Caroline Guitar Company Icarus Pedal

The boutique pedal world is becoming congested with boxes calling themselves “clean” boosts. Adding to this tidal wave of possible boost confusion is that everyone seems to have a different idea of what a “clean” boost is supposed to do. Sometimes a booster is placed in front of other overdrives or effects to push them into clip or improve their performance. Other times, players use them to raise the overall volume of a clean amp, or push an amplifier on the verge of breaking up into saturation. There are also other situations where a booster is used to distinguish the lead or standout parts with a different tone.

 

Luckily for the confused masses, Caroline’s Icarus excels at all of these applications. Its simple layout starts with a boost control that dials up to 21dB of preamp mangling gain, while the low-impedance output instantly eliminates the tone-vampire effect of long cable runs. Icarus’s treble control is phase neutral and can be dialed down to a natural level of capacitance that is more organic sounding, or dramatically providing a darker thick tone.

 

Plug a Strat through an Icarus into a cathode-biased Class A amplifier and marvel at the rich, pain free clean boost spank and sparkle. A P-90 equipped guitar, when paired with Icarus and vintage Marshall on the verge of breakup, really defines the term “Sweet Spot” ala Steve Hunter/Dick Wagner on Lou Reed’s Rock ‘N Roll Animal. Medium boost settings with a Tele will give you Reggae skanks that any true Lion of Judah would trade his dreads for in a second.

 

We think engineers will appreciate Icarus because it makes guitar parts pop like a compressor but with incredible dynamics and touch sensitivity instead of the choked tone and gain reduction that plague most compression pedals.