THE LPB-1 LINEAR POWER BOOSTER

Twenty-six-year-old Mike Matthews started Electro-Harmonix in 1968 with just $1000. That was when EHX’s first product, the LPB-1 Linear Power Booster, was born. It’s a device which helped usher in the Age of Overdrive, a phenomenon that profoundly affected the sound of modern music.

Mike describes it like this: “The first pedal that I built under Electro-Harmonix was in late 1968 and it was the LPB-1 Linear Power Booster. I hooked up with Bob Myer, an award-winning inventor from Bell Labs. I contracted with him to design a distortion-free sustainer and when I went to check out the prototype, I saw a little box plugged into the front of the sustainer prototype. I asked him, ‘What’s that?’ and he said, ‘Well, I didn’t realize that guitar put out such a low signal, so I just built a simple one-transistor booster to stick in the front.’ When I hit the switch, all of a sudden, the amp was so loud! I said, ‘Wow! That’s a product!’ In those days, amplifiers were designed with a lot of headroom. There was no such thing as overdrive. So, you would turn them up to 10 and they would still be clean and loud. But with this device, you could make the amp much louder, but then overdrive it. I called it the Linear Power Booster, or the LPB-1, and started selling them mail order and then in stores.

This device is in good shape overall. It is fully functional with a little noise, but works great.

Tone Central Station offers a 7 day return / Satisfaction Guarantee on this guitar. If you have any questions, please feel free to message us!