Jetter Gear Gain Stage

The original Jetter Gain Stage...now called the Gain Stage Blue is an amazing sounding overdrive pedal that is very easy to use,,,the controls are self explanatory,ie/. Volume, Tone, and Gain, and the hard/soft switch does just that to the basic sound...Can be used for a mild to very sustainy EJ type overdrive pedal..

I've used the GSB with all my amps..Alessandro, Egnater, Suhr, Kelemen, Budda...sounds great with them all...Guitars range from Les Pauls, SG's to Reverend Strat types....The pedal sounds great wih everything I put through it...no complaints....If there are guitarists that can't get a good tone out of it, it's probably the guitarist, not the pedal...
Tone tip....If you want the EJ tone, Roll BACK the tone control of your guitar AND treble control on your amp...
The tone doesn't get any better

Used this pedal in many shows/tours over the past year and a half...never an issue

I emailed the company, and asked a few questions regarding the pedal...They wrote back the same day with the answers...The guy that builds them is quite a guitarist himself, but he'd never tell you that

I play my own style of modern blues, blues/rock...played professionally for 40 years...[god]...this pedal is nice for low gain crunchy warm chord stuff, and some higher gain OD tones...I've had lots of good OD pedals...this one has a personality all it's own...listen to the clips...sounds like that

BLAH!

I tried all the tips below, and on TGP.
Tweak the guitar tone knob, the amp, the pedal.

Did that for 2 weeks. Read on.

MEH!!

It goes from an awful fuzz, to a really blah overdrive.
I tried to cop the "EJ violin tone" through a Bogner SHiva, which is Marshally, and what they recommend if you want that tone.

After turning up the bass on the Shiva on the OD channel, turning down the gain on the OD channel of the Shiva, and cranking up the gain on the Gain Stage to about 2pm, AND ROLLING OFF MY GUITAR TONE KNOB, I got the violin tone.

And it was kinda blah.

And guess what? THE SHIVA DOES THE VIOLIN THING BETTER THAN THE JETTER GAIN STAGE WITH IT'S OWN OVERDRIVE UP, AND THE GUITAR VOLUME KNOB ROLLED OFF.

In other words, I got a BETTER violin tone from the Shiva itself WITHOUT the Jetter Gain Stage.


I also tried it through my Carr Rambler.
Nothing special at all. My OCD and my Barber Small Fry destroy it.

Don't care. Sold it after 2 weeks.

I read on the internetz it's a gooped up, cheap, rip-off circuit of a Zendrive or something. No idea.

No idea.

Well, I spent 2 weeks fiddling with it, and NOT IMPRESSED.
Especially for the ridiculous price tag.

Maybe it's just awesome if you have an actual old Marshall Plexi.
I see these for sale on Ebay and TGP ALL THE TIME. Now I know why.

Oops.

I will NEVER buy another OD without playing it first. This is the last time. The world needs another boutique OD like it needs another Republican President.

The Fulltone OCD is the ONLY OD that surpassed my expectations. All the others were a waste of time/and/or money, and the Jetter Gain Stage is no exception.

This review is for the Jetter Gain Stage BLUE, the first pedal from Jetter Gear, out of Atlanta. Note: Jetter Gear also makes two other pedals, the Gain Stage Red, and Gain Stage Black.
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It took me a while to dial this pedal in, and several have said to be prepared to spend time tweaking it.

Please let me save you some time. If you're using a Fender amp or other top-slice-intense amp, start with the tone control on its lowest setting and go from there. It's that simple.

When I first plugged it in to my Fender tube amps, I ran the tone all over the dial, but not at the lowest settings. As a result, the effect was kind of raspy, so for two weeks I used it as a very nice clean boost.

But I went back to the Jetter web site and noticed the best sounding overdriven clips, to my ear, were through a Marshall half stack on a clean setting. Then the light went on in my head. As a past 50-watt Plexi owner, I realized that stock Marshall clean and stock Fender clean are two different animals, with the old Marshalls really seeming to come alive with some kind of outboard treble boost.

So after applying the inverse to my Fender amps, by rolling off the effects tone control, presto! The effect did EXACTLY what I had hoped for.

So the moral of the story is this: If you're a Fender amp user, save yourself a lot of time, dial that pedal tone down, and start enjoying this effect immediately.

And what enjoyment! Every night for the past 4 weeks, I've looked forward to practice or gigs. The Gain Stage Blue seems to be gaining a good rep for its Eric Johnson tones, which it does nicely, IMO.

But it also has other tonal colors, depending switch, volume, gain and guitar settings, ranging from solid hard rock to fusion. Imagine a vintage plexi Marshall with your favorite fuzz or OD box out front.

Like Jetter Gear's other effects, there is a distinct musical quality to the notes that goes from violin to horn, with a distinct low end thump that emulates a closed-back 4-12 cabinet incredibly well.

The Gain Stage Blue is a very quiet effect when engaged, with no pops, hisses or other unwanted noise. It is true bypass, and has no effect on tone when disengaged.

I use a 40 watt Fender 1-12, open back, tube combo for playing out, a 15 watt Fender tube combo for home practice. Guitars range from a Strat to various Gibsons. The effect works equally well with all.

I opened her up the day it came in the mail. High quality switch, hand wired circuitry, top grade, all-steel jacks, CTS quality pots, all give testimony to a durable and road-worthy effect.

I had a couple of questions early on about pedal placement on the board, settings, etc., and Brad Jetter answered my emails courteously and quickly. He addressed me directly and personally.

I've been playing for over 35 years and regularly gig, playing blues, funk, jazz and rock. The Gain Stage Blue is a unique addition to my rig with no rival.

The Gain Stage is very thoughfully laid out with exactly the right size knobs and perfect switch placement. The controls are clearly marked and ergonomically optimized for both adjustment and viewing. Credit should be given to the designer for managing to offer so many adjustment features within such a small enclosure/box while never resorting to inconvenient internal DIP's and trim pots which can be difficult to work with. The small overall dimensions of the Gain Stage allow it to be added to almost any pedalboard with a minimum impact on space requirements. I'll address more operational details below.

Other reviews have already explained most of what you need to know about dialing up various sounds and I agree with most of what I've read. I'd like to concentrate my review on one aspect of the Gain Stage. But before doing so let me say that one should be prepared to take time and tweak this pedal as it takes time to find the nuances it offers in each operational mode. Secondly, do not plug the Gain Stage into a Master Volume-styled, typical dirty channel amplifier - is isn't targeted for use with such amps in my opinion. I strongly recommend a vintage, CLEAN, tube amp to maximize the sonic benefits of the Gain Stage.

The focus of my review lies in this pedal's ability to literally produce "Eric Johnson-in-a-box". To be more specific, the Gain Stage will virtually recreate the sound of a 100-watt, Marshall Super Lead, Non-Master Volume Head through stacked 4X12 cabs. I know, I know, you've heard that before, right? More specific: The low-end "thud" in the pick attack is there. The classic Marshall presence is there. I'm not even saying that this is a sound that everyone likes or is used to playing through but, I am saying that if you plug a Strat with the tone rolled off into this pedal and then into a CLEAN, Fender Bassman-style, tube amp you'll simply FREAK if you're an actual experienced vintage Plexi Marshall player/fan. And for the doubters, not only do I own such amps but I happen to be writing this review within weeks of attending E.J.'s live performance where he played through the new 2007 Marshall 100-watt, Non-Master, Hendrix Reissue full stack (rather loudly). His live performance totally reaffirmed for me how accurately the Gain Stage totally captures that sound. All of the sonic artifacts are there to the point of being spooky. Related to this is the fact that the pedal is somewhat unforgiving of sloppy playing. You'd better brush up on you E.J. "bounch picking" technique because just like a raging Super Lead, the Gain Stage will spit at you if your picking is less than well-articulated. But, accurate picking pays off with violin tone Marshall rage that makes it worth the extra effort and sacrifice!

One tip: You MUST try putting the Gain Stage BEFORE a compressor, then echo, then out to a (clean tube) amp. You've never heard a Fuzz Face this good! Tuba/Cello bass strings, screaming viola treble strings! Try it, you'll be totally surprised - it's like another mode altogether.

As other reviewers have indicated, the controls are effective and the mini-switched modes add a lot and let the player experiment with useful changes in clipping and gain. The pedal is extremely quiet for a distortion device.

Looking inside the nicely powder-coated Hammond housing reveals excellent-grade componentry including switchcraft jacks, Alpha potentiometers and what appears to be a Fulltone-style, heavy duty, true bypass, footswitch. Belden wire lead dress is excellent and tight spacial tolerances abound. Components are gooped. The small printed circuit board floats above the enclosure-mounted control potentiometers via standoffs created by the miniswitches. Circuit board edges are further secured and shock-insulated by hot glue tacks. The DC Input jack is good quality and is mounted high enough on the case to allow for (depth) clearance on pedalboards. The design is servicable and secure - well done! I would think that I'd need to throw it from a moving car to break it.

An online exchange quickly made clear that these folks are passionate about taking care of customers. Quality assurance in their manufacturing seems high so they seem to want to hear of any problems or issues. I've not had any reason to otherwise seek customer support as of this date.

This is a fascinating guitar overdrive pedal. It isn't for everybody simply because of its esoteric nature. But if you've been buying old TS 808's, Fuzz Faces and vintage Marshall Super Leads trying to cop the 100-lb. violin thing then you can sell all that junk. Grab a Gain Stage, a '59 Bassman or Bluesbreaker combo, an old Strat and some Dunlop Jazz III picks and play the main riff of "Last House on the Block". Righteous for sure. Buy one, there's nothing else on the market like it in my opinion. If I lost my two, I'd buy another pair without question.

The manual is simple and straight forward - a quick read. I suggest you do yourself a big favor and read it - you'll understand the pedal right off the bat.

This pedal is very easy to use, plus it has 4 layers to choose from. There is Volume, Tone and Gain, just like many other pedals. Then there are the 2 switches to access the 4 layers - Hard/Soft and I/II. I'll discuss them in Sound Quality.

Basically, you set each switch to one position as your foundation tone base, then dial in how much Gain you want, adjust the Tone to suit your amp and guitar setup, and set the Volume accordingly.

With 4 base layers, and a wide range of Gain to choose from, you've got lots of tones available.

The Gain Stage can get quite a wide range of tones. Here's a very brief summary of how it works, without getting too technical - the full details are on the website.

The Hard/Soft switch changes the character of the overdrive. Hard has more of a tube like thunk on the front end, more punchy and out front, whereas Soft has a slight sweet sag.

I/II changes the Gain amount and character, with I being smoother and rounder, and II being a bit more aggressive and pronounced in the upper mids.

So you just choose a combination to start with as your base, eg: Hard + I. Then, sweep your Gain control to hear how that combination sounds throughout the Gain range, which goes from a nice juicy clean boost, to low OD, medium OD, to high OD. There are 3 basic Gain areas - 8:30-11, 11:00-1:30, 1:30-4:00. Once you get past 2:00 you're in violin territory if you set everything else right.

After you set the Gain, adjust the Tone and Volume according to your setup and tastes. The process is the same for all 4 combinations of Hard/Soft + I/II.

The 4 layers are not dramatically different, but unique enough to make the pedal very versatile and flexible, with a simple interface. The low and medium OD tones sound like extensions of your amp, and are very fluid, glassy and harmonically rich.

It's definitely not just another OD pedal, or a variation on a standard OD circuit. It works equally well with single coils, P90s and humbuckers. It works well with a good clean tube amp, or an amp on the edge.

It's a very well made pedal - quality parts and workmanship all the way. Totally gig worthy.

I made a number of inquiries and got very fast responses directly from Brad Jeter. I just sent my Gain Stage in for a free upgrade. First class customer support. You can't ask for more than that.

I play a wide range of styles from rock, blues, world, folk, R&B, etc. I've got a Kingsley Deluxe 32C, a custom Strat, 3xP90 Rowan Montara II, 2 Les Pauls, and a Giffin Macro with Z90s. I A/B'd the Gain Stage with a number of pedals and ended up selling the Blackstone OD, and MI Audio Tube Zone. I've had lots of boutique pedals, including the CJOD, Zendrive, AC/RC Boosters, Dual Drive and others. I currently have 3 V-Stack pedals... Classic, Tweedy and Bernie. They have also held their own amazingly against the above contenders.

This pedal takes a bit of work to dial in as it has a number of subtle controls that work together. Worth the effort to explore the different possibilities from mild break up to very satuarated tone.

I like the fact that this pedal has a different sound than many of the TS-9 , 808 pedals. It is more open and reminiscent of a cranked Marshall. Can go from mild grind to full blown overdrive. Its a great addition to pedalboard that already has a 808/TS9 style pedal. Very little noise when cranked.

No problems

I hooked up the wrong polarity power and blew the pedal. Brad fixed it no charge even though it was my fault. Excellent service.

One of the better pedals I've tried. With the trial period you can make sure it works for your setup but make sure you put some time into working all the controls.

The Gain Stage works very well for me. I have one on both of my pedal boards. The unit offers up a wide variety of gain combinations, and yes, the knobs are sensitive. You can have a searing lead tone, or gain it up some more for that heavier old Cream style sound. The pedal is very articulate. Nothing to hide behind. Lets all your pick nuances shine through, and allows you to roll off the volume for clean up, something most pedals will not allow.

I am very well able to cop the sounds I prefer. Mostly a clear searing lead sound. It sounds very gainy, but actually runs light in the gain dept, only enjoying the push of the tubes, and not distortion driven mostly from the pedal. My rig is Budda Stringmaster for the amp and Ernie Ball Silouette Specials for my instrument choice.
I do not find the pedal noisy at all.
Pedal settings are as follows. Volume as needed but driven. Gain around 10:00, switches on Hard and ll.

Very reliable. No problems out of either unit

Wrote an E mail concerning the differences that the switched would make, and received a very fast response.

I am mostly an old school Blues Rock Player that covers Zep, AC DC, Cream, ZZ Top, some Van Halen, etc
Been playing since 74
I have owned several pedals and most drive pedals sound like they have a pillow stuffed in front of them.
I highly recommend the JetterDrive to anyone who wants to carry their musical voice downstream. It does and will deliver.

This controls on this pedal are pretty easy to use, but I found that there are a lot of subtle tonalities whe you start flipping the switches. The manual is kinda nice and gives more info about the pedal than a lot of other products. I founbd it is not that easy to get a good sound out of it but I will explain what I mean below. So, if you are willing to work a bit, I give it an 8.

I bought this pedal because of the video clips on the website. Particularly the one that is very, very Eric Johnson. EJ has been my favorite player for longer than I would care to admit and I have always lusted after his tones. I guess the best way to put it is that I thought the Gain Stage might be EJ in a box. My first impressions when I got the pedal were not quite what I was expecting. I had plugged the pedal in with my PRS McCarty into a Fender Deluxe Reverb RI (Celestion Greenback installed and the bright cap removed) and got a very sizzly tone that was harsh and not very good. It certainly wasn't EJ. I had set the pedal with the Gain all the way up, the tone about 12 o'clock and the switches on "Hard" and "II". I quickly found that the Tone control is super sensitve. I mean REAL sensitive. The sweet spot turned out to be at about 9:35 (not 10, not 9...you get the idea). Also, I bumped the Gain down to about 2 O' clock and things got much better. Then I changed the "II" switch to "I" and started to dig the sound. It stuck me how transparent this pedal is to any sloppiness in your playing. It doesn't cover up mistakes, particularly revealing picking attack. It is VERY touch sensitive. The dynamics are huge and it also cleans up surprisingly when you back off the guitar's volume control. With a bit more tweaking of the Gain setting and the Tone controls, I was definelty getting EJs lead tones from his Alien Love Child cd. I then plugged it into a 50W NM marshall plexi head clone ( Volume I on 4, Bass just audibly kicking in about 2, Mid on 10, treble 0, presense 3) build from a Weber kit driving an older Marshall 4X12 RI with English Greenbacks (I have put a birch ply back panel on this cab) and there it was. EJ was in the room! I was stunned. All that gooey richness, that woodiness was there. I hooked up a Boss DD3 (modded with a tone roll-off cap on the Repeat control) and played it for about 2 hours with a big smile on my face. The Gainstage definitely likes a Marshall more than a Fender, that's for sure. With the Fender, it sounded really good but there was just too much on the top-end. Maybe with the right speaker (or a 40W Fender) it might get it right, but The Deluxe Reverb was just too bright of an amp with this pedal (even with the bright cap removed). Them Marshall (clone) was glorious and I hope to try the pedal with a couple other types of amps that my freinds have and will report back. The pedal is very quite overall. There is a bit of low level background hiss at very high gain setting but no more than some other pedals I compared it to (a little less hiss than the OCD and about the same as an AC Boost). I currently don't have a Strat to try this pedal with but it certainly seems to have enough gain (with the switch set to the "II" position) to get the same thick tones I am getting from the humbuckers. If I had rated this pedal on only my very first impression, it would probably been a 5, but, having spent a little time tweaking it and figuring out how the Tone control affects things, I give it a 9. I was looking for that singing EJ violin tone and I found it inside this pedal.

I opened it up and the circuit is totally gooped. The parts that I can see (pots, switches, jacks) are all very good quality. The wiring is good and it is a Hammond box so you should be able to drive a truck over it. Absolutely gig worthy.

I did send one email to Jetter Gear and got a quick response from Joe about running the pedal at 18V (he said you could but he didn't feel it made a big differeence). Also, you can only get the pedal through Guitarfetish and they were very easy to deal with and answered all my questions before I bought it. A very good experience.

I have been playing guitar for over 20 years and play mainly in a jazz-tinged blues rock style ala Cream, Robben Ford and especially Eric Johnson. To me EJ has the perfect lead tones for this style of music and I have always gravitated towards those tones. I realized a long time ago that the gear is only part of the equation. It is more about playing style and technique...it really is true when you hear someone say that it is "in the hands." Having said that, the gear you play through can be the final part of the puzzle--like the frosting on a cake. I find that good gear--a guitar, amp or pedal--inspires you to play more and that is what it's all about. I am totally digging this pedal because it crosses all the "t's" and dots all the "i's" when I want that EJ violin thing. It makes me want to play. I will say that some people are probably going to hate this pedal because it is brutally honest--Garbage In, Garbage Out.. If you are a sloppy player and are expecting the Gainstage to correct your playing defficiencies, it ain't gonna happen. Yes, it can be EJ in a box, but only if you already have the basic chops and technique for that style of playing. There are other tones in this pedal, but for me, I really WAS looking for it to do one thing, and it does that very, very well with a bit of patience. So, based on my needs I am going to give it a 9.

Three knobs and two switches as follows:
Volume - obvious
Gain - obvious
Tone - obvious
Hard/soft switch - should be labeled Humbucker/Singlecoil cause that's mostly how it works
I/II switch - Really changes the gain of the pedal.
These are all highly interactive so it can be a bit tricky getting exactly the sound you are looking for. Jetter sends a pamphlet explaining the stuff pretty well. He has a couple of suggested settings. The Violin Tone setting is the one he uses on his samples on his web site www.jettergear.com

My gear is American Strat > Keeley Fuzzhead > Jetter Gainstage > Fulltone OCD > Line6 XTL (effects only, no amp modeling) > Fargen Bordeaux.
I bought this pedal from listening to the samples of Brad Jetter from his web site. My take on it is he is really after the Eric Johnson violin tone. His samples pretty much nail it. I find the violin tone to be possibly the most difficult electric tone to get. It's really a balancing act between guitar, pedal, amp. One missing link and the tone is gone. By running the Bordeaux VOS channel (think Marshall plexi) just below the edge of distortion with the strat bridge pup and a bit of light compression from the XTL and the Gainstage nails it. Too much gain on the amp or too hot a pup in the guitar and the tone is lost. It really is a balancing act but the Gainstage is a key component.
I really bought this pedal for the violin tone so I haven't really worked with it much with other guitars or amps. I will say that these same pedal settings through the Blackird side of the amp sound aweful. Same with switching to my PRS... disgusting. However, Brad's web samples show him playing thru a Fender Deluxe RI and he sound's great. I guess the Gainstage has enough control over the tone shaping via knobs and switches that you should be able to find something there you like if you work with it a while.
Some of the sound samples on the web site also are running the Gainstage with a Les Paul and a Peavey Special 130. They aren't that appealing to me but it does show this pedal can work with the other end of the guitar/amp spectrum.
I'm rating this pedal pretty high solely for the violin tone. This isn't the pedal for every rig and every sound but with the right combination of equipment I have created the best lead tone I've been able to come up with.

It's a nicely painted metal box that should be pretty sturdy. I did look inside and the circuit board is hot-glued to the sides of the box. I also wasn't too impressed with the soldering joints but I'd imagine it should hold up.

No experience with them

I've played for 37 years (ouch) and been through lots of equipment. I mostly play in church these days so volume needs to be fairly low on the amp. Getting great tone at a low volume is a challenge. Right now I'm using my favorite three pedals on my board. The OCD is amazing for neck pup blues. The Fuzzhead is the best fuzz in the business. The Gainstage is that lead sound I like for soloing. Play a tubescreamer for a minute then switch to the Gainstage. You'll feel like someone pulled cotton from your ears.
I'm giving it an 8 cause this pedal won't be for everybody and every rig. Some people will hate it. Because it's new you'll have to buy one from the sound samples and reviews that slowly show up. The good news is that Guitar Fetish has a pretty good return policy. It's also a bit pricey.
I'm also very stingy with giving out 10s. Harmony Central reviews are too generous with 10s. This is one of my all time favorite pedals for achieving a certain sound but I haven't run across a 10 yet in any pedal. The OCD might be a 9.5.