Xploration • Curation • Recommendation
Wonderful Audio Technology's latest Ranges Preamp is a potent and versatile touch-sensitive overdrive with cascaded OpAmp and JFET Gain Stages
Key Points
Wonderful Audio Technology's Ranges Preamp is a potent, touch-sensitive overdrive with cascaded OpAmp and JFET Gain Stages. Controls: Volume, Presence, Gain, Bright (↑ Bright / Stock ↓), Voice (↑ Focused / Full-Range ↓), Bass, Middle, Treble. Four 2‑way toggles include More (↑ 4 Gain Stages / 3 Gain Stages ↓) and Tight (↑ Tight / Thick ↓).
It offers 6 fully variable controls plus 4 binary switches, with a blue colorway and white silver-top / Boss-style knobs. Orders are available from the Wonderful Audio Technology webstore. As of 2026-07-13, the price was £215.
Demos exist from Grahm Baker (Boring Gear Reviews) and Sasha Ivantic; Sasha's video has an encoding/embedding issue. Demo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOm8U7KUThs
I feel this is the 3rd WAT?! Pedal to date - I missed out on the Ancient Echos Delay, but did cover the Fuzz Lands - which still remains a target for me.
This Ranges Preamp is the most likely acquisitions for me now - I love these kinds of essentially multi-drive pedals which allow you to very significantly shape the gain output, as well as rapidly and easily level up courtesy of a number of binary switches.
Some aspects of this pedal remind me of the Audiostorm Tone Lord Boost that I recently featured - that has 3 push-button levers on top of 3 variable controls. Here we have 6 fully variables controls, including 3-Band EQ, along with 4 x 2-way Toggle Switches which allow you to ramp up in certain key areas.
Controls : Volume, Presence, Gain, Bright : ↑ Bright / Stock ↓, Voice : ↑ Focused / Full-Range ↓, Bass, Middle, Treble. More : ↑ 4 Gain Stages / 3 Gain Stages ↓, Tight : ↑ Tight / Thick ↓.
It’s a highly intuitive design overall and one which I kind of feel an affinity for - even before I get my hands on one. This is exactly the kind of gain pedal I like - with gives you a very broad range of controls - along with those 4 Boosts - which allow you to quickly ramp up various parts of the circuit - by applying a variety of High- and Low-Pass-Filters, or additional gain stages.
The Ranges Preamp is available for orders right now from the Wonderful Audio Technology (WAT?!) Webstore - where it goes for $265 - which I feel is a fair price for this circuit. I think I like near enought everything about this pedal - including the blue colorway and white silver-top / Boss-style knobs. Really smartly thought out and laid out - hopefully there is a deal to be done here - so I can follow-up with a hands-on deep-dive!
There seems to be just a couple of demos to date - from Grahm Baker of Boring Gear Reviews, and Sasha Ivantic :
Actually - there is something wrong with the encoding of the Sasha Ivantic one - which is preventing it from being embedded in the usual way!
Demos
