The Ugly Truth About JHS Pedals

I'll admit that I am little late to this game. Like, way late. Couple years too late in face. But, there has been more information come to light and I'd like to talk a little bit about JHS Pedal and all the hype (good and bad) that surrounds them.

1. They Are Cloners

In the world of effects, detail get a little murky. Ask a person of average intelligence was any pedal does and you get colorful langue about Highs and Low ends. Maybe there is a Mid-hump, maybe it flattens out the Mids. But in reality all "dirt" circuits work similarly. Image that your guitar signal is a water hose. Your clean signal is the water flowing the the hose unobstructed. Then distortion would be similar to you putting your thumb overt the end of the water hose. This has a term, it's call "clipping". Every dirt pedal that I've come across does this in some way. Before the distortion pedal, guitar would push their amps to "breakup". This meant pushing their amps very hard to make a distorted sound. Early early pioneers took what guitarist were doing with their amps and boiled it down until they could replicate it on a small scale. In a way, amps were cloned to create the first pedals. Today we have a very popular pedals that are recreated in many different ways by many different people. Ibanez's Tube Screamer is a circuit that has been emulated by many manufacturer. I actually own a Tube Screamer clone made by EHX. Others have cloned and tweeked the circuit and sold it as being something completely different. This is what JHS is accused of. Is it true? Yes. But it's also true of Boss, EHX and others.

2. They Over Charge For Their Pedals

There is a lot of talk about "how much it cost to make a pedal". I can put together the parts to build a pedal for about $20. A more complicated pedal would cost more, of course, but to a varying degree that how much buying an enclosure, knobs, jacks, and internals. Some say that buying in bulk would decrease that price, so a manufacturer should be able to produce a product cheaper. So then, when JHS charges $200-$300 for a pedal, it raises some eyebrows. Let's look at it from a business standpoint. A product is worth what someone else is willing to pay for it. If there are people out there willing to buy a hand built pedal for boutique prices, then that's just fair trade. plenty of people have opinions about how much things should cost, but in reality, people can charge whatever they want for their products. Some people however don't live in reality.

3. They Pass Off Their Copied Circuits As Their Own

So we talked about how many manufacturers make circuit that are basically the same as others. Electro Harmonix barely mentions the Klon in its description, and only stated that it "inspired" the design of their Soul Food Pedal. Boss doesn't even mention the TS-9 in their description of the SD-1 even though those pedals are so similar even some mod instructions are the same for these pedals. It's not like this is unprecedented. In many cases the pedals that JHS produces are based on other pedals, but they have mods or features that didn't exist on the originals. If you spent enough time to design, breadboard, and build these pedals, you'd probably think about these pedal as your own too. Even though the designs might not be 100% original the work that was put into building the pedals, business, reputation for quality products make what he offers have value. How much value? See point 2

4. Bad Business Practices

OK. This might be legitimate, however, it might be hearsay. There has been allegations that JHS stole a design from another builder and put it into another pedal of his. Also, there might have been a case of criticizing a builder causing a store to stop carrying the other builders pedal. This again might be true, however, I find it unlikely that someone dropped a line of pedals just because a competitor had something off-putting about them. So then, in the worse case, the guy behind JHS might be a little bit of a jerk. (or shrewd in business lingo) This is compounded by the fact that people generally believe Josh Scott of JHS pedals to be a christian. This is because he did an interview for a christian magazine one time. So, in the case that all of this is true, we have a christian guy building his take on popular pedals and charging a mint for them. If he is a christian, should he give them away? (I wouldn't mind taking a few)

5. Poor Quality

If what I've seen is to be believed, then this is true... kinda. The pedal that "prove" this claim look like what I'd build. Like early work of a pedal builder. This is explainable, because it was probably early work of a builder. I learned most of what I know about this "issue" by reading forum post and another blog post that was very detailed. You can read it here. Josh Scott has already made replies to post about poor workmanship offering to exchange any pedal with poor build quality for a new pedal. It looks like this problem has been recognized and corrected.

In Conclusion

I don't own any JHS pedals. I would probably be more interested in some of the mods or other services. Plus, I'm kinda cheap, so... you know. Here's the thing. If you look hard enough at any company, then you're probably going to see something you don't like. Small pedal builders are very personal products. Don't forget that these people just want to do something that they enjoy and make money at it. Somewhere along the way they have to make a business out of it. The best way to make any business to change their practices is to not buy their product. If enough people agree with you, then the business will change, or go out of business. If you don't like them, don't buy from them. Do they deserve the hate they get in the forums? I don't support hate, although maybe organize a boycott, or create an online petition, something more constructive. (for more ugly truths about JHS, check this out)