A revamp of the Dallas Rangemaster (treble booster). Everything you need to build it minus an LED and a case. Comes with some ugly white knobs and a battery.
https://taweber.powweb.com/store/kits_weber.htm
How Hard was it?
About a 2 on a scale from one to 10, because it doesn't tell you which direction the switch goes in, so you actually need your noggin.
You will need to know how to read resistors.
http://www.samengstrom.com/nxl/3660/4_b ... ge.en.html (for 5 or 6 band resistors click at the top)
You will need to bias the Ge Transistor, there are 5 different value resistors included to do this, I started with the middle value one 240K which sounded ok. I went down two resistors to 150k and the output went away. I moved up to 330k and it sounded good so I left it.
What's cool about it?
It's designed so you never have to unplug it. Just make sure that it's off when done using it, thats why an LED is useful.
It's sweet sixties rock sound in a box, when coupled with a slightly overdriven tube amp.
What sucks about it?
1. Since it's not on all the time there is a slight pop when switching it off. Not a big deal though and it would be really easy to modify it to stay on all the time, but as I put this together for my uncle, it's staying poppy. I will probably do that to the next one.
2. There is no LED, an easy fix. Just solder a 4.7k ohm resistor to an LED and connect that to the part on the board that I marked in Pink.
3. Eric "fucking Wonderful Tonight" Clapton used one of these. It's a drawback, granted he played with the Bluesbreakers at the time but his name will forever be attached to this bad ass pedal.
How does it sound?
It sounds really Chonky (that can't be a word) through my little '59 Gibsonette, which is basically a Fender 5F2-A Princeton though don't let it hear you say that. It sounds great with chords, full definition from each note. I found myself playing "Sweet Jane" over and over, it just seemed like the thing to do. My Super Reverb sounded pretty sweet with it too, I was able to approximate the sound of my overdriven Gibsonette with it at medium volume, and I can't wait to play with this set up some more. I set the amp up as usual with the treble at 6, mids 3 and bass 3, then I cut the treble on the amp back a little to 4 so the amp was pretty beefy sounding, rattling the windows and all, then kicked in the pedal and got that crunchy Overdriven Amp sound that makes the girls scream and the guys hold up the devil horns. I would liken it to the Black Keys.
Single note runs sound like butter of course. When used with my Russian Big Muff it sounded like a dirty Overdrive, it cleaned up the sound quite a bit. Basically it's a really warm sounding Overdrive with just a little dirt and lots of spank, the amount of grit you get is determined by the tube amps volume. When compared with a lighter single coil pickup, the pedal sounds weak. It needs a beefy soap bar pickup, but then again it was biased with a Jazzmaster. I could go up another resistor if I wanted to get more gain out of it for a lighter pickup.
It's also a little noisy, really slight hiss when on. Actually I would describe it as a shh... as in shush it's whispering.
How would I rate this project?
I would give it a 10 because, 1. It's cheap. 2. It's super easy. 3. It sounds good. 4. It was pretty fun to put together and there are options open for mods.
Attach LED lead to the post marked in Hot Pink. I flipped it over too so I could see what it looks like from the back (the soldering side).
Here it is with full Craptastic Paint and Boss style knobs.
