JHS shuts down ROSS

[ryland]

I don't care about any of that. What he does with his time and money are his decisions.

I just find his products to be incredbily lame. I've said it before - playing a JHS pedal feels like standing in line for an ice cream cone. When you get your order filled, it's a melted vanilla cone that you can't do anything with but throw on the ground and walk away.

[GilmourD]

I don't care about any of that. What he does with his time and money are his decisions.

I just find his products to be incredbily lame. I've said it before - playing a JHS pedal feels like standing in line for an ice cream cone. When you get your order filled, it's a melted vanilla cone that you can't do anything with but throw on the ground and walk away.

I dunno, I'm pretty happy with my Notaklon. The only reason I don't have more pedals from JHS is mainly because I already have pedals that do what they do to my satisfaction or they don't make the very specific thing I'm looking for.

However, JHS Show videos have actually convinced me to buy pedals from other manufacturers based on the demos in the video.

[sal paradise]

I'll echo Jonesie on this one and say that it seemed like a fairly pointless venture to begin with. Was anyone clamoring for these things to begin with? Most of the circuits are pretty similar to MXR's offerings from the same era -- most of which are still available now -- and they come in smaller boxes.

Yep. This kinda sums it up.

It’s a shame, I totally see his love for doing this stuff. I hope it doesn’t put him off, and maybe focus on the lower priced end.

[OffYourFace]

i have to admit that I think the Ross Chorus sounds really great. I'd buy one for $79

I was disappointed by the Compressor... the vintage original I mean. I had an Analogman version and I loved it. I assumed the real deal would be better but I didn't think so. I never bothered trying the reissue.

[interceptör]

Whats the gist of the vid? Josh Scott is an unbelievable twat and I refuse to watch anything on his channel.

Quoted to relay this nugget of wisdom to the honorable readers of this here fine page.

I prefer not to give my money to cults and that's what that guy and his company have become.

[s_mcsleazy]

so i'm gonna be honest. josh annoys me in a way i have trouble explaining. he's like a weird combination of blooze lawyer and terminally online memelord.

all that aside, i didn't even know he bought ROSS back. like yeah, you can make the argument they had some legendary circuits and all that. but outside the aforementioned blooze lawyer demographic, who's likely just going to buy and sell the original ones, i wonder why he did it. like my understanding is their not far off MXR pedals from the era and i feel like people are more likely going to go with the brand recognition of MXR over ross.

[redchapterjubilee]

Cynically I think his announcement is designed to turn them into the must have Black Friday pedals and create a second hand market myth for them. Not that it helps him financially to do so other than to increase the collector mania around something he had a hand in.

[sal paradise]

Cynically I think his announcement is designed to turn them into the must have Black Friday pedals and create a second hand market myth for them. Not that it helps him financially to do so other than to increase the collector mania around something he had a hand in.

Well, quite. I’m sure they have been underselling. But what he’s done is got everyone curious about whether they can risk $80 to see if one of them is any good, and a big sale day is just around the corner.

He really does excel at social media marketing.

But maybe his audience research needs work. Cos regardless, shifting large volumes of those at half price can’t be good for the books.

[MrSparkle]

I'm not inherently opposed to "cancelling" as a concept. That said, this feels dangerously close to just flat out "guilt by association", rather than punishing JS for any specific unethical action of his own.

I *did* watch the video, before I saw this thread - and he makes a few fair arguments. They're US built, whereas with MXR that's a real mix with some complexity. And supposedly (I've not tested them), the buffering was way overbuilt and they went super-OTT on the "vintage-accuracy". He freely admits that in retrospect, he shouldn't have bothered with any of that obsessive detailing and sold them cheaper. Still - whoever gets them on blowout will do well from it, so good luck to you all. Won't be me - the only pedal I'm after at the moment is a MIDI-controlled analog delay.

There's two kind of competing factors here. You should never trust an influencer to meet your personal moral standards because they will ALWAYS let you down. Recent examples; Andertons, LTT, MrBeast. But at the same time - hating people because it's popular to do so is *also* a thing. The reaction to JS putting out a video saying "don't buy new pedals or hyperinflated vintage pedals; they can mostly meet the same need anyway" (using a Digitech Bad Monkey as an example) was completely ridiculous; with people blaming him for a sudden surge in BM scalping to stupid prices, when that's literally the opposite of what the video actually said.

Best advise is to like what you like, dislike what you don't like, and don't waste unnecessary emotion.

[GilmourD]

I'm not inherently opposed to "cancelling" as a concept. That said, this feels dangerously close to just flat out "guilt by association", rather than punishing JS for any specific unethical action of his own.

There are definitely some other pedal makers that seem to get a pass that actually did things (I'm not naming them because I don't want to turn this into THAT thread) while JHS seems to get a disproportionate amount of heat

I get not liking JHS pedals. Nobody's forcing anybody to buy JHS pedals. There's some pedals I would be interested in if it weren't for the fact that I already have stuff that does exactly what their pedals do. I may be a guithoarder, but I usually like my obscene collection of things to at least appear to be individually unique.

Like I said above, I do have a Notaklon, which I felt was a unique thing because of the fun Ikea-ish nature of it plus it's affordable. I was between the Unicorn and the Vibe Machine V2 that I did eventually get when I was looking for a Uni-Vibe.

As a side note, there was a comment in the introduction video for the Hard Drive about this being an election year that was subtly thrown in that seems to align much closer with this forum than you'd be led to believe, which I feel is the crux of some people's hate for him.

[eilrahc]

I guess the big news is the coming sale for the remaining stock at $79 a pop.

The most interesting thing to me was the mention of the other brands that he thought of bringing back...one he said was from the UK, so I assume it was Lovetone...the other 90s US brand could have been Frantone...the rumours about the resurrection of that brand have gone around for years.

I must agree with a post above saying the market is over-saturated...there's too many pedals in the market, and it is always possible to have too much of a good thing.

I'm fairly sure Fran did a YouTube video last year alluding to the old Frantone pedals being reissued by another company at some point in the near future, and obviously JHS loves all that kind of thing. I'd love to get a Peach Fuzz, I know there's the Danelectro clone but stomping on a big metal box is just better and more enjoyable than stomping on a little plastic one.

I have one JHS pedal, a Univibe clone that I bought on eBay five or six years ago for about £100 when I was listening to a lot of Big Star and decided I needed a Univibe in my life. It's fine. I'm not sure I'd rush out and buy another, not for any particular reason but just because they're not really selling anything that interests me at the moment except perhaps the Big Cheese clone. Broadly speaking I'm not sure how I feel about JHS, I suppose I find their whole brand and aura a bit sterile and weird. I can understand why Josh rubs people the wrong way, I definitely see the blues lawyer thing that was mentioned a few posts up. But I don't dislike him or think he's a bad guy, nor has he done anything to offend me, I just don't think I really get his sense of humour.

[marqueemoon]

Now they’ll be the kind of rare oddball pedals he likes to talk about.

[Dr Tony Balls]

I guess I don't know, what's wrong with this guy? I never follow pedal shit. I know he had some controversy but he always seems fine in the videos.

1) The shitty church thing which is mentioned and pretty well known.

2) The fucking EHX Lizard Queen is the BIG one to me. That circuit is a straight rip off of a DIY design that a small guy on a forum (freestompboxes) posted (the "bazz me, fuss you"). The design of that itself is a sandwich of two very well known and old DIY circuits (the "bazz fuss" and "push me, pull you"), which the forum guy freely acknowledges. Josh Scott, said unbelievable twat, claims its his "original design". Everybody in the pedal game borrows circuits, tweaks, etc. Tons of people make Big Muffs. But to call that your own design and not credit the ingenuity of the people who actually came up with it is MAD shitty.

3) Calling your company "JHS", despite it being your initials, is shitty and riding the coattails of a classic in the history of effects (JHS - John Hornby Skewes). If your name is Michael Jordan, fine, but if you put "23" on all your stuff you're an asshole.

4) To your comment "he always seems fine in the videos" we can agree to disagree. He's smug as hell to me.

[BTL]

I just went down the "Lizard Queen" rabbit hole, so thanks for that @Dr Tony Balls.

To me, a "mashup" constitutes a design but not an invention, but I'm also not in the pedal game. Along those lines, I consider myself to be a guitar designer and builder, but certainly not a luthier. Others may have differing opinions of what I do.

For me Josh Scott is an entertainer, so that muddies the water even more.

[Dr Tony Balls]

To me, a "mashup" constitutes a design but not an invention.

Right, but if you didnt even come up with the mashup either? Then you're just an unbelievable twat.