A stompbox that made our Best New Pedals of 2021 list, the Browne Amplification Carbon is the Blue side of the company’s Protein dual overdrive, a high-end Blues Breaker-inspired circuit. Released in 2023, V2 adds a toggle switch that offers a darker voice through a hi-cut filter.
The Carbon was designed to provide the player with a wide array of tonal options with just three knobs, a “less is more” approach that is a cornerstone of the Kansas City-based company.
One characteristic of this pedal is that your tone will sound brighter the higher you have the gain set, due in part to the circuit’s massive output potential which allows it to be used also as a clean boost at lower gain settings. A Tone knob lets you fine-tune the low/high frequency balance to complement your pickup/amp combo.
Here’s a demo of the Carbon V2, which we added to our in-depth article about the best Bluesbreaker-inspired pedals. You’ll find demos of v1 further down in the post.
Browne Amplification Carbon V2, Builder’s Notes
The Carbon is the stand alone Blue Side of the Protein Pedal. It is a heavily modified Bluesbreaker pedal that is half of the celebrated Protein Pedal found on pro boards all across the world. Simple in design and avoiding the complicated options that can be found in other pedals of the same circuit, the Carbon is a pedal you might never turn off. The V2 features an additional hi-cut toggle with 2 variations, along with the OG Carbon setting. Softswitching now includes an adjustable start up state.
Browne Amplification Carbon Harmonic Saturator V1
Browne Amplification Carbon, Builder’s Notes
We carefully extracted the Blue side of our Protein Dual Overdrive and gave it the ability to stand on its own for a solo mission. The Carbon is inspired by a legendary circuit that we obsessively tweaked to address some of the issues we had with the original design.
Many pedals offer different clipping choices, internal dip switches, and trimmers that give you endless options. We found this to be problematic because, for us, it can create option fatigue. The Carbon is designed to be an incredibly versatile pedal without any switches or internal pots to tweak.
The higher you have the gain set, the brighter the Carbon will be. If you happen to be running the gain on the higher side you may find yourself dialing back the tone control. This is normal! The Carbon has massive output potential which will give you the ability to turn the drive way down and use it as a clean boost.
