From fuzz circuits in 1960s Vox electric guitars to the Kaoss pad in Matt Bellamy’s signature Manson, guitars with built-in effects have a long history. However, they’ve not normally been available on budget electric guitars... until now, that is.
Harley Benton’s new ST-JAMster pitches itself as “the perfect guitar for beginners” with “all the basic effects built-in.” It comes in two finishes, Metallic Deep Silver and Sparkling Candy Apple. Both versions cost just €139, which is currently $138.87 USD.
In practice, that means overdrive, distortion, reverb, and delay can all be accessed direct from the guitar. The ST-JAMster has the familiar 3-knob layout of an S-style guitar, but the bottom knob controls a 5-position Master Sound Selector rotary switch.
The five sounds offered are clean, clean/reverb, overdrive, distortion, and distortion/delay.
The guitar can be run in passive mode, without effects, in which case the two remaining knobs function as master volume and tone respectively. In active mode, the second knob becomes an effect level control.
All this is built into one of Harley Benton’s already successful Standard style guitars, featuring one humbucker and two single-coil pickups along with a synchronised tremolo bridge.
The pickguard features two additional 3.5mm jack sockets. These are a headphone output and an audio recording output. There’s also a standard quarter inch jack socket for connection to a guitar amplifier.
Power for the active circuitry comes from three AA batteries, which Harley Benton says offer 10 hours of operating time. Other specs are typical for guitars of this type: the maple neck has a roseacer fingerboard with 22 frets and a 12” radius. The body is poplar.
No video or audio demos have been released yet, but the ST-JAMster looks to be something of a bargain for beginners and potentially an amazing travel guitar.
For more information, head over to Harley Benton.
