NPD - Xotic EP Booster
 

What an unsung hero. Love the thing. It elevates everything. I guess I didn’t realize how much it can add, certainly a lot more than volume. Also less of me babysitting my Bassbreaker fiddling with gain structure. It is great for making a non-cranked amp sound like one. I recemtly bookended my board with this and a TU-3. It’s all coming together, until it all changes!

Congrats! Have you dealved into delays yet...

Boss DD-7. Love it also. My brother any time I mentioned guitars said “Dude get a delay, its a game changer.” He was right.

The EP is a really useful little pedal. Baxandall tone controls (cut or boost), small but useful amount of gain, big chunk of clean boost.

I probably use this more than anything else, with a Naga Viper a close second.

Are we all talking about the same pedal? The EP booster has a volume knob and a couple of internal dip switches. Sounds like you're describing the RC Booster. Or I'm way off base...

Doh! Yes I'm getting them mixed up.

EP Booster is a wonderful pedal, especially for single coil guitars. Somehow adds a fattening and a sparkle.

A great “always on” pedal too. I used it at the front of my chain as a compressor of sorts with the volume knob all the way off. Still did its magic and added a few dBs of bump before my signal went into a drive pedal.

Line 6 Helix recently included the EP Boost and the SP Comp on their newest firmware update (2.30) and I was thrilled to see it.

Congrats!

Congrats , I was all set to get the EP Boost when Xotic came out with the original limited run of Soul Driven AH, which is what ended up getting instead I am guessing it's hard to wrong with either .

I never did understand boost pedals. Is it also a compressor of sorts too? Or is it the kind of thing you might just use for a solo for example just to raise your presence a bit over the noise but yet still retain your guitar tone? (unlike OD for example)

Yes, its a boost pedal that pushed the amp into an overdrive, but the EP is also sort of a "sweetener" pedal - some form of eq, I'd say. It copies the legendary Echoplex tone.

It’s kind of like buying a way better amp but you get to keep your amp.

It’s like the first year of marriage, or the second year of divorce.

It takes whatever is coming in, makes it louder, and sends it on down the line. So, the effect it has changes depending on where you put it. Assuming you play into a clean amp and get your dirt from pedals, you can:

1. Put it at the front of the chain with volume up. This will drive whatever comes after it harder, and tend to smooth out dirt that follows. Good for getting a similar effect to what you get with a compressor in the same spot, though of course electronically they are totally different things. Also a way to get a bit more edge to your clean tone.

2. Put it at the end of your chain, volume up, and it will just make whatever came before louder (although to some degree it will "push" your pre-amp and power amp harder but that's not generally noticeable). This is where folks without an effects loop use it for volume boost with little/no added gain.

3. If you have an effects loop, you can also put it there, with volume up, so it comes after the pre-amp section and adds even less dirt when engaged.

For pedals (like the EP Booster) that have a circuit that adds "something" to the signal over and above volume (usually some pre-defined EQ curve), you can put it anywhere in the chain, set it to unity gain, and it'll just add whatever that "something" is. This how most folks used the Klon back in the day, I believe.

I use a J. Rockett Blue Note (set to quite low gain) basically as described in 1 above.

i just use an ep3 for the original sound.

play music!

That's just mean...:)