General Jerry OD?

[waldo041]

Most clean boosts use fets. The mutron uses half of a 4558 opamp with a voltage bias of +9v and -9v, A somewhat unconventional setup.

with gobs of clean headroom!

peace,
waldo

[mijknahs]

Most clean boosts use fets. The mutron uses half of a 4558 opamp with a voltage bias of +9v and -9v, A somewhat unconventional setup.

But is the end result really that different? Garcia may have used it because it was right there and convenient. Kind of like having a "bonus" pedal when you switch off the envelope. Not necessarily because of the special design or tone it got. I'm pretty sure Waldo can make you one just like the MuTron (with effect off) if that's what you need.

[bdhact1]

Lots of head room is a wonderful thing to behold!

[hogan]

-9v to +9v I believe is essentially 18v in a non conventional way. There's your gobs of headroom.

[bdhact1]

More like gobs of voltage goodness. ( I'm talking like i'm on the Food Network)

[mijknahs]

Lots of head room is a wonderful thing to behold!

Not sure "headroom" is what you're trying to achieve with the Mutron boost (envelope off). Seems more like the boost effect is to achieve some type of overdrive effect from pushing either the Twin, the McIntosh, or the JBLs (or some combination of each). Or maybe to "heat up" the signal before it hits the distortion pedal? Basically more volume to push things into a "crunchier" zone.

I agree that it's a clean but louder tone. It itself doesn't clip (it's clean) and it preserves the original guitar "tone" but the effect is that it pushes something else into some type of clipping/overdrive. Again, not really that different from other boost pedals for practical purposes.

[bdhact1]

I'm presently breadboarding a prototype. First with a JRC4558DD and then with a JRC4558D, which has slightly smoother dirt to it. So far it works extremely well as a clean boost with just a touch of dirt after the OD pedals. It drives OD pedals just slightly harder when it's first in the chain. So far I like the results of it being last and before the delays.