A Little Boost: Making Your Guitar Sing With One Knob
08-16, 11:30–12:30 (US/Eastern), Workshop A / Tobin 219

In this workshop, you will be building a JFET-based clean boost using a J201 transistor. This circuit amplifies your guitar signal without changing its tone too much - just more of your sound, louder and richer. You’ll bias the JFET transistor so it sits in its sweet spot - ready to take your guitar’s signal and gently boost it. A few capacitors clean up the power and remove unwanted DC. The potentiometer controls the output level, so you can go from a subtle push to a strong lead boost with just one knob. By the end of this build, you’ll not only have a killer boost circuit - you’ll also understand how and why it works. So come by and bring your tone to life!

Joe Vella owns a small instrument and effects company called Electro-Faustus. Founded in 2008, they make synths, Photo Theremins and other assorted devices. In 2020, Joe also founded a hackerspace on LI called the Evil Electronics Klub. The guitar booster project is an outgrowth of that club.

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