- Build Rating
Here's a PCB that's been sitting in my "to build" pile for over two years. Is is the Dragons Breath Boost, based on the Catalinbread Naga Viper Boost. The Naga Viper is of course an evolution of the Rangemaster Treble Boost.
What motivated me to finally build this was reading about the Dinosaural Cogmeister. The Cogmeister is a three-stage drive with fixed-ordering of the gain stages. In order, from signal input to signal out is:
The demos sound pretty good. But what stood out to me wasn't so much the tone, but how well the stages are put together. For someone who gigs in a covers band, where the songs are all over the map, versatility is needed. And maybe that person doesn't want to go the digital modeling route, and maybe he also doesn't want a spaceship control-sized pedal board... for that person, each pedal needs to offer a lot of bang for the buck. From what I read about the Cogmeister, that seems to be exactly the role the designer (Dan Coggins) had in mind when he built it.
I set out to get something similar in concept to the Cogmeister. More specifically, I'm looking for something that can serve in that first stage role, something that works as booth a low gain drive and/or a boost. The second stage will be the modified Animals Diamond Peak drive, and the third stage will be the Mercurcial Boost. Since the Cogmeister's first stage is known to be a single transistor boost, and also it's been hinted that it's similar to the Rangemaster, I figured the Dragons Breath Boost/Naga Viper is likely close enough.
So, long-winded, rambling intro aside, here's my Dragons Breath Boost. I believe this circuit has been out for quite a while, and is reasonably popular. (I actually originally bought it to pair with the Covert Overdrive (Catalinbread DLS Mk III), which I still haven't built.) It's super simple. The BOM calls for a 2N2222A transistor, but I used a PN2222A. My research suggested they are nearly identical, and in this low voltage, low current role, should perform identically. Being a sparse board with few components allowed me to use some oversized capacitors from older projects, which was a nice perk. I didn't have a B1k pot, so I used a B2k pot with a 2k resistor across pins 1 and 3.
The lower PCB is my buffered electrical bypass module.
I can't remember where that enclosure came from, I think it's a hammertone green from Antique Electronic Supply, but I'm not 100% sure about that. The finish is a Sunnyscopa laser jet waterslide decal.
Everything worked perfectly on first power-on. On my first playthrough, I was super stoked, to the point of kicking myself for not building it sooner. On the second playthrough, I found it still sounded great as a boost/pusher of an already-driven sound. But I go back and forth on how it sounds into a clean amp. My understanding is that with the Range and Heat knobs fully clockwise, it should be sonically the same as a Rangemaster - and that definitely does not sound good into a clean amp! Specifically, the Range knob adds in more bass as its turned counter-clockwise. So to be used as a standalone light drive, you definitely need to dial in some bass. But even then, some of the "peakiness" of the treble remains, particularly with a single coil bridge pickup. Though rolling back the guitar's tone knob a bit gets it sounding pretty darn good.
So, absolutely great pedal in its intended role (as a boost for a dirty amp or drive pedal). And definitely seems to have some potential as a standalone edge-of-breakup pedal.
What motivated me to finally build this was reading about the Dinosaural Cogmeister. The Cogmeister is a three-stage drive with fixed-ordering of the gain stages. In order, from signal input to signal out is:
- Two-knob, one transistor boost, with a bass cut (this is assumed to be some kind of tweaked Rangemaster-type circuit)
- The Tube Bender circuit
- A final two-transistor mid-focused boost (presumably for solo boost)
The demos sound pretty good. But what stood out to me wasn't so much the tone, but how well the stages are put together. For someone who gigs in a covers band, where the songs are all over the map, versatility is needed. And maybe that person doesn't want to go the digital modeling route, and maybe he also doesn't want a spaceship control-sized pedal board... for that person, each pedal needs to offer a lot of bang for the buck. From what I read about the Cogmeister, that seems to be exactly the role the designer (Dan Coggins) had in mind when he built it.
I set out to get something similar in concept to the Cogmeister. More specifically, I'm looking for something that can serve in that first stage role, something that works as booth a low gain drive and/or a boost. The second stage will be the modified Animals Diamond Peak drive, and the third stage will be the Mercurcial Boost. Since the Cogmeister's first stage is known to be a single transistor boost, and also it's been hinted that it's similar to the Rangemaster, I figured the Dragons Breath Boost/Naga Viper is likely close enough.
So, long-winded, rambling intro aside, here's my Dragons Breath Boost. I believe this circuit has been out for quite a while, and is reasonably popular. (I actually originally bought it to pair with the Covert Overdrive (Catalinbread DLS Mk III), which I still haven't built.) It's super simple. The BOM calls for a 2N2222A transistor, but I used a PN2222A. My research suggested they are nearly identical, and in this low voltage, low current role, should perform identically. Being a sparse board with few components allowed me to use some oversized capacitors from older projects, which was a nice perk. I didn't have a B1k pot, so I used a B2k pot with a 2k resistor across pins 1 and 3.
The lower PCB is my buffered electrical bypass module.
I can't remember where that enclosure came from, I think it's a hammertone green from Antique Electronic Supply, but I'm not 100% sure about that. The finish is a Sunnyscopa laser jet waterslide decal.
Everything worked perfectly on first power-on. On my first playthrough, I was super stoked, to the point of kicking myself for not building it sooner. On the second playthrough, I found it still sounded great as a boost/pusher of an already-driven sound. But I go back and forth on how it sounds into a clean amp. My understanding is that with the Range and Heat knobs fully clockwise, it should be sonically the same as a Rangemaster - and that definitely does not sound good into a clean amp! Specifically, the Range knob adds in more bass as its turned counter-clockwise. So to be used as a standalone light drive, you definitely need to dial in some bass. But even then, some of the "peakiness" of the treble remains, particularly with a single coil bridge pickup. Though rolling back the guitar's tone knob a bit gets it sounding pretty darn good.
So, absolutely great pedal in its intended role (as a boost for a dirty amp or drive pedal). And definitely seems to have some potential as a standalone edge-of-breakup pedal.
