Black Country Customs TI Boost

The TI Boost is a signature boost pedal made by Black Country Customs, the pedal arm of Laney, and it carries the name of Tony Iommi, whose signature it is. Announced at NAMM 2019, it was the company's first pedal¹. Guitar.com describes it as adding "a two-band EQ, a mids switch and separate volume and drive controls for a very tweakable take on the classic boost"².

What it does

At its heart the TI Boost is, in the words of That Pedal Show's Dan and Mick, "basically a treble booster stroke overdrive"³. They describe the circuit as a sonic recreation of a modified Rangemaster, the classic British treble booster³. Where a straightforward treble booster usually offers little more than a gain and a tone-shaping capacitor, the TI Boost layers extra control on top.

The controls, as the That Pedal Show presenters walk through them³:

• Volume and drive, separate controls for output level and the amount of boost
• High and low EQ controls, which let you "actually shake the EQ a bit"
• Mids switch, which gives different voicings for the mid-range

The EQ section behaves more like an active EQ than the simple capacitor switching of a traditional treble booster, as Mick guessed on the show³. The switch itself, they explain, "gives you different capacitors on the output, so different low-pass filters"³, changing how much top end the pedal keeps as it pushes the front of an amp.

How it sounds

That Pedal Show ran the TI Boost into a Laney amp, and Mick's verdict was unambiguous: "for me it just probably the best rock sound we've ever had here"³. As a boost into a driven amp it sits in the family of boost pedals and overdrive pedals, and the extra EQ and mid voicings are what set it apart from a one-knob treble booster.

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On That Pedal Show, Dan and Mick demo the TI Boost into a Laney amp, identify it as a sonic recreation of a modified Rangemaster treble booster, walk through its high and low EQ controls, the mid-range voicing switch and the volume and drive controls, and conclude it is closer to an active EQ than a simple capacitor-switching treble booster³.

Videos

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