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History:
The Concorde+ Treble Booster
is housed in the 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 Roger Mayer first started designing pedals in 1961 he produced a Treble Booster that
was tried and used by his friends including Jimmy Page who then played in local bands. The
circuit configuration he 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 he first designed his and now he has designed
and produced a much more flexible and enhanced version of his early design.
The modern clones produced
today of the ultra simple 1960 type treble boosters lack in flexibility and in Roger
Mayer's 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 optimized 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 an
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 guitar's 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.
For more complete information please
download the manual:
Concorde
+ USER MANUAL
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.
Technical Description:
MODE 1: There is no jack plug inserted into the Hard Wire Output ( HW OUT1 ).
The input of the buffer is connected through switching contacts on this jack socket (HW
OUT1) to the foot switching output ( "full bypass" or "effect" ) and the two buffer
outputs ( BF OUT2 ) and ( BF OUT3 ) will thus follow the foot switching action. In this
"bypass mode" however the input of the buffer is only connected to the Input jack socket
of the unit and not to the Concorde circuit as well so it can be thought of as "full
bypass buffered".
MODE 2: When a jack is inserted into the Hard Wire Output (HW OUT1).
The input of the buffer is disconnected and no output signal will appear at the two
buffered outputs. The Hard Wire Output ( HW OUT1 ) will follow the foot switching output (
"full bypass" or "effect" ). In this "bypass mode" the Hard Wire Output ( HW OUT1 ) is
directly connected to the Input jack socket and to nothing else in the unit and is in
"full bypass" - "true bypass" or "hard wire bypass" mode as the input is directly
connected to the output through the foot switch and to nothing else.
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.
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
6.7" x Depth 4.4" x Height 2.25". Weight : 1.4 lbs. with battery.
(Width 170 x Depth 112 x Height 57mm. Weight : 618g with battery.) |
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