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Hello All -
I've been looking into getting a boost pedal, specifically this one... http://www.magicpedals.bigcartel.com/pr ... moke-boost . This black smoke pedal says that it's a mosfet mu amp booster. I've probably seen mosfet pedals before but did not recognize it or wasn't paying attention and to be honest i have no idea what a mosfet mu circuit is. So what is a mosfet mu pedal? is there a difference sonically between a mosfet mu pedal and a non-mosfet pedal? is a mosfet pedal recommended or is it kind of a personal preference? I feel like an idiot for not knowing this but i'd really like to hear some options and facts from anyone before i decide whether or not to buy this pedal. Thanks ILF'ers, i appreciate the help....

I have very little knowledge about these things, but I thought mosfet was just one of many ways to obtain the actual boosting. Mosfet will give a certain characteristic, germanium gives another, silicon again another etc.

Ignore what's under the hood.

Does it sound good to you?

Is the price right?

Do angels poop on your head when you play it?

Yep, there's just a handful of different amping/clipping options for drive pedals, neither of 'em is 'better' than the other one. I personally think it's sorta lame when builders/companies think they're impressing the average guitar player if they're dropping extra technical lingo in a sales pitch. Most of us doesn't know what it means, nor gives a shit about anything but the audio clips, price, and maybe the pedal's graphics as well as some unbiased reviews

Mosfets are just a certain type of transistor, that's all.
Mu amp boosters normally use jfets, this guy used a mosfet.
Slightly different circuitry, slightly different sound, I imagine.
It's really useless information unless you're interested in the circuitry itself.

Right on....thanks for the info! As far as i know Magic makes pretty good pedals so i figured it would be worth a shot just based on his Magik Fuzz Pedal. I believe Dunwich makes his boards or something too (at least the Magic and Dunwich facebook page always have combined posts so that's why i'm guessing on some what of a combined partnership of some sort) so i'm sure that it's gonna be top of the line. Only one clip of the Black Smoke and that's on the Magic website, I believe this is a fairly new pedal. Anyways...thanks again!!

Mu is an archaic term for amplification factor in vacuum tubes. Mu-amps are just a topology lifted from some tube schematic and implemented with fet (since they can be considered a "voltage device" instead of those creepy bipolar "current device" junction transistors). The metal oxide (MOS) manufacturing method has really put junction (J) fet into the obsolete technology bracket, though they do react to signal in a different manner. Ultimately this boils down to what rfkurtamp said.

Thanks to everyone for the information, i appreciate it greatly! Rolling with it...so we shall see......

To me Mosfets and Ge trannies have a certain something in the mids & treble that Si trannies lack in similar circuits. They're not like tubes per se, but they have a harmonic richness/depth regular Si diode clipping never quite matches.

My two favorite boosts are an original SansAmp, or my Keeley Java on the mid boost setting with everything cranked.

I'll post a heads up when i get the boost...clips sound cool so we shall see!