The 2024 Fryer Strelly Booster will be available in late June 2024.

In early-mid 2023 Australian guitar legend Ian Moss asked me if I could develop a treble booster pedal which would work well with his Fender® Stratocaster® guitars – all of which use standard single coil pickups.

This project sent me back to the drawing board scratching my head several times, making me wonder what on earth could sound great as a treble booster to suit the unusual tonal requirements of the twangy trebly Fender® Strat® single coil pickups.

Finally after several re-draws and revisions I am now happy to announce that the Strelly Booster will be available soon! Shaun Klinger and I will be building the new pedals, and a release date of late June 2024 is expected  (barring any unexpected delays).

In mid February 2024 I visited well known YouTube guitar gear reviewer Brett Kingman in Melbourne. For the interview I brought the 3 BM Fryer Treble Booster pedals: Touring Super and Deluxe, Deacy Amp and Kz RS Jnr Hybrid guitar. I also took along the final prototype Strelly Booster (in large black test box format pictured below).

Brett is a Strat® aficionado and has been playing Stratocasters® professionally for decades. Because he reviews so many pedals designed for Strats® I knew it was important to get his views on this new pedal.

After the Brian May gear interviews were finished, I pulled out the Strelly Booster box to show Brett – he was aware that Ian had asked me to develop this pedal.

At first Brett was stand-offish, saying ‘look I don’t really think a treble booster is going to work very well with a Strat®’ but was persuaded by me and Shaun to plug in his Strat® and give it a go.

The pedal was plugged in and Brett immediately raised his eyebrows. He started tweaking the knobs to explore its sounds (the pedal has 4 knobs which give a lot of tonal and drive flexibility), and after trying the pedal for around 10 mins said ‘Wow I want one!’.

The three amigos in Melbourne 🙂

Photos below are of the prototype aluminium box and the older big black test box (which has the extra control compared to the final 4 knob version), the black pedal was the one taken to Melbourne for Brett Kingman to try:

On 3rd May 2024 I did some interesting experiments using the Strelly Booster test box, 2015 version Mayday distortion pedal (set on Deacy Amp sound) into the Brilliant Channel of my Vox AC30 amp.

I didn’t think this would sound very good with the thin sinewy sounding Strat®, but was surprised by how good it actually was. It got me thinking this might lead to something interesting. There may be a distortion pedal ahead later in the year which Shaun and I can develop which would suit the Strelly Booster and Strats®!

When the drilled and powdercoated boxes arrive and we are screenprinting them, I will post more photos.

Cheers n beers,

Greg