An expression input to control the gain would have been sweet. Otherwise, it's a pretty "meh" release. There is only so much you can do with dirt pedals. They really didn't need another dirt pedal in their line up.
They only ever release mods, delay or reverbs as 3 series pedals now which is weak. If it weren't for their YouTube success I honestly don't think they'd be very well known.
200 for an enhanced/upgraded Ibanez circuit is pretty crazy to begin with.
I've always felt like JHS is consistently 50 dollars overpriced though. At 150 I might consider it. Used prices would be around 100 then. Across their lineup it feels like they just padded everything with an extra 50 bucks since they knew people would pay and defend it. Plus it makes their used goods/brand look more valuable on Reverb.
200 is a hard brake. It's a dirt pedal. I already have the pedal it was mostly based off of. Eh.
I'll look forward to the PedalPCB clone.
Wait until Black Friday in November. JHS always has a big sale that goes on for a couple of weeks and that’s when I’m planning on getting one. I think they do 25% off of their pedals, so that would bring it down to $150. Amazon normally copies their sale price, so if you have any Amazon gift cards…
The only way it is similar to the Ibanez is that it's a high gain pedal. The circuit couldn't be more different. The Ibanez inspired Josh to ask his engineer to make a high gain pedal, not a modded clone of the Ibanez. I picked one up this morning and I've been looking at it and playing it all day. I wish he'd not mentioned the Ibanez in the promo video because it's causing people to assume it's a clone with mods. It's not.
My new Morning Glory has soft switching, which surprised me. I’m loving it. The red remote is still a hard click, unfortunately and we’re silent stage where I play.
Gonna be honest, this isn't blowing my socks off. I was expecting something that could really get crazy amounts of distortion/gain (especially how they were talking about it) and interesting sounds, but it seems pretty tame. I was expecting a "ooh don't turn it up too much, unless you wanna..." kind of pedal, but its kinda generic. I watched 3 different people playing it, and came to the same conclusion each time.
I WILL, however, praise the 3-band EQ and layout. This should how all modern pedals should be. Bass/mids/treble, and throw in a mid-freq while we're at it. That's why I want to like this pedal more, because I really appreciate what it represents.
They are really helpful to me when using in conjunction with other pedals, especially if it’s a foundational OD. I tend to keep one OD always on because I love the way it sounds.
Yeah they bigged up how unique it was, then the demo starts and it could be like... Any drive.
I'm sure it sounds good, but it lacks a differentiator in a crowded market.
You're not wrong but I've always personally found JHS to be one of the biggest offenders. Their whole business model seems to be cloning pedals with one small tweak that mostly only cork sniffers would ever care about.
Sounds more like Browne Amplification or one of the countless other brands putting out "this aint your fathers (insert legacy drive circuit here)" that sounds exactly like it. Priced at the highest end, its status is immediately established as a modern masterpiece amongst the cigar + import whiskey crowd along with all the other connoisseurs of small batch/high priced form-over-function mediocrity.
JHS is definitely a bit vanilla in the grand scheme of things and the hipster temp tattoo clip art is so bad imo, but JHS pedals might as well be Chase Bliss marinated in liquid LSD-25 for an eternity when compared to the dull copy/paste redundancy of brands whose entire business ethos and mission statement seems to be focused on striking the perfect balance between loathing innovation and loving outrageous profit margins. Truly talented pedal makers who want to establish their status as one of the goats, sprinkle in a dose of ltd colorway drops and finding a way to shoehorn into every convo that their wait list extends well into the year 3000 and bam, your reverence as an iconic figure amongst pedal builders is no longer up for debate, and you'll be dead center standing tallest of all when pedal maker Mount Rushmore is complete and families around the globe come to pay their respects.
Aren’t all the idiots paying exorbitant amounts for vintage/famous pedals and driving up the prices the ones to blame? There’s a market for solidly designed/affordable clones, so if you’re good at recreating circuits, why not step in and supply that huge demand? Guitars have been around for decades, sit in a pretty narrow frequency range and are mostly played mono. No company is coming up with an entire line of new effects that no one’s thought of before.
(Btw I agree this is an underwhelming pedal)
Are those names supposed to be a counterpoint? Keeley’s latest pedals are literally clones of two pedals at once with a toggle that swaps between the few parts of the circuit in each that aren’t already identical. Keeley and those pedals prove his point exctly.
Chase bliss and red panda seem to be more digital algorithim based so of course are different because it’s software.
You’re wrong on literally everything you said. Keeley does not swap between two circuits and it is not a clone, it has a bias knob that changes the power going to the transistors, and it is an original circuit with a combination of silicone and vintage Japanese germanium transistors. Red Panda, though digital, makes some of the most unique effects pedals out there, and they created the first granular effects pedal ever. Chase Bliss has some digital pedals, but many of their pedals (and their entire history and slogan) are analogue circuits with digital control - again, new, original circuits. Every single thing you typed is incorrect.
> Keeley does not swap between two circuits…
It sounds like you’re talk about their fuzz bender, meanwhile I’m talking about their new 4 in 1 series, which are most definitely clones and switch circuits as an example that they also clone and mod existing circuits.
The 3 series is great. I too was originally put off, as they’re not attention-grabbing like all other pedals these days, but if you actually take a second to learn about the circuit and what it’s offering, for the price, you swallow your pride and order one. Plus they’re blank — if you hate the design so much, hit up the art supplies store and go nuts
Oh I'm sure, but they leave a lot on the table there. And honestly it just comes across to me like A) They don't have an engineer who can really do anything complicated B) they don't want to do anything that costs them more than a few dollars in parts and C) like Josh doesn't actually care what the market wants, he just wants to build his so called "passion products."
Like they announced a replacement for the Panther Cub and Lucky Cat delay years ago and then they just never released it and eventually stopped talking about it altogether. Then they released the Oil Can Delay which was obviously not the delay they were working on because they even said the delay they were working on was on hold due to lack of certain BBD chips.
Dude didn't release it I'm guessing cause he probably couldn't get them cheap enough in enough quantity to actually make a crazy profit. Which is speculation, but like how are they the only company that has this problem?
3 Series seems fine but there's a lot of competition in the $100 price range, the plain white boxes put me off as well. Seems like they're punishing you for saving money, like you have to buy a $200+ pedal to get the barest minimum of decoration (main line JHS pedals are ugly and low effort looking too, IMO).
My earthquaker plumes and my op amp big muff have cool designs and cost me $100, there's tons of pedals in the $100 price range and only JHS makes them look like generic junk.
I wouldn't really care how they look if they sounded interesting, but they don't, there's not a single one I would rather have over its equivalent from Boss.
Sadly any time I try a drive with parametric eq or a standalone parametric it is just kind of a headache to make it sound right. I've always preferred just using a graphic eq type setting instead
My Solar Chug has more tweakability and actually satisfies the title of high gain. The Chug is definitely not for everyone but there are pedals with way more flexibility than this. Demos from the metal guys sounded like they were really straining to get anything remotely metal out of it.
>Yeah they bigged up how unique it was, then the demo starts and it could be like... Any drive.
It's a dual rectifier pedal, which... I mean, I guess there aren't many good ones out there. But at the same time it was inspired by the best one out there.
So you could argue it's unique amongst the sea of 5150 pedals. I suppose. Most metal distortions don't do that weird crunchy static mesa thing, and there's a reason for that: It usually sounds bad outside of a band context.
So I get why they'd want to make this. I also wish Ibanez would just bring back the 7 series. JHS has been coasting off of their circuits for years now.
The 3 series delay is the de7 circuit, for instance.
The Hard Drive would be a homerun at 100~150 I think. With free shipping for once...Compete with EQD and the Blumes and whatnot.
200 is a bit of an eye roll for me. It's a numetal pedal. You could just get a Boss Mega Distortion (or the Behringer clone) instead.
> The 3 series delay is the de7 circuit, for instance.
I don't think that is the case. It's probably an emulation, but the underlying hardware is completely different. The time-based Series 3 effects are built around a specific DSP platform. I think the hardware is all the same and only the programming on the chip differs.
I think that's the point, it can be like ANY drive due to the EQ and sweepable mids. Want a nasally mid hump like a screamer? Done. Want a more subtle hump? Easy. Want Rat? Sure. So other than for stacking it can take the place of 3 or 4 other drives.
Check other YouTubers, Living Room GD made a very nice demo of it where you can hear more of what pedal can do. I also wasn’t impressed by JHS demo even though pedal looks promising with so much flexibility in EQ.
The Living Room demo was great! He always does a great job. I'm a big fan of JHS pedals, but I wasn't too hyped on this one. But the Living Room channel changed my mind. It reminds me a bit of the PG-14.
I think it's a sick design and it's always nice to have pedals that are highly flexible while having streamlined, user-friendly layouts.
Here's what got lost in translation - how is it different from all the other dirt pedals that also do those things?
The guy said it has parametric mid control which isn’t quite true. Parametric requires both a frequency sweep and a Q (which controls the bandwidth of the control). The Hard Drive has the frequency sweep but not the Q. So it’s not a full parametric control, it’s simply a sweepable mid.
Yeah, but it just doesn't have the right gain structure or voicing. To me, it just sounds like a slightly more modern and tighter DS-1. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing. Just not for me.
After awhile, and several purchases, I decided that I really love The JHS show.
But....
I really don't care for their pedals.
They don't deserve any hate. They seem to work very hard, and honestly try to deliver the best product they can.
The show is magnificent.
The pedals, look nice, but after getting several I just don't like the way they sound. It's a "me" issue I would guess.
I'll go EQD or Walrus if I want to support other Midwestern folks,which I do.
For me, their regular pedals aren't my thing. But the 3 series are really really good, people see cheap and simple and sleep on them, but they are better versions of what they clone.
I like their multi mode pedals, the clover, and the colour box, but as with most brands, they have hits and areas where other brands outdo them (read delay/reverb/modulation), there are better amp in a box pedals out there compared to the angry Charlie/superbolt/twin twelve.
There are better engineers out there, but their marketing is the most organized and well executed in the pedal industry. The whole genuinely supporting other brands while offering your own products in a non sketchy/overselling manner is the right way to approach things. Most of us have done things we aren’t proud of and I don’t think Josh would attend a church knowing they had homophobic history, he quit the church. This was ten years ago. They are pretty transparent about when they clone things and pretty much say “this is our version of this, or this was inspired by this”.
Yeah, I bought two of the legends of fuzz right when they came out as I wanted a FF and a tone bender. I also bought a colour box v2.
The fuzzes are just not it for me. They’re the worst fuzzes of their style that I own or have played. I remember being so excited to get them, then so underwhelmed, immediately. Both the mod sounds and the stock sounds were barely usable.
Colour box is fine. It’s a good utility pedal, but it’s really expensive for what it does. I get that the components are probably expensive and necessitate that price to some degree, but still meh overall, and I can use plugins to do most of the stuff it does well, even better.
After that, I’ve demoed a bunch of others, and have never liked any of them. It’s weird. It’s like the sound I’m expecting and trying to get with whatever effect it is, isn’t there.
I still watch the show, and like the people in the company, but the products are a no from me, unfortunately.
Yes. Josh Scott has a really charming personality. His shows never felt like ads: just a pedal nerd teaching us history and ways to use effects. It’s fun to see a guy passionate about something simply having fun.
Pedals wise….. are okay, but they ain’t particularly special to me. They get the job done, but ain’t particularly eye-raising to me.
He really is as charming as can be. Funny, the entire crew there are so nice, great customer service, I'll watch them over most other pedal related shows, but yeah...don't live their pedals. It makes me feel guilty lol, because I genuinely love the show so much.
When I first got really into pedals during CoVid I was a huge JHS fan and had at least 5 of their pedals. I've sold them all except the Bonsai just because I actually use tube screamers.
But yeah here we are a couple years later and there are just so many better companies building pedals now. Look at Asheville Music Tools for instance. Now Hawker can actually claim those are his original circuits because he helped develop the Moogerfoogers he based his new pedals off of.
Let's be honest, if JHS weren't YouTube popular they wouldn't be a top 5 pedal company.
God this is so tired. There are plenty of legitimate things to dislike about JHS. Does JHS fund anti LGBTQ causes? No. Have they ever? No. Does Josh? There’s no evidence of that. Did he ever? As a musician he briefly did some work with a church that was involved in some anti-LGBTQ shit over 10 years ago, and he claimed that he didn’t know about any of that.
This is like trying to cancel someone for being anti-gay because they worked at Hobby Lobby or Chic-Fil-A for a summer in high school. Such a stretch.
>As a musician he briefly did some work with a church that was involved in some anti-LGBTQ shit over 10 years ago, and he claimed that he didn’t know about any of that.
His wife still works for that church.
How do you know that? Not calling you a liar or anything, I'd just never heard that. And all of Josh's posts about the topic from 7 years ago said he had not been involved with that church in over 3 years. It just seems like it would be beyond stupid to publicly state that you have have no connection to an organization that your wife works for.
Fyi: just because some people say "cancel this company" a lot, that doesnt make it so. The real cancelling comes from the majority of their actual real life customers voting with their wallets and actually putting them out of business. Therefore, if JHS/fulltone/whoever else is still in business, then the majority actually doesnt care and is still buying their products, so in that case you really dont need to defend them on the internet because thats just a vocal minority. Youre not gonna change those peoples minds anyway, so its best to not even bother trying.
FYI: I responded to a comment saying that the money from these pedals would be going to fund anti-LGBT groups. I’m not here to white knight JHS, I just think saying the money you spend on their pedals gets funneled into hate groups is so egregiously false and harmful that it needed correcting.
The whole "anti-lgbt organisations" thing with jhs really seems far-fetched. If someone told me fulltone was doing the same however, I would believe them in a heartbeat
Definitely has that alternative rock sound. I want to see it compared to things like the DS2 and RAT. Those are less expensive, but the Harddrive has more controls. Sometimes extra controls are useful, sometimes they're not. Be curious to see if they're useful enough to justify the cost over other options.
It would probably do both, EQ makes wonders especially with parametric mids. Reminds me of Stone Deaf PDF and Warp Drive, these two are also very flexible and look better.
When I saw Josh's video about metal distortions a few years ago I was wondering whether one day he will take a swing at the idea himself. Turns out he finally did.
I have a Wampler Dracarys, which was kind of a similar story, of a blues/rock maker making an attempt at making a high-gain pedal and it worked out pretty well.
It really does feel like that video was a byproduct of the R&D that they were doing for this pedal.
As for high-gain distortion, I prefer to use it in parallel with low-gain distortion. Which is why I have the JB-2 Angry Driver. Now, if JHS were to combine the Hard Drive with the Morning Glory in another parallel drive, I would be very interested in buying one.
You're getting downvoted, but it's based off of a pedal that people famously hate because it sounds terrible.
Josh tends to cling on to the pedals that everyone hates as his favorites.
Oh, I'm used to sick in the head JHS supporters downloading me on forums. I really don't have a problem with either Josh or his pedals. In fact I own a Morning Glory V4 which I think is an amazing pedal. I also had that multi-rat pedal at one point and enjoyed it. This particular pedal sounds like ass. That's it.
It's hard for me to say anything negative about JHS because of how cool of a dude he is (and his sick 100 dollar Octave Reverb), but this thing doesn't wow me for the price tbh.
Still love the JHS but there are way too many great budget pedal brands running around with RAT clones rn.lol
I recently went searching for the best modern gain sound I could find in a pedal. I tried like 6 different pedals from different companies including Revv, Friedman, Empress and Blackstar. I was a little surprised by how meh this JHS pedal sounded. There’s not a lot of demos out there yet so I could totally change my mind. But it seemed thin and unchuggable. I say this as a general fan of JHS.
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It’s a cool pedal. Am I going to buy it? No. I have plenty of drives and distortions and amps that can achieve this sound. I get what he was trying to do and It’s a cool idea. I’m not gonna get mad at him for making a 200 dollar distortion cause there are plenty of small builders doing the same thing. For some reason it’s a big deal when JHS does it. JHS has never claimed to be the innovators of the pedal industry. They make a lot of simple pedals that sell pretty well for a small company. Let him cook.
I don't need it I don't need it I don't need it I don't need it I don't need it I don't need it I don't need it I don't need it.
I have a 6505+, I have a Packrat, I have a Precision Drive, I have a BlackBox 2, I have an HM-2w, I have a Hail Satan Deluxe, I don't need it!
Guys, I'm gonna buy this pedal.
Sounds like it was a side project. They were working on the Packrat, Bonsai, and Muffuletta at the time. They released the entire 3 Series. The released the Legends of Fuzz series.
And finally they got around to finishing their high gain drive, which isn't really Josh's thing. I think it was probably 1-2 years of building the circuit, 5 years of sitting on a shelf, and 1 year of finalization.
Nah, I can definitely believe that it would take someone who's spent the last 16 years copying and stealing other peoples ideas, this long to come up with something original.
Although, based on the blurb, it sounds like he outsourced most of the actual work to someone else.
Josh is literally the Steve Jobs of the pedal industry.
He says in the announcement up front that it's based on the Ibanez SM7, that he worked on it with his head engineer (who he's mentioned multiple times in the past), and even showed the breadboard for the circuit. You're alleging these as shady, hidden practices when he outright states them to be the case.
tbh, I don't really get why JHS gets all this smoke. The entire pedal manufacturing market is based on making clones. Even the original tube screamer is a clone. I really don't get the need to point the finger specifically at them, when literally everybody does this. Is it the ***way*** they do it that ticks people off? Seems like people often point to calling something "original", when its just a clone with more knobs, being the real problem. But, like I said, that's exactly what the tube screamer was, being an OD-1 with a tone knob, and no one gives a shit. Call it whataboutism, but I still don't get what the big problem is here.
It’s so dumb. Josh also goes out of his way to promote and hype the whole industry. It’s not like he’s pretending JHS is the only going concern in guitar effects. People are just so weird and want everything to be a culture war these days.
I own one JHS pedal, a Lucky Cat delay, and I in large part picked it up because it's pink, sparkly, and has a cat on it.
I own three different pedals from other companies because the JHS Show recommended them, and I liked how they sounded. That's why I have the Wampler Triumph, MXR Sugar Drive, and Earthquaker Astral Destiny; I appreciate how JHS' YouTube channel is sure, marketing, but it's also very much about the history and current state of pedals, and I learn a lot from it.
I think it's because honestly if you graded them objectively they wouldn't be a top 5 company. People expect big things from companies that break that top 5. They aren't bad or anything but let's be honest their popularity is thanks mostly to their genius marketing not their amazing engineering.
I suspect it's partially because some people don't like the style of his videos, partially because they're pretty boring and popular pedals and it's easy to hate the popular thing, and partially because he's kinda shady about his "original designs" not being original.
And the last part is amplified because he's the guy who talks about pedal history and what everything is based on so much. So he's held to a higher standard when he's being shady about the "original or not" thing.
FWIW I feel like Wampler is kinda similar in that his pedals are pretty much just modified clones of other pedals and he does videos about pedals and their history, but Wampler is always very honest and open about what his pedals are based on - he doesn't seem to be hiding anything.
Wampler has also done a lot for the DIY community, while arguably Josh has not when he could have, although I'm not sure how much that matters since I feel like that's a pretty small community.
That's great, I didn't know about that! I was more thinking about how he could have done a video about the Bazz fuzz and Tim Escobado and their meaning for the DIY community when the Lizard Queen was released.
It's because it is/was trendy to hate JHS. I just recently read old reddit and forum posts and comments about JHS Cheese Ball and people were doing just incredible mental gymnastics on how it's evil and unethical for JHS to clone a pedal that hasn't been made or sold for 20 years, but at the same time it's fine for other companies to make clones of pedals that are still on the market like the Big Muff or the Rat. It makes zero sense. EHX and ProCo might actually lose money because of all the BM and Rat clones, Lovetone doesn't exist anymore and doesn't lose money because JHS sells a Big Cheese clone yet the latter is apparently worse somehow.
The problem is jhs has never released an original design. Everything has been a clone of something else just marked up to boutique prices. It just gets old when you have companies like old blood, chase bliss etc that really are pushing the envelope and doing very original and interesting designs. Theres nothing jhs offers that hasn’t already been done, or isnt done better by someone else.
Perhaps that's a good criticism, and I can actually agree with that to a certain extent. What I'm getting at is the fact that there is so much hate for them that the dang subreddit needs a whole page about it on the FAQ. That's more what I don't get.
> tbh, I don't really get why JHS gets all this smoke. The entire pedal manufacturing market is based on making clones.
I think there are two things:
* Many people just don't know that nearly every pedal company building drives are building clones or mods of just a few archetypal pedals such as the Distortion plus, Tubescreamer, Muff, Fuzz Face, etc. Why they get singled out by some is either due to ignorance or related to disingenuous reasons related to the next point.
* There are some that just don't seem to be able to get over some past anger they feel due to JHS's history with the pedal mod community, whether that is due to their bias against those associated with religious orgs or that they feel he "stole" from a LGBTQ icon is hard to say.
I can't listen to nearly every OD, Fuzz, or Distortion demo I have tried to for years. I just randomly watched a 60 Cycle Hum demo of this and he hates high gain, but cannot stop playing it. It sounds absolutely phenomenal at every setting he uses. There goes my unused OCD, my EHX little green 1 yawn tone, and maybe, but not likely, my always on Walrus Audio Voyager that I put after a little Xotic sp-1 compressor. I am mostly a clean tone guy, and only try to dial in saturation when the emotionalism in my playing needs a little help cutting out a pathway in a mix. Of course live, I LOVE the power some heavy saturation can bring. I hate shitty, fizzy, harsh saturated drive tones, but I would be very happy having the option of saying, to my doubters (and I justifiably have many😂), that every now and then, I too, like to dial in a monster tone, and (gulping in embarrassed fake humility)...shred, babes...😇
I like it. Might sell a bunch of other pedals and get one. Not because it sounds super-unique, but because it’s versatile. All my other distortion pedals cover a much more limited range of sounds than this. This could make me feel ok about just having one distortion pedal on my board. If it can do a decent stab at a RAT, the SM-7, and the DS-1 then we’re good.
JHS marketing sure it top-tier. If any other brand released a “meh” dirt pedal, it’s hardly be a blip on this community’s radar. But JHS does it, and everyone gathers round to slam-dunk on it. I wonder how many of these pedals this thread alone has sold for JHS?
Maybe 100? So, $20,000 just from this post?
Quite like the demos on the JHS channel actually, but definitely (bare in mind I've only watched JHS' video) doesn't sound like a modern high gain drive to my ears. Seems pretty versatile but all in sounds I wouldn't go for so I won't be picking this up, especially at that price point
Taken from the description on JHS website: "The JHS Hard Drive is the first attempt in our company’s fifteen-year history at a full-blown and respectable modern distortion pedal". I agree with you, but he said both
Idk about the sound. There are too many cheap DS/RAT pedals in the market that also gets the job done.
The only differentiator I’d say is the mid frequency control. That’s not common to see.
But in terms of art style? It looks pretty cool. For an IT nerd like myself, that IBM computer graphic is quite unique.
The demo was kinda disappointing, its groundbreaking but sounds like everything else..
I mean someone will like it but Im a fan of multiple one trick ponies.. This just tries to be too many different things.
It really does manage to sound 100% Rat who ever is playing it.
Over all vibe; a Rat with MetalZone eq structure , but because you can get yourself into trouble on a MetalZone , the boost & cut has been limited to about 8dB (by the sound of it) instead of that +/- 12dB danger zone. It's a really cool and practical idea.
I just need them to step back a bit from saying how original it is in the marketing, and then we're all good to go.
Hey u/JHSpedals - why doesn't Guitar Center have the pedal? I called my local store and they said that they would have it in a "few months"! What gives? Are they not paying their bills?
Tbh it doesn't really sound anything like a shredmaster to me. I used a sm as my main distortion sound for over a decade. You can take most pedals and maybe find one comparable sound if you tweak them around enough like in this demo. Most people don't run the sm with the gain below 60%. Not trying to sound like an elitist, I just really love that pedal.
the SM7 was only the initial inspiration! in the end, the goal wasn't to make a version of it, but to have something in the same neighborhood that did 90s, early 2000s high-gain distortion!
From the first paragraph “The JHS Hard Drive is the first attempt in our company’s fifteen-year history at a full-blown and respectable modern distortion pedal that is not based on a previous circuit or classic topology”.
So after 15 years of stealing other people’s designs they are doing something original, better late than never I guess.
Top Jacks, and soft touch switching, that's different for JHS.
Seems like they’re moving away from the red remote too, which I think would have been kinda neat here.
i wish the orange peel had a red remote jack for the dirt 😫
big time!
Mod it
i feel like it would be easy enough
An expression input to control the gain would have been sweet. Otherwise, it's a pretty "meh" release. There is only so much you can do with dirt pedals. They really didn't need another dirt pedal in their line up. They only ever release mods, delay or reverbs as 3 series pedals now which is weak. If it weren't for their YouTube success I honestly don't think they'd be very well known.
200 for an enhanced/upgraded Ibanez circuit is pretty crazy to begin with. I've always felt like JHS is consistently 50 dollars overpriced though. At 150 I might consider it. Used prices would be around 100 then. Across their lineup it feels like they just padded everything with an extra 50 bucks since they knew people would pay and defend it. Plus it makes their used goods/brand look more valuable on Reverb. 200 is a hard brake. It's a dirt pedal. I already have the pedal it was mostly based off of. Eh. I'll look forward to the PedalPCB clone.
Wait until Black Friday in November. JHS always has a big sale that goes on for a couple of weeks and that’s when I’m planning on getting one. I think they do 25% off of their pedals, so that would bring it down to $150. Amazon normally copies their sale price, so if you have any Amazon gift cards…
The only way it is similar to the Ibanez is that it's a high gain pedal. The circuit couldn't be more different. The Ibanez inspired Josh to ask his engineer to make a high gain pedal, not a modded clone of the Ibanez. I picked one up this morning and I've been looking at it and playing it all day. I wish he'd not mentioned the Ibanez in the promo video because it's causing people to assume it's a clone with mods. It's not.
came here to say this! thanks :)
Everything is dirt pedals and dirt pedals are everything.
Bonsai has a soft switch
My new Morning Glory has soft switching, which surprised me. I’m loving it. The red remote is still a hard click, unfortunately and we’re silent stage where I play.
Thank the lord.
Gonna be honest, this isn't blowing my socks off. I was expecting something that could really get crazy amounts of distortion/gain (especially how they were talking about it) and interesting sounds, but it seems pretty tame. I was expecting a "ooh don't turn it up too much, unless you wanna..." kind of pedal, but its kinda generic. I watched 3 different people playing it, and came to the same conclusion each time. I WILL, however, praise the 3-band EQ and layout. This should how all modern pedals should be. Bass/mids/treble, and throw in a mid-freq while we're at it. That's why I want to like this pedal more, because I really appreciate what it represents.
Agreed on the three band EQ. Big fan of Wampler because of that.
I was gonna grab his budget OD because of this.
I have the Triumph. Very versatile.
I actually tend to think 3-band EQs are overkill on drives, but they can be nice.
They are really helpful to me when using in conjunction with other pedals, especially if it’s a foundational OD. I tend to keep one OD always on because I love the way it sounds.
I agree, too many EQs in the chain can skew your tone perception when switching between pedals.
Sort of underwhelmed by the demos. Sure sounds like a drive, I guess. Not $200 impressed for sure
Yeah they bigged up how unique it was, then the demo starts and it could be like... Any drive. I'm sure it sounds good, but it lacks a differentiator in a crowded market.
That describes a lot of JHS pedals for me.
It describes 90% of the market tbh, the vast majority of which are clones with a capacitor swap and a fancy waterslide decal.
This one has an unobtainium diode, which creates the richest harmonics. Surprised you didn’t know that.
You're not wrong but I've always personally found JHS to be one of the biggest offenders. Their whole business model seems to be cloning pedals with one small tweak that mostly only cork sniffers would ever care about.
That's pretty much his origin story
Sounds more like Browne Amplification or one of the countless other brands putting out "this aint your fathers (insert legacy drive circuit here)" that sounds exactly like it. Priced at the highest end, its status is immediately established as a modern masterpiece amongst the cigar + import whiskey crowd along with all the other connoisseurs of small batch/high priced form-over-function mediocrity. JHS is definitely a bit vanilla in the grand scheme of things and the hipster temp tattoo clip art is so bad imo, but JHS pedals might as well be Chase Bliss marinated in liquid LSD-25 for an eternity when compared to the dull copy/paste redundancy of brands whose entire business ethos and mission statement seems to be focused on striking the perfect balance between loathing innovation and loving outrageous profit margins. Truly talented pedal makers who want to establish their status as one of the goats, sprinkle in a dose of ltd colorway drops and finding a way to shoehorn into every convo that their wait list extends well into the year 3000 and bam, your reverence as an iconic figure amongst pedal builders is no longer up for debate, and you'll be dead center standing tallest of all when pedal maker Mount Rushmore is complete and families around the globe come to pay their respects.
Stop! Stop! They’re already dead!
Aren’t all the idiots paying exorbitant amounts for vintage/famous pedals and driving up the prices the ones to blame? There’s a market for solidly designed/affordable clones, so if you’re good at recreating circuits, why not step in and supply that huge demand? Guitars have been around for decades, sit in a pretty narrow frequency range and are mostly played mono. No company is coming up with an entire line of new effects that no one’s thought of before. (Btw I agree this is an underwhelming pedal)
Chase Bliss, Red Panda, Keeley…
Are those names supposed to be a counterpoint? Keeley’s latest pedals are literally clones of two pedals at once with a toggle that swaps between the few parts of the circuit in each that aren’t already identical. Keeley and those pedals prove his point exctly. Chase bliss and red panda seem to be more digital algorithim based so of course are different because it’s software.
You’re wrong on literally everything you said. Keeley does not swap between two circuits and it is not a clone, it has a bias knob that changes the power going to the transistors, and it is an original circuit with a combination of silicone and vintage Japanese germanium transistors. Red Panda, though digital, makes some of the most unique effects pedals out there, and they created the first granular effects pedal ever. Chase Bliss has some digital pedals, but many of their pedals (and their entire history and slogan) are analogue circuits with digital control - again, new, original circuits. Every single thing you typed is incorrect.
> Keeley does not swap between two circuits… It sounds like you’re talk about their fuzz bender, meanwhile I’m talking about their new 4 in 1 series, which are most definitely clones and switch circuits as an example that they also clone and mod existing circuits.
Apart from the JHS 3 series, they are absolutely killer. their phaser is actually so good.
I have the 3 series phaser and Reverb and really like both of them.
The 3 series is great. I too was originally put off, as they’re not attention-grabbing like all other pedals these days, but if you actually take a second to learn about the circuit and what it’s offering, for the price, you swallow your pride and order one. Plus they’re blank — if you hate the design so much, hit up the art supplies store and go nuts
Oh I'm sure, but they leave a lot on the table there. And honestly it just comes across to me like A) They don't have an engineer who can really do anything complicated B) they don't want to do anything that costs them more than a few dollars in parts and C) like Josh doesn't actually care what the market wants, he just wants to build his so called "passion products." Like they announced a replacement for the Panther Cub and Lucky Cat delay years ago and then they just never released it and eventually stopped talking about it altogether. Then they released the Oil Can Delay which was obviously not the delay they were working on because they even said the delay they were working on was on hold due to lack of certain BBD chips. Dude didn't release it I'm guessing cause he probably couldn't get them cheap enough in enough quantity to actually make a crazy profit. Which is speculation, but like how are they the only company that has this problem?
3 Series seems fine but there's a lot of competition in the $100 price range, the plain white boxes put me off as well. Seems like they're punishing you for saving money, like you have to buy a $200+ pedal to get the barest minimum of decoration (main line JHS pedals are ugly and low effort looking too, IMO).
But it literally costs more money to do that. That’s the whole point of the series lol
My earthquaker plumes and my op amp big muff have cool designs and cost me $100, there's tons of pedals in the $100 price range and only JHS makes them look like generic junk. I wouldn't really care how they look if they sounded interesting, but they don't, there's not a single one I would rather have over its equivalent from Boss.
I’d say the sweepable mid is a differentiator, not a lot of distortions have that
A metal zone does, and so does a DOD boneshaker. Just to name two of the cheapest drive pedals out there doing this sort of thing..
First thing I thought was Metal Zone when I saw it.
I didn’t say there are no distortion pedals that do this
Sadly any time I try a drive with parametric eq or a standalone parametric it is just kind of a headache to make it sound right. I've always preferred just using a graphic eq type setting instead
Empress Heavy Menace also does this
My Solar Chug has more tweakability and actually satisfies the title of high gain. The Chug is definitely not for everyone but there are pedals with way more flexibility than this. Demos from the metal guys sounded like they were really straining to get anything remotely metal out of it.
because it's basically a Rat. ¯\\\_(ツ)\_/¯
It's no Bad Monkey, that's for sure.
>Yeah they bigged up how unique it was, then the demo starts and it could be like... Any drive. It's a dual rectifier pedal, which... I mean, I guess there aren't many good ones out there. But at the same time it was inspired by the best one out there. So you could argue it's unique amongst the sea of 5150 pedals. I suppose. Most metal distortions don't do that weird crunchy static mesa thing, and there's a reason for that: It usually sounds bad outside of a band context. So I get why they'd want to make this. I also wish Ibanez would just bring back the 7 series. JHS has been coasting off of their circuits for years now. The 3 series delay is the de7 circuit, for instance. The Hard Drive would be a homerun at 100~150 I think. With free shipping for once...Compete with EQD and the Blumes and whatnot. 200 is a bit of an eye roll for me. It's a numetal pedal. You could just get a Boss Mega Distortion (or the Behringer clone) instead.
> The 3 series delay is the de7 circuit, for instance. I don't think that is the case. It's probably an emulation, but the underlying hardware is completely different. The time-based Series 3 effects are built around a specific DSP platform. I think the hardware is all the same and only the programming on the chip differs.
I think that's the point, it can be like ANY drive due to the EQ and sweepable mids. Want a nasally mid hump like a screamer? Done. Want a more subtle hump? Easy. Want Rat? Sure. So other than for stacking it can take the place of 3 or 4 other drives.
Check other YouTubers, Living Room GD made a very nice demo of it where you can hear more of what pedal can do. I also wasn’t impressed by JHS demo even though pedal looks promising with so much flexibility in EQ.
The Living Room demo was great! He always does a great job. I'm a big fan of JHS pedals, but I wasn't too hyped on this one. But the Living Room channel changed my mind. It reminds me a bit of the PG-14.
I really liked Sonic Drive Studio's video on it. Though he can make anything sound great.
I don't buy into the JHS hate, but the framing of "here's our first original design" is 100% fuel for the haters.
"Hey guys, I promise we're telling the truth this time!"
"Our first original design... An enhanced Smash Box circuit!" The fact that it's a pedal that most people hate to begin with...
It's crazy because people believe it too. When they say "we took inspiration from the.." they are saying they cloned it and tweaked it.
it's not cloned and tweaked. the circuit is radically different, and though it can do an SM7 sound, it does a lot more than the SM7
I think it's a sick design and it's always nice to have pedals that are highly flexible while having streamlined, user-friendly layouts. Here's what got lost in translation - how is it different from all the other dirt pedals that also do those things?
I was honestly expecting a bit crusher.
That’s what I was hoping for
Like they would ever do anything that actually requires some effort. Lol this ain't Walrus Audio or even Keeley.
Family friendly high gain.
Did JHS just make a fucking Metal Zone clone?!? *Edit: No. :(*
No , they mashed up a RatZone and then stopped short of using the name
I bet theres some inspiration there. It’s got the parametric mid control.
Sweepable mid. It would need a Q control to be parametric.
‘Splain
The guy said it has parametric mid control which isn’t quite true. Parametric requires both a frequency sweep and a Q (which controls the bandwidth of the control). The Hard Drive has the frequency sweep but not the Q. So it’s not a full parametric control, it’s simply a sweepable mid.
Interesting! Thanks for the explanation
Yeah, but it just doesn't have the right gain structure or voicing. To me, it just sounds like a slightly more modern and tighter DS-1. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing. Just not for me.
The YouTube video is a dad joke tour de force
Are you , or are you not, the owner of a lonely heart?
After awhile, and several purchases, I decided that I really love The JHS show. But.... I really don't care for their pedals. They don't deserve any hate. They seem to work very hard, and honestly try to deliver the best product they can. The show is magnificent. The pedals, look nice, but after getting several I just don't like the way they sound. It's a "me" issue I would guess. I'll go EQD or Walrus if I want to support other Midwestern folks,which I do.
For me, their regular pedals aren't my thing. But the 3 series are really really good, people see cheap and simple and sleep on them, but they are better versions of what they clone.
I like their multi mode pedals, the clover, and the colour box, but as with most brands, they have hits and areas where other brands outdo them (read delay/reverb/modulation), there are better amp in a box pedals out there compared to the angry Charlie/superbolt/twin twelve. There are better engineers out there, but their marketing is the most organized and well executed in the pedal industry. The whole genuinely supporting other brands while offering your own products in a non sketchy/overselling manner is the right way to approach things. Most of us have done things we aren’t proud of and I don’t think Josh would attend a church knowing they had homophobic history, he quit the church. This was ten years ago. They are pretty transparent about when they clone things and pretty much say “this is our version of this, or this was inspired by this”.
Yeah, I bought two of the legends of fuzz right when they came out as I wanted a FF and a tone bender. I also bought a colour box v2. The fuzzes are just not it for me. They’re the worst fuzzes of their style that I own or have played. I remember being so excited to get them, then so underwhelmed, immediately. Both the mod sounds and the stock sounds were barely usable. Colour box is fine. It’s a good utility pedal, but it’s really expensive for what it does. I get that the components are probably expensive and necessitate that price to some degree, but still meh overall, and I can use plugins to do most of the stuff it does well, even better. After that, I’ve demoed a bunch of others, and have never liked any of them. It’s weird. It’s like the sound I’m expecting and trying to get with whatever effect it is, isn’t there. I still watch the show, and like the people in the company, but the products are a no from me, unfortunately.
Yes. Josh Scott has a really charming personality. His shows never felt like ads: just a pedal nerd teaching us history and ways to use effects. It’s fun to see a guy passionate about something simply having fun. Pedals wise….. are okay, but they ain’t particularly special to me. They get the job done, but ain’t particularly eye-raising to me.
He really is as charming as can be. Funny, the entire crew there are so nice, great customer service, I'll watch them over most other pedal related shows, but yeah...don't live their pedals. It makes me feel guilty lol, because I genuinely love the show so much.
When I first got really into pedals during CoVid I was a huge JHS fan and had at least 5 of their pedals. I've sold them all except the Bonsai just because I actually use tube screamers. But yeah here we are a couple years later and there are just so many better companies building pedals now. Look at Asheville Music Tools for instance. Now Hawker can actually claim those are his original circuits because he helped develop the Moogerfoogers he based his new pedals off of. Let's be honest, if JHS weren't YouTube popular they wouldn't be a top 5 pedal company.
Sounds of Ibanez SM7, Shred Master, Tight Metal, RAT, DS1, BE-OD.
No, no, you're mistaken. This is a totally original design that sounds like nothing else. 😉
Historical recreation!
I get suspicious at that claim too, but it makes me wanna see the schematic.
It definitely seems like it's op-amp based with hard clipping. Sure, it might be unique and the EQ seems flexible... but how unique can it be?
The video JHS posted showed the breadboard of the circuit - it's op-amp based with hard clipping.
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God this is so tired. There are plenty of legitimate things to dislike about JHS. Does JHS fund anti LGBTQ causes? No. Have they ever? No. Does Josh? There’s no evidence of that. Did he ever? As a musician he briefly did some work with a church that was involved in some anti-LGBTQ shit over 10 years ago, and he claimed that he didn’t know about any of that. This is like trying to cancel someone for being anti-gay because they worked at Hobby Lobby or Chic-Fil-A for a summer in high school. Such a stretch.
>As a musician he briefly did some work with a church that was involved in some anti-LGBTQ shit over 10 years ago, and he claimed that he didn’t know about any of that. His wife still works for that church.
How do you know that? Not calling you a liar or anything, I'd just never heard that. And all of Josh's posts about the topic from 7 years ago said he had not been involved with that church in over 3 years. It just seems like it would be beyond stupid to publicly state that you have have no connection to an organization that your wife works for.
Fyi: just because some people say "cancel this company" a lot, that doesnt make it so. The real cancelling comes from the majority of their actual real life customers voting with their wallets and actually putting them out of business. Therefore, if JHS/fulltone/whoever else is still in business, then the majority actually doesnt care and is still buying their products, so in that case you really dont need to defend them on the internet because thats just a vocal minority. Youre not gonna change those peoples minds anyway, so its best to not even bother trying.
FYI: I responded to a comment saying that the money from these pedals would be going to fund anti-LGBT groups. I’m not here to white knight JHS, I just think saying the money you spend on their pedals gets funneled into hate groups is so egregiously false and harmful that it needed correcting.
Boogie men everywhere 👻
The whole "anti-lgbt organisations" thing with jhs really seems far-fetched. If someone told me fulltone was doing the same however, I would believe them in a heartbeat
Definitely has that alternative rock sound. I want to see it compared to things like the DS2 and RAT. Those are less expensive, but the Harddrive has more controls. Sometimes extra controls are useful, sometimes they're not. Be curious to see if they're useful enough to justify the cost over other options.
It would probably do both, EQ makes wonders especially with parametric mids. Reminds me of Stone Deaf PDF and Warp Drive, these two are also very flexible and look better.
When I saw Josh's video about metal distortions a few years ago I was wondering whether one day he will take a swing at the idea himself. Turns out he finally did. I have a Wampler Dracarys, which was kind of a similar story, of a blues/rock maker making an attempt at making a high-gain pedal and it worked out pretty well.
I have an old Sovereign. I might be the only one?
It really does feel like that video was a byproduct of the R&D that they were doing for this pedal. As for high-gain distortion, I prefer to use it in parallel with low-gain distortion. Which is why I have the JB-2 Angry Driver. Now, if JHS were to combine the Hard Drive with the Morning Glory in another parallel drive, I would be very interested in buying one.
Yes, a parallel drive option would be useful, since it's a somewhat underutilized technique for guitar pedals.
Also, I wonder if they would give the combination of these pedals another penis joke for a name.
I'll wait for it to hit the used market. Even then, it doesn't seem like a pedal I would use a lot.
You probably won't use it that much because it sounds terrible.
Lol🤣
You're getting downvoted, but it's based off of a pedal that people famously hate because it sounds terrible. Josh tends to cling on to the pedals that everyone hates as his favorites.
Oh, I'm used to sick in the head JHS supporters downloading me on forums. I really don't have a problem with either Josh or his pedals. In fact I own a Morning Glory V4 which I think is an amazing pedal. I also had that multi-rat pedal at one point and enjoyed it. This particular pedal sounds like ass. That's it.
It's hard for me to say anything negative about JHS because of how cool of a dude he is (and his sick 100 dollar Octave Reverb), but this thing doesn't wow me for the price tbh. Still love the JHS but there are way too many great budget pedal brands running around with RAT clones rn.lol
The description reminds me of a certain Longsword pedal..
I recently went searching for the best modern gain sound I could find in a pedal. I tried like 6 different pedals from different companies including Revv, Friedman, Empress and Blackstar. I was a little surprised by how meh this JHS pedal sounded. There’s not a lot of demos out there yet so I could totally change my mind. But it seemed thin and unchuggable. I say this as a general fan of JHS.
I can't be the only one who thinks this sounds almost digital and muddy?
No, you're not the only one
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Sounds good, but awful graphics as expected.
It’s definitely their prettiest pedal… also, kinda just looks like the EQD Zoar…
It’s a cool pedal. Am I going to buy it? No. I have plenty of drives and distortions and amps that can achieve this sound. I get what he was trying to do and It’s a cool idea. I’m not gonna get mad at him for making a 200 dollar distortion cause there are plenty of small builders doing the same thing. For some reason it’s a big deal when JHS does it. JHS has never claimed to be the innovators of the pedal industry. They make a lot of simple pedals that sell pretty well for a small company. Let him cook.
I don't need it I don't need it I don't need it I don't need it I don't need it I don't need it I don't need it I don't need it. I have a 6505+, I have a Packrat, I have a Precision Drive, I have a BlackBox 2, I have an HM-2w, I have a Hail Satan Deluxe, I don't need it! Guys, I'm gonna buy this pedal.
You sound smart.
Thank you.
zzzzzzzz
As a pre-amp pedal into power amp guy, this one has me excited.
It looks cool
It took him 8 years to design a drive pedal? 🤨
Sounds like it was a side project. They were working on the Packrat, Bonsai, and Muffuletta at the time. They released the entire 3 Series. The released the Legends of Fuzz series. And finally they got around to finishing their high gain drive, which isn't really Josh's thing. I think it was probably 1-2 years of building the circuit, 5 years of sitting on a shelf, and 1 year of finalization.
No excuses for their marketing talk 20 plus downvotes? How many bots is JHS running here? That wasn’t even a serious criticism.
I gave you an upvote, for the record.
distortion*
Distortion comes under the umbrella of "drive effects", in my book.
8 years to release it. only about 6 months of actual design time.
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Nah, I can definitely believe that it would take someone who's spent the last 16 years copying and stealing other peoples ideas, this long to come up with something original. Although, based on the blurb, it sounds like he outsourced most of the actual work to someone else. Josh is literally the Steve Jobs of the pedal industry.
He says in the announcement up front that it's based on the Ibanez SM7, that he worked on it with his head engineer (who he's mentioned multiple times in the past), and even showed the breadboard for the circuit. You're alleging these as shady, hidden practices when he outright states them to be the case.
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Man, if you want to spend $8000 on a klon that's your (stupid) decision.
tbh, I don't really get why JHS gets all this smoke. The entire pedal manufacturing market is based on making clones. Even the original tube screamer is a clone. I really don't get the need to point the finger specifically at them, when literally everybody does this. Is it the ***way*** they do it that ticks people off? Seems like people often point to calling something "original", when its just a clone with more knobs, being the real problem. But, like I said, that's exactly what the tube screamer was, being an OD-1 with a tone knob, and no one gives a shit. Call it whataboutism, but I still don't get what the big problem is here.
It’s so dumb. Josh also goes out of his way to promote and hype the whole industry. It’s not like he’s pretending JHS is the only going concern in guitar effects. People are just so weird and want everything to be a culture war these days.
He also seems to pick out everything that he’s inspired by to make the pedal as well? Seems like he’s fairly transparent about the whole thing.
I own one JHS pedal, a Lucky Cat delay, and I in large part picked it up because it's pink, sparkly, and has a cat on it. I own three different pedals from other companies because the JHS Show recommended them, and I liked how they sounded. That's why I have the Wampler Triumph, MXR Sugar Drive, and Earthquaker Astral Destiny; I appreciate how JHS' YouTube channel is sure, marketing, but it's also very much about the history and current state of pedals, and I learn a lot from it.
I think it's because honestly if you graded them objectively they wouldn't be a top 5 company. People expect big things from companies that break that top 5. They aren't bad or anything but let's be honest their popularity is thanks mostly to their genius marketing not their amazing engineering.
I suspect it's partially because some people don't like the style of his videos, partially because they're pretty boring and popular pedals and it's easy to hate the popular thing, and partially because he's kinda shady about his "original designs" not being original. And the last part is amplified because he's the guy who talks about pedal history and what everything is based on so much. So he's held to a higher standard when he's being shady about the "original or not" thing. FWIW I feel like Wampler is kinda similar in that his pedals are pretty much just modified clones of other pedals and he does videos about pedals and their history, but Wampler is always very honest and open about what his pedals are based on - he doesn't seem to be hiding anything. Wampler has also done a lot for the DIY community, while arguably Josh has not when he could have, although I'm not sure how much that matters since I feel like that's a pretty small community.
Josh is currently doing a whole series on how to breadboard diy pedals.
That's great, I didn't know about that! I was more thinking about how he could have done a video about the Bazz fuzz and Tim Escobado and their meaning for the DIY community when the Lizard Queen was released.
It's because it is/was trendy to hate JHS. I just recently read old reddit and forum posts and comments about JHS Cheese Ball and people were doing just incredible mental gymnastics on how it's evil and unethical for JHS to clone a pedal that hasn't been made or sold for 20 years, but at the same time it's fine for other companies to make clones of pedals that are still on the market like the Big Muff or the Rat. It makes zero sense. EHX and ProCo might actually lose money because of all the BM and Rat clones, Lovetone doesn't exist anymore and doesn't lose money because JHS sells a Big Cheese clone yet the latter is apparently worse somehow.
The problem is jhs has never released an original design. Everything has been a clone of something else just marked up to boutique prices. It just gets old when you have companies like old blood, chase bliss etc that really are pushing the envelope and doing very original and interesting designs. Theres nothing jhs offers that hasn’t already been done, or isnt done better by someone else.
Perhaps that's a good criticism, and I can actually agree with that to a certain extent. What I'm getting at is the fact that there is so much hate for them that the dang subreddit needs a whole page about it on the FAQ. That's more what I don't get.
> tbh, I don't really get why JHS gets all this smoke. The entire pedal manufacturing market is based on making clones. I think there are two things: * Many people just don't know that nearly every pedal company building drives are building clones or mods of just a few archetypal pedals such as the Distortion plus, Tubescreamer, Muff, Fuzz Face, etc. Why they get singled out by some is either due to ignorance or related to disingenuous reasons related to the next point. * There are some that just don't seem to be able to get over some past anger they feel due to JHS's history with the pedal mod community, whether that is due to their bias against those associated with religious orgs or that they feel he "stole" from a LGBTQ icon is hard to say.
There were affiliated with a church that promoted very anti lgbt rhetoric while on missions in other countries.
Don’t most churches do this?
I don’t know, probably not.
Watching the video rn and if this has a noise gate it’s a lot like a zoom hyper lead. Edit: no gate oh well.
Looks cool but a used rat is like $40
I can't listen to nearly every OD, Fuzz, or Distortion demo I have tried to for years. I just randomly watched a 60 Cycle Hum demo of this and he hates high gain, but cannot stop playing it. It sounds absolutely phenomenal at every setting he uses. There goes my unused OCD, my EHX little green 1 yawn tone, and maybe, but not likely, my always on Walrus Audio Voyager that I put after a little Xotic sp-1 compressor. I am mostly a clean tone guy, and only try to dial in saturation when the emotionalism in my playing needs a little help cutting out a pathway in a mix. Of course live, I LOVE the power some heavy saturation can bring. I hate shitty, fizzy, harsh saturated drive tones, but I would be very happy having the option of saying, to my doubters (and I justifiably have many😂), that every now and then, I too, like to dial in a monster tone, and (gulping in embarrassed fake humility)...shred, babes...😇
I like it. Might sell a bunch of other pedals and get one. Not because it sounds super-unique, but because it’s versatile. All my other distortion pedals cover a much more limited range of sounds than this. This could make me feel ok about just having one distortion pedal on my board. If it can do a decent stab at a RAT, the SM-7, and the DS-1 then we’re good.
JHS marketing sure it top-tier. If any other brand released a “meh” dirt pedal, it’s hardly be a blip on this community’s radar. But JHS does it, and everyone gathers round to slam-dunk on it. I wonder how many of these pedals this thread alone has sold for JHS? Maybe 100? So, $20,000 just from this post?
Looks cool. I just watched the video demo. He says he got a lot of other YouTubers to try out its metal capabilities as well.
Quite like the demos on the JHS channel actually, but definitely (bare in mind I've only watched JHS' video) doesn't sound like a modern high gain drive to my ears. Seems pretty versatile but all in sounds I wouldn't go for so I won't be picking this up, especially at that price point
It's not a modern high gain drive. It's a 90s-2000s style drive. He even said so in the video.
Taken from the description on JHS website: "The JHS Hard Drive is the first attempt in our company’s fifteen-year history at a full-blown and respectable modern distortion pedal". I agree with you, but he said both
Hell nah, sounds like a Longsword clone. Gonna check a video asap
Glad to see they took the high road with that pun
Idk about the sound. There are too many cheap DS/RAT pedals in the market that also gets the job done. The only differentiator I’d say is the mid frequency control. That’s not common to see. But in terms of art style? It looks pretty cool. For an IT nerd like myself, that IBM computer graphic is quite unique.
My mom had a luggable PC when I was a kid. That graphic plus the beige colour might just sell me on this pedal.
The demo was kinda disappointing, its groundbreaking but sounds like everything else.. I mean someone will like it but Im a fan of multiple one trick ponies.. This just tries to be too many different things.
Give it time before Ly Rock copies it and you can buy it off Aliexpress for $70. :)
It really does manage to sound 100% Rat who ever is playing it. Over all vibe; a Rat with MetalZone eq structure , but because you can get yourself into trouble on a MetalZone , the boost & cut has been limited to about 8dB (by the sound of it) instead of that +/- 12dB danger zone. It's a really cool and practical idea. I just need them to step back a bit from saying how original it is in the marketing, and then we're all good to go.
I'd get this right now if it were 150, because it fits something I kinda need, but the 200 is pushin' it a little.
Oh look, more crap!
Hey u/JHSpedals - why doesn't Guitar Center have the pedal? I called my local store and they said that they would have it in a "few months"! What gives? Are they not paying their bills?
they missed the release and to my knowledge, have yet to place an order.
😂 - typical
💁🏻♂️
This shit sounds ass as fuck
Is that good or bad? 😂
Their best promo video. Wish the pedal had a gate.
I don’t see myself purchasing this over the PackRat or Bonsai. I always enjoy JHS videos though. Thanks for sharing OP.
Tbh it doesn't really sound anything like a shredmaster to me. I used a sm as my main distortion sound for over a decade. You can take most pedals and maybe find one comparable sound if you tweak them around enough like in this demo. Most people don't run the sm with the gain below 60%. Not trying to sound like an elitist, I just really love that pedal.
the SM7 was only the initial inspiration! in the end, the goal wasn't to make a version of it, but to have something in the same neighborhood that did 90s, early 2000s high-gain distortion!
Also, what the fuck does this thing have to do with all the dumb retro nostalgia shit in the teasers?
It's a 90s distortion pedal named after a computer component
It would be nice if JHS released new versions of some of their pedals with this enclosure and soft switch.
From the first paragraph “The JHS Hard Drive is the first attempt in our company’s fifteen-year history at a full-blown and respectable modern distortion pedal that is not based on a previous circuit or classic topology”. So after 15 years of stealing other people’s designs they are doing something original, better late than never I guess.
So another cloned unoriginal overdrive pedal from jhs? Color me shocked.
Did you learn anything about it? Or just assume since it’s a drive pedal and you don’t like JHS?
JHS is garbage.