Boost Pedal Shootout: Fortin 33 vs. Airis Nemesis vs. Airis Mid Screamer

FourT6and2

FourT6and2

Well-known member
I've been playing guitar for decades, but have never used a boost pedal. I've always liked to keep it simple and go straight in. But I decided to change that and give these three pedals a try. Got them all today and here are my thoughts.

Amp: Hiwatt Custom Super-Hi 50
Cab: Bogner 4x12 with G12H-75s
Guitar: Mayones Duvell Elite MBC tuned to standard
Pickups: Duncan Nazgul/Sentient

Fortin 33:
Hate it. All it seems to do is completely eliminate all low-end frequencies and boost the mids. Maybe it would work well with an amp that is all flubby, loose bass? But the Super-Hi 50 is quite mid-heavy and has no depth control. So it's fairly light in the lows as it is. With this pedal engaged, it's just suuuuuuper thin and bright. Sounds like an AM radio. Maybe with an 8-string this would work. The other odd thing to me is this pedal was released in conjunction with the Meshuggah amp, was it not? And those amps are also quite bright and lack a bit of low end. I've heard clips of amps with this boost and they tended to sound decent. But with my current setup, it's just way too thin and bright. Not keeping.

Airis Nemesis:
Better. It basically has the same aggression and snarl as the 33, but it preserves your low end. Keeping for now.

Airis Mid Screamer:
Awesome. Same aggressive sound as the previous two (if you want to set it that way), preserves more low end. And has the ability to shape the frequency you want to either boost or cut. Sounds great. BUT... it still does cut too much low end for me to want to use it all the time. I need to try it (and the others) with a down-tuned guitar.

My other amp—a Jose mod—would probably not get along with a boost either as it already has tons of mid-range emphasis that these pedals already focus on.

Conclusion:
Airis makes good stuff. And I'm still not super convinced I need a boost pedal haha.
 
Iirc the Fortin 33 came out years before the Meshuggah amp. They weren’t meant to go together as far as I know. I didn’t care for it much either nor the Airis pedals

The amps you have currently I wouldn’t boost. Some amps that imo can really benefit from them are stock Recto’s, stock Marshall 2203/4’s, Soldano SLO, Naylor and sometimes my Cornford RK100. Most of my keeper amps I prefer unboosted

My favorite boost fwiw is by far the Klon

Also I usually use much lower output pickups than that and those also sometime can benefit more from boosts to juice them up a bit, while also maintaining for me their advantages I like in clarity/detail vs hotter wound pickups
 
FourT6and2 said:
I've been playing guitar for decades, but have never used a boost pedal. I've always liked to keep it simple and go straight in. But I decided to change that and give these three pedals a try. Got them all today and here are my thoughts.

Amp: Hiwatt Custom Super-Hi 50
Cab: Bogner 4x12 with G12H-75s
Guitar: Mayones Duvell Elite MBC tuned to standard
Pickups: Duncan Nazgul/Sentient

Fortin 33:
Hate it. All it seems to do is completely eliminate all low-end frequencies and boost the mids. Maybe it would work well with an amp that is all flubby, loose bass? But the Super-Hi 50 is quite mid-heavy and has no depth control. So it's fairly light in the lows as it is. With this pedal engaged, it's just suuuuuuper thin and bright. Sounds like an AM radio. Maybe with an 8-string this would work. The other odd thing to me is this pedal was released in conjunction with the Meshuggah amp, was it not? And those amps are also quite bright and lack a bit of low end. I've heard clips of amps with this boost and they tended to sound decent. But with my current setup, it's just way too thin and bright. Not keeping.

Airis Nemesis:
Better. It basically has the same aggression and snarl as the 33, but it preserves your low end. Keeping for now.

Airis Mid Screamer:
Awesome. Same aggressive sound as the previous two (if you want to set it that way), preserves more low end. And has the ability to shape the frequency you want to either boost or cut. Sounds great. BUT... it still does cut too much low end for me to want to use it all the time. I need to try it (and the others) with a down-tuned guitar.

My other amp—a Jose mod—would probably not get along with a boost either as it already has tons of mid-range emphasis that these pedals already focus on.

Conclusion:
Airis makes good stuff. And I'm still not super convinced I need a boost pedal haha.
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yeah, it makes sense man. I'd agree with @braintheory . I like boosts with amps that have bigger bottoms naturally, where a boost can cut some of it. With stuff like Jose and Cameron, I don't really like what an external boost does either. I prefer those straight in by quite a bit.
 
One thing me and @SmuggNorris have discussed is the lengths a player has to go to find the right boots to match a given amp. Fortunately a lot of guys these days are making nice boots that don't necessarily boots mids or cut bass. I am not much of a pedal junkie but in the early 2000's I went through quite a few boots to find something decent for stage and studio. There weren't that many great options at the time.

Things have changed a lot since then. There are so many great boots offerings now it's mind boggling. If your amp already has a goodly amount of gain consider some lower gain boots like a Blue Note or as Brain Theory suggested, a Klon. A goodly amount of amp gain and a dash of pedal gain on top makes an organic sounding combination. It's worth the hassle once you find something you like but it might take some experimenting, some $$$, and some messing around for a while. Good luck brougham.
 
VonBonfire said:
One thing me and @SmuggNorris have discussed is the lengths a player has to go to find the right boots to match a given amp. Fortunately a lot of guys these days are making nice boots that don't necessarily boots mids or cut bass. I am not much of a pedal junkie but in the early 2000's I went through quite a few boots to find something decent for stage and studio. There weren't that many great options at the time.

Things have changed a lot since then. There are so many great boots offerings now it's mind boggling. If your amp already has a goodly amount of gain consider some lower gain boots like a Blue Note or as Brain Theory suggested, a Klon. A goodly amount of amp gain and a dash of pedal gain on top makes an organic sounding combination. It's worth the hassle once you find something you like but it might take some experimenting, some $$$, and some messing around for a while. Good luck brougham.
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yeah man, you can go down so many rabbit holes today. I have boosts that work well with different amps, some cut bass, some cut/add mids, some cut/add highs, etc. It's all a cocktail.

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Man I love using boosts, it’s like being able to change out the front end of the amp with a click of a button.

The 33/grind is a very specific boost. It’s just a tc integrated preamp with the bass fixed on 0. A tc preamp clone (the peppers dirty tree seems to be the most popular) would be better so you could control the lows (or build one, it’s a simple circuit).

I used to love my tc integrated preamp as a boost but in the last few years I’ve been using tubescreamers and modded tubescreamers a lot more. And modded SD1’s (MXR M77 being my favorite, given it’s got a few extra features).
 
I love the Fortin Blade.

It is very similar to the 33 but had adjustable high and lows.
 
FourT6and2 said:
Which ones cut highs?
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That Flux Drive is a good one. I have several boosts as well, and found the Buxom Boost the clear winner for my current amp.

I've had a number of Airis Savage Drives, (different versions). They're good pedals as well, (but V4 kinda sucked). For your situation, I'd try an EQ. A cheap GE-7 works great as a boost, as does the Wampler Equator. The MXR 6-Band works pretty good too.
 
napalmdeath said:
That Flux Drive is a good one. I have several boosts as well, and found the Buxom Boost the clear winner for my current amp.

I've had a number of Airis Savage Drives, (different versions). They're good pedals as well, (but V4 kinda sucked). For your situation, I'd try an EQ.
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I was going to suggest the Buxom Boost ..... the ability to take the EQ in or out is a great option .... and it's a fairly clean boost .... so it won't mud you up
 
griff10672 said:
I was going to suggest the Buxom Boost ..... the ability to take the EQ in or out is a great option .... and it's a fairly clean boost .... so it won't mud you up
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The Buxom is indeed clean, with a hint of grit... I just leave mids and bass at zero and basically just utilize treble, tight, and boost levels. It's a great pedal.
 
Honestly... I agree with @braintheory in that the amps I have probably don't even need a boost lol. They're already pretty tight and have plenty of mid-range grind. But I have heard clips of both of these amps that were boosted with a Fortin 33 and they sounded great. However... after trying it for myself, I don't see how those clips sounded the way they do. Because this pedal just removes 99% of your low end.

The Airis Mid Screamer is pretty cool thouogh.
 
napalmdeath said:
That Flux Drive is a good one. I have several boosts as well, and found the Buxom Boost the clear winner for my current amp.

I've had a number of Airis Savage Drives, (different versions). They're good pedals as well, (but V4 kinda sucked). For your situation, I'd try an EQ. A cheap GE-7 works great as a boost, as does the Wampler Equator. The MXR 6-Band works pretty good too.
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Yeah an EQ is probably a better option. But I was curious what all the fuss was about.
 
Not all amps need a boost, first of all

But second of all, no one ever takes into account the rest of the rig - especially the pickups someone is using.

If you're using a guitarmoury Patriot that's like 6 gorillion k output, its gonna behave differently than a 10k PAF style hb

I hate the fortin 33, I think it's thin and gross sounding, which is weird because I love TC pres

Boost hate is generally rooted in preferring flubby low end sounds, and not liking that everyone else has different preferences. But sometimes, it's true, people boost shit that does not need to be boosted.
 
ts9/ts808/od808 are practically interchangeable for the purposes of this discussion. They’re a good baseline ‘tubescreamer’ to start with. The other ‘standard’ boost would be boss sd1 (which is pretty much the same general circuit but is a different sound).

Just an EQ is a good option. Many boosts (tc preamp, buxom boost, etc) are just specialised EQ’s. A ge7 is a good bet… when I got mine it did sound like a jet engine when used as a boost though the jrc022 op amps are very noisy. Maybe the new SMD ones are better? I changed them (forget what to, NE5532 I think?) and it was much quieter.

A GE7 at 9 volts will probably clip with hot pickups though, where the aforementioned buxom boost and tc preamp typically run at a higher voltage (buxom boost contains a charge pump as many tc pre clones often do) and are very clean.

Hell a ts of some sort, an SD1, and a GE7 after them, and you can tweak their response to whatever you want.
 
FourT6and2 said:
Honestly... I agree with @braintheory in that the amps I have probably don't even need a boost lol. They're already pretty tight and have plenty of mid-range grind. But I have heard clips of both of these amps that were boosted with a Fortin 33 and they sounded great. However... after trying it for myself, I don't see how those clips sounded the way they do. Because this pedal just removes 99% of your low end.

The Airis Mid Screamer is pretty cool thouogh.
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If they dial back the gain enough and a few other things in the set up I’m sure they can sound great boosted. They just don’t need it imo unlike say stock Recto’s or Marshall 2203/4’s for metal

For standards in boosts I’d try a TS, SD-1 and Klon style pedal. The latter is by far my favorite and doesn’t cut as much low end as many others. It’s just a really great design imo
 
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