The Blues is Caroline’s deliberately simple take on vintage amp breakup. It has two knobs, one switch, and enough character to cover everything from a clean, black-tolex sparkle to a beaten-up tweed amp with cigarette burns in the grille cloth.
Key Features
- Simple two-knob, one-switch overdrive built around a NOS BC108 transistor
- Two voicings: Vintage and Modern Vintage, selected via the Style switch
- Roughly an 85% drive, 15% fuzz character — closer to pushed amp breakup than a fuzz pedal
- Internal Crystal Lettuce trimpot sets the transistor’s collector voltage for fine-tuning minimum gain and maximum range
- No compression, with genuine touch and volume-knob sensitivity
Deliberately Simple, Genuinely Expressive
The Blues doesn’t try to do very much, and that’s rather the point.
In Vintage mode, it moves smoothly between the sound of a pristine, well-preserved amp and a battered pawnshop find.
Modern Vintage brings a chewier, tweed-amp character like something that’s had genuine road use.
Because the circuit is uncompressed, it is very responsive to your playing, how hard you pick and how far the guitar volume is rolled back.
So a lot of the dynamic range comes from your playing rather than the pedal doing the work for you.
The internal Crystal Lettuce trimpot sets the collector voltage of the BC108 transistor, and comes set to a balanced 7 volts from the factory. It’s a genuine tone-shaping control if you want to experiment with the pedal’s minimum gain and overall headroom, not just a manufacturing calibration point.
Controls
- Output (left): sets the output volume
- Grit (right): sets the amount of drive
- Style (switch): selects between Vintage and Modern Vintage voicings
- Crystal Lettuce (internal trimpot): sets the BC108 transistor’s collector voltage, fine-tuning minimum gain and maximum range — factory set to 7V
Power
Runs on a standard 9V DC supply. Current draw isn’t published, but as a simple transistor-based overdrive it’s low.
Who Is This For
Worth a look if you want a genuinely simple, no-menu-diving overdrive with real touch sensitivity, particularly for blues, classic rock, or anyone chasing the feel of a pushed vintage amp without needing to actually own or carry one.
Watch Caroline Guitar Company The Blues In Action
FAQs
It’s a simple two-knob overdrive built around a NOS BC108 transistor, giving roughly 85% drive and 15% fuzz character, closer to a pushed vintage amp than a fuzz pedal.
A standard 9V DC supply. Current draw isn’t published, but as a simple transistor-based overdrive it’s low.
True bypass.
Vintage mode moves between a clean, well-preserved amp tone and a more battered, pawnshop-amp character. Modern Vintage brings a chewier, tweed-amp style crunch and grit.
It’s an internal control that sets the collector voltage of the BC108 transistor. This fine tunes the minimum gain and maximum range.
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