Analog Man Beano Boost MINI

This is the Analog Man Beano Boost, a simple looking yet effective pedal.

This pedal is based on the 1960s British Dallas Rangemaster, which was best at the time to give a treble and gain boost to the dark British amps. This allowed them to get a sound more in tune with the time, as guitars were starting to become a loud, bold, lead instrument. This pedal is a type of BOOSTER, not really a distortion pedal nor a clean boost- it does modify your sound quite a bit. It excites certain frequencies and pushes your amp to allow it to create rich tube distortion. The pedal colors your tone, with a crunchy overdrive, boosting certain frequencies, and warming the tone with NOS germanium transistors. It does not have a lot of compression and sustain like most OD pedals, but a more raw, open sound.

This pedal has three tone settings from the tone switch- Center is a treble boost, the same as the original Dallas Rangemaster. UP is a fuller-frequency mid range boost (MID setting). Down is a LOW range, also quite a full frequency sound. Optionally we can install a push/pull switch (built into the volume knob) for 2 tone selections (treble and mids) but this option is not as good so we rarely build them.

The Beano Boost is spectacular into an amp that is already cranked up pretty well. It will also work well into a clean amp, but you probably need to turn the volume on the pedal up, to make the tone thicker by hitting the amp harder and making it work more.

At 9:00 the Beano Boost is unity gain and may not sound very special into a clean amp. At 12:00 it starts to boost the volume and get thicker. At 3:00 it should be waking your tubes up like a passing jet plane.

So if you use a clean amp, it's not something you can just turn on and get a great sound at the same volume. However most of the time when you want more crunch you want more volume, so it may work out fine.

The John Mayall Blues Breakers album is often credited as the first major use of the Les Paul guitar with a crunchy, distorting Marshall amp, which would become an icon in the following decade and it still one of the most popular sounds with today's bands. Eric Clapton plugged his '60 Les Paul sunburst into a combination Marshall amp with two 12" speakers (now called the "bluesbreakers" model!). In addition to those two pieces of equipment, many people believe that Eric also plugged into a Dallas Rangemaster on a few of these tracks to get his unique tone.

Our BEANO BOOST features:

True Bypass switching with minimal popping.
LED for on/off status
NOS Germanium Transistor chosen for low noise and best tone.
Three-way, short and sturdy toggle switch for tone selection:
Middle: "HI" Standard Dallas Rangemaster tone, treble enhanced.
Up: MIDs, more of a full range boost, great for Fender guitars!
Down: LOW, full range sound with a bit more bassy setting.
Optional PUSH PULL volume pot allows two tone settings:

Down: "HI" Standard Dallas Rangemaster tone, treble enhanced. Up: MIDS, more of a full range boost, great for Fender guitars!
* This can be reversed at order time if desired, or changed to MID and LOW settings.
Volume Control allows substantial boost.

Can boost volume quite a bit. Has about the same output level ON and OFF with the vol knob set at 9:00. At 11:00 there is about a 10dB boost, which sounds twice as loud. At 12:00 there is a 13dB boost, and up all the way is about an 18dB boost which is nearly twice as loud as it was at 11:00.
Durable Grey Hammertone (like original) powdercoated cast alloy case.
SIZE : 2.5" wide x 4.75" long x 1.5" tall not including switches, etc.
Silk Screened graphics as seen on the pedal at the very top of the page.
Circuit hand-wired point to point like the original. No circuit board used. I won't claim this is better than using a quality circuit board, but it works very well for this pedal. It does takes us more time to build them.
*** CAUTION : using a daisy chained (shared) power supply on the Beano Boost can be very noisy. Best to use it's own supply, or run one output from an ISOLATED power supply (Voodoo Lab, T Rex, etc) into the Beano Boost for less noise.
This pedal uses only 5mA of power when on (LED) and barely any power when off (under .2mA!) so the battery will last hundreds of hours.
We usually run the BEANO BOOST directly into the input of your tube amp, with no buffers (i.e. tuners, or non-true bypass pedals) in the signal path. Most people have found they work best near the very beginning of your signal chain. Like the Fuzz Face, the Beano Boost MUST NOT have a buffered pedal in front of it. Something like a Boss pedal, even off, will make the Beano Boost sound VERY trebly and thin. Buffered pedals are OK after the Beano Boost if necessary.
Cleans up really well when you back down your volume control!