So THIS is a “Transparent Overdrive!” One of the first Paul Cochrane Tim Overdrive/Boost Pedals

So recently there’s been a lot of focus on “Transparent Overdrives.”  It seems to be something that lies in the realm of boutique guitar pedals (although certain companies have made inroads into this idea, by hook or by crook).  The basic idea is that it adds volume/gain/drive to your pedal, but only as if you reached over to your amp and cranked it up accordingly.  So, if you’re not in the situation where you’re close to your amp’s controls, or heck your amp just doesn’t get higher volume/gain/drive on its own…you turn to one of these pedals.  It’s not the kind of overdrive that imparts its own “thing” to the game like a tube screamer would (and definitely not  like a distortion pedal would, think the ProCo RAT here).  It’s kinda like hitting a “More” button.

So anyhow, the tag of “Transparent Overdrive” got put on the Tim pedal that Paul Cochrane makes.

http://www.myspace.com/paulcaudio/blog/540743254

Yes he’s on the ancient MySpace, but he keeps it updated quite frequently:

http://www.myspace.com/paulcaudio/blog/540743153

Oh, and why call it Tim?  Paul named it after this Monty Python character:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_the_Enchanter

Which is cool, because the other pedal that I really enjoyed that was an overdrive with a boost stomp, a 2-in-1 deal, was Menatone’s 7-knob King of the Britains, which had on its face a swallow carrying a coconut…

1st soldier with a keen interest in birds: Where’d you get the coconuts?
King Arthur: We found them.
1st soldier with a keen interest in birds: Found them? In Mercia? The coconut’s tropical!
King Arthur: What do you mean?
1st soldier with a keen interest in birds: Well, this is a temperate zone
King Arthur: The swallow may fly south with the sun or the house martin or the plover may seek warmer climes in winter, yet these are not strangers to our land?
1st soldier with a keen interest in birds: Are you suggesting coconuts migrate?
King Arthur: Not at all. They could be carried.
1st soldier with a keen interest in birds: What? A swallow carrying a coconut?
King Arthur: It could grip it by the husk!
1st soldier with a keen interest in birds: It’s not a question of where he grips it! It’s a simple question of weight ratios! A five ounce bird could not carry a one pound coconut.
King Arthur: Well, it doesn’t matter. Will you go and tell your master that Arthur from the Court of Camelot is here?
1st soldier with a keen interest in birds: Listen. In order to maintain air-speed velocity, a swallow needs to beat its wings forty-three times every second, right?
King Arthur: Please!
1st soldier with a keen interest in birds: Am I right?

But I digress.

I used to own a Timmy, which was a great pedal, but I was intrigued by the Tim because of the extra boost.  I guess that’s like an “Even More” button.  Oh, and by the way, PaulC never coined the term “Transparent Boost” and may be sick of it to be honest, but folks just lay that on his pedals.  So anyhow, I avoided the Tim in the past because of the big footprint and no need for another effects loop (I use a small Keeley Japanese Apartment bypass loop pedal for that), but recently a fairly big spot opened up on the board (bye bye Strymon Timeline, I decided to stick just with the big box Deluxe Memory Man) but now that wasn’t a valid excuse.  And honestly, I knew I needed something to goose my RAT.   Hmm, that’s an odd turn of a phrase.

Well, guess what?  PaulC no longer makes the Tim!  I think it’s a temporary thing, but for now production has stopped, it’s just the Timmy now.  I’m sure that if I searched his dealer network, a new Tim would still be in stock somewhere, but in the same thread that I read the news about the last Tim made (painted in Funereal Black), someone mentioned the first Tim.  It had no effects loop, the only external switch was a push/pull pot on the boost’s volume knob.  Oh, and no paint, and the labels were printed out on some kinda scotch tape looking stuff.

Well I found one of those on eBay. IMAGE DUMP ALERT!

The boost stomp is on the left with a red LED, the overdrive stomp is on the right with a blue LED.

The controls for the boost are on the top, volume and tone.

The volume knob has a push/pull pot to control the type of clipping – asymmetrical or not.

The IC is a JRC 4559D.  2011G isn’t a production year designation, it’s just something else.  This pedal was definitely made before 2011!

The tap is for 9V, but I use a PedalPower 2+ to feed it 12V, which gives more overhead – clean volume before breakup.

Velcro on the baseplate, not slathered on, I think it’s industrial since it holds so well.  No markings on the back of the baseplate.

The controls are Gain, Bass, Treble, Volume from left to right and controls the overdrive levels.

Note the lack of any additional switches on top – later Tims first had internal dip switches to change clipping, then external switches, but as said before I believe this one doesn’t have all of that – just the push/pull clipping pot on the boost’s vol knob.

And no extra jacks on top that would be for a send/return effects loop…because this one doesn’t have a loop.

It was labeled as a prototype in the auction, but the prototype actually had no boost on it, no loop, and the bass and treble cuts ran in the counterclockwise direction, not clockwise.  But this one’s definitely Paul’s early work – it doesn’t have any labels on it, and the back of the baseplate has no permanent marker saying what serial number it is, or anything at all, and there’s no loop.  So here’s a pic of it on my board (the Boss CE-1 is off the board right now, wow look at how much real estate it takes up!).

I think you can see it from that pic, but I keep the gain all the way down, the volume all the way up, and the bass and treble maxxed.  That’s my default for a good transparent add to the signal.  But I found that the magic was in the boost!  The volume push/pull pot for the boost pulls out for a really nasally high cutting tone – no thanks.  Kinda is like a “Peter Green in the middle position” thing.  Push it in for the default tone, which is the “oh hey, it’s my amp” tone.  Careful with this knob as you turn it up, since it gets into overdrive mode pretty quickly, and I like to keep the dirt from the pedal out as much as I can.  The tone knob for the boost is really great, since as you crank it up, the bass comes in more and more…and then suddenly more mids come in and in!  Ah, I found the Haunting Mids!  So dial the boost in just right, and now you can keep both the overdrive and boost on all the time to “enhance” your tone when your amp can’t give you that little extra, or when you need to keep your amp at bedroom/recording levels but still want your tone to sound like it does when it’s big.

But it’s not just good to put in front of an amp – it’s amazing to put after your dirt!  Believe it or not, even something like the RAT can use some help with a boost once in a while.  Actually, after you turn the Tim on, you pretty much don’t want to hear the RAT any other way again – all the harmonics and the anger just jump right out at you!  So again, all that gets to the next level irregardless of how hard your amp is working at the moment, which makes this a great combo to feed a big clean amp, or a small amp that is finicky about what feeds it as far as dirt is concerned, or heck you just need to keep your overall volume down but the rage up.  Feed a fuzz into the Tim, or a different overdrive, or a treble boost – doesn’t matter, the Tim makes it sound “more” better.  The Timmy I had did this too, but then you stomp on the Tim’s boost…and that tone knob for the boost helps you dial in guitars with different pickups (more or less mids, the trick I like to use with my Eric Clapton Stratocaster’s active Mid Boost circuitry).

So there you go, I’m a fan!  Bring back the Tim as soon as you can, PaulC!