1	Music Technology Project The Tri-Booster building a guitar pedal
2	Pedal Specifics The Tri-Booster pedal creates 3 separate effects: The first is the Dallas Rangemaster Clone sound using the classic Mullard Germanium OC44 transistor to give a treble boost. It also has a toggle switch to convert the treble boost to a full range boost The second uses a silicon transistor to create a Linear Power Boost The Third effect is a Clean boost utilizing the MosFET system.
3	What is a boost? The boost in this pedal is an increase in gain/volume. The transistors in the circuits are biased near the cutoff. When the incoming signal gets closer to the cutoff point is is compressed and gain increases exponentially. So the harder the strings on the guitar are hit, the more the signal is compressed and will even become distorted if the compressed signal cuts the transistor off. This effect explains the high gain boost that come from playing the strings harder with this effect. The secondary function of the treble booster is that the higher the notes the louder the volume. The “loudness” almost doubles at the octave with a unity gain at the lowest guitar notes. It reaches a maximum of about 24db.
4	And how does it work? The circuit is simple and the most basic part of it contains a transistor biased by four resistors and a capacitor to control the AC. The resistors set the biasing point for the signal and the characteristics of the transistor is what creates the unique sound.
5	Germanium The Germanium Mullard OC44 is a classic transistor used because of its unusual cutoff point. This is normally considered bad for electronics but is very good for guitars because of the full sound and the sweet distortion that comes when the transistor cuts. The OC44 has a much fuller sound than silicon transistors which makes this very pleasing to guitarists.
6	Linear Power Boost Basically the LPB (Linear Power Boost) effect is the same circuit as the germanium rangermaster circuit. The difference in this circuit is that the transistor is silicon and does not have the same cutoff point and does not have the same hard distortion with the higher compounded frequencies that the germanium circuit has. The circuit has a different tone due to the transistor being silicon instead of germanium.
7	MosFET Clean Boost Metal oxide semiconductor field-effect transistor or MosFET is a common type of silicon transistor. Field-effect means that the transistor uses a magnetic field to control its conductivity and thus its bias point is set by that field. This circuit is different from the other two effects because it creates a “clean” treble boost, or in other words, an undistorted increase in volume exponentially
8	Building the Pedal The Pedal contains many parts and takes quite a few hours to put together. So if you want to make one too, make sure you have a good chunk of time. Here are the parts-
9	Parts continued I have to eventually fit it all in this little box.
10	Germanium II This is the germanium part of the circuit Notice that there is a transistor socket. The OC44 is both expensive and not very heat resistant and therefore cannot be soldered into the circuit board so it will be pushed into the socket later.
11	Linear Power Boost II This Linear Power Boost part of the circuit This silicon transistor can stand heat better than the germanium and is soldered directly to the board
12	MosFET II This is the MosFET “Clean” part of the circuit. It is very similar to the LPB circuit.
13	Wiring I had to make smaller wires that will eventually connect the PCB(Printed Circuit Board) to the pedal's hardware. The wires all had to be cut to length, ends stripped and tinned, and connected to the PCB.
14	Hardware The hardware all had to be wired now to the circuit board and it required a still hand to solder all the little lugs.
15	Completed Wiring Wiring is all done (Whew!)
16	Credits TriBoost Kit is patented by www.buildyourownclones.com GEOfex Rangemaster design