Cerulean V2 PCB and kit

New Cerulean V2 PCB & kit available now

November 25, 2022
Announcements

Along with four brand-new projects, today we’re also releasing an updated PCB and kit of our Cerulean, based on the Marshall Bluesbreaker.

The Cerulean has always been one of our most popular projects since it was first released back in 2013—and based on user feedback and testing, we felt like we could make some significant improvements with a ground-up redesign. Here’s where we ended up with V2.

  1. Combined hard & soft clipping toggles: The King of Tone has internal DIP switches for hard & soft clipping, and we adapted the toggle switches from there. But, as it turns out, there are only a few combinations that sound noticeably different from each other. These have now been combined into a single switch, with hard clipping on one side, soft clipping (stock) on the other, and a no-clipping “boost” mode in the middle.
  2. Added “Mode” toggle: Around 1995, Marshall tweaked the Bluesbreaker circuit to increase the gain and reduce the bass. This is the more common of the versions, but the King of Tone and several other popular Bluesbreaker derivatives were based on the earlier one. This toggle switch selects between the pre-95 (V1) and post-95 (V2) versions so you can get both tones in one box.
  3. Added gain-boost modes: An internal DIP switch allows for two extra gain range settings beyond what the original circuit was capable of.
  4. Removed “Presence” trimmer: This trimmer was also adapted from the King of Tone, but it’s pretty useless and has a significant amount of functional overlap with the tone control.
  5. Removed JFET boost stage: The JFET output boost was adapted from the JHS Morning Glory, but the Bluesbreaker has plenty of output volume unless the gain is set at minimum. In combination with Boost mode, where the gain control adds volume without clipping, this JFET stage is unnecessary.

We sent the prototypes to a few people for review and the feedback was excellent, so we’re moving forward with this as a full replacement for the previous version. The first version is no longer available, but the legacy PCB is basically the same as the V1 and will continue to be stocked.

We also now have PCBs for the King of Tone and Prince of Tone, with kits coming soon.