Clean Boost?

[RacerX]

So this new, possibly temporary band situation I'm working on is a 2-guitar thing. It has literally been decades since I've played in a band with another guitarist. Now that I'm in one, I'm finding it difficult maintaining a thick, heavy rhythm guitar tone while leaving enough room on the guitar volume to crank for solos. I'm between a rock & a hard place: either I end up with an anemic rhythm tone or inadequate volume for solos.

That's why I'm looking for a super-clean boost that I can step on to give me enough extra volume for solo sections while leaving my nasty rhythm tone undisturbed.

Whatcha got, boys?

[The Riffer]

Boost doesn't always work for this, and is really dependent on how you run your amp. A dirty amp, will likely just get dirtier and sometimes more compressed. Take that into consideration. My answer would be  an eq with a boost feature. Just boost the necessary frequencies to cut through.

One clean boost I can recommend is the Earthquaker BlackEye. Great sound, and tons of volume.

[bitter]

I have a Diamond effects marquis (seen in my avatar pic), which is a dual mode treble/clean booster. What the riffer said is true with a dirty amp. The only time I get a volume boost is after another pedal. As such, I tend to run Fuzz 1 > Boost > Fuzz 2 and toggle between treble boost or clean boost depending on the fuzz I'm using. 

[rayinreverse]

an EQ pedal can definitely work wonders. You can boost certain frequencies to cut through. ive never had a clean boost that seemed to boost my volume, because Im already dimed as it is.

[RAGER]

Yep EQ pedal for sure.  I used and MXR 10 band for this exact thing.

[RacerX]

Boost doesn't always work for this, and is really dependent on how you run your amp. A dirty amp, will likely just get dirtier and sometimes more compressed. Take that into consideration. My answer would be  an eq with a boost feature. Just boost the necessary frequencies to cut through.

One clean boost I can recommend is the Earthquaker BlackEye. Great sound, and tons of volume.

I run my amp totally clean, but I do get a bit of power tube grit out of her. My Meathead is engaged 95% of the time, and that's where most of my dirt comes from.

[spookstrickland]

I went through this a couple years ago building a boost pedal for a friend.  It's damn near impossible to do if you derive your grit from your amp because once your amp is cranked it will just swallow up the boost unless you really freaking hit it hard and then you have to worry about your tone changing.

One of the simplest ways to go for totally clean boost is to build a passive boost that is just a volume pot that dials down the volume kind of like turning your guitar pot down, this will be for your rhythm tone then when by passed it will be your boosted tone.

[RacerX]

Hm.

I wonder if I should try my Morley Volume pedal—it's got a single pot to set the "low" end of the volume. I'll have to put it after the Meathead in the chain for that to work, though, I'm thinking.

[VOLVO)))]

The EQ is the best option. Bison's guitarist used a 10-band MXR EQ on his cranked amps, and instead of driving it more, it just bumped the mids and treble into "FUCK YEAH" territory. The EQ settings looked kind of like the opposite of the mouth on this smiley  :-

[dunwichamps]

yea EQ boost is probably best. Theres a few ways to achieve it, plenty of designs out their, and units already in production

[RacerX]

Thanks, dudes.

Since I'm stone cold broke, I'll try my volume pedal first, but if it doesn't do the trick, I'll look into EQ options.

[AgentofOblivion]

Put your volume pedal as far back in the chain as possible.  In the FX loop would be preferable if you have the right pot value in it.  I believe 25k is typically used for line level (what you need in a loop) and something like 500k for in front of the amp.  Anyway, push it all the way forward for your solo level and then just back it off for your rhythm level.  You could even put something under the back part of the pedal to mark the "rhythm" place so that you can't get it any quieter; a stack of pennies or some shit. 

I would recommend a similar strategy if you had the EQ.  Use the "on" to cut your volume and get a nice tone that way.  Turn the pedal off to run dry and at full volume. 

[dunwichamps]

if you put the pedal right before your amp you probably dont want it to be too large or u will suck some high end off when you roll the pedal down do to increased Miller Effect. Also not too small or you will load down your last pedal before the volume. Something like 100k is not bad

for reference
http://www.valvewizard.co.uk/gridstopper.html

[spookstrickland]

Put your volume pedal as far back in the chain as possible.  In the FX loop would be preferable if you have the right pot value in it.  I believe 25k is typically used for line level (what you need in a loop) and something like 500k for in front of the amp.  Anyway, push it all the way forward for your solo level and then just back it off for your rhythm level.  You could even put something under the back part of the pedal to mark the "rhythm" place so that you can't get it any quieter; a stack of pennies or some shit. 

I would recommend a similar strategy if you had the EQ.  Use the "on" to cut your volume and get a nice tone that way.  Turn the pedal off to run dry and at full volume. 

This should work out really well for you if you already have the morley, Morley's are really good volume pedals that don't mess with your sound much at all.

That's a great idea with the stack under the heal position, I'm going to do that with my Morely.

[MR. CREEPER]

I Love my Blackstar HT Boost. Thing can bring a lot of grit if needed, but is a bad ass, tube driven boost. More tubey tone at hand.

[Corey Y]

The MXR Micro Amp would fit for what you want. It's a simple one knob clean boost, knob all the way down is unity volume and it boosts from there. No added gain or EQ, very clean. They go for about $70-80 new, you could probably get a used one for $50 or less with a little luck. I've had one for a long time, though I've primarily used it to push the front of a non master volume amp without coloring the tone.

[dogfood]

The EQ is the best option. Bison's guitarist used a 10-band MXR EQ on his cranked amps, and instead of driving it more, it just bumped the mids and treble into "FUCK YEAH" territory. The EQ settings looked kind of like the opposite of the mouth on this smiley  :-

My MXR EQ goes to 11.   

[liquidsmoke]

Was using a boost but the tone was too much on top of all the gain I already use.

EQ pedal for the win.

[RacerX]

I've managed to work things out using the Morley Little Alligator volume pedal in the loop between the pre & power amp.

It also has a minimum volume adjustment pot that works like like an adjustable stack of pennnies.

[BrianDamage]

For a lead boost I use a boss blues driver with a slight volume boost (for more gain not volume) and I turn the tone knob up until it cuts through.

[Baltar]

Fulltone Fat-boost ver. 1 or 3.  These pedals are pure magic.  The ver. 1 is a dead-on rip-off of the George Orman booster. Mike Fuller got sued for it and thus came ver.2.  You can still get ver.1's on ebay for right around $100.

[RacerX]

I'm liking the no-cost option I'm using. Didn't even spend a penny, nevermind a stack of 'em.

[Jake]

I'm pretty sure it's just peeps not reading beyond the thread title before posting their two pennies.

[Volume]

If you run your amp clean and you have headroom to spare a clean boost will do it. I've used the MXR Micro Amp, M-Audio Boost n Buff and now I'm using the boost in my Box of Rock.