Monday, December 23, 2019

OVERDRIVE- JHS Morning Glory v.4 ...a Blues Breaker pedal or one half of a King of Tone

$190.00 USD
 JHS MORNING GLORY v.4 
JHS have made this pedal since they started making pedals.
It is their take on the old Marshall Blues Breaker pedal. It was designed to give you the old JTM45 that Clapton played in John Mayall's Bluesbreakers.
So the JHS has been with us twice as long as the original. 
The v.4 came out in 2016.

The ever precious King of Tone that takes 3 years to get is just their 2 variations of a Blues Breaker in one pedal.
It is an alternative to a Tube Screamer and basically the only
credible one. Hence the glorified beep up in the KOT testifies to that.  
The thing that has me sold on the JHS is at 2:55 on the first video. You can flatpick with a nice chime and zero hash, fizz or any artifact at all than morph right into some strummed chords with a really nice punch. Nothing does this ..zero ...zip!!!



CONCLUSION
It has thousands of fans and I can see why. It is as transparent as it gets if you pull the gain back still keeping the sound of your amp and guitar. I am impressed. Since JHS can be found in a few bricks and mortar stores it is well worth checking out. 
This is one pedal that I can not ignore. It is not exactly how I Imagined the tone for my transparent low gain things  ...but damn it I have ever heard better.


HANDS ON
So after using it for over a month I know it well.
It has become my clean sound. I play Metal using voicings typical of the 80's and 90's so I use several Marshall-in-a-Box type pedals a few OD type Fuzz pedals and a couple of Modern Metal type pedals. It is not unusual to do a verse or chorus of one of my tunes completely flat picked with something that started life on my Martin. I find that going from often heavy dirt parts to dead clean parts of a tune jarring. In short I need an oxymoron ...I need clean dirt. LOL I tried many pedals to try and make it happen ...mostly high end jobbies. In fact I tried a few MIJ pedals the ones that some reviewers discuss in hush tones about as if they were all original Klon pedals   ...these were priced almost as much as original Klons. They were crap!!!! 
I stumbled on a review of a real Marshall Bluesbreaker pedal where for just a few moments 
the guy did some flatpicking with the gain barely on. I then went hunting for the perfect clone
and of course ran into modded clones etc. In the end the one that impressed me the most was the JHS. 

FEB. 23 2021
$75.00 USD

One day by accident I stumbled onto a small company that for years has sold their by word of month primarily to gigging players in states near and around Chicago. The pedals are robust, well made and since the circuits are in fact replicas of classic pedals right down to using NOS components they truly sound like the original pedals. I took a chance and ordered one, It was exactly the sound I was chasing, nothing less but indeed nothing more, Not versatile like the JHS but the exact sound I heard and was chasing.
I was NOT disappointed. So I sold my Morning Glory. Zero regrets. What I bought is the
.....Chicago Stompworks Blooze Maker ...$75.00 USD






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