JHS Pedals 424 Gain Stage Preamp Effect Pedal

There's "lo-fi," and then there's the JHS Pedals 424 Gain Stage. Born out of a drive to bring the sounds of a TASCAM Portastudio tape recorder to your board, the JHS 424 is lo-fi, indie rock guitar saturation incarnate. Sometimes you don't have an amp, sometimes you do – you just can't help but wonder what your guitar plugged into a tape recorder would sound like.

The 424 Gain Stage is designed directly after the original TASCAM Portastudio 424 MKI circuit, using original UPC4570 and NJM4565 op-amps to replicate the recorder's sound. What the 424 Gain Stage is after is simply the chunky, rubbery, broken-up, and blown-out sounds you would get from plugging your guitar into the Portastudio's simplified circuit. What the 424 Gain Stage achieves is something on another level.

For leagues of lo-fi guitarists, there's little quite like the direct-in sounds of a Portastudio. Classic JHS design authentically translates the experience of the Portastudio 424 to pedal form. Onboard, controls adapted from the Portastudio appear with Gains 1 and 2, Volume, and EQ settings. Your first Gain, a replica of the Portastudio's single-channel input preamp ("Trim"), fuels the sounds of the whole pedal by contributing heaps of volume and gain. Gain 2 shapes the gain structure of the pedal further by replicating the Portastudio's channel volume fader. These two gains interact closely with the pedal's overall Volume control and Treble and Bass settings to make for an effect that is highly interactive with itself as you come to new, saturated conclusions. A further function on the 424 Gain Stage that sets it apart is an onboard XLR out that allows the pedal to be used direct, without an amplifier altogether! A ground lift switch and soft-touch buffered bypass switching streamline the operation of the pedal even more.

With this pedal, the sounds of millennial lo-fi indie guitar are yours for the taking. In the spirit of artists like Spoon, Steve Lacy, and [artist redacted], the 424 Gain Stage sets out to fill the role of the original Portastudio. We can't deny the demand original Portastudios have cultivated, but next time you're about to put a tape recorder on your board, maybe give the JHS 424 Gain Stage a try first?