StarLifter Deep Dive part 2

So in the first part of this story Jeff Genzler and Scott Andres, his primary engineer post Genz-Benz take on the task of product development.

First was the power supply. You can’t build anything solid on shaky ground so we decided +/-12v rails was the way to go. (Ok, I decided. It was me.)

Next Scott took what we had came up with and started sorting out the circuits, first manifesting my contour switch idea to a level I could only have hoped for. He developed a sweepable mid circuit that is invitingly usable on top of powerful bass and treble controls. The resulting eq section makes the StarLifter a transparent and musical weapon.

And Scott absolutely nailed Devin’s LED side light concept! Sonia added her brilliant art work for the box and we were off to the races, having them made in Taiwan under agreement with Jeff at the same factory that makes the Genzler products.

Robust power plus clean simple op amp circuitry was the approach. It should be noted that this deep clean supply of power meant the circuit could be designed to much higher standards - wider bandwidth, deeper headroom, exceptional signal to noise ratio, and flawless eq performance.

 I also decided that we would use Burr Brown op amps in the unit and to this day it’s a decision I’ve not regretted. I really believe they make the StarLifter feel almost luxurious in how it handles your tone.

On a side note, once we finished the pedal, we had Scott adapt my through hole preamp designs to surface mount for factory production. This turned out to be a good move as we now sell them in numbers that we could never have pulled off the old school way. Same circuit, but better for everyone.

So here we are seven years after launch and the StarLifter is slowly and quietly building an impressive legion of fans. What is it that makes this pedal so useful to so many? We will take a deeper look in Part 3 at the qualities that make it such a powerful tool anywhere you might need to plug your bass in.