germanium booster

[kirshman]

Looking for a good germanium boost.  Was looking at the keeley Java.  Just looking for opinions on what are some of your favorites out there.

[rocket88]

Well if you want a java boost, you can do it yourself. If I'm not mistaken it's just a rangemaster with a switchable input cap to change it from a treble boost, to a mid & treble boost, to more of a full range boost when in the bass position.

[kirshman]

Yeah, I'm planning on building the boost.  I was just wondering If people had a favorite one to build that might be better.

[rocket88]

ahh, well from my experience, i built a rangemaster, but changed a the input and output caps to make it more of a full boost for my bass and i love it. the only problem with the rangemaster and those that are built off it are a little noisey. for me it wasn't enough to bother me, but something to keep in mind.

i haven't built many boosts, mostly OD's and Fuzzes, so i'm sure others may have more insight. with minimal changes, i'm pretty sure you can turn almost any Si boost into a Ge boost, just by adjusting the bias resistors, and if you're using a PNP transistor you'ld have to reverse any of the electrolyics, and reverse the polarity for the power to the board.

[M. Spencer]

Rangemaster was my second build and I still love it. That said, you might want to look into the DAM Red Rooster.

[strassercaster]

i did a Dam red Rooster and absolutly love it. i do plan on doing a java though in the near future. listen to videos on you tube. i thought that the red rooster sounded better on the few videos i watched. However videos dont tell the whole story . I still want to build a jave. Oh by the way i have made 5 red roosters this month for freinds that love it. ha ha

[kirshman]

So I built myself a rooster and dang, I love it.  I have a friend which has his heart set on a Java boost though.  I'm confused about the two trimmers on there though.  If I understand right, I'm supposed to set the collector to 7.2v, but what's the other trimmer for?  I'm still pretty new to all this, but feel like I'm learning something new on almost all of my builds.