RickP
Established 1960, Still Not Dead
Short review on the Xotic EP-booster pedal, used with the HX/DA:
On the outside, I'm not sure if there has ever been a smaller, more simple pedal than the EP-booster from Xotic. My cell phone, and old iPhone 6, could easily cover two of them completely, it is that compact. One footswitch, one knob on top. 1/4" input one side, 1/4" output on the other. 9V power socket on top. That's it. A pretty inauspicious first impression, but looks can be deceiving.
I hooked it up alone, with no other pedals in the path, to get a good grasp on what it does. One cord to the EP from the guitar (a Hollowbody Spruce and 513 were the testers), and one cord to the input of the HX/DA. Without pedals, the HX/DA gains just below noon, master just past, gives a great crunchy tone that cleans up respectably when you roll the guitar volume back to 5-7, and is very "pick sensitive" in the 7-8 area.
The EP is left in its stock settings, as it does have some DIP switch controllable options internally. I put the EP dial to straight up noon, and kicked it in. Wow... it sure boosts the level! Even at that setting, the volume jumps, and saturation becomes much higher gain, similar to cranking up the gains on the HX/DA. The boost capability of this pedal belies it's diminutive size, and I never needed more than half the range. Interestingly, the quality of the sound was really good and not squashed at all, and without the pushed mids you get from overdrive pedals.
I played around with settings and found the best settings for me were to lower the channel gains (about 11 o'clock HX and 10 o'clock DA) and roll the Master up a bit (to about 3 o'clock). In this way I could explore a lot more of the clean to crunch tones without the EP, then kick in the EP to add push/gain to any setting. Rolling the guitar volume up with the EP on produced a killer lead tone that I probably wouldn't have been able to sit in front of long without the beloved Ox Box keeping my ears safe.
The EP-Booster is a winner of a pedal, and I imagine it will be just right for pushing my Fender amps into breakup too. The number of pedals that are this useful and fit in a shirt pocket is low, and this is one of the very few that I think would be useful on any pedalboard. But especially if you own a single channel amp, it is just the ticket for taking your amp over the edge of distortion in a completely musical way. Keeper!
On the outside, I'm not sure if there has ever been a smaller, more simple pedal than the EP-booster from Xotic. My cell phone, and old iPhone 6, could easily cover two of them completely, it is that compact. One footswitch, one knob on top. 1/4" input one side, 1/4" output on the other. 9V power socket on top. That's it. A pretty inauspicious first impression, but looks can be deceiving.
I hooked it up alone, with no other pedals in the path, to get a good grasp on what it does. One cord to the EP from the guitar (a Hollowbody Spruce and 513 were the testers), and one cord to the input of the HX/DA. Without pedals, the HX/DA gains just below noon, master just past, gives a great crunchy tone that cleans up respectably when you roll the guitar volume back to 5-7, and is very "pick sensitive" in the 7-8 area.
The EP is left in its stock settings, as it does have some DIP switch controllable options internally. I put the EP dial to straight up noon, and kicked it in. Wow... it sure boosts the level! Even at that setting, the volume jumps, and saturation becomes much higher gain, similar to cranking up the gains on the HX/DA. The boost capability of this pedal belies it's diminutive size, and I never needed more than half the range. Interestingly, the quality of the sound was really good and not squashed at all, and without the pushed mids you get from overdrive pedals.
I played around with settings and found the best settings for me were to lower the channel gains (about 11 o'clock HX and 10 o'clock DA) and roll the Master up a bit (to about 3 o'clock). In this way I could explore a lot more of the clean to crunch tones without the EP, then kick in the EP to add push/gain to any setting. Rolling the guitar volume up with the EP on produced a killer lead tone that I probably wouldn't have been able to sit in front of long without the beloved Ox Box keeping my ears safe.
The EP-Booster is a winner of a pedal, and I imagine it will be just right for pushing my Fender amps into breakup too. The number of pedals that are this useful and fit in a shirt pocket is low, and this is one of the very few that I think would be useful on any pedalboard. But especially if you own a single channel amp, it is just the ticket for taking your amp over the edge of distortion in a completely musical way. Keeper!
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