JHS Pedals Capsule Collection

Controls - Volume, Drive, Hi-Cut : Up, Tone, Bypass Footswitch, Channel Footswitch +Boost.

Beautiful work by Zach at Rogue Rehousing - I had been following him for a while - and really loved what he did - particularly those gold-accent 'Cucci' mods - where he rehouses the Morning Glory circuit in an different chassis - with the Boost channel switching on a second footswitch. You can of course use one of those Pedalnetics mini switches to achieve a similar result - while you don't get those glorious gold accent details unless you hit up Zach! The Morning Glory is understandably JHS's best selling pedal - it really sounds superb - and this deluxe rogue rehousing elevates the looks to match the output! For sure one of the very best BluesBreaker takes out there!

Controls - Volume, Mid Frequency, Gain, Bass, Middle ±, Treble.

This is the pedal I though the PG-14 was going to be - while Paul Gilbert's special is nowhere near as good - or as versatile as Lari Basilio's Violet - it kind of starts at Morning Glory levels - and can sub for that pedal to a degree - where it rises to quite a searing distortion - with so many cool shades of tone in-between. This is a really versatile Overdrive / Distortion pedal - with a gorge core texture - I really like this one!

Controls - Volume, Mid Frequency, Gain, Bass, Middle ±, Treble.

And JHS's first foray into High Gain is another grand success - this is a little darker and denser than a lot of the higher gain distortions - but with plenty of range onboard - and a really tight and punchy output. Palm-muted playing of this pedal sounds totally killer - while this one could do with a fraction more on the output volume site. A great and distinct High Gain circuit!

Controls - Volume, Sustain, Tone, Mode : Civil War / Russian / Pi / Triangle / Ram's Head / JHS MOD.

This was the first of JHS's multi-switching / multi-voice pedals - delivering 6 classic Big Muff voicings - I visualised a new version of this pedal (as below) - which brings the number of options up to 9 - to match the other 2 in the series.

Controls - OD-1 / TS808 / TS-9 / MSL / TS-10 / EXAR OD-1 / TS-7 / Keeley Mod / JHS Strong Mod.

JHS's second multi-voice pedal ups the ante to 9 cool flavours. I think this one's possibly my favourite of the trio - with some really great screamer variants onboard - while I would have really liked just one more tone control to extend the versatility somewhat. Most of my favourite individual screamers are modded and with additional controls!

Controls - Volume, Distortion, Filter, Mode : OG V1 / White Face V3 / Turbo V5 / Brat V6  Dirty V7 / LA / Landgraff MO'D, Caroline Wave Cannon, JHS MOD.

And the most recent multi-voice edition - covering most of the coolest Rat voicings. While for all my favourite Rat pedals - which I have near 50 of now - tend to have extra controls - where the more Mids / Mids Boost has always proven to be a big success. It's still a fantastic compendium of Rat tones - but I feel all of these would have been better served with a Tilt EQ, and additional Mids Sweep!

Controls - Volume, Wattage / Gain Structure - 25W / 100W / 50W, Drive, EQ, Air / Presence, Boost, Bypass Footswitch, Boost Footswitch.

This is very much a heavily modified JHS Angry Charlie - modded to Andy Timmons' specifications - and where the Angry Charlie is of course a take on the Marshall JCM800. I have so many fantastic Marshall style pedals in the collection - several of which are superior to this model - while this one does its own thing - with a smart combination of Gain Structure and 'Air' (Presence). I do still quite like this one - while I have several superior Marshall takes - including the various Sinvertek ones!

Controls - Tone, Mode : 0 Off / 1 Scooped Mids / 2 Enhanced Mids / 3 Gated, Volume, Gain.

If you try this on its own it's a very decent take on the original Lovetone Big Cheese - with all the flaws of that original format still present - including a relatively low output profile. By contrast the slightly modernised Big Cheese - done by original engineer Dan Coggins for ThorpyFX - in the guise of the Field Marshal Fuzz - that is an extended range update which solves the output volume problem and gives the pedal a louder and bolder output - with significantly more range. So in compaction the Cheese Ball is somewhat disappointing - while still being mostly true to source!

Controls - Volume, Mode : No EQ / No Mids / Full EQ. Bass. Middle, Treble.

This is another favourite - based on the Boss FA-1 FET Amplifier from 1983 - a favourite of U2's Edge in particular. I have at least 3 excellent takes on this circuit - including this JHS Clover, the Drunk Beaver (Boba) FET OverBooster, and Audio Blend's Edge EQ - the latter of which are a little more feature rich - while the JHS Clover has an excellent output profile too - all three are excellent! This is a really potent / punchy boost / overdrive / EQ!

Controls - Volume, EQ, Fuzz, Bias.

This is one of JHS's earlier Fuzz efforts - with that then typical diamond-shaped 4-knob topology which typified those earlier models. This is a 3 x Germanium Transistor take on the MKIII Tone Bender - and a pretty decent one at that. The benchmark for the MKIII is the PigDog JuJu - which is amazing - that's generally considered the best MKIII edition out there - while this Firefly is pretty decent too. This one's well worth considering.

Controls - Gain ±, Volume, Fuzz.

Foot Fuzz essentially = Fuzz Face - but a somewhat streamlined version of that with simpler controls - but the additional Gain Structure toggle-switch over and above the vertically 2-knob oriented V1 edition. I think this one's just made with a singe transistor - it's a decent take on the circuit - but where I typically prefer germanium Type 1 varieties!

Controls - Volume, Rate, Depth, Type : Classic Amplitude / Harmonic.

I bought this one mostly for the Harmonic option - while it's not really in the same ballpark as my favourite JAM Pedals Harmonious Monk. While the Classic Amplitude side is actually rather decent and really very vibrant. The Harmonic side is very soft compared to the almost Uni-Vibe output of the Harmonious Monk.

Controls - Volume, EQ : Cut / Flat, Gain, Mode G1, Mode G2, Tone.

This is a somewhat unusual Expandora take - using I believe the NE5534 opamp - the same one Josh uses for his Rats / Rat mods. It deliver a slightly darker and denser flavour of output - and doesn't quite match the vibrancy of the original 2 edition of Expandora - where I tend to prefer TL072, OP07 and MC1458N (LM741) - those tend to deliver a slightly more vibrant output profile. The perfect Expandora should use the original LM308 for the two lower gain voicing - Overdrive and Crunch, while the higher gain options are better served by the more modern opamps - which compress less, and don't have a tendency to choke out like the LM308 - which may have something to do with the optocoupler too! For me the JHS Cheese Ball, Kilt, and PG-14 are all slightly weak sauce. They're usable for sure - but there are significanty superior versions of those circuits out there. And no one has yet done a split dual-opamp version of this - with the LM308 on the first 2 modes, and say a TL072 or OP07 on the higher gain modes!

Controls - Volume, Octave, Balance : Shadow > Sun.

This is an interesting project - where uber EHX fan Daniel Dangers collaborated with Josh Scott in imagining a pseudo vintage ocave fuzz - which then obviously became a reality - and is now part of the EHX range - while it wold never have existed without Josh and Dan. It's actually a mix of two uncredited existing circuits - the simple Bass Fuzz by Christian Hemmo, and the PushMePullYou Octave Fuzz by Tim Escobedo. Daniel was very instrumental in the look of the pedal - which Josh mashed up those two earlier fuzzes to create this somewhat intriguing octave fuzz. Both the Bass Fuzz and PushMePullYou are really decent sounding on their own - and together they sound even better - courtesy of this interesting mashup!

Controls - OVERDRIVE } Volume, EQ, Drive, CLEAN (BOOST + BUFFER) } Output, Input (Impedance / Feel / Thinner > Fuller), CHANNEL MODE : Drive UP / Clean DOWN.

I am so impressed with this pedal - it's so much better than it deserves to be. Objectively - Josh could have just put the Later Box in a single pedal - and sold that for the typical JHS $199 price tag. But instead he combined it with with a Dumble ODS gain channel - for a really fantastic Full Dumble experience - and it sounds great. The Later Box / Clean Channel delivers Spank and Sparkle as a potential always on tone-enhancer - as deployed by John Mayer of course. And while it doesn't fully challenge my top tier Dumble Drive takes - it really gets remarkably close! I've loved every part of this experience so far - including the assembly process - which I was surprised how much fun it was. The only fiddly bit really was getting the knobs set properly - I need a small spacer element ideally for that - or one of those Pepers' Pedals Better Setter Tools. Fun fact - Rainger Efffects' enclosures are so widely differently angled - that they've had to create their own 'better-setter' variant to tackle pedals like their Chop Fuzzz!

Controls - Level, Mode : Clearer / Grittier, Gain.

Readers will know that I collect extended range DOD250's - so this one was a shoe-in - with its 2 different voicing modes. It could probably have done with a Tilt EQ or similar - but it still sounds pretty great. It's just not as granular as some of my similar takes - which often feature dual channels and more control options! Like I said - it's a fairly basic implementation - but it sounds really decent!

Controls - Volume, Tone, Mid ±, Mid Frequency, GAIN } Drive (Output Gain), Push (Pre-Gain).

I'm still not entirely sure about this one - I already included in my Weak Sauce list - with the Cheese Ball and Kilt I think it was. I have far superior versions of those circuits - with much more impressive output profiles. And while I really love Lari Basilio's Violet Distortion - which also has parametric-mids - I always felt that this signature pedal was too specifically Paul Gilbert - with very little variety and somewhat more restrictive versatility compares to the quite brilliant Violet Distortion. The Violet is so much better for my own sensibilities - while I've never really properly gelled with this particularly signature edition. I've gotten some OK sounds out of it - while the Violet is wholly inspirational  - the Violet is what I had hoped I was getting with the PG-14 - for me it's vastly superior!

Controls - Volume, Gain, Fuzz, Bias.

This is another JHS vintage style fuzz - supposedly using the same Transistors as per the Firefly - presumably just one fewer! Those AC128's are great vintage fuzzes - beautiful warmly and richly textured. Both this Pollinator and the Firefly are fantastic sounding for their circuit type. I have over 100 Fuzz Faces to date, but only around 60 or so Tone Benders! The Classic Fuzz Face overall seems to be the more popular circuit - with hundreds of takes existing for that circuit. The JHS takes are really great - while I have a number of really exceptional fuzz pedals of near enough every stripe!

Controls - Volume, Speed, Mix : Dry / Wet, Ratio (Quarter / Dotted Eighth / Eighth / Triplet), Depth, Tap Tempo Footswitch, Bypass Footswitch.

This was my first Uni-Vibe pedal - it was rare at the time to see a compact Uni-Vibe with onboard second Footswitch for tap tempo - adding tap tempo it always tricky for Analog pedals like this one. This was my Uni-Vibe of choice for quite a while - before I really built up the range of my modulation pedals. The Unicorn is now just one of 20-something Uni-Vibes in the reference collection. It doesn't quite deliver the richest Uni-Vibe output profile - compared to some of my others - but it does run them very close - I still fondly remember my first!