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History:
The Concorde+ Treble
Booster is housed in the new Vision Series enclosure design and
uses both silicon and germanium transistors in a unique
configuration to obtain the best tone qualities from the marriage.
When I first started designing pedals in 1961 I produced a Treble
Booster that was tried and used by my friends including Jimmy Page
who then played in local bands. The circuit configuration I used
was a standard textbook example but required careful attention to
biasing and selection of transistors to obtain the best from this
simple circuit. There were many subsequent commercial versions
produced in the 1960's of this type of circuit that followed after
the time I first designed mine and now I have designed and produced
a much more flexible and enhanced version of my early design. The
modern clones produced today of the ultra simple 1960 type treble
boosters lack in flexibility and in my opinion are of very limited
use. The Concorde + however departs from the clones and uses a
unique approach of combining a low noise class A silicon drive
circuit with passive tone shaping to drive a fully optimised
germanium treble booster. This results in giving the simple circuit
new life and explores its sonic boundaries to the maximum. It is
now possible to add drive and distortion with EQ before the treble
booster section .It is also possible to set the silicon drive
section to drive the treble booster section much harder than any
guitar pickup could ever do without any added distortion but with
the added feature or having EQ prior to the treble booster. So if
you want the qualities of soft germanium type distortion overload
characteristics that this circuit will produce or you want to
explore the more radical germanium distortion possibilities the
Concorde+ will oblige. The front panels controls of Drive, Tone and
Output control the many tone variations and brings the humble
treble booster forward to the future.
The Concorde+ comes in a brand new enclosure design with many
added extras to help the modern musician. Many players demand a
package that is more modern, flexible and pedal board friendly and
will welcome the additional features.
Concorde+ Front Panel Controls
DRIVE:
The operational window has been carefully adjusted to set
the gain of the silicon 1st stage to drive the treble booster
section with clean signal levels that are higher than those
obtained from the guitars pickups. When the drive is increased
from it's minimum setting the 1st stage will begin to distort and
you now are in the new territory of having smooth distortion
followed by EQ and then the treble booster section. This area of
operation is very useful as the germanium output stage is driven
harder. So it is possible to set the DRIVE control to produce clean
treble booster action with enhanced drive and EQ or have a
combination both silicon and germanium distortion with inter stage
EQ.This unique set up gives brand new life and tone variation.
TONE:
This controls the inter stage passive equalisation between
the 1st stage Silicon Drive section and the final Germanium treble
booster section. It has been carefully voiced to give a very
musical and useful tool when setting up the final desired tone.
OUTPUT:
This controls the final output level, which has enough
output level capability to overdrive the 1st stage of the amplifier
being used.
Concorde+ Features
MULTI-MODE OUTPUTS with
HARD WIRE BYPASS or TWO BUFFERED OUTPUTS
The Concorde+ has three
outputs, a true hard wire output plus two buffered outputs that can
drive long cable lengths with no high frequency loss. These two
buffered outputs are identical and are disconnected when the hard
wire output is being used. This means that you have a choice for
all possible performance or equipment situations whether you feel a
true hard wire output or buffered outputs will perform best. In
general the low output impedance of the buffer gives a lower noise
floor and a more punchy sound but now it's so easy to hear the
difference and make a real decision that is based on fact not
hype.
LED : An LED shows the status of
the effect. The LED also shows a low battery condition and will
fail to light in either status thus showing that battery
replacement is required.
RAPID BATTERY CHANGE
: No more screws
to loose!.. Slide the front panel back and there is the
battery. It could not be simpler or faster. See picture
below.
LONG BATTERY LIFE
: Exceptionally
low current consumption: Bypass Mode=1.18mA. Effect Mode=1.50mA
ensures an expected battery life of more than 150Hrs with alkaline
type batteries.
EXTERNAL POWER ADAPTER
/ SUPPLY : An
external AC adapter (not supplied) can be used and access is
through a standard DC power jack ( 2.1mm centre pin ) situated next
to the jack sockets. Internal onboard filtering ensures that
optimum low noise performance is maintained and diode protection
provides peace of mind in case of polarity setting mistakes.
Connection
protocol:It uses the standard negative centre pin connection
protocol used by many leading manufacturers.
Specifications:
9 volt DC. Regulated output is recommended.
Current rating:
50mA or more.
ERGONOMIC DESIGN /
PEDAL BOARD FRIENDLY : The position of the jack sockets and DC power jack are all
on the same side of the enclosure and face away from you thus
enabling the effect to be optimally positioned in pedal board
set-ups.
DIMENSIONS: Width 170 x Depth 112 x
Height 57mm. Weight : 618g with battery.
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