The Cosmic Trigger - Preamp
Combining the best of the Traynor TS50 and Acoustic 360 preamps with a custom gain stage, this one has been a few years in the making.
Started out with a fascination of the Electrical Audio bass tones I put together some replicas of the Traynor TS50 and TS50B preamps. I was never satisfied with the sounds I was getting with them. I’d also built some Acoustic 360 preamp replicas which I loved but were missing a special something. One day I had the idea of combining what I liked from the three circuits. I opted for the active midrange control from the TS50 and the treble and bass controls from the ACC 360.
The Cosmic Trigger can be used as a clean or drive pedal or as a full on preamp running direct or into a power/effects return on your favourite amp. It was designed principally for bass but is equally at home with guitar or any other instrument you can think of. The TS50 is the guitar amp from Traynor but we’ve modified it to work perfectly with bass. It also works wonders with synths and drum machines. The preamp has 36 Volts of headroom off a regular 9V wall wart power supply with integrated overvoltage and reverse polarity protection all courtesy of Nick Williams and his second to none PCB design skils.
The boost footswitch is a gain boost of about 10% giving more gain/saturation and a touch more volume. Perfect for when you just need a bit more bite and attack in your sound. I love how this pedal can cover the ground from Albini style noise rock so classic 70s grooves and everything in between. I’ve had an early prototype out on tour with Kylie Minogue. Final proto was on my board as my core bass tone up until I made the first round of production prototypes. It takes other pedals like a champ, drive fuzz etc just sound better running into the Cosmic Trigger.