Xploration • Curation • Recommendation
OPFXS' Gain Box is a potent gain-stacker / gain-shaper with both parallel and series stacking across Dry, Fuzz, Overdrive, and Distortion Channels with 3 x User-definable Presets
The Gain Box was very evidently designed for the 4 Channels / Voices to be stacked, each individual voice isn’t particularly strong on its own, but gains significant potency when combined with one or two or all of the others.
I would really have preferred a little more output volume, and probably a Tilt EQ vs the current LPF style Filter for more overall oomph! I started with all dials at Noon, and then added or subtracted as appropriate - adding Presets and Combinations as I progressed with my session testing.
I found that at the end of that process all the dials had ended on Max, bar the Dry Level which was pretty much stuck at 9 o’c. I found that a little bit of Dry voicing seems to add a little more low-end into the signal, while more than that starts to temper and reduce the output gain!
Controls - Preserved via Presets } Level, Filter, Channel Selection (FZ + OD + DS + DRY), Series / Parallel Mode (Hold Bypass FTSW to flip MODE); Not Preserved by Presets } Dry Level, Fuzz Gain, Overdrive Gain, Distortion Gain.
You Press-Hold the DS button for faster Preset Transitions, and Press-hold DRY to toggle between 2 or 3 Total Presets.
There’s a slight inconvenience in that the system does not preserve Dry Level, or Gain levels for the Fuzz, Overdrive and Distortion Voicings - such that if you’re flipping between Presets - those settings remain unaffected / unchanged - and therefore hold to the same positions. If you want to be able to rapidly switch between presets - you really need to set those in optimal positions for ALL your Preset needs - so that they work across all 3 of the Presets.
I ended up with the following Channel Selections for my preferred Presets, as below :
My 3 Preferred Voicing / Presets
- I. Dry + Fuzz + Overdrive : in Series
- II. Dry + Fuzz + Distortion : in Series
- III. Dry + Fuzz + Overdrive + Distortion : in Parallel
Even with all those controls dimed out, I still had to use my trusty Strymon Sunset Treble Booster post-gain - to get the output up to usable levels for my rig. With the Strymon Sunset applied the Gain Box sounds pretty great, without it, it sounds somewhat underpowered.
I'm sure it will work fine into a slightly cooking / edge of breakup amp - where the amp will do a fair amount of the output and gain shaping. While on a clean pedal platform like mine - that instantly reveals any limitations of a specific pedal. Clean Pedal Platforms are exceptional at identifying a pedal's pure base level character, output profile and potency. While several pedals are designed to be used with a little more gain / hair in the mix - i.e. into the front of an already cooking amp (to some degree / just not clean!). A great example of that is the Boss DS-1 - where the regular edition sounds very thin and anaemic into a Clean Pedal Platform - but quite magnificent into an already cooking amp - as to how Kurt Cobain deployed it. I prefer the Keeley-modded DS-1 which has more low-end, punch and overall gain in the signal - such that it works default with my rig - where the original really does not.
There are some great tones to be found within the Gain Box - I would just like a little more of each voicing really - none of those dials really 'Go To 11' as is often my preference - and is often required for clean pedal platforms. The pedal sounds fantastic with the addition of the Strymon Sunset downstream from it - without that - the output is a little undercooked for my rig.
It's a really clever concept for sure. While for future versions I would like to see all knobs persevered by the Presets, and a little more poke on every control - with a a more potent EQ / tone-stack too.
It's a really cool device for sure, but for my preferences and rig it kid of needs some refinements.
The Gain Box goes for €250 / $263 / £217 on the OPFXS Webstore. It's well worth checking out!
Demos
