Blackstar Dept. 10 Boost Tube Boost Pedal Reviews

I have all three of the Dept 10 OD, Dist, and Boost running into a Two Notes Revolt as a foundation into a tube power amp.
Delay,Reverb in stereo to the power amp after the Two Notes, various other drives in front of the Dept 10. Best rig I have ever played, an enormous number of channel options capable of doing anything one could imagine. Just no bad tones available on any of these pedals so ease of use, no bloody edit software unless you want to dive into the CAB thing, which I am not really currently messing with but noce to know the expansion into that is there waiting.
Highly recommend Black Star Dept 10, these guys have it going on, amazing engineering and design. 200v tube driven excellent impedance issues, quiet operation (Dist needs a gate on super high gain of course) all analog, I cannot imagine what could or would be better.

Generally speaking, this pedal has a great tone with all of the dials at noon.
It adds a nice "roundness" to any chain.
And the EQ is extremely useful.
A keeper for sure...

One of the coolest applications for this pedal that I have found is to place it between your drive pedals and your digital amp modeler. Try it!!!
I routinely place it in front of my Dept. 10 AMPED 1 or my UAD Dream 65 :)

Great design and build quality, etc...

I thought my rig sounded excellent before for a using a solid-state Orange Crush 35RT amp.
This pedal made me realize my dirt pedals sounded like garbage before!

It only works the magic for me as the last pedal going into the front of my amp, after all my dirt pedals.
In my FX loop it just gave me a clean boost.
Early in the chain before my dirt pedals, it made them all sound muddy.

But as the last pedal up front, I can feel and hear the tube blooming!
It made my favorite distortion pedal, called 1991, sound way better!

At low practice volumes it's no good when playing completely clean though.
Doesn't bother me at all just using pure solid-state for clean playing, sounds great on my amp.

But I always have this on with any of my dirt pedals, and it's just so, so good!

I bought this as a test because from the "moment" I received my Strymon Iridium, I absolutely did not like it, very sterile sounding with 0/no harmonic overtones Iridium life. I felt if I shoved a tube in front of it... it just may sound OK. I did and the Dept 10 boost brought it to life! I have now put it on my main board after the "Trial Period". I Absolutely love what it does, it really compliments everything running on my board. Note: putting it b4 your Fuzz and turning the boost to around 10 o'clock give ultra amazing David Gilmour tones a plenty! It literally is the center piece of my pedalboard, and as you can see it's a very nice board indeed! Thanks for carrying all the good stuff Sweetwater Music!

One of the beat boost out there. Adds a wonderful warmth to your tone!

It really adds warmth and richness to my tone. Very powerful EQ section. Love that it comes with it's own power supply!!

Real tube running at proper high voltage, low noise, vast headroom, really great pedal. More than just a mere clean boost pedal, also a great buffer w optimal 1M in and 100K out. Has that sort of magic I have only found in my beloved EP Booster. I have the EP up front after my drives into the front end of my Synergy rack, the Dept. 10 clean boost sits on the output of the main Synergy unit going to my what would be effect loop pedals, the EQ on this unit is exactly what I needed to bump up the low end and add just a bit of headroom tube presence with just a hint of boost lvl. The EQ center Q of both the Bass and Treble are tweaked in just right for the guitar (50-250Hz 800hz-4Khz) I almost went with a graphic EQ which probably would have been digital and believe me this was the right choice plus staying analog and HV tube.
World of difference when off so this puppy and my EP Boost are always on pedals along with my Strymon Compadre subtle parallel mix studio comp. These are impressive pedals and the real tubes engineered the right way are a treat I would not hesitate to drop the dime on another one of any of the three. This clean boost is so much more than just a simple clean boost adding a low noise HV tube stage is never a bad thing in any rig.

I bought this with the Dual Dtive and the both sound amazing. I just had my first show with them going direct to foh. They sounded huge with plenty of good sag and liquid gain. Tons of tonal options.

1. This pedal is the missing secret sauce for my Quad Cortex live rig. I would classify many of the digital amp solutions these days as sounding too 'expensive' or unnaturally professional sounding, and this boost pedal gives back some missing life.
2. I suspect this pedal could have equally been marketed as a kind of compressor. If you read between the lines in the 'reviews'(so called) on youtube there is a general confusion as to what sets this device apart, but they were playing it through a tube amp and probably missed how much the signal was being affected. (Dan from TPS was the ONLY one to hint at the compression) I notice a very amp-like limiting occurring as well as a tradeoff from chime when played lightly to more huff when played hard.
3. After reaching out to BLACKSTAR with some questions about the order of the inner workings they were able to share that "tube, EQ, output" is the order. Not exactly the level of nerdiness I was hoping for but still helpful. I doubt the consumer is meant to ever change out the tube or mess with the bias. They make it very clear they don't want anyone opening the pedal cause you know …shocky parts.
4. Another fact missed by online reviewers playing through an amp is that there is no internal overdrive introduced until you get to 100% boost and then it starts to clip (sounds like a microphone preamp crackle). Past 50% there is very little increase in level and more and more limiting squish and that dynamic EQ tradeoff.
5. Lastly, this pedal drastically changes the character of pedals that come before it. My mindset has had to evolve to match my signal to the Quad Cortex, but the Dept10 BOOST takes me back to what it was like putting FX into the front end of a tube amp. I would certainly call this pedal a 'sleeper' and the "poor man's Kingsley" as others have noted.

This is a serious boost. The reason for the title is an experiment I did as I wanted to see at what point the pedal itself would start to distort with the stock tube instead of just boosting (about 10:30-11:00 fyi). I ran it into the effects return to eliminate any preamp distortion, and I was rewarded with a glorious clean tone! Full and smooth.

I ran the effects send to the input, rerouted my guitar to the amp's input. You know what happens to the sound when you crank up and the power section smooths things out and takes some edge off the preamp distortion? I was rewarded with a similar tone; less fizz, more robust midrange. It was still loud, but not near as loud as the amp had to be cranked to get a similar roundness and smoothing.

I did have to use the-10dBV switch. It did not respond well to being run at line level.

I have no idea if it's because of the tube, or the power section being more "engaged" being run that way, all I know is I like it.