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ever have so many gained so
much from so little—the Dallas
Rangemaster falls squarely within the
old school of effects where players were
happy to have something, anything as
a tone enhancer. These circuits used
mythical
germanium
components
because silicon semiconductors were
but a glimmer in the eye of engineers
everywhere. Oftentimes, these old
circuits used very few parts, and
there’s little else simpler than the
original Dallas Rangemaster. Including
the potentiometer, there is a total of
nine components in the Rangemaster.
Unfortunately, one of these is a mythical
germanium transistor, and your nerdy
DIY friends have often lamented at the
inconsistency of these components—
they’re sensitive to heat, the gain and
leakage are all over the place, and
they’re expensive. Buying them in bulk
is often thought of as the genesis of
the term “mixed bag.” Furthermore,
original Rangemasters are positiveground effects, switching the positive
and negative power terminals—it’s
madness! Up is down, down is up; dogs
and cats, living together! Fear not,
curious DIY reader, you can and will
make one of these.
Let’s go down the list of famous treble
booster users: Eric Clapton, Brian May,
Tony Iommi, Ritchie Blackmore, Martin
Barre, Marc Bolan and others. These
players, much like yourself soon, used
it to push the front end of their amps
for a lovely overdriven tone that made
solos jump out of a mix. The original
came in a “table-top” enclosure with
no footswitch, instead these pedals sat
on top of players’ amps and had to be
activated via a toggle switch. Luckily,
we’re not going to do this. The originals
were battery-powered, and we’re not
doing that either. You may have heard
that positive-ground circuits like this
one can be powered only by battery.
This is false. By wiring a DC power jack
in reverse, players can power these
effects with an ISOLATED power supply.
Daisy-chaining with a pedal like this will
cause some serious damage. That said,
there’s a disclaimer in play here:
Neither I, nor Tone Report Weekly
bears any responsibility for any kind
of personal or property damage that
may occur as a result of the instructions
provided herein. Legal mumbojumbo aside, we ask that readers
be familiar with a soldering iron and
its accompanying safety procedures
before trying anything listed here.
Furthermore, if your build doesn’t
work, you may need to troubleshoot
it; I built the pedal according to these
instructions and it works, so I know the
instructions are correct.
ToneReport.com
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