The 7 best and the 7 worst JHS pedals.
Josh Scott's company has put out something like a hundred boxes. Most are great. Some are filler. Here's where I think the line is.
JHS is the easiest pedal company to defend and the easiest one to over-buy. Josh Scott makes the show, he writes the marketing copy, and he's better at both than most of his competitors are at building. That's a real moat, and it's also why a lot of JHS boards end up looking like fan-club merch instead of signal chains.
The pedals I keep are the ones that earn their power-supply slot — pedals I'd recommend without the YouTube context. The pedals I sell are the ones I bought because of the YouTube context. This list is the rest of an honest day on my board.
Column · The best
The 7 that earn their slot.
JHS Pedals · Morning Glory V4
Still the transparent OD answer.
The Bluesbreaker-in-a-better-box that the rest of the market spent ten years trying to dethrone. Nobody has. The V4 internal mids switch fixed the one thing the V3 was honestly weak at, and the Red Channel is a working solo boost that doesn't change the EQ on you. The Morning Glory is the OD I'd put on a stranger's board.
JHS Pedals · Bonsai
Nine Tube Screamers in one box — and the curation is the value.
On paper it's gimmicky. In practice the Bonsai replaces my TS9, my TS808 reissue, and a Maxon clone I never sold because I felt guilty about it. Pick a mode for the band you're in that night, leave gain at 2 o'clock, never think about it again. The Keeley mode and the OD-1 mode alone justify the price tag.
2 rebuttals filed
JHS Pedals · Colour Box V2
A real Neve preamp on a pedalboard.
Most preamp-in-a-pedal claims are marketing. The Colour Box is one of the very few that earns the term — line, instrument, and mic-level inputs, a Baxandall-style EQ that actually sweeps right, and a saturated channel that records like the desk it's imitating. I've tracked a full record with a Colour Box and the Telefunken U67 channel, and the band thought I had hired an engineer.
JHS Pedals · Pulp ’n’ Peel V4
The sleeper compressor with a real DI.
Underrated for the same reason most JHS pedals are overrated: it doesn't have a viral video. The Pulp 'n' Peel is the only compressor under $250 with a balanced XLR out that you can actually use in a session. The blend knob means the squish never goes too far. The compressor on its own is OTA-style and tracks dynamics well; pair it with a Klone in front and it sounds like a studio chain.
JHS Pedals · SuperBolt V2
Supro circuit, modest cabinet, hard to put down.
Supro-style breakup in a stompbox is a crowded category, and the SuperBolt V2 quietly wins it. The V1 was good. The V2 added a high-headroom mode that turns it into an amp-style boost in front of a clean amp — the move I make on a Princeton when I need a louder pedal but a smaller change to the band's mix. Better than the Sweet Tea ever was.
JHS Pedals · Lucky Cat
Stereo delay with tape modulation under $300.
The closest thing I've found to a Carbon Copy with a brain. Stereo out, three modulation profiles, and the digital mode is more believable than most digital tape emulations at the price. The build quality I have my reservations about — the knobs feel cheaper than they should at this price — but the sound is unimpeachable.
JHS Pedals · Smiley
The Marshall-in-a-box that actually feels like a Marshall.
Most plexi-in-a-box pedals are mid-forward and brittle. The Smiley is the one I keep coming back to because the low end doesn't disappear when the gain comes up. Put it in front of a clean Twin and you get a credible Plexi rhythm sound. Stack it after a TS9 and you get a Page-on-the-couch tone for free.
Column · The worst
The 7 I'd sell first.
JHS Pedals · Cheese Ball
Distortion pedal of last resort.
A novelty enclosure with a circuit that doesn't justify the novelty. The Cheese Ball is harsh in a way that doesn't suit any of the music I'd actually want a harsh pedal for. Compared to a $40 Behringer Vintage Distortion you can't make a real case for the Cheese Ball except as a collector item, which is a sad way to evaluate a guitar pedal.
3 rebuttals filed
JHS Pedals · Crayon
Josh has said it himself: this one missed.
The Crayon was meant to be a textured fuzz-distortion with a usable tone control. In practice the EQ is unbalanced in a way that makes the gain stage feel cheap. There's a version that works at low volumes and on dirty single-coils — and that's a very narrow lane to design a $200 pedal for. Even the company has been quiet about this one in retrospect.
JHS Pedals · AT+ Andy Timmons
Pays the signature-pedal tax with no real return.
The AT+ is fine. The AT+ is also $279 for a fine pedal that does one thing — a saturated, sustaining lead voice — that you can get from a TS into a hot amp for free. Andy Timmons is a generational player. His signature pedal is a generational mark-up.
JHS Pedals · Spring Tank Reverb
Spring in name only.
The Spring Tank tries to model the boing of an actual tank, and the result is thin in a way real tanks aren't. A Boss FRV-1 sounds more like a spring. A Strymon Flint on the spring channel certainly does. The Spring Tank has the right concept and the wrong execution.
JHS Pedals · Mini Foot Fuzz
One knob, narrow sweet spot, regretted at gig volume.
Mini Foot Fuzz works on a couch and falls apart at band volume. The single knob is meant to be a feature; in this circuit it's a constraint. If you want a single-knob fuzz, the Walrus Iron Horse is twice the pedal at not-twice the price.
JHS Pedals · Mute Switch
A footswitch with a price tag.
The JHS Mute Switch is a kill switch in a $150 enclosure. The Boss FS-5L is $30. The Lehle 1@3 is $200 and does six things instead of one. There is a version of this product that makes sense if you only have a JHS-themed board; that's not a strong design constraint.
JHS Pedals · Pollinator V2
Plexi-style preamp that the Smiley already does better.
The Pollinator's marketing slot is the Marshall-bassman crossover, and on paper that's interesting. In practice it sits between two of JHS's stronger pedals (the Smiley and the SuperBolt) without doing either of their jobs as well. The Pollinator is a competent middle child; in this lineup there are too many older siblings.
If you only buy three JHS pedals in your life, make them the Morning Glory, the Bonsai, and the Colour Box. The rest is YouTube. — Jason
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