BBE Boosta Grande MBG-20: Mini version of the popular clean boost
BBE has just announced a new mini Boosta Grande pedal called the MBG-20, a scaled down edition of the original BBE Boosta Grand pedal.
This all-analogue clean boost pedal offers +20dB of clean gain. BBE claim the sound is transparent and that the pedal won’t alter your guitar’s core tone; the aim is to let you kick the front end of a valve amp.
BBE achieve some of this by ‘mildly’ rolling off the 1kHz top end of your guitar’s signal, the idea being that your amplifier’s upper harmonics don’t become excessive. Sounds like techno-wizardry to me, but then I have always marvelled at BBE’s pedals with their cool looks and their ability to maximise guitar tones, so they know what they are doing.
The small format is ideal for most player’s pedalboards. You can also run the pedal straight off your power supply and not worry about batteries running out, which I find is the way forward with gigging pedalboard rigs.
Clean Boost
The MBG 20 has a grand total of one knob that lets you add up to +20dB of clean boost. That’s it. What’s not to like? I like ‘simple’ and slamming the front end of a good valve amp will often lead to great lead tones in a live situation. It means you’ll often not need any extra drive, as your amp already has its own character that you can overdrive ‘naturally’. It’s a great way to control your gain stage and to me it makes perfect sense.
The demo video of the original (large) Boosta Grande pedal below explains it really well and I feel gives a pretty good overview of what you can achieve by using this type of pedal.
RRP: $119 plus shipping/taxes
For more information, check out the maker’s product page.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AfOyvnNi_X0
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One response to “BBE Boosta Grande MBG-20: Mini version of the popular clean boost”
Great demo of the BBE Boosta Grand – I have the big ‘orange’ one and just wish this and the BBE Sonic Stomp Maximiser were available in standard compact pedal size when I bought mine.
However, there is one very important use of the BBE BG that you didn’t mention, and that is if you literally want a clean transparent boost that does NOT add gain. For example you simply want to make the same tone louder eg going from a rhythm level to a lead solo level. To do this, you need to place the BBE BG in the FX loop (preferably serial loop). A lot of players need a clean solo volume boost without adding gain. Placed in the FX loop, the BBE BG does this beautifully and also adds just a touch of extra mids to make the lead tone just that little bit fuller sounding but without colouring the underlying tone. The one simple knob gives you complete control as to how much extra volume boost it gives you, and if you’re worried this might move during a gig, just sticking the knob down with a bit of tape solves the problem.