General Instructions: To operate, simply plug your guitar into the input jack of the Crispy Cream Treble Booster. The output jack should be connected to your guitar amplifier. You will need to adjust the control to turn the booster on.

When the input jack is unplugged the power is automatically turned off. Unplug your pedal when not in use to prevent battery wear. You can also turn the pedal off by turning the volume knob to the most counter-clockwise position. This will also disconnect the battery. This option is available so that you can incorporate the Crispy Cream booster into a pedal board without having to unplug it to turn it off.

Amplifier Settings: If you have a Vox AC30 you can plug into either the Normal or the Top Boost channel. If you plug into the Normal channel, try turning the Cut control so the treble is minimized. Set the Volume between seven and ten. The Top Boost Channel also sounds good with this pedal, but you only need to turn the volume up to about five. Set the Bass control fairly low, and set the Treble and Cut controls low as well.

Fender Bassman and Marshall Plexi amplifiers also sound great with the Crispy Cream Treble Booster. Since these amps have Treble, Middle, Bass and Presence controls it is fairly easy to dial in the right sound. Set the tone the way you like it, then turn up the volume until you get the amount of saturation that meets your needs. Try plugging into the normal channel instead of the bright channel.

Changing Batteries: The Crispy Cream Treble Booster requires a 9 volt battery for operation. The batteries will generally last a long time. When the time comes to replace the battery, just remove the four screws from the back. The battery is surrounded by foam cloth. Carefully remove the battery and replace it.

Warrantee: Should you experience any problem with your Crispy Cream Treble Booster please e-mail me to arrange to have it repaired. I will guarantee it to work unconditionally as long as any problems are due to manufacturing defects. Volume potentiometers, bypass switches and input/output jacks are guaranteed for one year. You will void your warrantee if you tamper with the electronics. The warrantee does not cover damage caused by accident or abuse.

Pickups: One way to maximize your tone is to change the height of your pickups. If your guitar sounds too bright you can lower the pickups away from the string. By contrast, your can add more treble to your sound by raising your pickups closer to the strings. There is a limit to this though. If the pickups are too close the magnets may pull too much on the strings, leading to intonation problems and lack of sustain.

If you have a Brian-May style guitar you should know the the relative height of each Burns Tri-Sonic pickup to the others is very important. In general, the bridge pickup should be closer to the strings than the other two pickups. The middle and neck pickups are almost at the same height as one another, but the neck pickups is slightly lower. Changing the heights even slightly can make a big difference in your sound.

If you are playing a Stratocaster or Les Paul you may want to use classic (lower impedence) type pickups. I'm not a big fan of high output, modern pickups. You'll have enough gain as it is with this pedal.

Volume and Tone Potentiometers: In general, larger value potentiometers in the tone and volume positions give more output and a brighter sound. Use this knowledge to select the most appropriate potentiometer value for your guitar. I like 250 kOhm pots for both volume and tone controls on the Brian May and Stratocaster-type guitars. I like 500 kOhm pots for humbuckers.

Capacitors: For a brighter clean sound, try putting a small capacitor across the volume potentiometer of your guitar. You should experiment with values from 50 to 500 picofarads. Solder the capacitor across the two leads of the potentiometer that are NOT connected directly to ground. This capacitor only affects the sound when the volume knob is turned down somewhat. The capacitor allows the higher frequecies to come through instead of being squashed by the volume pot as it is turned down. This is how you "clean up" the sound by turning the volume down on your guitar. I have a 300 picofarad silver mica capacitor strapped across my volume potentiometer. You can hear what this sounds like by listening to the soundfile called "The Paces."

Amplifier Warmup:An overdriven tube amplifier may sound a little rough if it has not had time to warm up properly. I've found that five to ten minutes is sufficient.