Most of these are still in the current range - that is to say the original Metal Zone, Mega Distortion, Metal Core and recent Angry Driver and Waza Craft Metal Zone. While the Heavy Metal, Digital Metalizer, Hyper Metal and Xtortion have all been discontinued for a while now. Today, the company employs a team of 20-25 people at their Kansas facility, skillfully constructing their circuits by hand to maintain an excellent level of quality. The JHS Pedals Range

I feel that any of the 4 most recent / current pedals are suitable starting points into this selection - with possibly the Angry Driver and Waza Metal Zone at the head of that queue - but pricing and availability may be a determining factor and likely some you may prefer the core tones of the less flexible but still great sounding Metal Core. So that’s all well and good, what about the sounds? So, the Blues Drive mode is of course modelled exactly on the classic BOSS Blues Drive. It’s a nice crunchy drive with a lot of upper mid range bite, traditionally it wasn’t very gainy, however over the years players have modified them for more gain. The Angry Driver version of the Blues drive is a little bit more like the tweaked version, leaving us with lots of room to play around. Andy Timmons has been said to use the Blues Driver for a broken up clean sound, which it does fantastically of course, he can also use it to push other pedals like a Tubescreamer would be used. Combining the legendary Boss BD-2 Blues Driver and JHS Angry Charlie overdrive pedal, the JB-2 features two independent gain circuits with a series of controls, allowing you to really tailor your tone to perfection. Combining Two Great PedalsWith more than a decade's worth of pedal building know-how, JHS has a strong and varied lineup. But there’s definitely one pedal that can be classed as its flagship product... JHS Angry Charlie Everyone from pro guitarists to bedroom jammers are familiar with the biting tone of the Blues Driver, but you might be less in the know about the Angry Charlie. This searingly hotcircuit captures the essence of a high-gain Marshall amp in a box. With both styles at your disposal, you have every flavour of classic, saturated tone to sculpt your unique sound. Multiple Modes

JB-2 Angry Driver is a new pedal co-developed with JHS Pedals to celebrate the 40th anniversary of Boss compact pedals. In advance of the arrival of the OD-200 I thought it would be good to do an overview of Boss’s own various Drive and Distortion pedals. In my recent ’Yellow Means OverDrive’ feature I covered off all of those particular Boss pedals, so this article is at the other end of the scale of gain - the High Gain and Metal Distortions. I will then follow up with a 3rd article covering those drives and distortions that sit between these and the 9 OverDrive pedals covered already. The idea to develop the JB-2 pedal was born of the friendship between BOSS President Yoshi Ikegami and JHS Pedals founder Josh Scott, and their shared passion for innovative pedal design. The Blues Driver has long been a favorite pedal for Josh, and he credits it for leading him into designing his own pedals and starting his own company. “I got into pedals because, as a player, I used two Blues Drivers together for years and years. One day, one of them broke. I opened it up and realized it was just a simple soldering fix. It really sparked my curiosity and that just took over my life, and JHS pedals came into existence out of repairing that pedal.”

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At first sight the JB-2 looks like a conventional overdrive, with four knobs labelled Level, Tone, Drive and Mode, but closer inspection reveals that the first three are dual-concentric pots, enabling completely independent control over the two circuits, and the last is a rotary switch. The real magic happens with the mode switch, which allows the drive circuits to be used individually, in series or in parallel — and in serial mode you get to decide which circuit comes first in the signal path. We’re very excited to collaborate with BOSS, one of our heroes, with the JB-2,” Josh relates. “I've said for years and years that BOSS pedals are my favorite pedals. For JHS to jump into the story of what BOSS has done for 40 years is a real honor, and really beyond anything I would have ever imagined.”