Jetter Gold Standard Review

[knopfler74]

So,

We're all in search of the perfect OD pedal(s) for our respective rigs, right? Well, I think I might have found mine yesterday. As a sort of 'self' gift for finishing radiation treatment, I ordered some pedals. The OD pedal I picked was the Jetter Gold Standard, and I thought I'd provide some thoughts on it for all to check out.

 

I was in the market for a dual OD pedal, one with a lower gain side as well as a higher gain 'lead' oriented side. The Jetter seemed to be just the ticket, and I was right!

The Jetter Gold Standard is a dual pedal with a version of their "Helium" lower gain pedal, and also their higher gain Gold Shift pedal. Each channel on the pedal has three controls, one for tone, one for volume and one for drive, but the 'Gold' side of the pedal also includes a toggle switch in order to go between a slightly lower gain lead sound and their 'shift' side, which is slightly more compressed and a bit more gain heavy to my ears.

My rig is a KBP handwired Matchless Lightning clone, which is a 15 watt head that trends Vox in sound. My personal amp though is much better than a Matchless, having played both side by side recently. The KBP has a lot more headroom and more organic and rich overtones. I believe this is owed to the components Brian chose when building the amp. My trannies are extremely high quality, and the tubes I run are 7189 mil spec tubes (fancy EL 84's).

 

The Jetter is a perfect pedal for this amp which already takes a huge variety of pedals well, so here are my impressions of each side of the pedal.

 

Helium Side

This side of the pedal affords me a low to medium gain option so I can leave the amp clean, and with the other side of the pedal, get essentially a three channel set up. The Helium side's gain is warm, full, organic, and un-hyped. You can really get a sound that is almost exactly the same as my amp when the gain is juiced a little and the amp itself is breaking up. The difference in tone is negligible. The pedal has slightly less bass response than the amp when set up this way, but honestly, that's a good thing. Power chords don't get tuby, and the mids stay clear and full, which allows more complex chords to remain clear. The high end on this side of the pedal is warm and full rather than shrill. The 'lean and rich' control, or the pedals tone control is very responsive, but it doesn't destroy the bass side in order to hype the treble, or vis versa. There's nothing spikey about the EQ curve here at all, which I find to be a departure from many pedals, and that's a good thing!

To my ears I hear this side as sounding a bit like the 70's Stones sound or just a solid low gain Marshall 18 watt sound, but more transparent, if that makes any sense. The Stones stuff was done on a Fender and Ampeg, right? I can't remember now, so my description may confuse you so I'll clarify.

This side of the pedal is organic and tends to sound like an amp being pushed rather than a pedal. At more extreme settings it takes on a more Marshall character to my ears, which I like. Lots of options with this pedal without having a crap-load (technical term) of knobs to tweak and get lost in. I especially like that the bass doesn't get mushy and undefined with this side of the pedal. I don't think the bass is as tight with this side as it is with the higher gain side, but it's not mushy at all.

 

Okay, I just noticed that it's time to start thinking about getting ready for work, so I'll come back to the review and finish it tonight over some rum and Pearl Jam

Peace

Matt

 

[JeffB]

Good review.

I like all Jetter pedals but settled on the Red2. Gold standard was in the mix when I was demoing them. Really like his Vibe pedal as well, will probably end up with one.

[koula901]

This is a very interesting pedal. Might have to give some serious thought to acquiring one.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SC6-m-G2pkw