Catalinbread Crooner CB-Range Discrete Studio Console Preamp Guitar Effect Pedal

The Crooner offers up a pedalboard-friendly version of one of the finest studio preamps ever made: the RCA BA-31. This unassuming pre delivered rich lows and stunning clarity to many classic recordings. We’ve taken a cue from our Airstrip and frontloaded the Crooner with a UREI-style discrete op-amp to overload the pre circuit, as well as an extended range of dripping saturation when dimed. In the middle is every flavor of dirt there is; clean boost, overdrive, distortion and full-throated fuzz. Ever heard those “golden age” pop recordings and wondered how the singers of yester-yester-year were getting those smooth, deep vocal tracks to sound so good? While we can’t provide you with a complete map, we can tell you that many of those recordings started with an RCA mic preamp, and one of the most popular of those times is the BA-31. In the vein of our vintage-inspired Airstrip Console Preamp, we’ve cooked up the Crooner, a BA-31-inspired circuit that opens up the dynamic window of the Airstrip circuit, giving you a cleaner preamp sound when set low, and more syrupy compressed distortion when dimed. This germanium and transformer-equipped pre features a UREI-inspired discrete op-amp out front, providing no gain when set minimally and lots of gain when cranked, pushing the touchy RCA preamp into the red with a simple turn of the Push knob. Want even more sag and gooey harmonics? Use the Trim control to increase the gain of the BA-31 itself for complete transformer saturating distortion that would make Neil Young blush. In between those two extremes are some of the finest and unique overdrive and distortion sounds available in the pedal world.     Controls: PUSH: This knob controls the gain level of the UREI-inspired discrete opamp, specially voiced to mesh well with the Crooner’s RCA-inspired preamp. When set to minimum, the Push control adds minimal gain to the front end of the main pre circuit. VOLUME: You guessed it: up is up and down is down. FILTER: This provides a gentle treble cut to keep the action tight at high Push and Trim levels. TRIM: This controls the gain level of the RCA preamp circuit itself. As the original was not designed to give you much internal gain, this control manipulates the circuit in ways it was not designed to function, making for a wide-ranging control that is augmented by the Push control. With this and Push maxed, you’ll maximally saturate the output transformer and get some positively molten lead tones.   The original BA-31 ran on 30 volts DC, and while that’s pretty unfeasible for pedalboards, the Crooner LOVES 18 volts. You get more of everything at every position—glossy cleans, fuzzed-out madness and much more headroom, allowing you to stack dirt in front of the Crooner more effectively. Take advantage of this!