Jordan Boss Tone: Who ever Jordan was, he knocked out some great effects pedals, with his Jordan Boss Tone as their flagship product. This legend started way early too; the Boss Tone was a well known, when the original Star Trek voyages were first being shown on TV! (The late 1960's).
What a nice tone these pedals have: robust, and musical without frying, or bass boosting your sound...not too raspy, rough or cheap sounding either, and it has great sustain. The Boss Tone has that extra second of push, we often hope for, yet isn't heavily compressed.
There's evidence of further creativity too, in the design of the effect; like plugging the tiny device right into your guitar. This makes for easy adjustments on the fly; accomplished by two rotary dials, appropriate for intuitive spinning, to to your heart's delight.
This was a milestone concept in effects design. Had the Bosstone been physically compatable with the setup of a Fender Stratocaster, there certainly could have been a Boss Tone era in Jimi's Career. We're preaching to the choir here, but clearly a born button pusher: was there any knob, switch, or moving part "HE" did not create with? Ahmen!
re: Parallel, Evolution, and Natural Gear Selection: Jordan's BossTone design doesn't quite fit into Leo Fender's angular, front -mounted hardware, for pluging it into the guitar! With after-market businesses still years away, custom mounting Boss Tones; under Strat Pickguards, never became "a neat Mod to check out". With a fraction of the guitarists of today, there wern't enough buyers to merit a second model, with an angled plug, for Strats.
It was likely the frustration of many, which lead to the gear hotrodding businesses. In those days, you got a good guitar for your money. You want options, you buy a different model. The end. Wanting different pickups, or changes was considered petty. Buddy Holly used a stock Strat, if it was good enough for him, who were you to suggest a change? In the glare of that logic; there wasn't much a poor, unaccomplished, young player dared to say.
The Boss Tone had other challenges: depite it's small, lightweight design, they'd often fall out of their precarious perch at the bottom of most guitar bodies. Their super snug input jack, was about as stable as anyone could expect, yet a modest tug on the guitar cable, and the effect flew out. It doesn't take a great seer to contemplate the mortality rate, and rarity of this effect. Our original is cristened with a few tiny chips, earned working in a Rock band. It happens!
Jordan made other cool effects; like their turquoise Vibrato, with a Wah-like treadle, again offering easy, desirable adjustments to the player. There was also their "Creator", a slightly embellished Boss Tone in pedal form, and a compressor later on. They likely made, or "distributed", (pasted their name on), other effects too.
There was a second version of the Boss Tone, manufactured in Nashville Tennessee, "Music City USA", (says that on the pedal), in the early 70's. Senior solder sniffers tell us that the circuit is slightly different than the original. It's also noted as being very popular with Pedal Steel guitarists from that area! We have a museum piece example, of this second version in it's original box, it's exactly the same size/shape as the original. Perhaps we sholuld feature a clash of the Titans? They're both great effects, why beat them to death...ya know? (Any Steel players out there? Can you shed some light on V2.0 of the Boss Tone, from Nashville? You'll find us respectful. We know that some great players, wear cowboy boots to sessions)!
Like most of our other Test Suite recordings, the Boss Tone went straight to hard disk with no help from an Amp, or speaker overdrive. Below, you're hearing this effect all by itself, (just a pinch of reverb, as if it were in a large room). The Boss Tone looks like a toy, you're right, but listen to this little bastard crank out the tone!
There's a line in an old song by "The Band": "He walks just like a Goose, but he loves like a Hawk"! That's the Jordan Boss Tone: The little big man, of insertion devices! (Audio sample below).
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