Treble Booster Help

[drugprowlingwolf]

Hey guys,

I was at a recording session when my treble booster turned on me. It seemed to lose output, gained a ton of noise, and started to sound more like a distortion pedal. It had the same pleasing gain but it didn't seem to be mixing with my amp.

The transistor is an old Raytheon Ge. I tried unscrewing the back and holding my finger to it to increase heat to see if that was it. Nothing. Tried swapping transistors and it only made the pedal thinner/noisier. Tried heating that one to, to no avail.

What a pain! It's my main source of dirt so it was quite a pain. I doubt it was heat related because my Ge Fuzzface was far more controllable and usable. I'm stumped and bummed because this pedal sounds really really great but I cant trust it enough to gig until I figure this out.

 

[kboman]

Did you check the battery and the wire connections inside? The footswitch on my Hoof can be a bit temperamental sometimes.

 

[drugprowlingwolf]

Did you check the battery and the wire connections inside? The footswitch on my Hoof can be a bit temperamental sometimes.

Yes, I made sure none of the connections were grounding out or something similar. I stomped the switch several times too.

I'm very perplexed. I don't want to buy another TB but this one can't be trusted until I get this worked out...

 

[kboman]

That's really weird. For a next step I'd look at each individual component to see if something has burned out/broken/started leaking or something. Then I'd probably look up a builder who specialises in TBs and describe the issue to them. This may require a professional.

 

[Batman]

Something may have drifted. . .Sounds like the transistor needs to be re-biased.

Is there a trimpot inside the pedal?

 

[Nicky]

I think Batman nailed it. It's probably the bias.

 

[CodeMonk]

If any electrolytic capacitors, show signs of bulging, that can cause problems.

 

[drugprowlingwolf]

Something may have drifted. . .Sounds like the transistor needs to be re-biased.

Is there a trimpot inside the pedal?

No there is no trim pot. This did only happen after I swapped to an old Raytheon High Gain Ge tranny from the stock old Russian. The tone is so much better with the new tranny but it was unusable at the studio. Damn... I'm trying to think of someone who can fix this for me.

 

[Batman]

I could probably fix it for you but it would cost more in shipping than it would cost you to have a local tech fix it for you.

The transistor just needs to be biased. It's pretty easy to accomplish.

Have a quick read of the first post and the link that's in there. The article is fairly short and has some really good insight on why the Rangemaster behaves like it does.

From what I have been able to see, the ideal biasing point for the Dallas Rangemaster's sound effects seems to be to have the collector at between -6.8 and -7.1v with a -9V battery supply. This puts the static bias at a place that lets the soft cutoff distortion show through and allows a smooth transition to heavier clipping in cutoff with much louder notes.

http://www.mylespaul.com/forums/pedals/215005-rangemaster-clone.html