The BELLE STARR is the result of a several months-long collaboration between Jackson Audio and Drew Shirley from the band Switchfoot. If you're familiar with Drew's rig, he has always run super small, low-wattage amps, and run them wide-open to get his signature overdriven sound. The BELLE STARR was designed to recreate these tones.
Not a high-gain overdrive, the BELLE STARR is a low/mid gain overdrive circuit that has the smooth and natural breakup that is characteristic in smaller, non-negative feedback amps.
To make the overdrive as natural-sounding and amp-like as possible, JA incorporated a unique clipping circuit and features MOSFET transistors instead of traditional silicon diodes. When used in a clipping circuit, the MOSFET transistors produce a very smooth and amp-like overdrive.
The overdrive range on the BELLE STARR is so evenly spread out across the range of the GAIN control that it goes from absolutely clean to medium gain with no unusual jumps in the dynamic response.
Over the 8 months that JA spent dialing in the BELLE STARR, they tried it with every variation of amp they could get our hands on. Fender, Marshall, Vox and of course their own Jackson amps. This was done to ensure that the BELLE STARR would work on any amp that you marry it to.
Jackson Audio is very proud of the work that they have done with Drew and believe that the BELLE STARR is a dynamic, expressive and natural sounding overdrive that will fit perfectly into any rig!
