Artists Favorite JHS Pedals 

In one of our last posts, we highlighted a few of the most popular JHS Pedals, but we left out a lot of pedals that are equally awesome. These guitar pedals are slightly more niche because they were actually developed in collaboration with several notable artists. These are also some of JHS's newest Pedals to be released. These Artist Pedals are really interesting and packed with unique features unlike any other pedals on the market. These pedals were created in partnership with famous musicians including Ryan Adams and Mike Campbell. JHS worked with these artists to help them enhance their already signature sound, and as a bonus, they have let the rest of us in on these highly sought after guitar tones.

The VCR

The VCR was designed in collaboration between Ryan Adams, his recording label PaxAm, and JHS Pedals. The best way to get a good understanding of what the VCR can do is to check out his latest album "Prisoner". This pedal is basically an all in one Boost/Chorus/Reverb combo. IT is heavily influenced by 80's artists like The Smiths and The cure and allows you to create your own instant 80's preset. With the push of the button, you can channel all of your inner angst into your playing.

Since Ryan Adams is a singer-songwriter this pedal was built with simplicity in mind. Rather than spending time finding the perfect sound, each effect is dialed in already so you can focus on writing and playing music. The true bypass switch acts as a master bypass for the pedal, and each effect has its own toggle allowing you to switch it on and off. Players are able to mix and match any three of the effects as needed.

The volume knob is just a transparent boost that can be used to bring out your solos or overdrive a tube amp.  At a lower setting, it is perfect for enhancing your tone and adding a little bit of edge to your clean signal. The Chorus effect is already set to a classic 80's setting. As you turn the knob to the left or right you are able to effect the rate and depth parameter. Turn it to the right to increase the rate and decrease the depth. As you turn the knob to the left the inverse is true. The depth parameter is increased, while the rate parameter is decreased. At noon both parameters are also set equal. 

You can't listen to a Ryan Adams album without hearing reverb so it seems given that the effect would be included in this pedal. The effect is already dialed into Adams liking, so you can instantly mix this signature sound into your tone. The Reverb knob simply acts as an effect level allowing you to mix in your preferred amount of reverb. Mixing three effects reminiscent of the 80's, The VCR is the perfect pedal for any singer-songwriter. It is easy to use and instantly provides inspiring tones that gives a new feel to your music.

The Milkman

The Milkman is a echo/delay/bost pedal that was built by Josh Scott and Tim Marcus of Milkman Sound. This all-in-one pedal is was created to enhance the smaller style Amps built by Marcus. The right side of this pedal is simply a clean boost. The red boost knob is the only parameter that controls this side of the pedal. While it is simple it is versatile and can be used as an always on tone enhancer, or can drive a tube amp that is already on the edge of break up. This boost style is popular in the JHS family and can be found on a wide variety of their pedals. 

The left side of this pedal is the delay/echo effect. Be sure to note that the longest delay times on this pedal are only around 240ms. This means that if you want nice long modulated trails this is not the pedal for you. instead, The mikman provides a unique delay that aims to give the player an interesting blend of a tape delay and bucket brigade delay. The top left control is label slap and controls the delay time of this pedal. The rest of the parameters are typical to any delay pedal.  From left to right these are Mix, Repeat, and EQ. The mix allows you to blend in the delayed signal as desired. All the way left is completely dry and all the way to the right is 100% wet. The repeat control will increase the number of repeats, and the EQ knob will affect the color of these repeats. The EQ only effects the delay tone and not the original signal of your guitar.

As with most of JHS's 2-in1 pedals, either side of this pedal can be run independently.

The Calhoun

 Mike Campell and JHS pedals got together to create this dual drive pedal. Campbell is well known as the guitarist of the Heartbreakers. AS in Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. While this may be his main gig he has also worked with many other legendary songwriters including Don Henly, Stevie Nicks, Jackson Browne, and George Harrison.  

The Calhoun is a two-in-one drive/fuzz pedal that was designed to work for both the studio settings and live performances. The overdrive section of the Calhoun can be found on the left side of this pedal.It is a basic drive that features four controls. These are Volume, Drive, Bass, and Treble. These can be used to dial in the classic tones that you have heard for years on Petty records.

The fuzz portion of the Calhoun lives on the right side of the pedal and has four controls as well. These are Volume, Fuzz, Bias, and EQ. On both the drive and the fuzz, the volume acts as a master level for each effect allowing you to blend the two channels together. Fuzz mixes more fuzz and saturation into your tone. Bias raises and lowers the voltage that is running through into the circuit. As you increase the voltage you add more headroom to your signal. This gives you a more modern and powerful sounding fuzz. As you decrease the Bias control you ended up with weaker more saturated tones. This is more of a vintage style fuzz typical in older pedals. Finally, the  EQ allows you to adjust add the final touches to your tone so that it can cut through the mix.

The Calhoun has a two-way toggle that allows you to switch the order of the pedal. Switch the toggle to the left for Overdirve>Fuzz or to the right for Fuzz>Overdrive. 

Ruby Red

Created for Butch Walker of Marvelous 3, the Ruby Red is a fresh take on the well-known Superbolt. Walked loved the superbolt but needed a little more edge to it. JHS Pedals took his suggestions and gave us the Ruby Red. The left side of the Ruby Red is actually just a superbolt circuit. If you haven checked out one of these pedals yet, is is a drive that emulates the tones of the famous Supro amps. Because it emulates an amp ists controls function more like an amp would rather than a drive pedal. The drive control is like a volume control on an amp learning the volume knob to act as a master volume. This pedal is perfect for getting mid to high gain amps style overdrives. One additional feature that the Ruby Red offers is a "+" toggle which allows you to mix more sag, compression and gain to the circuit if desired.

The right side of this pedal is completely new to us. JHS added an independent clean boost channel to the pedal. This will allow you to slam the front end of the pedal with more gain and then bring the volume level back down using the master volume on the superbolt side of the pedal. The boost can also be placed after the overdrive allowing players to use it more as a lead or solo booster.

The AT

The AT drive, or @ drive as it has come the be known, is a new take on the fan-favorite Angry Charlie. JHS has slightly modified the pedal to better serve the needs of guitarist Andy Timmons. The drive has four basic knobs Volume, Drive. EQ, and Air. Volume and drive work the same as they would on any dirt pedal, but the EQ and Air functions are unique to the AT. There is volume, EQ, and drive and each function as expected. The fourth control is labeled Air. These control two different lowpass filters. The air is a lp filter that starts on the high-end frequencies. The EQ knob works the same way but focuses on the bottom end of your tone. These two controls work together to help you create the perfect overdrive.

There is also a three-way toggle which adjusts the headroom fo the pedal. The different positions of the toggle are designed to emulate different wattage amps. Down is 50 Watts, Up is 25 Watts, and in the middle, the pedal is set to 100 watts. Just like an amp, these different modes affect the amount of drive and volume available. In the 25 watt mode, the pedal is quieter but offers up more drive. The 100 watt mode is much cleaner and has more punch and power behind it.

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