Crazy Tube Circuits Hi Power

Hi Power is Crazy Tube Circuits next endeavour in pedal + amp-in-a-box overdrives recreating legendary sounds, following the success of Crossfire and Unobtanium. It was inspired by the sonic combination of two British tone machines. The almighty Colorsound Power Boost meets the blistering high-headroom Hiwatt amp. While the combination of these two units directly hints at the gear setup of David Gilmour and especially the gear used on Pink Floyd’s album: Wish You Were Here (think the guitar solo sounds of “Shine on you Crazy Diamond”, “Have A Cigar”) the sonic options are endless.

The orange enclosure silicon transistor circuit (Colorsound Power Boost) can deliver from a transparent clean boost to an all-out fuzz driving a tube amp to sonic bliss. Crazy Tube Circuits set out to clone the original unit featuring the true-to-the-original spec BC184 transistors running on 18V DC (via an internal voltage booster circuit). The ultra-flexible 2-band Baxandall EQ circuit can add bite and low-end rumble to any setup. CTC used a reverse log gain pot (labelled as volume), compared to the linear taper pot found in the original units and acted as an on/off switch, to be able to set the amount of boost/overdrive more precisely. While the earlier units didn’t feature a master volume control (only as an aftermarket mod – Pete Cornish made an external unit master volume for David Gilmour’s Power Boost) they chose to include one that is setup in a way so that when it is all the way clockwise it is bypassed. Later versions of the Power Boost had 9V power supply and were renamed as the “Overdriver” due to the lower headroom and their ability to drive the signal earlier. They were offered in a grey enclosure and can be seen in the gear setups of Jeff Beck, Marc Bolan, etc. CTC chose to incorporate this version as well with a flip of a toggle switch (PWR-ODR toggle switch)

On the left side of the Hi Power you will find an all-analog circuit set out to emulate the sound and feel of a Hiwatt amp. Following the path of the famed British tube amplifier their circuit offers authentic amp tone and feel resembling guitar tones from guitar greats like David Gilmour, Pete Townsend, Jimmy Page, Noel Gallagher to name a few. From the big bold high-headroom clean sounds to the face-melting crunchy tones. True to the last detail CTC included the full EQ section along with a presence control located at the negative feedback of the power amp simulation circuit. A headroom toggle switch selects between the high headroom 100w power section provided by a quartet of EL34s (think Hiwat DR103), or the lower headroom and compression provided by a 50W power section with a pair of EL34s when hit hard (think DR504). Similar in operation to the original amps the master volume was designed to produce more gain at higher settings. They’ve taken the design a step further by adding a switch to select between input channels of the amplifier. You can select between the full response of the normal channel of the amplifier, the increased presence and tight low end of the bright channel input or the “gilmourish” enhanced frequency response and added gain of those inputs linked together. This follows the modifications that Pete Cornish did to all David Gilmour’s Hiwatt amps.

Like Crazy Tube Circuits other dual overdrive/amp-in-a-box designs they also included a passive effects loop to give you the option to connect your beloved pedals between your booster/overdrive and amp in a box or use the two sections as separate and independent effects when using an external bypass switcher / looper. Gilmour enthusiasts will love to insert their Big Muff, Tube Driver and Phase 90 in there.