Catalinbread Airstrip

The Trident A-Range console dominated the UK recording scene in the late '60s to early '80s, due in part to just how good it made things sound. The heart of the beast consists of a discrete germanium-and-transformer-equipped preamp that can be adjusted to suit all tastes, from the tones of Lou Reed to the fuzzy freakouts of Frank Zappa. And when pushed, console preamps distort, saturate and heave, dripping with harmonics.

The Airstrip distills these legendary tones into a stompbox-sized console preamp with a handful of extras on offer. A discrete op-amp based on a vintage UREI design pushes the front end of the console into blissful gain if you want it. On the back end, a tasteful treble filter sets the luminosity of the pre to suit your rig and a specially-selected transformer adds a touch of iron to the signal. Capable of every gain sound imaginable from warm, "mastered"-style cleans to gnarly collapsing fuzz, the Airstrip puts the mixing desk on your pedalboard in a much more manageable package.

Controls:
• Push: This is where the Airstrip goes from a mild-mannered enhancer to a collapsing wall of fuzz with one simple twist. Push governs the gain of a discrete op-amp, based on an old UREI design, which slams the front end of the console preamp. At its minimum value, the op-amp has unity gain and doesn't affect the operation of the preamp. When the knob is increased, it is highly interactive with the Trim control. When both are set to maximum, the sound transforms into molten fuzz that ducks in between notes for a very cool swell effect.
• Volume: Keeping both Trim and Push controls at their minimum settings and cranking this knob offers a superb and very loud clean boost with a tailored tonal profile that makes your guitar sound pre-mastered right out of the box.
• Filter: Serving up a gentle treble filter, the Tone control cuts treble at its minimum and adds a trebly topnote to the final product at its maximum.
• Trim: This knob controls the amount of gain from the preamp itself, as the knob adjusts a variable resistance from within the circuit.

The Airstrip accepts a center-negative DC power supply at anything between 9 and 24 volts. The more voltage you give it, the more headroom, volume and clarity you will get.