Jetter Gear Gain Stage Red

Very easy to get great tone out of this pedal. The toggle switch gets you more or less saturation and gain, I use it on the high setting most of the time.

I mostly use this pedal with a Fender Super Sonic or a Marshall DSL100 full-stack. My main axes these days are a Les Paul Classic, SG standard and an American Strat. The noise floor of this pedal is very low, and there's really no squealing or excess noise at higher gain levels. My favorite way to run this pedal is with my SG into the GSR then into the Bassman channel of the Super Sonic, treble cranked and bass rolled off on the amp, and the GSR with the gain pegged and tone at about 3 o'clock. The bridge pickup with these settings screams, but the neck pickup gets a great sustaining violin tone for mellower leads. Out of all the pedals I've tried/owned, Fulltones, Radials, Barbers, Boss, Digitech, etc., This is by far my favorite. You can nail just about any classic rock sound, and it cleans up well with your guitar's volume control.

This pedal is built solid.

Like another reviewer said, if I could give Brad a 15 I would. My GSR had some intermittent issues, so I emailed the support email at Jetter gear at around midnight one night. I received an email back from Brad first thing in the morning. I sent the unit to him, and he even called me personally to discuss the issues. He went through the entire pedal, resoldered all connections, and tested it for hours. Then he even offered to continue to test it to make sure I would have no more problems with it. He then shipped it back to me priority mail so I could have it back in time for my next gig. I just wish every company could take lessons from this guy's customer service philosophy!!!

I play in two bands, a classic-rock band, and I play in a contemporay Christian band for our mega-church. I have waaaay to many pedals, but this one will always have a spot on my board.

If it were lost or stolen, I'd have to give Brad a call to make me up a new one quick!

This is a strong point on this pedal. 3 knobs for gain, volume tone and a little switch for hard and soft settings. I personally like the hard setting which adds a bit more gain and articulation for my playing technique

hands down this pedal deserves a perfect 10 for what it does. right out of the box, it gets that sound in your head. On most top 40 variety gigs, i use a strat, since i can dial in so many sounds. My GSR sounds incredible with my Strat. I use the bridge p/u, dial back the tone a little and the GSR gives me that classic D sound, chewy, expressive, touch sensitive, it fattens up the bottom strings .I know this pedal also sounds as good with my LP or 335. For Jazz, country, blues, fusion, this pedal is a true winner

built like a tank, zero problems with it and i play it in pretty adverse stage situations

if i could give Brad a 15 I would, Hes not only a strong player himself, but a true gentleman and a pleasure to work with

this is overall a world class pedal . So far, its saved me thousands of dollars. Originally I was going to buy a 3 thousand dollar amp to get the D clone vibe. I can now approximate the D sound playing the GSR throu the clean channel on my Fender HRD and still keep the fender super squeaky clean channel which i also use allot. I can not say enough about how constantly turns the heads of my fans and band mates who tell me that tone really has a strong signature sound. If stolen, i would call Brad and beg him for an other one

3 knobs: Volume, Gain and Tone, and a hard/soft switch. There is some overlap between the switch and the tone contral IMO.

I love this pedal! It has become in integral part of my sound. I use it with a slightly dirty tube amp (Suhr Badger). I think pedals should be used to add to the tone of a great amp, I don't use it as a tone source of it's own. It's very warm has a nice full dimension to it. It is amazing that it improves so much on what is already a great sounding amp on it's own. I also have an OCD, which is great, but I use the GRS 90% of the time. I use the OCD when I want a little more edge.

So far so good

I did not find that it makes me sound like Robben Ford, but I guess maybe that's because I do not sound like Robben Ford! It has it's own thing going on (and so do I). Just a great distortion pedal if you want thick, warm classic rock and fusion tones.

Very easy to use. Not a bad sound in the pedal.

Amazing sound. I put this into a Deluxe Reverb Reissiue, and it kills.

Built like a tank!

The best. Prompt reply to e-mails. The best!

As I said earlier, I put this into a Deluxe Reverb, and it's perfect. The dynamics of this pedal are the best I've heard. Turn down the guitar, pick lighter, and it's a great clean. Turn up the guitar, and let it rip! It's a rockin good tone.

Pretty easy to get a good sound from this one, just three controls but need careful setting for your guitar (quite different for HB vs. SC's on Strats)

Very transparent - I compared back to back with my Fulltone OCD (slightly better) and the Hermida Zendrive (about the same). I find this is pretty good for Strat neck pickups too whereas the Zendrive flatters the bridge pickup more but is not so hot with a Strat neck pickup and tends to get muddy (but I wasn't voiced that way to begin with...it's meant for humbuckers). What I'll be using from now on is - Zendrive, for Humbuckers set to bridge position for lead sound 1; Gain Stage Red, for Strats in all positions for Lead Sound 2 and lastly the Fulltone OCD, which is a good all rounder but I've set that to a lower gain setting for crunch. I use this setup with an 18w valve head using dual Marshall and Fender input stages through Celestion G12 65w speakers. I have also tried the Barber LTD, MI Audio Blues Pro and Blue Boy, Modded Boss SD1's, Menatone Red Snapper, Nobels ODR-S Overdrive Special and many many more.

Very neat work, given the others I already have I have high expectations. Black "goop" covering key components like the Zendrive to deter the copyists (including the op-amp too. High quality pots and jacks, 3PDT true bypass and a solid Hammond enclosure mean this will last.

Not had to deal yet, but Guitarfetish are very good to deal with for other things.

This is superb low gain overdrive and adds something I didn't have in that it's great for single coil low gain overdrive sounds whereas the Zendrive tends to perform to it's best with humbuckers. Nothing is like a Dumble amp but this is very very good for running into a clean-ish amp as Robben Ford does when he comes over to Europe - I finally saw his setup at the Jazz Cafe last year. All the other pre-requisites apply here too - using good quality cables (Klotz LaGrange or George L) makes a vast difference, all double screened cables are not created equal (the Fulltone OCD is particularly good at showing up poor quality double screen cables with a simple shake test).

The Jetter Gear "Gain Stage Red" pedal is as simple as can be - with a Volume Knob, Gain Knob, Tone Knob and Hard/Soft mini-toggle switch. A standard true-bypass, heavy-duty, 3PDT footswitch, 1/4" in/out jacks and a standard Boss-PSA-compatible 9V AC adapter jack round out the feature list. This pedal was designed with mainly one sound in mind, so dialing in your tone is very easy (see below...).

OK, here is what you've been waiting for. Those of you who have heard of this relatively new offering from Jetter Gear may have been wondering how this pedal compares to the Hermida Zendrive - and a real Dumble amp for that matter. I've been looking into this topic for over a year now and aside from my 35 years of playing experience, I have also had the benefit of playing through a Dumble-clone; and very shortly after I received my Gain Stage Red, my Zendrive arrived as well. So naturally I did a listening/playing comparison of the two.

First off, nothing compares to the sound coming out of a real Dumble amp (or clone - OK, purists may argue that, too). A real amp responds more subtly to your playing and the sound coming off the speaker is certainly different. Like the Zendrive, the Gain Stage Red was designed to recreate the classic tones of Larry and Robben (you know who!) and does this very well. Those wanting a lot of distortion (metal, hard rock, etc.) need not bother with this one. The distortion does not get that heavy - and for good reason: in order to dial in the subtle tones you want for this type of sound, you need the gain and tone knobs to have the full sweep of the knob for the tonal range desired; otherwise the right settings would be too tricky to find. The hard/soft switch works great - the 'soft' setting is perfect for ballads and a cleaner overdrive - best suited for going from clean to overdrive based on your playing dynamics. The 'hard' setting is great for cutting through the mix - especially for soloing - most folks seem to like this setting the best.

So my friend and I whipped out the 335 and A/B'd the GSR with the Zendrive. We agreed that the GSR was easily more transparent, bringing out the tone of the guitar more and to our ears sounded more like the older Dumbles. In comparison, the Zendrive compressed the sound a bit more and was not as clear, but as a result it can thicken up your notes, especially for single-coils. Both are fantastic pedals and smoke the competition, so it really just comes down to taste. (I'm keeping BOTH!).

The Gain Stage Red is built very solidly - quality workmanship. I would use it without a backup.

n/a - I haven't needed any support yet.

I play all styles of music - over 35 years, 25 years professionally. I play a 335, 175, Tele, Strat and others. My main amps are Boogie, Polytone and Fishman (acoustic). If pedal this were lost or stolen, I would definitely replace it (unless something better had come along by that time!). What is nice about this pedal is that it is very easy to get 'that' sound, and of course saving $20-30K on the 'real thing'. I would recommend using the pedal in front of a good tube amp for best results; and it will sound even better with a bit of delay/reverb. If you have great guitar technique, this pedal won't mask it. Conversely if you have poor technique, get this pedal anyway - you should hear what you REALLY sound like! Then go practice some more!