Julian

The Lehle Julian is an advanced pedal that has developed into a versatile booster, particularly catering to vintage users. It is designed to enhance the input of a tube amp and offers additional controls like the parametric mids and treble. The pedal allows for individual sound shaping and can recreate the characteristics of familiar classics like the Dallas Rangemaster or the Hornby Skewes Treble Booster. It features a switch that reduces the impedance from 1 MOhm to 10 kOhm for authentic rendition of the characteristics of vintage boosters.

The Julian provides a clean output thanks to its JFET input stage and offers a gain pot that allows fine-tuning of the overdrive grade of the connected amp by +/-15 dB, ranging from super clean to distorted. The pedal also features a treble control that completes the sonic performance, offering settings from "muffled" to "edgy" without producing dull or piercing sounds.

In OFF status, the Julian provides two different modes of operation - True Bypass (TB) mode and True Sound (TS) mode. In TB mode, the input and output are linked with zero losses to one another via a switch with gold-plated contacts, making it suitable for short cable routings and when a classical fuzz pedal is looped in after the Julian. In TS mode, it becomes active as a buffer without amplifying or coloring the signal, making it ideal for long cables and complex effect board configurations.

The pedal can be powered by a single 9V battery or any power supply ranging from 9V to 20V. It is compact, housed in a tough metal chassis, and is suitable for multiple-pedal setups and long cable runs. The Julian is also described as a great recording preamp for guitar.