Jackson Audio Belle Starr

The Jackson Audio 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, Jackson Audio incorporated a unique clipping circuit (the part of the circuit that distorts the signal) 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.