Little Box Exclusive 2.0* Benson Germanium Boost

Cloud Veil w/ NEVE Knob!

The Benson Germanium Boost has become somewhat of a gold standard for boosts for me. It's simple, versatile, and is one of those pedal you miss in its absence. I don't know how Chris did it, but to my ears it adds a perfect amount of sweetening compression and character without being overly colorful. Like a good studio preamp that just seems to elevate anything you run through it.

The Germanium Boost delivers warm, smooth tones without losing attack or clarity. Use it on bass, acoustic, or to send your tube amp into saturation in the most pleasing way. I'm thrilled to offer these Little Box Exclusive 2.0 boosts in a sleek Cloud Veil Gray with a vibey NEVE style knob for an elevated tactile and visual experience.

*Little Box Exclusive 2.0 backstory -

I did a few runs of these boosts in a beautiful powder blue sparkle aesthetic. I loved them, and it seems like many of you did as well! In late 2024, the powder coating company discontinued that color, leaving myself and many others sad. But we did not lose heart! I got to work thinking of a cool follow-up aesthetic, which ultimately led me to consider my good friend Mark Johnston and his near-obsession with the Benson Germanium Boost. I know Mark also has a beloved sandy gray Toyota Tacoma, and I thought "how cool would it be to make a boost that matches Mark's truck?!" So I tracked down the color, sourced some vintage vibe NEVE control knobs, and 2.0 was born! This is the exact same circuit as any boost, but I think you'll love this unique vibe and aesthetic.

More from the builder:
When designing the temperature controlled fuzz, we tried some weird approaches. One of the things we tried was utilizing a voltage controlled error correcting circuit to bias a single germanium transistor. It ultimately didn’t work for the fuzz, since that circuit is comically sensitive to transistor gain attributes. 
We did find a place for it though. It turns out it was PERFECT for achieving a germanium clean boost that, (like our fuzz) is impervious to component drift, leakage, and temperature....moreso in fact. We also fixed a couple other issues preventing the germanium transistor from being used as a convincing linear boost...we increased the input headroom (even a normal guitar signal will drive a germanium transistor into unwanted input distortion without some tweaks) and increased the input impedance (a BJT transistor would normally thin out bass frequencies and interact neg- atively with whatever flows into it). 
The result is a germanium clean boost where you can utilize a germanium transistor WITH- OUT the weird artifacts that were previously accepted as part of the deal...temperature sen- sitivity, drift, and suboptimal input impedance and headroom. It takes about 10 seconds when the boost is first powered up for the error correction circuit to bias the germanium transistor. After that it gets interesting....we can hear how it makes guitar signals sound more musical...even when set at the same volume as the bypassed tone. It seems to bring out the attack of the guitar while simultaneously smoothing out notes, like a compressor but different. It’s hard to describe. It appears to cut the bad parts of a signal and enhance the good. It’s killer on bass. It helps acoustic guitar pickups sound more natu- ral. And of course it’ll push your amp into a frenzy. We hope you like it.