Silicon Red Rooster Treble Booster

[HamishR]

I have long loved the sound of a good treble booster and have owned many variations.  Since discovering this site I have built a few Red Rooster treble boosters and they are probably my favourite of the genre.  They're not far from the original Rangemaster circuit.

But sometimes building with germanium transistors can be a pain (although oddly enough my latest Ge Red Rooster was a breeze) and they can tend to be noisy.  So I decided to try building a silicon version to see how close I could get to a Ge version.  And as it turns out you can get very close indeed.  With the layout below - which is verified - I can get very, very close to the sound of my Ge RRs.  Germanium transistors do seem to have a little extra magic in the mids but overall I would happily use the silicon version for gigs or recording - it's obviously a lot less temperamental and is substantially quieter.  I primarily use it as a boost for an already slightly dirty sound. As you can see, the differences are minor.

I considered getting rid of the trimmer but it does alter the sound in a subtle way - you can go from hard and tight to slightly looser and more splatty.  It's subtle but useful enough to keep it there I reckon.



Thanks big time to Mark for the original layout!

[Travis]

I’ve seen David Main do Si Roosters a few times. I want to say his transistor of choice was the elusive Magnatec BC109 but don’t remember off the top of my head.

He did a batch of green Si Roosters and another called the Chicken Coop which had a Ge side and an Si side

[HamishR]

I should try other transistors.  I have tried some higher hfe transistors but they don't sound so good - they just get too fuzzy but not in a good way.  The 2N2222A reacts much how the MP38s I use do.  It's pretty much a clean boost, but a very usable clean boost.  It pushes an OD or broken-up amp in a cool way.

If the trannies broke up more I could see a reason to have a Ge side and a Si side, but as these are relatively clean I can't see the point.

I've tried and built a gazillion different boosters but the Red Rooster remains my fave. It's such a small circuit it's easy to put in a box with an OD too.

[atomicwombat]

Has anyone built one of these using this layout? I might be crazy, but are both legs of the 22uf capacitor going to ground?

[Marbles]

Yeah you're right. I think if you swap that 22uf with the bridge, and put it upside down. Then move the 47uf 1 position to the right (to column 11). If then you make a cut in column 10, row 2 (so you have the 22uf left from the cut and the 47uf right from the cut), you should be fine.


Disclaimer: I have never made a layout, so try at own risk lol

[Travis]

You could move the anode of the 22uf to the row that the emitter is on and keep the cathode where it is

[Marbles]

See, that's why I can't/don't do layouts haha. Thanks for correcting me Travis

[HamishR]

D'oh!!  Sorry guys, I've been away for a few weeks.  This is the corrected layout.  Don't know how I stuffed that up - I built it the right way!