9 Practical Modern Colorsound Power Boost Style Pedals

This article was triggered by the recent That Pedal Show episode on Colorsound Power Boost-Style Pedals (AKA Colorsound Overdriver) - where Messrs Dan and Mick introduced us to a variety of largely vintage-style Silicon transistor overdrives. There was an original vintage Colorsound Power Boost - versions of which are still available at Macaris (Charing Cross Road), then there was the Tru-Fi Color Driver and Electronic Orange Bananaboost - all pretty much faithful reproductions of the original circuit - two of them with the added Master Volume dial for better control.

If you look at the circuitboard for the original pedal - you can see it’s really quite compact, and beyond the 3 Silicon transistors does not contain a whole heap of components. So I really don’t understand the need to use such over-sized and clunky enclosures. Another thing that was made clear in the episode is how a lot of those older-style pedals really need a ’cooking’ high-headroom amp to get them to sound great. The 1972 Hiwatt Custom 100 DR103 is a perfect foil for those vintage pedals, but when run through a regular modern amp - in this case the Victory V40 those pedals lost all their sparkle.

It’s kind of the same distinction Bjørn Riis uses on his Gilmourish.com site when reviewing pedals and gear - giving a separate rating for ’Bedroom Setups’ i.e. home-play rigs set to play at lower volumes. A very large proportion of those vintage effects only shine when everything is cranked - as most amps in those days had limited volume control and were largely set to play at ear-deafening volumes. For a home-player like myself the context of playback is critical within any gear-related consideration. I typically steer away from vintage-style pedals for these reasons - as well as their usual over-sized enclosures and extreme power requirements.

So I always choose more practical alternatives - which have been engineered for greater tolerances and greater range typically - allowing you to achieve sufficient saturation and therefore great tones at considerably lower volumes. I am looking for pedals which essentially give you more, and are more pliable and practical within a day-to-day setup - can be placed anywhere in your chain and behave consistently and reliably. So I’ve carried across two of the pedals Dan and Mick mentioned and introduced 7 different ones into the mix.

The ones I carried over are the awkwardly shaped ProAnalog Devices Power Driver V2, and the ThroBak Overdrive Boost - which I really would prefer to see in more compact and vertical enclosures. Both of those sound excellent - I’m very familiar with Scotty Smith’s ProAnalog Devices pedals which always sound superb, but occasionally inhabit larger enclosures than I am comfortable with. ThroBak also has an exceptional reputation and makes fantastic pickups as its main day-job. The ThroBak Overdrive Boost is the more interesting pedal here - in having a separate pre-gain boost footswitch alongside a toggle switch which activates an additional Germanium Transistor plus Germanium Diode circuit on top of the 3 existing Silicon Transistors - to give you even more definition and harmonics.

We then have 3 medium-size enclosure pedals - the Black Arts Toneworks Black Forest - which takes you much more into Fuzz territory - particularly with the additional ’Depth’ rotary selector. While the Buffalo FX Power Booster and Monsterpiece C.O.D. are more faithful reproductions of the original circuit - each with the additional Master Volume control. I am very familiar with both Buffalo FX and Monsterpiece pedals in general, a little less so with Black Arts Toneworks.

Finally we have 4 compact enclosure versions - which are generally much more to my liking. I’m always a huge fan of John Lyons’ Basic Audio pedals and this one is no different, I also have some experience of Vick Audio pedals - which is Mike Vickery turning out some very reasonably priced boutique reproductions of the classics - plus some interesting deviations. I am less familiar with Idiotbox, and Wall of Sound Pedals - the latter of which I am not sure is still running - you do get the occasional Wall of Sound Pedal on Reverb.com - which is where I found evidence of at least a few of that mysterious pedal-builder’s 5-pot, dual-footswitch Overdriver Clone.

My preference will always be for compact enclosure size pedals - and seeing how much Joel Korte can do with that form-factor I don’t see the need to have all these over-sized enclosures. The previous ThroBak Overdrive Boost version was a compact pedal, but it only had 3 dials and a single footswitch. The coolest derivation here is the Wall of Sound pedal with its separate independent boost footswitch and control - to go with the typical 4 Overdriver / Power Boost controls - Volume, Gain, Treble/High and Bass/Low. There are several of these I really like - the cleverest circuits here are the ThroBak and Wall of Sound ones, while all the others sound really great too - with the possible exception of the Black Arts Black Forest being just a little bit too different - that one definitely brings out more of the Fuzz-side rather than the Overdrive dynamics of those Silicon Transistors.

Pedals are listed alphabetically by brand: