The GoosterBooster

The idea for the GoosterBooster came after Allard Gosens, guitarist for Fat Time and Henkus and often referred to as "the Goose" or "Gooster" was playing one of my never fully finished buids which losely resembles an MXX dist.+. When thinking about what to do with such a circuit a thought back of the Jet part of a Coron "Jet Flanger & Filter Matrix". This Jet, basically a distorting booster as well runs at 18 volts supply power because of the SAD1024 BBD chip used for the flanger's. This provides a lot of possible headroom.

As more often seen (it's a great idea!) the option was added to switch between various clipping diodes which all have their own characteristic clipping behaviour.
While playing around with this the thought came that if a 3-position (on-off-on) toggle switch was used this could provide an extra option. By making use of component characteristic based switching a third set of clipping diodes can be selected by placing the switch in the "off" position.

Furthermore while developing the GoosterBooster it was kept in mind that the circuit should be usable with a wide range af amplifiers. This means that it should suit the Metal Guys just as well as the Fender sparkle fans. Therefore a simple highcut tone control was added.

When running the first initial tests with the GoosterBooster it was expected that the various diode select modes would cause too much level difference when switching between them. Therefore diode clipping level gain compensation was added to correct these level differences. By doing so the sonic characters of the diodes come much more audible as they're not masked by the level differences when running uncompensated.

GoosterBooster Tech Spec's:

- Power Supply:....... 9Vdc battery or 9-18 volts DC adapter (center negative)
- Current Consumption:.......Approx 10 mA
- Clipping Modes:....... Ge (Germanium Diode) LED (red LED's) or SI (Sillicon diode's)
- Bypass:........True Bypass
- Control's:.........Gain, Tone, Level and clipping mode select.