing and an arrow pointing up (there was one with the plane diving and the arrow down that was a limiter as well)
one with "Germania" on it, not sure if that's the company or the unit name
fulltone fatboost

there were a few others but i cant remember them now.

the worst of the bunch was the fulltone fat boost. yuck. the best of the bunch was the keeley javaboost, closely followed by the Xotic....****....the lower dirt one...wanna say the AC? the white one? you'd think i'd remember as it's the one i got couldn't afford the Keeley right now! the application i'm using it for is to slam my tube amps and my OD820.

the cleanest of them all was the Xotic EP (and it was one of the cheapers at around $100). fully cranked into a breaking up tube amp sounded pretty good, but it didn't push it like the rest did. there was some saturation added to the signal, but it was mostly just louder.

i really didn't like any of them that didn't have some form of tone controls as i found they all made my ears hurt. the "Germania" would've been it if i could've rolled the treble out of it a tad. yes, i could do that with my amp, but it would change the core tone of my sound. yes, i could roll of the tone knob a touch, but i'd rather it just be on the pedal. oooh, i'll have to try putting a graphic eq and boost in a bypass loop thanks for makin me think!

hope that helps.

 

[dcg810]

I'm loving my mini solo boost from this1smyne: http://www.this1smyne.com/product_list/products/msb-mini-solo-booster/. Sounds great, looks great (he lets you customize the pedal however you want), saves space on your board, and is relatively inexpensive compared to some other options. You could do what I did and get one of his mini buffers installed to stay on when the pedal is bypassed, but you might not need it since you only have a few pedals.