Xploration • Curation • Recommendation
Audiostorm's new MK2 Tone Lord Solo Boost and Shaper is an incredible surgical precision tone-enhancer
So I’ve very much decided that the principal application for this circuit is as a fixer and tone-enhancer. I’m sure some will use it as an always-on boost, and others still might crank the Gain Boost and use it as an Overdrive, while my feeling is that the best use for this pedals is as a precision-honed tone-enhancer.
So this means that where you have a pedal in the chain which is not quite delivering for you in how you want it to sound - say it’s missing a little of this or that, and is a couple or few steps away from sounding its best - then the Tone Lord will add a little of what you’re missing - in the most surgically precise way.
If we briefly have an overview look at the key controls before we go into details :
Controls - Tone Boost (Level), HN03 (Crispness / Bite), Gain Boost (Overall Gain Intensity), OXY2 (Brightness / Air / Clarity), Tone Era Frequency Enhancer : Off / 60’s - More Bass, 70’s - More Treble, 80’s - A Lot More Treble, 90’s - More Mids, 00’s - A Lot More Bass, NOVA (Saturation Boost).
Internal Startup State Switch : Off (Default) / On.
So we have 3 knobs which set the Level, Gain, and Frequency Enhancement, and then individual Push-Button-Boosters - which add Bite, Clarity, and More Saturation (with the Gain Boos at 3 o’c and above).
And you instinctively know when to call upon each of those controls and tone components - if you’re missing a little in the Mids section - flip the Tone Era to 90’s - Red, and possibly deploy HN03 Bite too - which mostly combines really well with the Tone Eras. Using both Crispness and Clarity can make things quite Bright - which if you’re on Yellow or Orange Tone Eras - you probably will need to knock one of those back - if not both.
I’ve been using the Tone Lord with a number of different pedals pedals - either to accentuate a particularly aspect of those, or else to add a little more flavour to where the output profile is somehow uneven. I’ve been usingg the Tone Lord a lot with the SoundLad Scran, Fjord Fuzz Midnattssol, and Brelliott TODP. The Scran doesn’t really need the Tone Lord as is has plenty of EQ possibilities onboard already. While for the Midnattssol and and TODP which have minimal or no onboard EQ - then the Tone Lord is super helpful in enhancing the output profile of those - making the Fuzz a little more cutting, and the Distortion rather more chunky and weighty.
The Tone Lord deploys quite a bit differently to my Empress ParaEQ 2 - where for the latter you’re normally adjusting a few controls in tandem. While for the Tone Lord - with those precise tone-enhancing components - you very quickly figure out what needs adding into the mix - and it’s therefore super quick, easy and efficient on that score.
It’s really a little like cooking - when you need a little more sugar, salt, pepper, or even vanilla essence to tone thing up or down a touch. I’ve really found the Tone Lord incredibly easy to dial-in - and incredibly quick to deploy therefore.
Let's look a little closer into what each control is doing to the output of the circuit - starting off with the variable controls, and then dealing the 3 Push-Buttons!
Tone Boost - the core Output Level Control
Gain Boost - degree of Hair / Saturation, gets to Overdrive levels from circa 3 o'c onwards - fantastic sounding Overdrive when Gain Boost is Maxed.
Turn up the GAIN BOOST for more clean boost, turn it down for less. Note that turning it right down actually cuts a bit, this is to allow you to compensate for when you have the Tone Boost dialled up really high, and / or multiple other boost options selected.
This controls how much effect the Tone Era controls have. At minimum you get just a small boost, a few dB, and at maximum you get a huge amount of tonal boost from the Tone Era circuits. Note that it does nothing when the Tone Era mode is set to ‘Off’
TONE ERA ROTARY SELECTOR
OFF - Bypassed
60’s B(ass) - Modelled after the classic, warm 60’s sound this offers a wide boost around 600Hz and a roll-off around 2.5KHz for a syrupy, clear sound.
70’s T(reble) - A brighter, punkier sound with more edge and less roll-off. Wide Q boost of 1.5KHz to 4KHz makes it ideal for versatile treble-tones that work with a wide range of styles, and rolls off around 6KHz to remove subtle harshness.
80’s T(reble)+ - A very bright sound designed for articulation and shredders looking for maximum clarity. There’s no hiding behind sloppy playing with this one as it boosts everything above 2.5KHz, with a focus on 5KHz+ and no roll-off, more like a vintage boost.
90’s M(ids / Modern) - A very balanced and refined, studio friendly sound centred around the 2 to 4KHz region, that pulls your guitar forward in the mix without being obnoxious. Very subtle roll-off above 10KHz.
00’s B(ass)+ - A ridiculously fat boost in the 100Hz to 500Hz range with loads of roll-off around 1.5 KHz. Ideal for detuned players, 8 stringers and bassists looking to create definition and control in the lower registers. Or for mad blues experimentalists. Noughty stuff!
THE PUSH-BUTTON BOOSTERS
NO 3 - shunts a portion of your mid and high-frequency signal straight past the boost controls to give you even more gain with extra top-end energy and aggression.
OXY 2 - Alters the filtering and roll-off that the TONE ERA control provides to extend the high frequency boost in all modes. This subtly opens up the high frequency harmonics of your guitar without introducing harshness.
NOVA - Engages the soft-saturation circuit. This circuit sits at the end of the boost chain, so much like a vintage master-volume tube amp output valves the only way to get ‘that’ sound is to turn up the gain: Ensure the GainBoost is up high, past 3 o’clock, to hear it working.
I mostly use both 'Bass Eras' and the 'Mids / Modern' Era - I don't seem to have as much use for the 2 Brighter / Treble Modes. I also haven't found much use for the Saturation Push-Button - that is no exactly the warm and sustaining saturation boost that I expected - it doesn't just add saturation but adds a certain tone and timbre too via a 'Soft' Tubescreamer circuit.
Tone Era Musical Origins
Each of the Tone Eras is loosely based upon an influential album tone I was trying to recreate. In some cases it’s more of an amalgamation of albums or a genre.
60B - This is based upon The Doors / Strange Days ‘My Eyes Have Seen You’. I was looking for music
that really captured the warmth of the analogue equipment used in this era rather than fight it and this track stood out as a really clear and forward example of that I felt.
70T - I felt EVH’s Eruption closes the door on the soft and silky guitar tones of the 60’s once and for all with a bright and cutting tone that isn’t in any way harsh.
80T+ - Crazy Train, Blizzard of Oz. Kicking things up a notch with faster and brighter licks, and of course the claim by EVH than Randy was copying his style, hence my subtle nod to this noting this setting as a T+ as well as 80’s.
90M - Really, the whole of the Grunge era was in my sights here to begin with, and certainly I began by thinking about Smells like Teen spirit, by most Grunge was so heavy on the wah it was hard to pick out the tone behind that. In the end it was Use Your Illusion 1 and November Rain that I focussed on and that’s the sound here, loads of midrangey fluidity, with just a backwards glance towards Smells’.
00B+ - I’d started getting into 8 string and bass and wanted something that was just really different and suited the lower registers. I wanted to get away from ‘treble boost’ and I’d also really started getting into Muse. For this one I had the Muse bass solo at the end of Hysteria in my sights. And although you’ll also need fuzz to really make it come to life, that’s the one.
Final Thoughts and Key Features Overview
The 2025 Tone Lord is a Studio-grade Clean Boost with numerous gain and tone modes, plus saturation mode and MDK module support.
It offers many ways to boost your sound. With clean boost alone you get 25dB of pure clean boost. Using the HNO3 switch increases this to 35dB. And Tone Boost can add a further 9dB for a total of 44dB. The OXY2 switch adds several dB of upper frequency clarity and the NOVA mode adds in soft saturated clipping, which compresses dynamic range whilst making your sound seem louder.
KEY FEATURES
- 25dB of unfiltered, pure clean boost.
- HNO3 boosts the clean boost gain up to 10dB more with an emphasis on presence.
- OXY2 mode adds wideband air and clarity boost.
- NOVA mode engages soft saturation clipping along with a complementary midrange boost.
- Tone boost smoothly dials in from 2dB to 9dB of boost in your chosen frequency zone.
- Five carefully tuned frequency range zones to choose from, plus Neutral.
- Power from 9v to 18v DC. Higher voltages increase clean headroom.
- MDK module support.
The Tone Lord (2025) has an RRP of £199 and is available direct from the Audiostorm Webstore.
It's an incredibly unique and precision-honed Booster where it's very much in the Tone Enhancer / Fixer category. - which allows you to rapidly scale up the output profile of any pedal in your chain. If an overdrive is missing a certain something for you - this will add in that missing link! It's a delight to use, and while I've yet to find a lot of use for the 2 Tone Era Treble Modes and the Saturation Boost. All those tone elements add precisely the right amount of enhancement to level up. So this is the Level-Up Boost in so many different ways.
You may think you already have plenty of boost pedals - but you don't have one like this - it's been so smartly engineered to instantly improve anything it comes into contact with - those push-buttons in particular are so easy to deploy!
Demos
