The Mammoth Electronics J201 Boost is a boost pedal sold as a kit: you buy the parts and solder the pedal together yourself. It is built around the J201 transistor, which is where the name comes from, and it carries a single knob for control. Reviewers described it as a simple one-knob boost for an instrument's signal1. For players curious about what a clean boost can do on a board, it sits alongside the many ready-built options covered on the Boost Pedals page.
What it does
The J201 Boost is a clean boost: it raises the level of your signal without adding its own character. Mike B., reviewing the pedal for Pedal of the Day in March 2014, described the sound as "Extremely clean, just adding more of what's already there, without coloring your tone whatsoever"1.
That kind of boost has two common uses. Pushing an overdrive or distortion pedal harder is the classic one, and the reviewer put it to work exactly that way:
"I have been using it before my Overdrive pedals, to get a bit of extra crunch out of them, but it works well as an easy volume booster, too."
So in practice it works both before overdrive pedals for extra crunch and as a straightforward volume booster for solos or lifting a part in a mix1.
Build and enclosure
Because Mammoth sells the pedal as a kit, building it is part of the deal: "they sell you the pedal as a KIT and you get to build it yourself"1. That makes it a different proposition from a finished pedal, and it suits players who want a soldering project as much as a boost.
The finished unit is not a fragile experiment, though. The same review called it a "Solid enclosure, awesome graphics, the pedals here are built to last"1.
Videos
Mammoth Electronics (Mammoth Electronics)
Analogwise Pedals
Sources (1)
- Mammoth Electronics J201 Boost, Pedal of the Day, 2014-03-21