Treble Booster for DSP – Electric guitar pedal – Analog Treble Booster for digital equipment

Treble Booster for DSP, pairing a treble booster with a digital device is no longer a problem.

The treble booster is a guitar device born in the middle of the 60s. It played a very important role in the productions of those years, especially in the United Kingdom. We have studied the treble booster devices of the past in depth to be able to dedicate ourselves to the creation of several models designed directly by us, such as the series dedicated to Brian May, the T.Boost Relic or the flagship Ingot Dual Treble Booster and we have also created a sort of guide for the perfect use of a treble booster.

Since 1965 (the year of the Dallas Rangemaster release, the first treble booster in history) many circuits with similar functions have been created, starting from clones, passing through pedals and arriving at the various implementations of this treble booster circuit directly inside the amplifiers. Laney, one of the most important and historic English amplifier companies, created a head called KLIPP in the 70s, it integrated a treble booster very similar to the Dallas Rangemaster. This is just to document how this particular device has been considered, during rock ‘n’ roll history, lots of experiments around this device.

Since about 2010, digital equipment have also intervened forcefully in the world of guitar, so much so as generating a real faction of guitarists who define themselves as ‘digital’, it’s a complex topic that deserves a separate thought. In any case, pedals and digital instruments have always been there, just think about the beautiful rack delays of the 80s, the multi-effect pedals of the 90s or the first modelers during early 2000s, they have always been used at every level and in every circumstance. Among all the countless advantages of the digital world (portability, efficiency, convenience etc.) there are 2 unsolved problems with digital rigs. The first critical issue is impedance: even though we find simulations of treble boosters in many current modelers, none of them offer a perfect matching with the guitar volume pot, and this is a significant flaw, this is because it’s impossible to simulate an impedance and an electrical reaction identical to the real one, it’s not a matter of small differences, it completely differ the behavior between real circuitry and digital model, it also happens in fuzz models in the same way. The second significant issue is clipping: any digital processor, or DSP, has a maximum data conversion volume (in this case the amplitude of the sinusoidal signal), beyond this maximum peak the DSP enters into clipping and it’s no longer able to acquire data faithfully, using a treble booster before any digital device is sure that this threshold is exceeded, therefore the use of this device can cause many problems if used in conjunction with digital devices. Here comes the idea of ​​creating the first treble booster dedicated to this purpose.

“I have been playing live for several decades, I have seen the technological evolution the guitar world made, I have used a lot of equipment of all kinds, I have to say, starting from 2020, the ‘digital’ revolution was born, yes I consider it a real revolution, taking many live performances to the silent stage technique. Many productions, managers etc. prefer to avoid amplifiers, monitors and often even acoustic drums on stage during many live shows. This isn’t the right place to discuss the reasons that I can agree with (at least in part), but I find it necessary to get used to this new way of making live music and equip ourselves with the best of our ability. I have always used the treble booster, but I don’t like the ones included in the modelers, I have tried dozens of modelers and profilers of all prices and none include a convincing treble booster for obvious reasons, so I thought to build it: a completely analog treble booster with the miraculous ability to avoid modelers clipping and maintaining its full power (above +30db). Last but not least, even the impedance mismatch problem won’t be a problem anymore with a perfect reaction of the guitar volume potentiometer, like a real treble booster. Precisely because in reality IT IS A REAL TREBLE BOOSTER!” – Luca Colombo

Controls
There are 2 controls available to the guitarist:

• Treble Boost: this is the level control of the treble booster, by raising this potentiometer to the maximum you get a boost around +32db;
• DSP Trim: it’ss used to match the pedal with the digital processor connected afterwards, it’s recommended to set this control slightly below the clipping point.

Thanks to these 2 controls you can get the maximum efficiency and gain from the treble booster without the digital unit connected afterwards crushing into clipping; all this without losing any of the sound and effectiveness of the treble booster.