CS-Ranger Treble Booster Pedal Review

Ranger vs Naga Viper

I own both the Fulltone Ranger and Catalinbread Naga Viper. While the Naga Viper is an amazing pedal and can be tweaked a little more, the Ranger has better tone. I find the Full and Lo-Mids settings to be perfect into a tweed and a Vox. Also in my opinion, the build quality is superior to that of the Naga Viper.

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Best Treble Booster (and beyond)

I bought this for my AC30 - going for the Brian May thing. It went beyond my expectations. With the amp cranked and slightly overdriven, you stomp on this and it SCREAMS. The level button lets you get the drive you want. You can go from slight to over-the-top. The reason I chose this over the others was because I didn't want to be stuck with one frequency boost. I'm so glad I did… read more because I really like low-mid (instead of the traditional Range Master). One more surprise, this pedal makes my vintage Fender Champ sound unbelievable.

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A "MUST HAVE" PEDAL FOR CLASSIC ROCK

I've been paying classic rock and blues since the early 70's. Back in the day in Los Angeles, FUZZ and WAH were king. Then you had reverb and tremolo on your amp. That just about did it for sound effects. I had only heard of "treble boost" in passing. I didn't know a single musician who had one or used it. Most players didn't know what it was. It wasn't a well known effect on… read more the West Coast at the time. Well, that explains why I could never really get the cool sounds I was hearing on recordings out of my rig. Treble boosting was widely used in the recording industry and popular among many top U.K. players. The CS Ranger is an amazing and versatile booster. It is best used in conjunction with your amps overdrive or other distortion pedals. That is by design. Distortion can get muddy due to the loss of highs in your signal. The treble boost solves the problem by increasing the sagging treble range that occurs when you overdrive your amp. It also adds distortion of its own. It saturates the amp with amazing overdrive tones you did know your existing rig had. It brings them richly to life. It is fabulous with FUZZ, OVERDRIVE, or DISTORTION. It really delivers on classic 60's and 70's sounds. I will never be without this pedal on my rig. I did buy it from SWEETWATER. They delivered it promptly with their usual flair for excellent service.

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A Specific Voodoo

This is worth checking into. This does that specific push that we have all heard on classic 70's recordings, but have thought was something else. Simply put, it's a simultaneous low end cut paired with a mid boost. It works in tandem with the guitar volume to create a wide variety of flavors. It works best paired with a darker amp/pedal setup. At full guitar volume on the bridge… read more pickup, it can sound like a 'parked wah', but rolling down the volume brings the sound into a semi-clean with a rasp in the very top end. The space in between those points becomes very pick attack dependent, which is just gold. Simultaneously clear and aggressive. (Yes, Brian May-like. It's addictive.) All the capacitor settings are useful, but I found using the RM-2 setting gets me some incredibly useful neck pickup sounds that I have not been able to achieve otherwise. (Ron Wood/Faces tones for days.) This is not a typical boost unit. It requires a bit of a gear-rethink. It's not everyone's martini for sure, but it certainly feels like something essential and difficult to find is being offered here.

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TONE maker

The Ranger pedal really makes tube amps come alive. Its 6 different boost personalities cover the gambit of guitar tones. Connected mine to a 1963 Vox AC30 - BAMM! The volume control on your guitar becomes a tone tool. I recommend this pedal to anyone that wants to recreate those timeless guitar god tones, by pushing their tube amps into sweet blissful saturation. Enjoy!

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