Catalinbread Airstrip

Catalinbread Airstrip is based on a channel strip from the legendary Trident A-Range console in a stompbox-format with a handful of extras.

The Trident A-Range console dominated the UK recording scene in the late ‘60s to early ‘80s, due in part to just how good it made things sound. The heart of the beast consists of a discrete germanium-and-transformer-equipped preamp that can be adjusted to suit all tastes, from the tones of Lou Reed to the fuzzy freakouts of Frank Zappa. And when pushed, console preamps distort, saturate and heave, dripping with harmonics.

The front of the circuit has a discrete op-amp based on a vintage UREI. This design pushes the front end of the console into blissful gain if you want it. On the back end, a tasteful treble filter sets the luminosity of the pre to suit your rig and a specially-selected transformer adds a touch of iron to the signal.

Capable of every gain sound imaginable from warm, “mastered”-style cleans to gnarly collapsing fuzz, the Airstrip puts the mixing desk on your pedalboard in a much more manageable package. The Airstrip accepts a center-negative DC power supply at anything between 9 and 18 volts. The more voltage you give it, the more headroom, volume and clarity you will get.

Catalinbread Airstrip demo video