Railhead Effects / The PURE Clean Boost / Effect
The PURE Clean Boost is my take on the classic MOSFET boost by Jack Orman, and it provides up to a whopping 35dB of clean signal boost without coloration or signal distortion. But don't just think of the PURE Clean Boost as a simple volume increasing effect, because it can do a lot more. Here are a few cool things you can do with the PURE Clean Boost:
The most basic use of the PURE Clean Boost is to simply provide an overall volume increase by placing it last in your effects chain. Set the PURE to whatever volume you'd like, and kick it on when the time is right — you'll then simply get more of your sound.
You can also use the PURE Clean Boost to crank more overdrive out of your already overdriven tube amp. Set the PURE to near unity volume, and when you kick it on, your amp will get a boost that will be just enough to add some extra gain to your signal — without a noticeable volume increase.
Another use for the PURE Clean Boost (and how I use mine) — is to "cook" your amp tubes. The goal is to get your amp tubes running at maximum efficiency by pushing them right to the point of clipping/overdrive. You do this by turning up the PURE until you begin to hear it causing your amp to go into overdrive, and when the breakup starts, back off the PURE just a little bit — and now your tubes are fully "cooked" to maximum efficiency. In this scenario, you'd leave the PURE Boost running all the time, so if you want a volume boost as described above, just add a second PURE Clean Boost to your chain.
Lastly, the PURE Clean Boost works great as a line buffer if you need to maintain your signal over long cable lengths.
The PURE Clean Boost sports an etched finish that's hand sanded and polished to a high shine, and sports metallic black paint in the recesses.
As with all my effects, only the finest quality parts are used: cast aluminum shells, Switchcraft jacks, individually selected transistors, carbon resistors, high-end capacitors, and personally designed plate-through PCBs. The PURE Clean Boost is true bypass, sports heavy-gauge wiring, a 9-volt center pin negative (BOSS style) DC jack (18v is supported, too), and an internal battery clip. Current draw is approximately 2mA. Made by hand, one at a time, here in the USA.
$100.00,- / Approx. €77.00,-
RailHead Effects, USA 
Here's your chance to get the scoop about how RAILhead Effects started, and who, exactly, makes these neat little boxes of noise.
Origins
I like to say that RAILhead Effects was born out of necessity. Yeah, I know that's kind of cliché — but it's true.
Ages ago, I decided to setup my pedalboard so that I could easily swap between playing electric through my miked Goodsell Super 17, or playing my acoustic directly into the FOH board. Since I wanted to run both guitar types through all my effects, a simple A/B switch was the answer — so I bought the lowest priced, name brand switch I could find. My initial goofing around let me know the little guy worked great, so I strapped it on my board and headed out the door to play.
Once I started using it in a live setting, though, I realized it had a fatal flaw (in my opinion): no LEDs to indicate which channel was being used.
Since I've always been a tinkerer, I decided I'd modify the investment and drop-in some LEDs as opposed to buying a whole new switch. When I set out to do this, though, I also realized the pedal's jacks weren't in the prime spots as far as fitting perfectly onto my board.
The answer? You guessed it: I decided to build my own. I sourced out the parts, played with different layouts, monkeyed with various configurations, and finally settled on a final layout design. At this point, I had the perfect A/B switch for my needs — but it was ugly. Thankfully, my wife just so happens to be a painter, so I handed over the blank shell and she performed her paintlery magic upon it.
And thus our flagship pedal, the Switcha Rooski, was born.
Personnel
RAILhead Effects' massive operation is managed by a whopping two people: me and my wife.
In all seriousness, though, it's just the two of us. I come up with the effects I want to build and take care of all the "electronic stuff" — my wife takes the blank shells and makes them pretty. Sometimes I have a distinct idea for what I want as far as graphics and art go, and other times, I just let her do whatever comes natural.
I've been playing the guitar since 1985, and I've always been fascinated with analog technology. Since I love working with my hands (especially detail work), it was only a matter of time before my love of music fell into sync with my love for electronics.
My wife also plays the guitar — but the viola was her first musical love. She's also painted all her life, drawing loads of inspiration from her late Grandmother, who was always a marvel with canvas and oil.
My wife and I met in college because we were both in bands: I was in a heavy rock band named Free Association, and she was in a girl band named The Blue Sugars. It didn't take our band very long to figure out we'd have a better turn-out if The Blue Sugars opened for us (and we eventually got smarter and realized it was better to let them be the half-time show, thus ensuring an even larger audience), so we started hanging around one another a lot during our practices. Eventually, our drummer and I started playing in their band, and things progressed from there (read: she just couldn't resist my total coolness so she set about to woo me).
The rest, as they say, is history.
