Treblemaker booster

For those who want some extra juice
to make the amp scream.

The Treblemaker is a booster designed around a single ECC83/12AX7 running at true high voltage.

Featuring a Drive and Volume controls, the pedal gently breaks up adding upper harmonics and delivers enough output to overdrive the amp’s early stages as well, creating bold compressed mids and a breathing upper-end cutting through the mix.

The Treblemaker is dedicated to those who love the tone and attitude of their amp: it delivers an extra kick when the spotlight is on, and makes the amp sound sharper and meaner.

It’s a “bluesy” sounding pedal – not heavy at all – and you won’t get a solo lead distortion out of the Treblemaker itself, but it can make your amp do it.

Drive control offers a hyper-smooth transition from sparkling clean to throaty overdrive, with pronounced attack, stunning dynamics and rounded-off transients peaks thanks to the tube’s natural compression, features that make the Treblemaker suitable for indie rock, blues and jazz.

Volume control can set the output level high enough to push the early stages of the amp into overdrive, even when Drive is clean.

Quick Start

Rival Amps came up with the Treblemaker after boosting the amp’s crunch channel with the Hotburst: it was simply overkill, due to the excess of gain stages, intermodulation and compression.

Downsizing to one valve, other than meeting lower gain requirements, means fitting into a smaller 125B enclosure and preserving a good SNR when feeding a high-gain amp.

High-voltage on valve plates translates into a high headroom, therefore the transition from pure clean to overdrive via the DRIVE control is hyper-smooth.

The output is in-phase and buffered via a 100% transparent depletion mosfet, operating in full linearity, that provides low output impedance and maximum headroom, without affecting the tone at all.

Main features:

  • Internal true high voltage delivered to valves plates like on a real amplifier
  • Two”cascade” gain stages built around a single ECC83/12AX7 – Tung Sol or JJ included
  • DRIVE, VOLUME control knobs
  • Over-sized fine components and high quality PCB.
  • Soft-start for heater, to extend valve life and reduce inrush current
  • Output load up to 10KΩ line level, without any appreciable loss.
  • Works at 12VDC/350mA center positive, from an external power adapter. Not included.
  • Fully hand crafted, including soldering, machining, graphics and raw finishing
  • 1 hour tested and cooled down before shipping using recycled packaging
  • 2-years warranty

Works best on:

  • Amp’s crunch/lead channel to boost solos. [Rock/Metal]
  • Rhythm guitar on clean amps [Indie rock]
  • Neck pickup for a rich, bright bluesy tone [Blues/Jazz]

There may be slight variations in cosmetics over time, without notice, due to changes in suppliers’ components production and availability. Each item is unique, entirely hand-made and hand-finished to a raw look. Discolorations and small dents are expected, as the result of moulding and machining process, which are not to be considered manufacturing defects.

Quickstart guide