Intensive Care Audio LIFE SUPPORT

It features a unique clipping blend control which allows you to blend between LED clipping and a parallel JFET/MOSFET clipping arrangement. The LEDs yield a softer, more open and transparent tone and as you blend in the JFET/MOSFET arrangement the clipping threshold is reduced, increasing saturation and compression. Paired with the ‘Preamp’ control which adjusts the overall gain there is an extremely wide variety of available tones and gain combinations.

The EQ section utilises independent subtractive treble and bass controls and are situated ‘post gain’ so you can really dial in the guitar tone depending on your gain and clipping settings. After this is the output transformer, a TRIAD TY-141 as used in the Hudson Broadcast.

There is also a jfet boost circuit which you can switch in and out with the right foot switch and whilst it can’t be used independently of the preamp it is extremely useful in pushing the preamp circuit further into break up or for use as a solo/lead setting.

The pedal’s PREAMP knob sets the gain of the overdrive, ranging from sparkly, chiming clean tones through to natural, tube like edge of break up and on into grittier distortion territory. This control interacts interestingly with the CLIPPING control, which allows you to blend between two very different but equally useful clipping options. Fully clockwise is LED clipping, yielding a softer, more transparent break up. Fully counter-clockwise is a parallel arrangement of a MOSFET and a JFET which produces much harder, compressed and saturated clipping.

The ability to blend between these two clipping options, in conjunction with the PREAMP control allows for an extremely wide range of overdriven tones.VOLUME adjusts the overall output volume, including when BOOST is engaged. The BOOST knob controls the gain of the boost circuit which drives the front end of the overdrive circuit. This can not be used independently of the overdrive circuit, it is used to hit the front end harder, increase gain and compression and act as a boost for lead/solo situations.

An extremely useful passive subtractive treble filter after the last gain stage, the TOP control is used for taming high frequencies which can become more pronounced as gain is increased and clipping settings altered, while BOTTOM adjusts a subtractive bass filter after the last gain stage which variably bypasses the output capacitor, just before hitting the output transformer. As this control is in parallel with the output capacitor some crackle may be present when adjusted at lower gain settings.

The dose of LIFE SUPPORT needed to treat guitar effect deficiency will depend on how low your levels of guitar effect are. Your doctor will advise you on the length of time to use LIFE SUPPORT. For adults this is usually 1-2 hours, twice a day. Using pedals after meals is recommended to avoid dizziness. If you forget to use the LIFE SUPPORT, use it as soon as possible and continue to use it as normal. DO NOT take a double dose to make up for a forgotten dose, as this can cause irreversible MIND BENDING (Mindbendinitis)