Why the All you can Boost is still the pedal that surprises me the most!

I know...it sounds weird to say something like the above about one of your own pedal designs. But the thing is: It's true! The All you can Boost was my first ever pedal design and the reason I started with it is much more random than you might think.

When I had a few prototypes ready I wanted to test them with as many amps as possible, to check what I could improve. The obvious goal was to make the pedals work with many different amps as possible. So I went on a "field trip" to Musik Produktiv, one of the largest MI retailers in Germany, also because they have around 40 different amps in a big room, all connected with a switching system to make the change of amps completely seamless.

This was still in the peak of the Covid pandemic, so everybody was still walking around with a mask and it was all weird really. I set myself up with the pedalboard, all prototypes connected and started testing. I felt like some pedals needed tweaks here and there, especially around noise floor and how the controls behaved. But for some reason, the All you can Boost prototype was just fine the way it was. And it was amazing to see some of the reactions from customers floating around there. The added volume and loudness of the AYCB definitely raised some eyebrows.

The key moment was one guy who asked me if he could check out the pedals. I told him, "Sure, go ahead". He took around 15 minutes to check them all in front of a few different amps and asked me to come back afterwards. Then he said some key words that had an impact on me. He pointed at the AYCB prototype and said: "This thing is absolutely insane, it's a lot of fun to play with and if that was the last unit available here in the store, I would fight someone for it!"

I was in shock and happy at the same time and decided instantly, "alright, that's going to be my first pedal then".

Now back to why this little box still surprises me, even after I have been making it for the past 5 years and lifted it to a higher version in the meantime. Whenever I play it in front of whatever kind of amplifier, I am always amazed by how compatible it is, how much it can push the amp to break up, overdrive and even distort. It works in front of low or high headroom amps, it fixed muddiness in the low end, you can shape your tone with or even use it to add channels to your 1-channel amp.

The other thing that makes me happy is when I stack different pedals and compare what it can do in comparison with some of the classic circuits out there, doesn't matter if TS, BB, etc. you name it. It always comes out more transparent, has more available volume and gain and always fits right in, no matter what sort of setup is being put together.

So, to sum it all up: The All you can Boost really is a Swiss army knife and someone once said that calling it a boost would be an understatement, because it's so much more. I think I agree with that.