WARNING - gear nerd post! This was taken from Scott Froehlke’s “Got one!” post on the Scott Henderson Discussion group. Here’s my take on the new RC Booster with two channels - in my opinion it’s the best and most transparent boost pedal ever made, but there are some settings I needed to find to make it work for me, and maybe they’ll work for you too. The first thing I should say is that I use my pedals with the amp on a crunch setting - I don’t like the sound of pedals into a clean amp. That usually sounds kinda sterile - the amp needs to do some of the work.
This pedal is a bit brighter than the one channel version, so I turn the treble down to about 11:30. The bass is the big issue with boost pedals, and one of the reasons I love the RC is because I can control the amount of bass. I’ve never heard a boost pedal which produces real bass, as in 100Hz, it’s more like very low midrange. Setting the bass flat at 12 o’clock on the RC produces about the same amount of low midrange that most boost pedals do, like the old MXR micro amp, or Roger Mayer Voodoo One. There are some players who’d have no problem with this type of tone, but I have a big problem with it, because too much low mid makes high notes sound thin, and can also cause the strings (especially wound strings) to loose their vocal quality and sound woofy. If you keep your guitar tones on 10 and you’re looking for more of a vintage rock tone, the RC bass set to flat is probably fine for that.
I turn the bass on the RC all the way down to 9 o’clock and get the low midrange from the guitar, by turning the tone on the bridge pickup down to between 3 and 5 and the neck pickup to 7 or 8. It’s a bit darker than the typical vintage rock tone, but it’s fatter sounding and better for fusion and playing lines. This setting makes the notes sound huge, even high notes, but still retains the voice of the string. The bass setting on the amp also comes into play, but that depends on the cabinet you’re using - I use a 4x12 so the bass on my amp doesn’t need to be above 1, but I’m sure that would be different for a 2x12 or 1x12 cab.
The gain knobs are also important on the RC Booster. I suggest not turning the big gain knob for channel 1 any lower than 12 o’clock, because doing that makes the sound smaller. However if you’re going for a cleaner sound with the guitar volume on 10 through a clean amp, lower settings of that gain knob are fine. When I record a clean hollow-body guitar, I use the RC with the gain all the way off, just to make the bass tighter and less out of control. Bruce Forman does this too. (yes, he actually uses a pedal sometimes!)
The small gain knob for channel 2 is only used in combination with channel 1, so higher settings can get very muddy - I usually keep that knob at about 10 o’clock. It adds just enough gain to make it easier to play legato and get some good high gain tones. That’s everything I know about the RC Booster - have fun experimenting!
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