Ugly Truth: Jet City Buffered Line Driver

I picked up a pedal a while back because I was temped by the price. For less than $40 I picked up a Jet City Buffered Line Driver. I've always been interest by Jet City's offerings. The designs are pretty impressive and the costs are rather low, so of coarse they are interesting. Jet City doesn't seem to design very much. What they seem to do is take a licensed circuit and lower the manufacturing costs by taking to the far east. This seems like a rock solid plan to sell gear to cash strapped musicians. However, few guitarist are using their stuff. Why is that?

The Line Driver Is Designed By Non-Other Than JHS

Yes, no matter how you feel about them, there are tons of people pay top dollar for JHS pedals. The average price of any pedal is about $200, some go for more than $300 and yet a $40 pedal design by the same minds that brought you the Color Box (one of the most heralded pedals of the recent past) gets overlooked. The JHS buffer sells for over $70. Considering that the Jet City pedal is a buffer, boost, and A/B, it seemed to be a whole lot more pedal for your money. JHS designed both of them. They may even share the same buffer circuit.

The Boost Is Clean...ish

Yes, it is a very simple boost. One knob is all it takes. No tone control, which puts you at the mercy of the circuit. This one is voiced a little fat. It's very transparent but it tames the highs. When using pedals like the Klon and other treble heavy pedals, a boost can send your tone into 'ice pick' territory very quickly. A single knob makes it foot-friendly. I paired this pedal with an AC15 with a Top Boost channel. It was practically the only thing you'd needed to have a load tones at your disposal. The A/B switches channels and the boost hit the pre-amp to add some overdrive. The fact that it's buffered lets you travel far from the amp without worry about your cable's impedance

Conclusion:

This pedal plays nice with a pedal board and all by it's self. It's a useful tool and one that has found a steady place on my board. With the popularity of true bypass pedals, buffers are becoming something people are starting to consider. Before, Boss and Ibanez pedals provided the buffers. Now, people get very particular about where and what kind of buffer they use. There is nothing wrong with that. In fact,. it's good that people are taking control over their tone. It's important to under just what happens to your signal as it passes through all those feet of cable. I can't speak for everything that Jet City makes, but this pedal is solid choice.

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The Ugly Truth About Your Boost Pedal

If you asked someone to name the pedal on their board, chances are that you'll hear a lot about distortion, overdrive, filters, reverb, delay, and maybe even a fancy programming or looping pedal. Chances are, that person won't wax poetic about their boost pedal. Sure, there are a lot of pedals out there that promise a "clean boost", but what is that really? Isn't that just turning up the volume on you guitar? Maybe you want something to drive the front end of you amp a little harder, but isn't that why we have overdrives? So say you don't want your signal clip before it goes to your amp. You want the sound that your amp makes when pushed past it's clip. Fair enough. Do you need a special pedal to do that? ...eh

So you want a straight path your amp. Chances are your no a bid "pedal" guy. So why not set your amp up to overdrive (turning up your level and lowing your master)? Maybe because your amp is too simple to have a level and master. So you're one of "those guys". Your amp came from Sear and Roebuck's back when it was a mail-order and it only have two knobs and one broke off. But this is the best amp and the only thing that you truly love. You just want to torture the tubes enough to make it scream. Your the type of guy that needs a boost pedal. Right? ...eh

So you have to have a boost pedal. You want some ridiculous box with one know that only turns up the volume on your signal. The simpler that better, right? that is your motto. After all, that amp of your has only got one knob and it's the best. Your amp is a relic and your ideas about "boost" pedal is a little screwy, but hang in there, I'll explain.

You boost pedal is basically the same thing as an overdrive, except that they've removed the clipping circuit and your are just left with a boosted signal. Great right? Maybe not. Everyone loves a good TS-9 tube screamer, and everyone is familiar with the big fat "mid-hump" that you get when you kick one on. (if you're not then you must be very board, why are you reading this?) So the pedal effect the shape, tone, color of your tone. In the same way, all these boost boxes do the same thing. Maybe its not as noticeable, or maybe you just like the way it changes things, Think all those wonder sounds are made by your amp being pushed? Maybe they are, or maybe its that pedal you just hit.

So you must boost, but your boost pedal is just a neutered dirt box that you can't control as much as said dirt box because they took the "tone knob off the thing! Don't worry. I wouldn't leave you hanging. I have an answer for you. You might not like it, but its the truth. Behold, your new boost pedal!

 Yes. The lowly Boss GE-7 Equalizer. Vile and reproachable as it is. Boss the brand of pedal that everyone started with and now no one will admit to using. I too have started limiting the number of boss pedals on my board. The humble GE-7 without as much as a 3PDT switch is the king of all boosts. The pedal does what it claims. It can cut or boost your frequencies, but it has a feature that not all EQ do. The level slide is actually the star of the show here. Now I know what you are saying, "I've used this pedal and its too noisy to boost." Ok, I hear you, but I raise you this: I once got my self into modding pedals. opening these things up and fiddling with their insides. There is a lot of potential in this box, but wait it get better. I was once half way into a mod, meaning I had removed all of the pieces of the pedal that were to be replaced, then just for kicks, I powered it on and played through it. It sounded identical to another GE-7 that had already been through the mod and it was missing bits of its insides. I'm not a electrical engineer (if you couldn't tell) but to this day I can't remember which one has the mod and which one is running around with less than a full deck of cards. And they are both dead silent. So for no more than you'd pay for a boutique boost and a little be of stomp-box-operation you can have a flat boost, treble boost, bass (fat) boost, mid boost, mid scoop or low-fi pedal. In short, friends don't let friends buy boost pedal.