JHS Germanium Boost

The JHS Germanium Boost is a limited-edition treble booster pedal from JHS, built as a clone of the Dallas Rangemaster, the bare-bones germanium treble booster designed to sit atop an amp in the 1960s¹². Where the original Rangemaster offered nothing more than an on/off sliding switch and a volume potentiometer³, the JHS version adds a bypass footswitch and a two-way voicing toggle, keeping the single-knob simplicity players expect from the circuit¹.

The run was small and the parts were rarer still. All 700 units use a NOS black glass OC71 germanium transistor, sourced from a private stash in England⁴⁵. JHS found only around 750 transistors out of a few thousand purchased that fit the specs they wanted, which is roughly what it took to build the run⁵.

A Rangemaster-style treble booster with one gain dial

The Dallas Rangemaster that the Germanium Boost is based on was a deliberately minimal piece of gear: a treble booster meant to push a dark, non-master-volume tube amp into brighter, more sustaining territory. Vintage Guitar describes it as a "bare-bones effect designed to set atop an amp"², and its entire control surface was an on/off sliding switch and a single volume potentiometer³.

JHS kept that single-knob format. The Germanium Boost has one dial to control gain and one footswitch⁶, which makes it one of the simplest pedals in the JHS lineup. Gearnews notes that this kind of circuit "will work well with a tube amp that needs to be pushed harder and that is where they tend to excel"⁴. Delicious Audio describes the result as "blistering, sustaining guitar in the same vein as 'We Will Rock You'"¹.

For players comparing circuits, the Germanium Boost sits in a wider family of modern Rangemaster-inspired pedals, including the Master Effects Vintage Germanium Boost, the Anasounds Germanium Boost, and the BMF Effects GB Boost Germanium Booster, most of which add their own twists to the original two-control formula⁷⁸⁹.

The controls

The control set is minimal, but the toggle is what separates it from a straight reproduction⁴¹⁶:

The toggle is the practical difference from a vintage Rangemaster. One position gives the classic treble-boosted voicing associated with the original circuit; the other shifts the boosted frequency range for a thicker, more contemporary sound¹⁶. Guitar.com describes it as "a toggle switch that selects between a classic voicing and a thicker-sounding contemporary sound"⁶.

A limited run of 700 with OC71 transistors

The story of this pedal is largely a story about parts. The OC71 is a germanium transistor no longer in production, and JHS sourced a batch of NOS (new old stock) black glass examples from a private stash in England¹⁵. Out of a few thousand transistors purchased, only around 750 met the specs JHS wanted for the sound⁵.

That scarcity set the size of the run: 700 units, each built with one of the selected OC71 transistors⁴. The metal enclosure is finished in a similar shade of gray-green to that found on many of the original Rangemasters, a visual nod to the pedal's lineage⁵.

Videos

Click to load

Click to load

Click to load

News

Questions