Fulltone Custom Shop CS-Ranger Treble Booster Pedal Reviews

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.

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 because I really like low-mid (instead of the traditional Range Master). One more surprise, this pedal makes my vintage Fender Champ sound unbelievable.

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 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.

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 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.

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!

This pedal is exactly what I've been looking for in an "always on" mode. Back in the 70s, I was the kid who played through his Marshall with a half-cocked wah (before I learned that Michael Schenker did the same) in a search to get that extra oomph and top end sparkle. The CS-Ranger does that and more. While I read reviews where, more often than not, people tended toward the full or mids settings, the RM-1 setting on this is my sweet spot. Not that the others aren't good, but this setting fills in the tones I'm always looking for. I've run this through a couple Marshalls, a Boss Katana, an Egnater Vengeance, and even a Boss J-band and I haven't heard a bad sound from it yet. If you're looking for that extra push, definition, and sparkle, this booster will get you there. I can't remember the last time I enjoyed a new pedal as much. Money well spent!

If you're one of those people who like to use your volume control on the guitar to get different tones you will probably love this pedal.

Also worth mentioning - I have a few guitars and amps lying around that haven't gotten much use in recent years because they are not my favorites when it comes to tone. Well, I've been having a lot fun with these guitars and amps since I plopped the Ranger on my pedal board. It can really turn a dull sounding rig into something that is much more harmonically rich.

Helps cut through the mix

I've owned quite a few treble boosters including the Throbak, Germania, Squawk, Beano and others. The Ranger is dark and woolier than the others ive owned. Not a ton of output and rather noisy. The full and low mid settings are muddy and basically useless. Kind of upset really after reading all of the great reviews. Save your money for a Throbak, Beano or Germania.

Super crazy solid build quality and great looking pedal. Just could not find a good setting to work with. Although, the Mids selection sounds like Money for Nothing, the cocked wah tone. That was cool, but I can't just play that with anything else. I found an annoying treble roll off on all settings and just a shelving of the lower frequencies. The stuck wah nasally midrange plagued every setting on the rotary knob.

Danelectro "The Breakdown" is so much more versatile, sounds awesome and is more authentic to a real Treble Booster. It also cost about $ less! The Ranger is being returned.

Not impressed! Hoping I got a BAD pedal?! I own a few fulltone pedals & I love them all! This one sounds good when engaged but when I kick the pedal off it's a huge tone sucker (like a blanket was thrown over my amp). So much for TRUE BYPASS! So I sent it back & got the OC version from Fulltone. Like I said I hope it was just a fluke with this pedal??? Hoping the new one sounds better???