Regarding boosters - WHAT A LOAD OF CRAP!
People try to convince themselves that one booster is better than another.. Fuller has his Fat boost, Vex has his Hard on, Sweet has his Booster, there are too many to mention.
How about this - try doing some a/b tests with a BLINDFOLD. It's just a stupid signal boost. People act like there's some kind of mojo in a signal boost. Yes, your amp will distort more when driven with a hotter signal, but if you really want to judge these pedals, judge them by how well they're built. Assuming they're built well, THEY'RE ALL THE SAME. Yeah - I'm sure you think you know more than me, and you'll put me in my place. But next time you're checking out booster pedals, bring a BLINDFOLD and some $$ to gamble.
Booster pedals -pfffft.. yeah, right... How about this - get a killer tube amp, set it up for some a lot of overdrive and use your guitar's vol knob. There's your boost.

Voice of reason

Just what is the load of crap?
The fact that you can't tell one from the other or that they are just a "stupid signal boost"? You are correct on one account and that's that they ARE just signal booster's. No Mojo or magic, you pick the one that does it for you. Or not. Everyone has their own "flavor". Although they are not all the same the Fulltone if I'm not mistaken uses FET's as the active component, we as the Z Vex uses a Mosfet (I think),and mine uses the bi-polar style transistor (very similar to the old LPB-1) and was adapted from an old National semiconductor aplications note. So they are not all the same.
Keep in mind that every one doesn't play through an amp that allows that type of gain without some type of pedal to accomplish this. Try turning your guitar up and getting that sound without some kind of boost with any Fender Blackface amp of decent wattage. Ain't gonna happen.

Bob

That was a weird post! I have lots of different boosters. They all sound TOTALLY DIFFERENT! I guess I'm lucky my ears can tell the difference huh. I currently have the MJM Clean Boost, a Z Vex SHO, an RX ELEC Germ, a Klon, a Boss GE7 eq , a Boss LS2 line selector with level controls, and probably others that I'm not remembering. Once again , they're all different and pretty much anyone who's played guitar for awhile could tell that....

ERIC

Whether or not I can tell the difference is irrelevant at this point. I personally like using boosters and don't find them useless. Here's why:

I use a 16 watt Class A amp as my main amp (non-master volume) and most of the time, the volume's all the way up. If I want tighter, heavier tube saturation, I turn on my boost pedal.

Sure if I wanted overdrive, I could avoid using the boost and just back off my guitar volume but the point is that there are sounds I can't achieve unless I'm using a boost to hit an already cranked tube amp harder.

If I play through my '68 Super Reverb, the only way I'm getting saturation without a boost is if I turn the amp to a ridiculous volume. No thanks.

Hey ericb or anyone, I was wondering how the Boss GE-7 graphic EQ would work as a signal boost using a Strat into a Super Reverb. I love the sound samples of the Sweetsound but am currently running out of $$ and space on my pedalboard. I'm thinking of the EQ as a multi-purpose pedal, will it give me more natural drive by boosting the output level or is there more to it than that? Thanks!

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Originally posted by paul d:
I'm thinking of the EQ as a multi-purpose pedal, will it give me more natural drive by boosting the output level or is there more to it than that? Thanks!

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Not really. You can use EQ's to boost and you can boost certain frequencies and/or attenuate others. I use my Booster pedal but I also use (don't laugh) a cheezy "Brownsville?" (I think) EQ, it's a total piece of junk, but I use it on only 2 songs and it's run through a loop bypass box. It gets the job done. You may not have the amount of boost available as you would from a dedicated pre amp though, not sure.

Bob

Ericb, I didn't even know MJM made a clean boost. Can you elaborate on how it sounds compared to others. I'm currently using a Fulltone Fat Boost, mostly because it works well with my Gibson Chet Atkins SST and accoustic live.

I'm only taking a guess but maybe ericb meant the MM/Morgan Miller boost pedal. The initials are very similar & Morgan Miller does make a boost.

The idea of a boost makes a lot of sense to me. I tried an SHO & wow! It's such a simple thing but it can make such an improvement in the sound.

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Originally posted by Bob Sweet:
Not really. You can use EQ's to boost and you can boost certain frequencies and/or attenuate others.

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Thanks Bob, but please clarify: "Not really, an EQ won't work well as a booster" or "Not really, there's not more to it". I guess I'm thinking that I can boost the mids/upper-mids with the EQ to make my leads cut through better out of my Super Reverb and boost the signal at the same time for more natural drive so I don't have to rely on my OD pedals so much. Are the signal boosters doing something more sophisticated with the signal that gives it that fat warm tone?

By the way, your sound samples on the Sweetsound are the best I've heard for any pedal, great tone and playing and I listened to it about 10 times in a row! Sounds like a great pedal for BF Fenders and Strats like I play, it may be just what I'm looking for

I understand that the Dallas Rangemaster & its "clones" add a subtle fuzz or whatever term you like in the higher frequencies. These aren't strictly boosters in that sense, so my comment may have very little to do with your question.

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Originally posted by paul d:
Thanks Bob, but please clarify: "Not really, an EQ won't work well as a booster" or "Not really, there's not more to it".

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Not Really, there's not much more to it.

I think a lot of that "what gives it a warm fat tone" has a lot to do with the fact that the signal is brought to optimum level before it even reaches the amp, and your ear, hears things in a log fashion. Kind of like the "loudness" button on a home stereo, that compensates for the drop in volume by boosting the highs and lows. Here though you are bringing it up in level and the overall effect is more highs and lows are percieved.
Then there is also any tone shaping that is being done by the booster itself.
Thanks for the kind words on the sound samples, but keep in mind that the amp was at the verge of breakup to begin with. And it was LOUD. But to answer your question, yes you can use an EQ as a boost. An ideal one would be with several presets for different EQ curves for different sounds without having to screw around with those little sliders on a dark stage in between songs.

Bob

Hey there, just got back from band practice and noticed 2 questions were asked of me but both were answered, and both answered just like I would have! The Boss Ge7 works really good in front of a clean amp or even better in the fx loop of any amp. In a hi-gain amp you can get as much boost as you want out of it, but if you put it in front of hi-gain it's too noisy, as are many boosts. Also I'm sorry but didn't mean MJM clean boost.. Just Like Dave said it's a Morgan Miller I bought used but it works great. Gets rid of a bit of bass but in some cases that actually tightens up your sound.. I love all these pedals, but still really haven't found a great boost for a hi-gain amp without an fx loop. It seems to me everytime you put a boost in front of a preamp you just saturate it more and might possibly add greasiness and more Harmonics (like all these pedals I've named will do) but you don't get enough of a volume boost. ERIC